by Tess Adair
“Hi,” she said. Her anxiety and excitement conspired together to turn her voice into a high-pitched squeak. “Uh, good morning.”
“Good morning to you, too.” Eliana’s smile was easy and languid, her voice as smooth as silk. She wasn’t wearing her ceremony robes or the casual outfit she’d ended the night in, but rather the polished and pristine red-and-black uniform from their first meeting. As Jude took in her visibly shining patent leather boots, she realized that Eliana probably had multiple identical sets of this uniform, all hanging in a neat row in her closet, somewhere in the Novices’ dormitories. She stood with her hands held behind her confidently upright back. Loose curls cascaded out of a high ponytail.
“I hope you slept well last night,” Eliana continued, still smiling serenely. “Even though I kept you out so late.”
Jude felt the beginning of a blush on her face.
“Oh, uh, yes,” she stammered, “I slept great. Uh, good—good beds here.”
“No expense is too high for our esteemed guests,” said Eliana. Her smile stayed in place, but Jude detected a hint of bitterness in her voice. Then she seemed to remember herself again. “I’m glad you like them.”
“Uh, so, did you have me meet you here deliberately?” She stuck her thumb toward the painting behind her. “To show me him, I mean.”
“Actually, no,” said Eliana, looking wistfully up at the imposing figure. “I wish I could say I was that clever, but there are paintings of people all over the place. I forgot his was right here.”
Her eyes still glued on the portrait, Eliana took a few absent steps forward, as if she were entranced by it.
“He’s an impressive man, Charles Logan,” she said. “Oh, he was, in his prime.” She tore her eyes away from the painting to give Jude a questioning look. “Do you know much about him? If you don’t mind my asking.”
Every terrible thing Jude had heard about Charles Logan flashed through her mind—alongside the image of a frail old man, wrapped in a quilt, enraptured by a chess board.
“Oh, uh, I mean, not—not really—”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.” This time, her eyes were locked on Jude when she took another step forward. “I just meant, apprenticed to the shadow summoner, I’m sure you’ve heard a few things.”
Jude shook her head in confusion.
“Uh, the shadow summoner?”
“Oh, that’s just a name some people use,” she said, her tone careful and reassuring. “For Logan. You know, because of her eira power. I mean, there aren’t a lot of people who can hide themselves in shadows on demand. Which is good, really, because if that were easy, there would probably be way more thieves out in the world.”
Jude blinked, trying to accept multiple new pieces of information at once. Had she ever seen Logan disappear at will? Now that she thought about it, she was sure she had. And now she knew that was a rare ability. And it was maybe associated with theft, which made a certain amount of sense.
She focused back on Eliana and decided to opt for a limited form of honesty.
“I guess I didn’t realize it was so rare,” she said, her voice light. “I started my eira studies in earnest pretty recently.”
“Ah, I’m jealous,” said Eliana, her eyes alight with curiosity. “The Order forbids Novices from studying eira directly. Once you’ve been through your Binding, you can do whatever you want, but until then? Strictly Order sanctioned letha for us.”
What’s a Binding? Jude thought but didn’t say.
“Logan believes in a balanced approach,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt. “We do a lot of different kinds of training. And, to be honest, I haven’t exactly taken to letha.”
“Well, nobody does at first. Not even people like Mr. Logan here.” She nodded at the painting, then gave Jude a mischievous look. “Do you know the story behind that? How he got the Shield of Morgana?”
She still didn’t even know what that phrase meant, so of course she didn’t know how he’d gotten it. But she couldn’t say that out loud.
“No, I don’t.”
“Do you want to know?”
A shiver traveled up Jude’s spine.
“Yeah, I do. Do you know it?”
Eliana nodded.
“The official story just says he helped out a satellite base in Russia, along with his partner, Hugh Knatt.” She paused to look around the room, making sure they were alone. Even so, when she spoke again, she lowered her voice and leaned closer. “But if you do a little bit of digging, you might come across a story about a base in Siberia, two years before Mr. Logan received his honor.”
“What—what happened there?”
“Keep in mind,” said Eliana carefully, pinning Jude with a serious stare, “neither of us is supposed to know this story. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Great.” She took a deep breath, like she was readying herself. “So, the story goes that back in ’97, the Order put out an offer for a highly experienced contractor to help out this office in Siberia, which was getting ready to track down a Ferellion in a nearby town—”
“What’s a Ferellion?” Jude did her best not to complain that it sounded like a made-up word.
“Oh, a Ferellion—they’re like great apes, only massive, and they have six arms. They tend to live in cold climates, far away from people, so they’re not usually a problem. But this one had started encroaching on human territory. It had already attacked one village and killed several people.”
“If they don’t normally bother people, why do you think this one started to?”
“Oh, the same reason any other animal changes its patterns—loss of habitat, loss of prey. The difference with demons is only that the consequences are more extreme. Ferellions have no trouble taking down humans, even in large groups. So, naturally, when there were reports of one attacking a village and leaving behind multiple casualties, the Order decided to send in a team. They assigned twenty well-trained operatives from the main Russia branch to go to the outpost in Siberia, and when Knatt and Logan Senior accepted the contract, they were sent over, too.”
“Why do I get the feeling that this story doesn’t end well?”
Eliana smiled.
“Well, Adepts from the Order are a prideful bunch, the Russians more so than most. Their team is raring to go, and, of course, more than a little pissed that some non-member Westerners have been hired on to their case. So, they take off, before Knatt and Logan can even get there. Knatt and Logan go anyway, and they decide to meet up with the Russian team. The Order provides them with a guide to show them the way, and that guide takes them along the same route the first team took.”
“Did they find them?”
“Oh, yeah, they found them. What was left of them, anyway.”
“Did they—did they all die?”
“Not all,” said Eliana, not quite reassuringly. “Exactly one survived. Apparently, he hid beneath the body of a fallen comrade and kept himself perfectly still until the Ferellion had moved on. At least, that’s where he was when Hugh Knatt found him. Or so the story goes.” She shrugged, her expression dark. “Overnight, Russia went from being the biggest branch in the Order…to the smallest.”
For a moment, they both fell quiet. Jude felt her heart working in overdrive again. Six months ago, she’d had no idea that monsters like that could even exist. Now, she knew they not only existed, but occasionally wiped out entire teams of trained monster hunters.
Logan had tried to warn her, of course. She’d given her any number of opportunities to back out, to go another way. In fact, Jude was certain that if she asked, Logan would give her leave to turn her back on all of this.
And she was equally certain that she never would.
“What happened next?”
“Ah, yes. So, Knatt and Logan found the remains of the expedition, and Knatt discovered the only Adept who survived. And then the Ferellion attacked again.”
Jude managed not to gasp, but she did fe
el another shiver run down her spine. She couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to come face-to-face with the beast that had just killed almost twenty well-trained, well-armed men.
“Maybe it had just been lying in wait. Waiting for its chance to see if more were coming. Or maybe it had gone rabid, killing out of impulse instead of hunting for prey. What we do know is that it came back, and it attacked Knatt and Logan. This Ferellion had just killed an entire party of experienced soldiers, leaving only the one it couldn’t sense. But Knatt and Logan survived. They were just two contractors, no formal Order training to speak of, and they showed up and slaughtered it. To this day, speculation abounds as to how they managed to pull it off.
“After that, as far the Order was concerned, they had an open contract option with them. Up until Mr. Logan, uh, retired, they were considered official partners of the Order of Shadows.” She glanced up at the portrait again. “They both received the Shield of Morgana. Hugh Knatt’s got a painting, too.”
Jude looked up at the painting and tried to imagine that version of Charles Logan, side-by-side with a younger Knatt, traversing some snowy hellscape in her mind’s version of Siberia.
“Hey,” said Eliana, her tone considerably lighter than it had been only a moment before, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hungry. What are you feeling?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I guess I’m hungry, too.”
“Let’s get you some breakfast then, shall we?”
Ten minutes later, Jude stood in the middle of yet another dining hall, clutching a warm cup of spicy chai, letting its comforting aroma waft over her. Carrying the tray with their breakfasts on it, Eliana led her over to a tall two-person table under one of the giant windows that overlooked the rolling grounds around the building. Jude tried to retrace all her steps to figure out which direction they were facing, but she couldn’t do it. They were somewhere, and that was all she could say.
Wherever they were, she had to admit she enjoyed the view. Trees dotted the rolling hills before them, their leaves turning all kinds of fiery shades. The perfectly manicured lawns were still a pristine green, of course. Jude wondered how much of it was real and how much of it was an illusion, conjured by some centuries-old letha cast whose secrets had been lost to time. Still, it was beautiful. When Jude looked at it, she felt like she’d been transported in time and space, either to the English countryside in another century, or somewhere else equally idyllic, romantic, and alien.
“Kinda looks like a golf course, doesn’t it?” said Eliana, following her gaze with narrowed eyes. “Like a very nice, boring golf course. Well-kept and shiny.”
“Oh. I—I was just thinking that it looked kinda pretty, but—”
“Ah, sorry!” said Eliana quickly, a pained expression crossing her face. “You’re right, actually. It’s—this is a beautiful place, it is, and I didn’t mean to offend—”
“No, I’m not—I mean, you would know better than I would, anyway.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Eliana shook her head and gave Jude a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s beautiful. Look, I…I kind of hate the Summit, to be honest. I hate the way this whole place changes, whipping itself up into a frenzy just so we can cater to some wealthy donors who have no idea what real Adepts come up against every day, no idea what battle is really like.” She nodded toward the window. “When I look out there right now, all I can see is how different it is. From how it normally looks, I mean.”
“How is it different?”
“Normally, the grounds are covered in obstacle courses and training pits, and, you know, people training in them. But we have to hide all that from the precious donors, who are apparently so fragile they can’t even see a hint of the blood and sweat that goes into making the world a safer place. And then they get here, and they just treat the place like it’s an extra-exclusive holiday resort, and hell, why shouldn’t they? We practically tell them that it is.” She slumped back in her chair, looking dejected. “It just feels like such a lie to me. Plus, I hate training in the basement.”
Jude cracked a small smile and nodded.
“I get that,” she said. “Logan’s got a whole course set up at the estate. She likes training outside, too.”
Eliana’s eyes lit up again, a hint of joy ruining her grim expression.
“See, that’s exactly why I was so excited when I got assigned to her party—your party. You guys aren’t just dumb, naïve tourists—you’re all practically Adepts yourselves.”
Jude chuckled, imagining the rage on Logan’s face if she could hear herself being compared so favorably to members of the Order.
“I wouldn’t let Logan hear you say that, if I were you,” she said carefully, sipping her tea. The aromatic beverage warmed her down to her bones.
“She…she doesn’t like me, does she?”
Jude took more time than she needed to finish her drink, then cleared her throat.
“Who, Logan?”
“Yeah, Logan. I have no idea what I did to piss her off, but I definitely get the feeling that she hates me.”
“Uh, it’s not you,” said Jude, only partially lying. “Logan is…not as fond of the Order as her father was.”
“Oh. Really?” Eliana blinked, looking genuinely surprised. “Huh. I guess I’ve never met anyone who didn’t at least appreciate what we do before. But I guess since she’s a fighter, too, it’s not like she needs us the same way….Huh.” She paused and drank from her own cup, full of a liquid Jude didn’t recognize. “Well, I don’t totally get it, but…I guess I’d prefer that be the truth than have her hate me directly.”
Jude smiled and said nothing. Eliana smiled back, then glanced back down at their food tray, as if she’d forgotten it was there.
“We’d better eat already,” she said, sitting up straight once more. “There’s a demo starting at the top of the next hour that I want to show you.”
“Great,” said Jude, happy to move past the topic of Logan, and whatever half-truths she might be forced to tell about her.
“Thanks for telling me that, by the way,” said Eliana, catching her eye. “You’re a nice person, Miss Jude Li.”
For the second time that morning, Jude felt her face flush.
“Uh, no problem,” she said shyly. “And, uh…you’re not so bad yourself.”
She felt a funny contentment settle over her as she finished her breakfast, and she had a feeling it came from something more than her warming tea.
Chapter Twenty-One
Running the Gauntlet
The morning of the tournament, Logan woke at a decent hour. She pushed herself into a number of asanas, and once her blood was sufficiently flowing again, she strapped her secreted-in weapons to her legs and torso, then pulled on her usual black pants, sports bra, and long-sleeved black shirt, and went out into the small common room.
“You’re up!” said Jude, nearly jumping out of her seat. She was already fully dressed, down to her brightly colored sneakers. “Are you coming to the tournament with me?”
Logan wiped a weary hand across her face and shook out her hair. She glanced over at Knatt in the other armchair, also fully dressed and drinking his morning tea.
“I take it you’re just doing more lectures today?” she said.
He nodded silently, his eyes never moving from the book laying open in his lap.
“I suppose one of us should go,” she said, somewhat reluctantly. “When does it start?”
“Not sure, so we should probably just go now,” said Jude, this time actually rising from her seat and heading toward the door. She had spent almost her entire day with Eliana the day before, so Logan was under no illusion about why she was so eager to get going.
“Fine, fine,” she mumbled, shoving her feet into the boots sitting by her door. She grabbed her jacket, too, patting the hidden pocket carrying three letha-amenable powders. She didn’t plan to use them, but she liked knowing they were there.
Giving Knatt a wave as
she shut the door, Logan followed Jude into the corridor beyond. They walked in silence for a few minutes, though Logan could practically feel Jude’s excitement rolling off her in waves. Then she stopped short, recognizing a hallway entrance to their right that would bring her to the small kitchen where she had procured more coffee the day before.
“I’ll catch up with you in a minute,” she called, as Jude accelerated away from her. She saw her falter in her steps and added, “Getting coffee. Don’t worry, I can find my way.”
Jude gave a wave and kept going, while Logan headed toward her goal. Within minutes, she was carrying a piping hot paper cup in her hands, adding a dash of cream at the prep station, and heading back out into the hall. Just the feel of the warmth that spread through her fingers gave her a sense of peace.
She turned back down the hallway she and Jude had been passing through before her detour and headed in what she believed was the right direction. Ten minutes later, she had drunk about half her coffee and was feeling more awake, but she still hadn’t quite found her destination. Cursing herself in frustration, she paused beside a doorway and reached into her jacket pocket for the map of the events.
She had just figured out where she was in relation to the tournament when she heard a voice from the corridor beyond.
“If you would only give me a chance to explain—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Volkov, but rules are rules, you know.”
Immediately, Logan pressed her body against the wall and stilled her muscles, straining to hear every word that floated to her through the doorway. The first man who’d spoken had an accent so slight she couldn’t quite identify it. The second simply sounded American.
“Yes, I understand this, and I respect it, I do, but—”
“No ‘but,’ Mr. Volkov. I must confiscate this in accordance with our policy; there can be no negotiation on this matter. If you wish to file a complaint, one of our Novices can be summoned to take it down, and I will ensure it finds a way to Mr. Atherton.”
“But—I—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Volkov.”
“I—oh, all right. Fine, yes, I will…I will bring it up with Atherton, I suppose. Do what you must, then.”
