Victoria seemed to be semi-competent with her work. It was her second stint in the store, but mostly she seemed to like singing and music. Once Charlee had picked up on this fact, she used it to prompt Victoria into talking about her studies, about the people she had met and about the Kine, simply by asking questions that barely seemed nosy. Victoria liked to talk as much as she liked to sing, Charlee swiftly discovered, and Charlee’s knowledge of the Kine exploded.
The Kine was the short name the Herleifr used for themselves. Herleifr was the proper name for the Einherjar and Valkyrie collectively. Darwin had looked into the name, now he knew the etymological roots, and let Charlee know via text on the cellphone he had bought her that “Herleifr” loosely translated as “the army.”
Darwin had grown almost obsessed with figuring out the intricate details of Kine life. He figured that “Kine” was their word for “kin”, the English word for family. Little etymological discoveries like that seemed to delight him.
But Charlee was more interested in the structure of the Kine, and how everyone fit into that structure. That was a picture that was slower to grow because even Victoria was not privy to all of it.
But one thing was clear from Victoria’s cheerful gossip: the Valkyrie and the Amica were not the same. They weren’t even close to being the same, for the Amica were human.
Victoria had been born the year before Charlee, in Iowa. Her mother had been one of the Amica, as had her grandmother and her grandmother’s mother. Victoria was a fourth-generation Amica and had known almost from grade school that she would become one.
“They don’t let just anyone become Amica,” Victoria explained. “A new recruit, someone who hasn’t grown up in their world, is a huge risk.”
“Someone like me?” Charlee asked.
Victoria had nodded quickly. “You’re not even Amica yet. You haven’t been formally recruited or had the basic training for Amica. You are very different from us. I don’t know how you managed it. You must be very clever.”
Charlee didn’t think there was any cleverness involved. She’d had the good fortune to meet Ylva when she was young and to stay in contact with her through the years. What was clever about that?
But it had given her much to think about.
Victoria babbled whenever they had a moment when concentration wasn’t needed, but unfortunately, those moments didn’t happen often and were usually cut short by one or the other of them having to bend back to their task. So questions and answers were sometimes days apart, and a conversation about a single aspect of Kine life could take a week or more and never be completed to Charlee’s satisfaction, for the subject would get forgotten or go off on a tangent.
It would have been easier to interrogate Victoria and insist she stay on topic, but that would never happen and even if it did, it would alert the Amica and any Valkyrie in the house that she was digging for information. Charlee had learned that that wouldn’t be a good thing.
One of the themes that seemed to recur in Victoria’s ambling narrative, over and over again, was that of secrecy. The Kine’s presence here on Earth was a closely guarded secret that the Kine worked to keep. The Amica were the only humans permitted to know about them, and the Amica were very carefully chosen and recruited.
How closely guarded was the secret? Charlee texted Darwin the question. His answer was pithy and to the point.
have they killed to keep the secret?
Yep guaranteed
She folded her phone closed and put it back in her pocket, a great wash of uneasiness spilling through her. Old memories resurfaced, of Asher standing in front of her that first night. He had seemed to be bigger than a mountain, then. He had stood in front of her and watched her with what she now realized had been a hyper-cautious wariness. You seeing my sword puts you in a different sort of trouble, Charlee. You and me, both. That had been what had forged their very first deal. A conspiracy of silence over what she had seen.
Darwin’s text message replayed in her mind: Have they killed to keep the secret? Yep, guaranteed.
Asher had been protecting her from the start, working to keep the Kine from knowing she had seen the sword. He had probably saved her life, when all this time she had believed Chocolate’s life was the only one saved that night.
The Lightning Lords! she remembered with an audible gasp. After they had cut her and Lucas up, after that long, long night, the Lords had disappeared. Was that Asher’s doing? Or had the Kine swept in after him to clean things up, including all human witnesses? Had he used his sword and left a mess behind for them to deal with?
The Valkyrie ride through the battlefield, picking up fallen warriors. What if that was not all they did? What if they now rode through a battlefield and cleaned up…everything? That would keep them hidden. That would keep their secret.
If they did that, then they would have to know when and where a battle took place.
And again, that first night she had met Asher replayed through her head. The way he had hustled her out of the alley. The birds lining up on the fence behind them, that Charlee had glimpsed from the corner of her eye as Asher led her back to the street.
Birds.
Charlee thought of the birdcage in the foyer and of Ylva standing with a wild falcon on her arm and shivered.
If they would kill to keep their secret, if they had remained hidden for the centuries that Darwin was estimating, then Charlee had to be even more careful about what she found out.
Why had Ylva ever agreed to let her live here in the first place?
* * * * *
Even though Charlee knew what Asher was now, she still put off seeing him. She had his cellphone number, the numbers for the restaurant and his office at the bank. But she didn’t use them. As the days and months and years rolled on, she became even more reluctant to call. If he was pretending to be human, then his life had moved on from that silly prom night moment. She hadn’t seen him since. He would assume she had no intention of seeing him again. The more time she let slip by, the more likely it was that he would write off their friendship as something that had ended.
But he still lingered in her thoughts and even haunted her dreams. She missed him, much more than she missed Lucas, who at least showed up every now and again to give her a hug and tell her how pretty she was.
Asher had disappeared. Perhaps he didn’t want to speak to her again, either. Maybe he wanted their friendship to end. It was that possibility that made her reluctant to call him, much more than her own stupid justifications. For the same reason, she knew she must wait for Asher to reach out to her. But never once since she had known him had Asher inserted himself into her life. He had only ever appeared when she had called him, or when she had stopped by the restaurant. His friendship had been passive. He had not initiated anything.
She knew why, now. She knew that Asher had been walking a tightrope with the wrath of the Kine on one side and the condemnation of humans on the other, humans who would only see a grown man befriending a young girl.
For the same reasons, he would not call or visit or seek her out even now. He had set the limits of their friendship, and he was abiding by them. If he wants to see me at all, she thought dismally.
Charlee would counter the bleak thoughts with work. There was always more to do and she threw herself into her work, learning all that she could and practicing. And so the days rolled on.
She loved feeding the birds. She had taken the task over almost completely, happy to stand in the middle of the cage and coax whatever birds were stopping by onto her hands and arms and shoulders, and sometimes even her head. During the winter, blackbirds and sparrows and robins would throng the cage. In the summer, every day was a surprise; tits and swallows, and the bigger birds, including ravens and once, a beautiful owl that had spent a week hiding on a branch at the back of the cage, peering out from between the big leaves, before venturing out to the end of the branch to accept the meat Charlee offered him. Toward the fall, the babies would come with their
parents.
Often Ylva would stand on the outside of the cage and tell Charlee about the birds she was feeding: what they liked to eat, their feeding, how they raised their young. Sometimes, Ylva would talk about how the wild birds could help hikers find their way home, if they knew what to look for, and other telling habits.
Charlee got used to one or more of the Amica stopping outside the cage to watch the feeding. Since Charlee had taken over the task, more and more birds seemed to flock down the long cage at feeding time, to call and twitter and coo around her. It was noisy, happy and interesting work, and the Amica seemed to find it endlessly entertaining, especially when the babies came to visit.
It was December in the new millennium, and only a few days before the solstice, which was celebrated instead of Christmas in Ylva’s house. Charlee crept down to the birdcage early; the birds would be hungry, as the snow had been falling for two days and food would be hard to find.
She picked up the platter of seeds and peered through the leaves to see if any birds were already in the cage and waiting for her. Delighted, she saw that the owl was back, his winter feathers fluffing him up into a snowy, white ball with big eyes. “Well, hello,” she murmured to him and reached back for the meat she kept in a separate container, just in case some of the carnivores visited.
“Hello, yourself.” Human words. Spoken behind her. Male voice.
She whirled, her fright tearing up through her throat and emerging in a little, soundless gasp. The seeds scattered from the platter in her hand.
Asher stood on the other side of the bars.
She ran her gaze over him, hungrily absorbing details she had forgotten, or remembered so often they had distorted. The blue of his eyes. The width of his shoulders under the heavy, dark coat he wore. The size of his hands and the strength of his wrists (all the better to hold his sword with). His height, which didn’t seem to be quite so towering anymore. He was just a tall man.
“And she doesn’t say hello,” Asher said softly. He sounded worried.
“I’m too astonished that you’re here to even think of saying hello.” She stepped closer to the bars. “Do you know how long it’s been since I last saw you?”
“I know to the day.”
She shivered. “You stayed away.”
He nodded.
“Because of…?”
His gaze dropped. It was answer enough.
Her heart was slamming madly, the sound of its frantic beating throbbing in her ears, in a rushing sound. “Then why come back?” she asked.
He stepped close to the cage. Close to her, but the wide-spaced iron bars were still between them. “You didn’t kiss me.”
Charlee stared at him, the birds, the seed platter, all of it forgotten. “That’s why you’re here? Because I didn’t kiss you?”
He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes. “You could have. We both know you could have. I would have let you. It was yours to take, but you didn’t. I want to know why.”
Her delight at seeing him began to congeal into a lower, harder emotion. “You know why.”
His gaze wasn’t letting her go. “What I am—” he began. Then he stopped and she could see him swallow. “Who I am, that has never been between us.”
“Have you spent the last, what is it? Four years? More? You’ve spent all that time wondering why I didn’t kiss you?”
“I saw you on Bleecker Street. Last week.”
She had gone to lower Manhattan to run an errand for Ylva, dropping a box of salves off at an apartment there. The woman who had accepted them had been tall, young and incredibly beautiful, her long, dark hair tumbling about her shoulders. She had thanked Charlee in faintly accented English. Valkyrie or senior Amica, Charlee had figured.
The whole journey had taken barely an hour and she had hurried along, the cold seeping into her bones, her head down, keen to get to the train and inside once more.
“You’ve got taller, I think,” Asher said.
“A bit,” she conceded, puzzled. She put the platter down, stepped out of the cage and brushed bird seed from her dress. “Why are we talking about my height?”
His answer took a long while to emerge, so long that she thought she would scream. “You’ve changed. I don’t know what to say, anymore.”
“Truth for truth, Asher. That’s the deal, remember?”
He let out a breath, heavily. “I remember.” And he smiled. It was his old smile.
“You asshole!” she railed at him. “Four freaking years!” She pummelled his shoulder with both fists, suddenly furious.
Asher laughed and gathered her up in his arms and hugged her. It felt heavenly. Warmth and safety and good feelings all at once. She smelled snow and cold and his unique scent that she would never forget.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Asher spoke to Ylva, and Charlee was relieved of her duties for the day so that Asher could take her out. Where? She didn’t care. It wasn’t unusual for one of the Amica to have a visitor and be excused for the day and routines were robust enough that their absence was covered almost automatically, so Charlee didn’t feel guilty about stepping out with her own visitor.
Asher piled her into a cab and gave the address, and Charlee pressed her gloved hands to her lips. “The Ashtree,” she murmured. “That’s perfect.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Pierre will have hysterics when he sees you.” He grinned.
Charlee studied him carefully.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You haven’t changed. Not at all.”
He shrugged. “Clean living and no vices.”
She let it pass. He wouldn’t admit he hadn’t aged, not even if he suspected she knew. Instead she turned the conversation, asking him about his life and catching up on the last four years.
Pierre did have hysterics when he saw her, but that was later in the afternoon. First, Asher sat her at the bar, his de facto office, sat down beside her and ordered lunch and a bottle of champagne.
“I should warn you that trying to get me drunk won’t do you a bit of good,” she said. “Ylva has wine served at both lunch and dinner. I’ve grown immune to the effects.”
“Champagne just tickles your nose, anyway.” He poured her a glass and pushed it in front of her.
“I’ve heard that mead is like champagne. Some types of mead, anyway.” She picked up the glass. “I wouldn’t mind trying that, one day.”
Asher froze. He kept his gaze on the glass he was filling and didn’t move for several heartbeats. Then he carefully and slowly returned the bottle to the ice bucket and dropped the napkin over it. Finally, he picked up the glass and held it toward her. “To old friends, friends once more.”
“Absolutely yes,” she said and tapped her glass to his and drank.
He was studying her. Wondering, possibly, what she would say next. So Charlee smiled at him. “Are you dating anyone, Asher?”
He shook his head. “I barely have the time to check in on Torger.”
“Oh, Torger! How is he?” She felt a genuine delight. Torger had been such a cute dog and so obedient.
“Still in love with animals, then.” He seemed pleased. “Perhaps I should take you to see him.”
“Won’t he be working?”
“Not once I walk in the door. He knows he’s off duty and can relax.”
“So you would take me to your apartment?”
Asher’s gaze caught hers. “That’s where Torger is.”
“Then I would like to see your apartment.”
He straightened up and picked up his glass. “So, tell me about life at Ylva’s.”
Charlee spun him a tale that was half fiction and half fact. She did not lie about the hard work and her growing love for the strange world she found herself in. But she carefully minimized her knowledge of the Kine. If she was right about their rules of secrecy, Ylva could be in trouble for allowing Charlee to learn as much as she had. If she let Asher know how much she knew, then he would become entangled in her lies
.
Their truth-for-truth deal had always been very literal; they would tell each other the truth when they revealed anything, but they did not reveal everything. Asher never had revealed everything. There was a whole world of secret people he had kept from her. In turn, he had carefully not dug into the details of her own odd life with a drunk mother and a dying father, and a brother who had been forced to grow up too fast. Instead he had let her pretend she was a normal kid enjoying a simple life.
It was ironic, really. Neither of them was close to being normal. But they had both pretended to be.
So now she gave him a pretty picture of her life with Ylva. How much of it did he believe? Did it matter?
They were finishing lunch when Pierre burst through the kitchen door and flung his arms out to her, babbling incoherently in French.
“You’re early!” Charlee cried and hurried over to hug him. He held her tightly and with a jolt, she realized that she was taller than him now.
“Mister Anthony called, told me you were here. I did not believe him, but I hurry down to see for myself. Ah, Charlee, you are beautiful! A brilliant butterfly, hatched from her cocoon! If I were younger, I would flirt with you and make eyes at you.”
“You’re making eyes anyway,” Asher pointed out.
“I do, but it is only because such beauty deserves applause,” Pierre said with dignity. “I will make you my best dessert, to go with your lunch and your champagne.”
“No, Pierre, really—” Charlee began, but he had gone back into the kitchen. They listened to him bawling at the sous chef at the top of his lungs. Charlee winced. “Well, at least all the customers have gone.”
“He’s shouting so you will hear him and be impressed.” Asher was smiling.
Fifteen minutes later, Pierre appeared with a plate in his hands, a silver cover over it. “Voilà!” He whipped the lid off.
It was a stack of pancakes. Charlee burst into laughter and let him present the plate, placing it in front of her with a flourish. “It will soak up the champagne,” he said, “and the syrup, it is not that sump oil Americans like so much. It is much, much better.” He blew her a kiss and went back to his kitchen.
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 33
