I tried to imagine a college application essay about what it was like to crouch in a field at dawn and watch my cousin stab a man-eating monster to death. That probably would make quite the impression on an admissions committee.
It certainly had on my mother’s academic counselors.
“Besides, what is there for you back here? Those silly little friends of yours? You remember that boy, Brandt? He ran away from home! What kind of associations are those for you?”
Brandt had left home? Weird. Then again, I understood the urge to escape your parents. I tried to push my hair back, but the matted strands were crusted to my face. “Mommy,” I whispered. “Please.”
I don’t think she even heard me.
“What you should be focusing on, Astrid, is training even harder. Killing more quickly, more humanely. I know you probably think Phil’s a natural at this, because of all her athletic experience, but think about who your ancestors were. You have the same abilities. You even have more. You should be doing better than your cousin.”
“How do I have more abilities than Phil?” I asked.
“I know you can do it! I’m so proud of you, honey. It’s a dream come true, knowing that you’re over there fulfilling the family destiny. I should let you go now. I love you, Astrid.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
I hung up the phone and bit my lip. The glaring fluorescent light in the empty Gordian office made my hunting clothes look even more stained and dingy. I’d probably contaminated the plastic chair just by sitting on it. I’d washed my hands twice, practically scoured off the skin the second time, but the sticky feeling of dark kirin blood lingered. I couldn’t sit. My blood seemed to buzz in my veins, a thousand times harder than caffeine or even adrenaline. I hugged my arms to my chest and bounced on my heels. The others didn’t seem to feel this. Maybe it was because they’d been injured. Their energy was focused on healing their wounds. Mine just brimmed inside me with no outlet.
I stood at the doorway to the next room, a lounge where the other hunters were resting, icing sore body parts or flicking bits of mud off their clothes. A television was bolted to the ceiling, showing a boisterous Italian game show. Grace sat on a long bench, a row of neat stitches glistening on her forehead. She held an ice bag to the back of her head and refused to look anyone in the eye. They’d said she had a concussion and a sprained ankle on top of her cuts and bruises, but miraculously, no skull fractures or other broken bones.
Still, it was like staring into the waiting room at my old hospital.
Ilesha was curled up in an armchair, sleeping. Poor girl. She’d apparently spent the entire time we were chasing the kirin being sick in the field. She was a decent shot, but if she fainted at the first sign of violence, she wouldn’t be much good to the Order.
Valerija took a small case out of her coat pocket and removed a pill. She offered the case to Cory, who reeled back, disgusted. Valerija shrugged, popped the pill, then readjusted her headphones and closed her eyes. She’d refused to let any of the doctors touch her, but I could imagine the kind of pain she was feeling, even if the puncture wound had mostly healed by the time we’d gotten to Gordian. She wasn’t even wearing a bandage now. Valerija had also been limping pretty badly when we walked off that field. I’d have offered to help, but Phil and I had been carrying an unconscious Grace.
Maybe whatever she’d taken now was an attempt at self-medication. Maybe I should find out what it was. Perhaps it stopped this feeling, like I was speeding out of control, even when I was standing still.
Cory shook her head and came over to me. “We really need to do something about her.”
“Do your books talk about an official Cloisters drug policy?” I snapped. “By my count, she did more damage today than you did.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them.
Something flashed across Cory’s face, but she recovered quickly. “And she almost died, too, didn’t she? A few inches down and that kirin would have pierced her heart.”
True. I didn’t want to know how many of us had been close to death today.
Cory sighed. “Let’s not bicker over this.”
“Agreed. I’m…sorry for what I said.”
“I don’t blame you. You were out there and I was not.” She nodded at Phil. “Is she all right?”
Phil sat splayed on a chair in the corner, watching the incomprehensible television show, looking as strung out as if she’d taken one of Valerija’s pills. She hadn’t spoken to me since we’d left that field. I sat down by her now.
“Hey.”
She nodded but kept her eyes on the screen. If she was buzzing like me, there was no sign of it.
“Just got off the phone with my mom.”
“Yeah?”
“I told her about your kill.”
Phil said nothing for a moment. Then, “Wasn’t mine. A mercy kill by that point. If Grace wants the honor, she can have it.”
Grace sniffed from the corner. “No, thank you. When I get my first kill, I’ll do it without anyone’s help.”
Phil didn’t respond. I tried again.
“I asked her if I could come home.”
“Are you going?”
“No.”
Phil pursed her lips and nodded, but said nothing more. I was too afraid to ask if she was planning to leave herself. What would I do if Phil left me here alone? I imagined Lilith would be thrilled. No other Llewelyn to steal my thunder. But I dreaded the very idea.
“We’ll be heading back to Rome now,” I said in as bright a tone as I could muster. “Maybe you should call Seth and see if we can get together with the boys tonight.” Nothing. “Or tomorrow. Give the bruises a chance to fade.”
Still nothing. Not even a chuckle. From Phil. I bit my lip, wanting more than anything for both of us to be back in Uncle John’s yard, where we were more in danger of getting bitten by mosquitoes than being gored by unicorns.
Giving up, I rested my head against the back of my chair and tried not to think about all the parasites and other nasties on my mud-soaked pants. At least, I hoped it was mud. There were a lot of sheep in that field. Calm down. My feet started tapping against the floor.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said. I couldn’t bear it another moment, sitting in there among the injured hunters, wondering how long it was going to take until Phil started acting like herself again. I wanted to sprint a marathon. I wanted to run and run until I left this all behind. My feet began to pound against the linoleum.
But the hall dead-ended in a room furnished with a slab. And on the slab lay the corpse of the kirin.
Technicians in white lab coats clustered around the body, drawing blood here, taking skin and hair samples there. I wondered when they’d start the autopsy and how they’d manage it if they couldn’t keep cuts open.
I watched in silence as they clamped sensors from various machines to the corpse, finished collecting their specimens, and bustled out a side door. The machines whirred and beeped. From the door, I could see that one was measuring body temperature and another, horn temperature, which seemed to still be in the low forties. Celsius. That was awfully hot, for a corpse.
I tiptoed into the room to get a closer look at the sensors. Funny, the kirin didn’t look as big now, draped and still like that, its mouth slack and tongue lolling out from between its fanged jaws. Its wounds, fatal and otherwise, had all but vanished now, leaving dark, shiny striations of scar tissue on its hide. Strange—unicorn flesh regenerated even after death. I reached two tentative fingers out to touch the skin.
“Astrid?” I jumped and knocked the unicorn’s hoof off the slab, and it clunked hard against the side. Marten Jaeger stood at the door, watching me. “You don’t belong here.”
“I—”
He seemed to catch himself. “I mean, I would have thought you’d want to be with the other hunters, relaxing.” He beckoned to me.
“I can’t seem to chill out,” I admitted.
He nodded, though th
ere was a confused look on his face. “Is it too warm for you?”
“No. Sorry, it’s just a saying. I can’t relax.”
“Oh. I see. That is very common, after something so exciting.” He closed the distance and stepped between me and the display screens. “Did you…enjoy the hunt?”
“No,” I said, too frazzled to lie. “I hated it.”
“I see.”
“Maybe, since Cory doesn’t want to be here anymore, I can stay here, help you out in the lab—”
“No,” Marten said. “That wouldn’t work, I’m afraid.”
“But you need a hunter around if you’re going to keep specimens from—”
“I don’t think so, Astrid.” He shook his head. “I’m very sorry. It seems like you have a natural curiosity for the type of work we do here. I find it quite unusual, in fact. If I had your abilities, I’d be far more interested in those.”
“Want to trade?”
He said nothing, just watched me with his strange, pale eyes.
“Maybe,” I said at last, “we could renovate the scriptorium. I could make a little lab right in the Cloisters. It wouldn’t interfere with my hunting, I swear!”
He raised his eyebrows. “No, the scriptorium has…structural problems. I don’t want any of the hunters going in there. It’s too dangerous. Perhaps later, we’ll be able to look into restoring that part of the building, along with the other wing…”
He kept talking about future plans, but it all blended into the rush of blood in my ears. The dead kirin stared up at me with glassy yellow eyes. To Marten, to my mother, to all of them I was just a girl with a bow. An assassin, good only for what she could kill.
And I wasn’t even particularly good at that.
“I hate to discourage you, Astrid. Really I do. After all, your most recent theory about the connection between the Remedy and the hunter’s own immunity was one my own lab saw fit to test…several months ago.”
Test and dismiss. Boy, had I felt sheepish when I shared my observation about the way Valerija’s alicorn wound had healed with the people from Gordian. They’d merely grunted, and then ignored me. Later, Cory had explained that everyone was well aware that hunters healed from alicorn puncture wounds with supernatural quickness. They’d even tested her once by making a regular incision then dripping alicorn venom into the wound. Nothing happened, and the wound healed normally.
Marten had filled in the rest. Apparently, they’d done extensive testing on whether or not hunter blood was a possible ingredient in creating the Remedy. No luck yet. However if I wanted to donate some blood to keep testing with, they’d be happy to accept it. Then all the hunters had given blood samples.
I was nothing more than a tool, like this unicorn on the slab.
Someone cleared his throat. I turned to see Lino, looking as battle weary as the rest of us. He began speaking to Marten in Italian. I made out little more than our names before the conversation turned to an argument too fast and furious for me to follow. Marten’s tone made it clear he was issuing orders, though.
“Why?” Lino asked in English. “She does not understand me. Do you, Astrid?”
I shook my head. What was I supposed to be understanding that Marten didn’t want me to? Why wasn’t Cory standing here to translate?
“Astrid, don’t listen to him,” Marten said. “He’s a foolish peasant.”
Lino made a rude gesture at Marten. Marten shrugged, crossed to the wall, and picked up a phone. Lino shook his head, then spat on the floor.
“Astrid,” he said to me, as if we were alone in the room. “I have taught you to be a hunter. It was wrong. You are not a hunter here. They are not animals. Even a bear, even a lion, would run. These attack. You are not a hunter.”
“What?” I said.
“You are a soldier.” The words slammed into me like a punch.
Marten looked as if he might throw the phone at Lino, but the archer kept talking to me. “I am leaving now. But I say to you…if you can go home, do it. Go home. This is no place for any of you.”
Two men in security uniforms showed up on either side of Lino. He sneered at them, then turned and walked away as they followed him out.
Marten studied me. “Well, Astrid, I’m sorry you had to witness such a scene. It was apparently a mistake to let someone so irresponsible watch over you girls. I shall not let it happen again.”
I hardly knew what to think. “What was that all about?”
Marten sighed. “I was taking him to task for allowing so many of you to be injured. He did not want to accept any of that responsibility, as you can see. It was very…uncouth of him to be so cruel and unfeeling in your presence.”
“Oh,” I said, still unsure. When even my trainer was telling me that my fears were justified, I didn’t know what to think.
“Of course, he is right about one thing. It is a very dangerous path you have embarked upon. Perhaps you would wish to return to the United States, if you could.”
“If I could,” I said. “I’d be on the next plane. But my mom won’t let me.”
Marten nodded thoughtfully. “Ever thought about not going home? About going someplace else?”
Run away? Like Brandt apparently had? A tiny spark of hope flared to life in my chest. “Yes,” I said softly. “But what difference would it make in the end? I’m still a hunter, aren’t I? Anywhere I go, unicorns will be drawn to me.”
“And you would kill them if you had to?” Marten asked.
I bit my lip. I hadn’t finished the yearling today, but I had attacked it. Stabbed it. And the kirin who’d threatened Giovanni. I almost couldn’t help myself. If I was in a situation where it was kill a unicorn or let it kill me or someone else—“What choice do I have?”
Marten looked down at the dead kirin on the slab. “What choice indeed?”
Later, Neil reported that Marten had been dissatisfied with our progress under Lino’s tutelage. He promised us that a new archery trainer would arrive soon to replace him, but that Marten wanted to be sure this time that he hired only the best. Cory wondered if he’d taken Lino’s advice about combat training to heart. I decided I’d believe that the day a Green Beret arrived on the doorstep of the Cloisters.
Meanwhile, we were reduced to training with two practice bows and a half-full quiver that Lino had left behind, which made for a lot of sitting around and twiddling our thumbs while we waited for our turn at the targets.
It was three days after the hunt before I started seeing glimpses of the old Phil again. She hadn’t even bugged me about getting together with the boys since we’d gotten back to Rome, and despite her dutiful practice whenever it was her turn with the practice bow, I began to wonder if she was having second thoughts about being a unicorn hunter. Maybe she wanted to pack up and go home.
Then one morning I was walking the dormitory hall when I heard her laughing in the courtyard. I looked out to see Phil showing off the new trick she’d taught Bonegrinder to Neil and Lucia. She made the unicorn stand very still while she balanced meatballs on the zhi’s nose. I’d seen Bonegrinder perform obediently before, but today she was being truculent, growling and snapping at Phil as punishment for putting her through the indignity of behaving in front of anyone who wasn’t a hunter.
“That’s enough, Pippa,” Neil said after the fifth meatball went rolling in the grass. “Lucia won’t have any left for tonight.”
“Come on, Celius,” Phil trilled and tossed a meatball to Bonegrinder. The zhi caught it in midair, then went snuffling about for the ones she’d dropped. “Pippa’s a dumb nickname. It sounds like a baby bird.”
“Well, Phil sounds like a lorry driver.”
“Preferable.” She threw a meatball at him, and he ran when Bonegrinder lunged.
Lucia shook her head at the both of them, wiped her hands on her apron, and headed back into the kitchen. I pulled away from the parapet, suddenly embarrassed to be spying. But when I’d seen Phil later on, it was as if the kirin hunt had never happened
.
“Hey, Astronomy,” she said, and plopped down beside me. “Want to go out tonight?”
I was checking the fletching on one of our shafts. The constant use was beginning to show on the arrows. If we didn’t get a new trainer in the next few days, we should at least get Neil to buy us some supplies to tide us over.
“Giovanni said he had a test tomorrow.” I screwed the point back into place and set the arrow down beside the others.
“I’m sure you can persuade him to blow off studying one evening. You two are peas in a pod with the schoolwork, huh?”
Well, neither of us was currently enrolled in degree-granting educational institutions, so yes, she was right there. “You know they’re breaking the rules of their program every time they hang out with us?”
“Another thing you two have in common!” She was grinning now, and I was so glad to see it, I relented at once.
“Okay, call. But make sure Giovanni knows this was not my idea.”
Phil and Seth were in rare form that evening, each seemingly determined to top the other in enthusiasm and daring. They conned a dozen roses out of a street vendor, joined a troop of buskers in a dance show, and sweet-talked their way into a nightclub with a line that stretched around the block. I half expected the evening to cap off with either breaking into the Colosseum or taking a midnight dip in the Trevi Fountain. Giovanni watched their antics, amused, but didn’t join in, and I started to wonder if he regretted coming along. He’d been quieter than ever this evening, and I worried he was angry we’d dragged him away from his books. I knew how important it was that he got good grades in his program. His reacceptance to college depended on it.
We ended the evening with desserts at a restaurant on top of Monte Mario, overlooking the northwest end of the city. Phil and Seth soon wandered off into the darkness, leaving Giovanni and me alone together for the first time since that night in Trastevere. Apparently Phil had decided I could be trusted on my own again. Or she forgot. Or she wanted us both out of the unicorn hunting gig.
Looking at Giovanni, seated in silence all the way across the bench, I doubted that was going to come close to happening.
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