by April White
He looked startled. “Why?”
“Because saying the wrong thing is your specialty, and if you think Alex expects anything different, you don’t give her enough credit. You guys chose each other, remember?”
“But she left me once. What if she does it again?”
God, did I really sound as pathetic as he did now with all my internal whining about being left? I must have winced because Adam did too.
“That was lame, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I might have to revoke your man-card for that one.”
“You’re right. I’m definitely an idiot.”
I gave him a hug. “Yeah, but you’re her idiot, so she has to deal with your raging insecurities, not me.” He cringed, and I laughed. “My own are crippling enough.”
Adam still seemed rooted to the spot. “I’ll be damned if I’m missing this class just because you can’t figure out how to talk to your girlfriend.” I blew him a kiss and sprinted back down the hall.
I suddenly felt so much lighter, and when I re-entered the solarium my eyes found Alex’s. Her flawless coffee-colored skin, long black hair, and almond-shaped eyes were a striking combination with the regal way she held herself. Everything about her screamed ‘dancer.’ I went over to her.
“Hi. Welcome back.”
“It’s really strange to be here. Uncle Bob had me hang out in his office all afternoon; I think he’s worried Ms. Rothchild will give me up to the Mongers.”
“Yeah, it seems pretty risky to bring you in, especially with Monger-Spawn getting all feisty about their Vamp-hunting.” I looked at Mr. Shaw. “I didn’t think he was okay with you and Adam.”
Mr. Shaw’s voice made me jump. “Alexandra is the best snare-maker I’ve ever taught. She surpassed my own skill when she was about Connor’s age, and she also happens to be a very good teacher.” He dropped the volume of his voice to speak directly to us. “And, as you say, with feisty Monger pups on the prowl, trap-making skills could come in handy.”
I hid the smile, but Connor was proud of his half-sister. “You didn’t expect a Gazelle-Shifter to be an expert trapper did you?”
“I think it’s awesome.”
She leaned forward and whispered to me when Mr. Shaw walked away. “He’s not cool with me and Adam yet, but I’m working on it.”
Adam had just walked into the solarium, and his eyes went from Alex to me to Mr. Shaw.
I grimaced at the look of panic on his face. “Good luck with that.”
Mr. Shaw’s voice cut through all the conversation in the room. “If any of you have brought anything other than the clothes on your backs, leave it here.”
A young Shifter kid I didn’t know very well named Owen spoke up. “What about a knife?”
“I have one for each of you if you don’t have your own. It’s the most useful tool you’ll ever carry and one you should consider keeping with you at all times.”
Owen murmured happily to himself. “Brilliant.”
It had never been very smart to carry a knife as a teenage tagger in Los Angeles, where being armed could get a person shot. But since Sanda had given me her little inlaid pocket knife, it had gone with me everywhere I went.
He handed out small folding blades, but I declined and showed him Sanda’s. He nodded, then reminded me about the mini Maglite I always carry, so I left it on the table in front of me. I didn’t mention the orange marker that lived in my inside pocket, because what could I do with it, draw myself a shelter? When Mr. Shaw was done he addressed the group. “Good. Can someone tell me what the basic elements of survival are?”
“Fire.”
“Water.”
“Shelter.”
“Food.”
Mr. Shaw nodded after each thing was called out, then he paused a moment. “There’s one more element which can be critical to your survival, according to your circumstance.”
I thought about the fact that he’d risked Mongers and his own issues with Adam to bring Alex back to St. Brigid’s. Snares and traps weren’t just for food.
I called out. “Defense.”
“Why? There aren’t any big predators in England. They hunted bears and wolves to extinction a long time ago.” That was Owen again.
I saw Connor shudder slightly.
“Owen, your people are Thorins, right?” Mr. Shaw didn’t elaborate when Owen nodded, but I saw Connor’s eyes narrow slightly, and Alex slide almost imperceptibly away. The Thorins must be something that didn’t mix well with the Wolf and Gazelle of the Edwards family. “Then you’ll be familiar with the biggest and most dangerous predators. They’re in evidence all around us.”
“Humans.” I said it matter-of-factly. I’d been the prey of humans recently, and I hadn’t enjoyed the experience.
“Humans,” he agreed. “It may seem an odd thing to learn as part of a wilderness survival course, but make no mistake, these skills can be applied equally to the city and the wilds.”
Mr. Shaw ran through a couple of basic safety rules, and then we headed out of the solarium. It would be dark in about an hour, so I figured we’d use the light to find and set up a camp, then maybe get into the more theoretical lessons around a campfire.
I slipped in next to my mom as we headed toward the woods.
“I’m sorry I worried you.”
“Bob told me about your system.”
“Is that okay?”
She sighed, but gave me a smile. “I’ll take what I can get, Saira. I just want to know you’re safe.”
I winced. “Between you, Mr. Shaw, and Archer, I feel like I’m constantly in danger of being leashed.”
My mom laughed out loud, startling me and a couple people nearby. I stared at her. “What’s so funny?”
“I was about your age when I met your father. My sister and I had gone to Epping Wood to stay with the Missus, and she’d sent us into the forest to gather plants.”
Okay, change of subject. But my mom so rarely talked about her past that I rolled with it. “For her poultices?” I could tell by her face I’d surprised her, but then again she’d been unconscious when the Missus had set me to mixing up a poultice for the Vampire bite that had turned Archer.
“Exactly. The Missus taught me to find most of the things she used, and I was quite arrogant about my knowledge. At least until I reached for water hemlock instead of yarrow.”
“Mom! Even I know the difference between those.”
“I hadn’t heard him until he came up behind me and grabbed my arm to keep me from picking the hemlock. Emily screamed, of course. She was like that. But precisely because he’d scared me I got furious. I didn’t even see how young and handsome he was until he started laughing.”
I smirked. “Which, of course made you madder.”
“Of course it did. I stalked off to the cottage and slammed the door hard enough to get yelled at by the Missus. I fumed that whole night, but the next day I managed to find an excuse to go to the woods alone just so I could look for him. He was waiting for me where we’d met the day before, and he had a whole bouquet of yarrow flowers waiting. He apologized for startling me, and I apologized for yelling at him. From that moment on we were best friends. We prowled the woods together, gathering plants for his research and talking about everything under the sun. Falling in love snuck up on us, because of course we knew about the moratorium and it wouldn’t have occurred to either of us to go against our families on purpose.”
She was so much stronger now than she’d been right after he died, I almost wanted to change the subject so she didn’t get sad again. But I never got to know my dad, and the only thing I had were her memories of him.
“Because he had saved my life when we first met, I think he always felt like my safety was his responsibility. We broke rules to marry, and then when I was pregnant with you his protectiveness of me was so fierce it landed him in Bedlam, and us forever on the run.” She stopped walking and looked me in the eyes. “So I understand leashes. Especially the ones attached by the pe
ople who love us.”
Wow. Okay. Way to throw down the guilt, Mom. Subtle, yet very effective.
I smiled at her. “So, I shouldn’t do the exact opposite of whatever you guys say to do, just because you say it?”
Her eyes sparkled. “It would be helpful.”
I looked over at Alex and Adam, walking together, but separated by several feet. “Do you think they have a chance?”
She thought about it for a minute. “Do you?”
“I think if you love someone enough you can figure out a way to be together.”
My mom wrapped her arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick hug. “Me too.”
Mr. Shaw led us to a clearing in the woods I hadn’t been to before, and the light was fading quickly by the time everyone was together. There were ten of us, including the Bear, my mom and Alex, and the only two people I didn’t really know were the Shifter kid, Owen, and a Seer named Kelsey.
“Saira, Ava, Adam and Tom go with Alexandra to set up camp defenses, and the rest of you will work with Ms. Elian and myself on fire-starting and getting the camp together.”
We broke into our groups, but Adam and Alex stood on opposite sides of our huddle. I had never seen Adam so awkward, and for her part, Alex looked brittle. She was holding herself more stiffly than I thought it was possible for a dancer to do. I could feel my own tension building as we left the camp clearing, and it was starting to piss me off. I’d looked forward to this class all week, and those two, with everything they weren’t saying to each other, were messing it up. As soon as we’d moved out of earshot of the camp I stopped them.
“Okay, guys. I know it’s weird to be thrown together in such a public way, especially by Mr. Shaw. But it’s weirder that you are so uncomfortable around each other. So deal, please, because your giant pink elephant in the room is getting in the way of me learning some very cool stuff.”
“Oh, I think it would be fun to ride the pink elephant. You should keep being ridiculous with each other until I’ve had my chance.” Ava’s voice was airy and light, and I could have hugged her when the stares of shock at my outburst melted into laughter.
Magically, the laughter made the weirdness go away. Adam moved up behind Alex and wrapped his arms around her. She leaned back into his arms with easy grace, and I could tell they were comfortable that way in their private life. I caught his eye and mouthed, “idiot” to him. He blew a kiss to me that was more of a ‘kiss my booty’ than anything else, and finally, all was properly right in our world.
“Well, since we’ve stopped here anyway, let’s see what will work for perimeter defense.” Alex stepped forward out of Adam’s embrace and was instantly all easy confidence. It was such a shift from the petrified Gazelle I first met that I finally got how well she and Adam fit together. “We’ll need sticks, rocks, and anything else you can find that might be turned into a trap. You’ve got ten minutes to scavenge, but take a partner and watch each other’s backs.”
Ava and I set off in the opposite direction from Adam and Tom. The full moon made the woods feel like a black and white photo with the contrast set on high. The blacks were really black, and everything else was bathed in silvery light.
I took off my hoodie and tied the sleeves together. “We can use this to carry whatever we find.” I found a couple of y-shaped sticks that would make great slingshots if I could figure out what to use for the stretchy business, then filled my sweatshirt with quarter-sized rocks to use as ammo.
“We’re going to need lots of leafy branches.” Ava spoke with that certainty that came with her visions.
“Pit traps or hiding spots?”
“Both?” I guessed visions could be like that: just random images unless you knew what you were looking at. “And something else … something pointy.”
I hoped Adam and Tom were having similar visions so they’d know what she meant.
“I think we need long sticks.” Ava’s whisper was tentative, but it definitely made sense to gather as much as we could. We could sort out the useful stuff later.
“How come you didn’t see that Alex would be here?” I kept my voice as low as I could, figuring Alex probably had super Gazelle hearing, considering she shifted into an animal that was dinner for predators.
Ava shrugged. “I didn’t look.”
That surprised me. “You can direct your sight?”
“Sometimes, but that’s just because I’m the heir. But if I use Aislin’s cuff I can focus on something specific.”
“What’s Aislin’s cuff?” I’d never really asked too much about Seers before, and I’d discovered that very few Descendants were in the habit of volunteering information about their skills. “Unless it’s, like, Seer Family stuff that you can’t talk about.”
Ava hesitated for about a fraction of a second, but she was always so open about everything else I heard it in her voice instantly. “No, it’s okay. I think I should tell you.” She took a deep breath, like she was revealing some ancient Chinese secret. “Aislin was in love with a Persian prince, like eight hundred years ago—“
“I’m sorry, did you say eight hundred?”
Ava nodded. “I’ve heard that Aislin is the only one of the Immortals who still hangs out with humans.”
“Eight hundred years ago isn’t still hanging out.” I felt like I was pointing out the obvious, but Ava shrugged it off.
“She’s still around somewhere. I’m just talking about the cuff.”
“Right. Sorry.” I was trying very hard not to sound like I didn’t believe her, mostly because I’d recently learned that impossible things were sometimes true.
“Anyway, the prince had the cuff made for Aislin as a gift before he died.”
“He knew he was going to die?”
“She did.”
Of course she did. Aislin was the Immortal, Fate. She knew pretty much everything. “Sorry, go on.”
“Anyway, his best silversmith wove intricate patterns about fate and destiny into the design, and the inside is smooth so it acts like a mirror to reflect the visions we have. But my favorite thing about it is the poison compartment.”
“It had a poison compartment?”
“Well, it’s not really for poison, but Adam and I have always called it that because it seemed like a great place for captured princesses to keep deadly poisons to paralyze their enemies and escape with their lives.”
She said that so matter-of-factly that I almost burst out laughing. I could just imagine the games Adam and Ava played when they were little rugrat twins running around their parents’ perfect mansion. At least I assumed it was perfect, and a mansion, since I’d seen their mother and didn’t think she’d live anywhere else.
I struggled to keep a straight face because Ava had one and I wasn’t going to laugh if she didn’t. “So what did the poison compartment hold?”
Ava shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe just poison. But if you look at the concave mirror inside the cuff just right, it can direct a vision to a specific person, place, or event.”
“Just like my mom’s clock necklace.”
Ava’s eyebrows raised questioningly, so I explained that the necklace, passed down through generations of Elians, could direct the wearer’s Clocking to a specific time and place. It’s how my mom got us forward in time from 1871, the year I was supposed to have been born.
There was a sharp whistle, like a bird call, that I knew couldn’t have been made by a bird since all but the owls were asleep. “I think we better go.”
We gathered all the sticks and rocks we’d found into my sweatshirt, and I slung it over my stronger shoulder. The other one didn’t hurt anymore, but it had gotten weaker during the time I kept it immobile. As we headed back toward the others I continued our conversation in a low voice.
“Does the cuff still exist?”
“Oh, yes. It gets handed down to each Head of the Family. My mother has it right now, and I’ll inherit it when she steps down. It’s one of the reasons Tom’s dad wants to be Head so badly
. He wants the cuff.”
Well, that was interesting. It wasn’t just power over the huge Seer clan that lit Mr. Landers up, it was the perks too.
We rejoined the others where we’d left Alex. Adam and Tom were already whittling the ends of long straight sticks to sharp points. “You guys got the ‘pointy things’ vision too?”
Adam looked at Ava oddly, then shook his head. “Alex said we were going to make one of those barriers like they used to use against ancient cavalries. With sharp sticks pointing out like a deadly fence.”
“We’ll need to dig some pits too, but this dirt is pretty hard-packed, so I’m afraid it’ll take too long to get deep enough to make a proper pit-trap.” Alex was stripping long fibrous grass to use as twine to connect the sticks.
“Alex is right. It took me all afternoon to dig the pit that Max landed in the last time we went running.”
Tom looked up in surprise. “You dug that? I thought he was just phenomenally unlucky and stepped in a fox hole or something.”
“The ground was really soft there, which gave me the idea, but I had a shovel and it still took hours.”
Adam looked at me through narrowed eyes. “How long ago did you dig that pit?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A couple of weeks?”
“You’re scary.”
“Prepared.”
“Prepared to do damage. It’s the same thing.”
I shot him a dagger glare, and he wisely refrained from commenting further.
I had just discarded a stick that was too short for the guys’ pointed fence, but I picked it up again and broke it in half, so each side had enough of a point to do some damage. “What if we don’t dig traps, we dig trips.”
“Trips? What are you talking about?” Adam didn’t sound derisive, just confused. I appreciated the difference.
Alex was studying the short, pointed sticks in my hands. “You’re thinking about shallow holes filled with one or two sticks each?”
I nodded. “Covered with enough leaves to hide the points. Kind of like a low-tech minefield I guess.”
Adam was looking back and forth between me and Alex. “You’re both exceptionally frightening, and I’m very glad we’re on the same team.”
