by Chloe Garner
In an hour, she would set up a cast that would drive out all the indigents, just something subtle to suggest that they didn’t want to be there anymore, so that she could clean the place out of the worst of what humanity left behind in such a building, before Valerie got there.
Valerie was coming.
It had been Susan’s idea, though Grant had jumped on board immediately. He didn’t like her being under Lady Harrington’s influence, even though Susan had pointed out repeatedly throughout their relationship that she, Susan, had survived it just fine.
They were going to know that Grant was alive, very shortly, and they were going to get the clues that said that Susan had been there, the night of the first attack, and had diverted the attack by making them think that Valerie had left the school.
With Grant alive, though, and Susan taking a doubly-active role in protecting her daughter, the threat to Valerie’s life kept going up.
More, though, it had taken Susan this long to get her networks back up and going again, spending cash freely and doing the delicate work of reestablishing diplomacy with people who were skittish under the best of circumstances. She couldn’t have protected Valerie, before, but now she had the means to do it for at least a few months, before things turned worse again.
And they were going to.
She didn’t give herself the freedom to hope that they wouldn’t.
They were going to get much, much worse, and all Susan could hope was that she could equip Valerie with the knowledge and the skills required to keep herself and the rest of the Council brats alive.
This was necessary.
And it was the best way to keep her daughter safe.
It just involved spiriting her away into a drug hole in the middle of the night.
Because that was - again - where Susan’s life had landed her.
They’d switched cars three times.
Valerie had no idea why, nor did she have any idea where they were, except that if her mom had caught wind that she had been in a part of town like this - Valerie didn’t care what her excuse had been - her mom would have grounded her for, like, her entire twenties.
Grant closed the car door and looked around quickly.
“They won’t be following us yet,” he said. “I think we got ahead of them this time. What you do have to watch out for are the normal humans. Don’t walk like prey.”
“What?” Sasha asked. “What are we doing here?”
“I’m talking specifically to you, yes,” Grant said, looking over at Valerie’s friend. “They’re going to know that if they try to rob you, you aren’t going to fight back, and that’s just begging for someone to try it. Stay close, keep your head up, and remember that if you had to, you could paralyze them at a touch or turn them into a frog.”
“Is that true?” Valerie asked.
“Hmm?” Grant asked. “No. But she needs to move like it.”
Valerie frowned.
It was good advice.
“Are we in danger?” Sasha asked.
“When aren’t we?” Grant asked, and Sasha quailed. Valerie put her arm around her friend and shook her head.
“He’s like this,” she said. “It’s pragmatic, but it sounds really pessimistic. He fights in a magic war and has been for the last twenty years, near as matters. We’re good.”
Sasha nodded.
“I shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, and Valerie shrugged.
“No going back now.”
“My mom is going to be so mad,” Sasha said, and Valerie grinned.
She got to see her mom.
She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face, in point of fact.
“We’ve got a little walk, here,” Grant said. “I didn’t want to leave the car too close, in case someone did manage to follow it.”
The place smelled of chemicals and grit and… stuff Valerie couldn’t place, and she wanted to cover her nose and mouth with her hand, but she knew better.
“How far?” she asked, and he glanced over.
“It doesn’t get any better,” he said. “You just learn to live with it and keep spare clothes to change into once you get out.”
“Why are we here?” Sasha asked.
“There are empty spaces in the world that don’t tend to be worth fighting over,” Grant said. “It was this or Wyoming.”
“I’m sure the people of Wyoming would disagree,” Valerie said reflexively, and Grant laughed.
“There are more cattle than people in Wyoming, which is exactly the point. If you need to go be alone, you can either lose yourself in a dense crowd or you can go somewhere that no one ever bothers going. And that’s what this is.”
“It’s awful,” Sasha said. “Why would anyone be here?”
“Because they don’t have a choice, mostly,” Grant said. “Going to get cold out fast, tonight. Need to keep moving.”
Valerie and Sasha huddled against each other for heat, speeding up to match Grant.
Eventually, he stopped and opened a door on a tall, rectangular building with rust down the sides.
“This is it,” he said, letting Valerie and Sasha in first.
Valerie had been hoping for more warmth once they got inside, but it was just as cold as outside, and the stench was bordering on intolerable.
“Through that way,” Grant said, and Valerie looked over her shoulder at him, skeptical that this had actually been her mom’s plan.
“Valerie,” Susan called, and Valerie’s misgivings evaporated.
“Mom,” she answered, dropping her arm from around Sasha and jogging into a large open space with three drum barrels in the middle of it casting all of the available light.
Susan Blake hugged her daughter fiercely, then turned to put out an arm to Sasha.
Sasha ducked under Susan’s arm like a chick seeking refuge, and Susan hugged both of them.
“Well, now,” she said, taking a step back from Sasha. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Susan Blake, Valerie’s mom, and you must be Sasha Mills, Ivory’s daughter.”
“You knew my mom,” Sasha said, and Susan nodded.
“She saved my life more than once,” she said, and Sasha turned her face away.
“She never told me.”
“Sasha, if your mom ever sat you down to tell you about all of the people she’s saved in her life, you’d be old by the time she was done. She’s an incredible woman.”
Sasha looked at Valerie.
“They told me that you requested I be Valerie’s roommate. Why?”
“Because I knew that, if there was one single thing that Ivory Mills passed on to her kids, it would be trustworthiness. She’s not political if she can help it, but when she chooses a side, she sticks with it.”
“She ran away from the Council,” Sasha said. “Just like you did. Well, not just like you did, but…”
Susan paused, then pulled her mouth to the side in something resembling a smile.
“If I’d known she was looking to get out, I would have taken her with me. Though I think that quitting magic would have been harder for her than me, and that’s saying something.”
Sasha shook her head quickly.
“No. She wouldn’t have gone, if she had to stop using magic. She goes to hospitals and casts healing magic. She wouldn’t walk away from that… She told me once that she’d rather die than abandon her calling.”
Susan nodded.
“That’s the woman I knew, all those years ago. Well, come sit. Are you hungry?”
“There is no way I could consume food here,” Valerie said. It was past dinner time, though. If it weren’t for the smell, she would have been hungry.
“Well, sit anyway,” Susan said. “It doesn’t get any better, but you start to notice it less.”
She sat down on a couch, and Valerie sat down next to her, unable to take her eyes off her mother’s face.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” Valerie said.
“I know,” Susan said. “I can’t believe
you’re here.”
“Why did I have to come?” Sasha asked. “I don’t understand. I want to do the right thing, and if it helps…”
“Because we didn’t want you to have to deal with the Council when they start really looking hard for Valerie,” Susan said. “She was their lead on me, and if Grant did his job right…”
Grant cleared his throat and Susan looked over at him with a bright, teasing smile.
“… we’ve just slipped that lead entirely.”
“Are we not going back?” Valerie asked, seeing the alarm on Sasha’s face.
“After a bit,” Susan answered, putting a hand out toward Sasha. “And I’ve already sent your mom a sign to let her know that I have you. I… It’s been a long time, but if she still thinks of me the way she did back then, she’ll know that I’ll keep you safe like my own daughter.”
“But what are we doing?” Valerie asked. “Dad came in all mysterious, come with me if you want to live, but he didn’t tell us anything. How long have you two been together? What are you planning? How do we help?”
Susan nodded, turning her head as Grant came to sit on the floor nearby. Valerie wrinkled her nose at the idea of sitting like that, but there was a good chance the couch wasn’t actually any better.
“I want you to know,” Susan said finally, still looking at Grant. “I felt like we knew, back then. We didn’t know the people or the places or the things, not like your dad does now, but I felt like we knew that it was more complicated, the fight that was actually going on than the one we were fighting. We were young and… stupid… and it was okay to be fighting good-guys versus bad-guys, and just go at ‘em. It’s not like that, now… I think. I think they don’t even know how different the reality is from the story, and… If we’re going to win this, we have to be doing it for the right reasons.”
“Okay,” Valerie said. “Then tell us.”
Susan shook her head.
“This is stuff you have to see. You have to experience it. So tomorrow you’re going to Ground School.”
Valerie blinked slowly.
“You say that like I should know what it is,” she said.
“Oh, no,” Susan said, looking past Valerie. “You shouldn’t, but Miss Mills does.”
“Ground School?” Sasha asked. Susan nodded, and Valerie felt Sasha sit down on the couch behind her. She turned to look at Sasha.
“What is it?” she asked.
“School of Beginning Magic,” Sasha said, swallowing and looking at Susan again. “It’s the lowest of the light schools. Like, if you can’t get in anywhere, maybe you can get in there.”
“So you’re telling me it’s where I belong,” Valerie said, and Sasha shook her head quickly.
“No. You’re really good. Like, one of the best alive, I think, and Survival School… They’re going to do right by you, making sure you get trained up and strong and… stuff.”
“That wouldn’t happen at Ground School,” Susan said. “What you’re seeing right there, Val. That’s shame.”
“Why?” Valerie asked. “What could she possibly be ashamed about?”
Sasha shook her head, her expression saying that she wasn’t sure.
“Survivor’s guilt, to start with,” Susan said. “She’s glad she didn’t have to go there, and to go be confronted with all of the people who do… She’s ashamed of how glad she is not to be there.”
Valerie shrugged.
“So? I knew which colleges I wanted to apply to, and I would have been disappointed if I’d had to settle for community college. Doesn’t mean there aren’t people going there that that’s their best choice, and good for them.”
Susan gave her a soft smile and shook her head.
“That’s why you have to see it,” she said. “Sasha knows intuitively, because she’s been threatened with Ground School her entire life, but you need to see it with your own eyes to know… To see how the two sides are both really doing the same thing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Valerie said, and Susan gave her a cool smile. Valerie knew that smile. That was the ‘do your own homework’ smile, and Valerie shook her head.
“There are a pair of offices back that way that aren’t completely trashed,” Susan said, getting a notebook out from under the couch and standing. “We’ll be sleeping back there tonight.”
“Ew,” Valerie said. “We’re staying here?”
“This is where we’re safe, tonight,” Susan said. “We have a lot of sneaking around to do, and I’ll remind you that your dad and I are still fighting a war, so we aren’t always both going to be around. You may at one point wake up and we’re both gone. Whatever you do, stay put, stay quiet, and stay safe. Only move when one of us are there to tell you where to go.”
“Mom,” Valerie said. “You kidnapped us out of the school. For this.”
“It was kind of like a prison,” Sasha said quietly, and Valerie spun to look at her. Sasha shrugged.
“It smells bad,” she said. “And I’m a little worried about cockroaches eating my eyebrows. But… it’s a little bit exciting, to get to actually see what’s going on out here, right?”
Aaand now Valerie wasn’t going to sleep at all.
“What?” she asked, and Sasha ducked her head.
“I don’t know. I grew up with all of these big stories about the old war, and… Maybe if it’s only smelly and inconvenient, it isn’t that bad. I’d really like to see it for myself. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Who are you and what have you done with Sasha Mills?” Valerie asked, and Sasha grinned sheepishly again.
“I don’t know. It’s just… I’m out here, right? I may as well just go with it. No point moping about how much safer I’d be at school, especially since I almost died there twice in the last four months.”
Valerie looked at her mother again, who pretended not to notice the conversation that had just happened.
“I set you two up in here,” Susan said, opening a door. “Your father and I will be here.”
She indicated the door across the hallway, and Valerie paused.
“Weird,” she said, and Susan nodded.
“I know.”
“Hmm?” Sasha asked, and Valerie shook her head, leading the way into the office.
“It’s just strange,” Valerie said after Sasha closed the door. “My mom never had a man in her room all the time I can remember, and now… she’s sleeping with my dad.”
“Ah.”
Valerie looked around the office.
There was a small cast in the middle of the floor, not unlike the one Ethan had done to give them light and heat out in the forest the night before - had that really only been one day earlier? - and two sets of blankets.
Valerie would have preferred a sleeping bag, because then nothing could have sneaked in through the sides, but the room didn’t have quite the smell as the rest of the building - it mostly smelled mildewy and dusty - and she thought she could sleep here.
“If this goes bad, I’m sorry I got you into it,” Valerie said.
“I made a choice,” Sasha answered. “I want… I want to know what’s actually going on. As much as I don’t want to get involved in the war, I do want to be one of the people who knows the truth about it. You know?”
Valerie scratched her forehead.
“Hanson just turns up and I just made up with Ethan and… this. I mean, I couldn’t have even gotten a couple of days with them?”
She heard Sasha smile, then the girl picked up a blanket and sat down, looking up at Valerie.
“They’ll still be there when we get back.”
“I hope so,” Valerie said morbidly, then shook her head and sat down next to Sasha. “You know how to put this thing out?”
Sasha shook her head, then glanced around the room.
“I’d rather leave it on, if it’s all the same to you, anyway.”
Valerie nodded, squeezing her knees against her chest, then shrugging.
“Well. We’re here.”
“We’re here,” Sasha agreed, and Valerie shook her head.
“Nothing about this is ever going to be normal again,” she said.
With nothing else to work on and a mysterious load of wood arriving in the afternoon, the three boys managed to build a bunk over top of Ethan’s desk. Franky Frank had been the one to deliver the lumber, and he had warned them that he wouldn’t tolerate a bed over top of another bed, if he was going to be relying on teenagers to build it, and also that he would judge the quality of workmanship and it would be his sole discretion whether or not they were going to get away with it, but it was a nice bunk.
The mattress didn’t exactly fit, so they filled in the gap between the mattress and the outside frame with cup-holders the entire length of the bed, and Hanson was actually kind of jealous that Shack was going to get to sleep up there.
That said, if the thing came down, he was glad that he would be neither on it nor under it.
Ethan stuck his head out into the hallway, signaling Franky Frank, who came and pulled on the bed and then got up and stood on it.
“What are all of these?” he asked, toeing the holes in the wood.
“Cupholders,” Shack said cheerfully.
“Where’d you learn to build like this?” Franky Frank asked, climbing back down the ladder and looking at the way the bed was attached to the wall.
“I’ve done some stuff with my dad,” Shack said.
“It’s overkill, but it looks fine,” Franky Frank said. “Get ready for dinner.”
Hanson grinned as the dorm monitor left, then sat down on his own bed.
“This is gonna be awesome,” he said.
“Power room,” Shack muttered, climbing up into the bed and sitting down. Ethan shook his head.
“It’s good that we can hang out here and put up good warding. There’s a lot we need to talk about.”
“Geez,” Shack said. “Can’t I enjoy my bed for like two minutes before you have to start with the politics again?”
