Still wary and faint, Verna doesn’t ask a single question as Quincy leads her down the main path around the city. She follows him as a fledgling does its mother. “I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through today,” he says, offering his hand. “It’s a small comfort, but I know holding my mother’s hand always put me at ease.” He smiles.
Verna has to fight to keep herself from crying. “Thank you.”
Soon enough, they stand in front of rows of small solid houses that make up Verna’s little neighborhood. She searches through her bag, where her keys always seem to evade being found, as she makes her way up the path to the crisp golden 5 on her door, Quincy close behind. Verna finds the rusted metal key and opens the door. A scorching flame blasts outward, kicking Verna back from the threshold. It would have charred the thin skin off of Verna’s face if it weren’t for Quincy’s quick movement and the door’s subsequent shutting.
“Are you all right?” Quincy gasps.
His question seems too nebulous for Verna to respond as she struggles to her feet. After wiping her hands on her destroyed clothes, she lifts a shaking hand to her mouth, where her warm breath skims the wrinkled skin.
Verna imagines Charlotte enchanting the door with the explosive, then leaping and bounding away. Verna drops her hand and mutters, “Why can’t the dead stay dead?”
Lilah wakes to a pounding on her door. The dull throbbing of her head she fell asleep with now convulses her entire body. Wishing she could go back to sleep, she pulls the red comforter off her warmed body and stretches her long legs over the side of the bed, placing her feet onto the hard wood flooring. The wood is cold, and Lilah wonders how long she had been asleep. Crossing the rest of the space between the bed and her door, she reaches out and opens it with a yawn.
“The director wants to have a word with you.” Marcus’s hazel eyes shine in the dimming sunlight.
Lilah turns and grabs a jacket from her desk chair, then follows Marcus down the hall, passing the nine other rooms of this floor. The academy, ancient in its construction, has added rooms and dormitories over the many years since its opening, so that now, where once there was organization, there is a design that confuses even students who’ve been here all year. At the end of the hallway is the girls’ giant bathroom, sporting ten sinks, showers, and toilets. A faint smell of lavender permeates from the open door.
Lilah catches a glimpse of herself in the reflection of one of the mirrors. Her oval face is blanched and dark circles appear beneath her blueberry blue eyes. Tendrils of wheat hair fall around her face, and her ponytail sits cockeyed at the nape of her neck. Slightly embarrassed, Lilah pulls her hair back into a neat, simple braid. There’s not much she can do about the darkened circles or her ashen complexion.
As they descend the dark spiral stairs, Lilah catches Marcus watching her from the corner of her eye. The same grimace from earlier distorts his features. Can he really be concerned about her after the tenebrae? She lets the idea wander through her thoughts but then casts it away as being ridiculous. Nox don’t worry about those petty things.
The first room they enter is the kitchen; leftovers sit on the steel appliances and a mess lingers in the tub-sized sink, where Mrs. Flynn stands, a frown distorting her features as she watches Lilah and Marcus walk through. Mrs. Flynn is the academy’s cook and her husband is the groundskeeper. She’s mute, a punishment for some crime unknown to Lilah.
Lilah’s stomach growls, and she remembers that she hasn’t had anything since breakfast at six o’clock this morning. By the amount of light emitted into the house, Lilah guesses it is close to six at night.
Marcus leads her out of the kitchen to the opposite side of the house where a second set of stairs looms like a vortex, leading up to the young men’s dormitory. Just across from these stairs is the director’s office. She’s no stranger to the room and imagines the dark furniture and the pervading smell of cheap wine and cigar smoke—the director’s personal cologne—that will greet her.
Marcus knocks once, and the sound of footfalls precede the door opening with an annoying squeak. “Lilah Crowne,” Director Vance Elmer says, wearing black slacks and a dull red button-down shirt. Lilah guesses he’s in his seventies, making him quite possibly the oldest person she knows. With his prominent nose, the great wrinkles of his face exaggerate even a neutral expression. His short white hair sticks straight up from the top of his head.
As the air from within the room percolates out, her nose wrinkles up in return.
Marcus steps back from the doorway and extends his arm out, exposing a few of his own brands, and ushers Lilah into the room. She steps over the threshold and is washed in white light. In her parade of academies, she’s seen several directors’ offices and they always have some kind of personal touch to them, whether it be decorations or furniture or paintings of their family. Director Elmer’s walls are bare, his decorations nonexistent, and furniture modest. Lilah overheard talk about the director having a son, but she never heard a name. Lilah’s gut folds with unease.
As he shuts the door and walks back to his desk, he says, “Lilah, this behavior is unacceptable,” his tone accusatory. He sits down with a bit of a flourish; he isn’t one who objects to dramatics. Lilah opens her mouth, trying to come up with a witty defense, but he stares her down with unwavering, dark eyes. He motions for her to sit in the chair across from him. She does. “Now, normally when we have this much trouble with one of our students—which is extremely rare—we inform the parents and recommend expulsion. But seeing as the year is nearly over . . .” He folds his hands on the desk and sighs, radically changing his demeanor. “You show such promise, Lilah, but you must learn to control yourself. Waterstone will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”
“I—” Lilah shuts her mouth and tastes the tangy iron of blood. It dribbles from her inner cheek—the one she had chewed on earlier during her tenebrae punishment.
“You are old enough to know the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, so I will not waste either of our time discussing the difference. Do you have a personal vendetta against Instructor Dujardin?” Jean Dujardin, Lilah’s Warfare instructor, has a nasty habit of valuing students based on family names. Lilah admits she should be wiser to it now, but this morning, her patience ran out and she threw a hasty incantation at him after the third or fourth insult he’d hurled at her. “If you do continue with this kind of behavior, you will leave me with little choice. Do you understand what I am saying, Lilah?”
Lilah stares at the wall. “Yes, I understand, sir.” She closes her eyes for three seconds and takes a deep breath. Her pride cushions the uncomfortable remarks, and she lightly traces the pink skin around the black brand on her wrist.
“Focus on the upcoming Ludi,” he says, an edge in his voice. Lilah’s eyes shoot open, and she sees an unknown expression passes over his features, but it’s gone too quickly for Lilah to guess its meaning.
“The Ludi,” she repeats.
“Three days.”
Instructor Ilona Petrovna, the Warrior class teacher at the academy, believes Lilah capable of winning this year and has told Lilah as much. Since the start of her training, Lilah has felt a kind of unity within herself with a weapon in her grasp and an opponent opposite her. All Nox children are required to take a few years of Warrior training at the start of schooling, but after an age, only those who’ve been selected based on talent can continue to train. Faced with an adversary, her anima surges and quiets her uncertainties about the future. It is the one thing Lilah feels sure of any more.
“Ms. Crowne, the next time I see you, it should be when we are leaving for the Ludi.” The director stands and ambles toward the door of the office. He gestures for her to leave.
Lilah smiles politely, but as soon as she turns the corner, her lips droop into a frown. She slinks through the academy, mulling over the director’s words. If I win the Ludi . . .
She relaxes her shoulders and yawns. Hunger pulls at her stomach, but the k
itchen will be clean by now, and Mrs. Flynn does not take kindly to students rooting around after a meal. Lilah proceeds across the dark and empty halls—where is everyone?—and back upstairs, collapsing onto her bed. She lands on paper, a note. Curious, she opens the folds and reads the familiar scribbled handwriting.
Lilah,
I took some leftovers for you and they’re waiting in my room. What is that I hear? I think it’s your stomach!
—Alicia
Lilah grins. It feels good to know someone cares about you.
“I’ve never been this popular,” Quincy says with a sad smile, conjuring once more over Verna’s wounded body.
“Neither have I,” Verna says dryly.
Quincy’s long and narrow freckled face contorts with concern. Dull brown hair flops over, covering one of his eyes. He pulls Verna close. “It looks like someone is trying desperately to kill you.”
Verna puts a hand on Quincy’s shoulder. “You’re telling me.”
Quincy smiles, dimpling his cheeks. His green eyes bore into Verna’s with an intensity that makes her turn away—they remind her of Charlotte’s. “Verna, I overheard you saying you didn’t recognize the warrior that attacked you at Littlewood, but this seems . . . personal.” As he begins to take in the full damage of the explosion, he cautiously hobbles across the threshold and into the kitchen at the back of the snug house.
Behind the pair, the aftermath of the explosion makes the kitchen cabinets look like they’ve been splashed with black paint.
“Seems as though you were the only target, like you were the trigger.” He swivels to face Verna, narrowing his eyes. “You have—had—a daughter, didn’t you?”
Quincy possesses the nearly eradicated skills of a healer, but Verna scowls at his apparent astute observational skills too. But in these times, she is lucky to have the luxury of a healer at all. During the war, they were trophy kills. An army that can’t heal itself is a dead one.
She quickly checks herself. “I had but one child, and she died a long time ago.”
Lilah, being a Nox, is easy to hide from Verna’s Lux life. Verna simply visits the young woman at the academy at the end of each year. She can never stay long, often no more than a day. It’s dangerous, this Verna knows, but she’s willing to take the risk. Lilah still needs her.
When Lilah was young, Verna protected the girl by moving around until Lilah turned six. No one asked questions because the war had freshly ended and people were constantly moving, trying to start again. Verna’s own daughter, who was seventeen at the time Lilah came under Verna’s guardianship, was getting ready to graduate and enter the Sisters’ War. Her mind wonders how the two would have interacted. Would they have become close? Could that friendship have steered Charlotte another way? And Lilah? Might it have eased her growing pains or only made them worse?
Quincy rubs her shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He frowns and looks off, distracted by his own thoughts.
Has he lost someone, too? Undoubtedly. Verna rubs her forehead and looks down at her perfect hands. She has two signa, one on either of her pinky fingers: a small swirl of yellow with a blue square in the center. An overwhelming need to be alone comes over her, and she looks to Quincy. “Thank you. I no longer require your services.”
Quincy visibly swallows, then gives Verna a tentative nod. He dawdles through the rubble to the door.
Verna tramps to the dining room chair closest to her. As she looks at the damage, her chest convulses, and a dull pang shoots through her chest. She pulls her arms tight around her. Her breath wheezes out, and a metallic taste surfaces in her mouth. Verna coughs violently into her hands. When the attack subsides, she looks into blood-splattered fingers.
Chapter Three
“Damn it!” Quincy reappears at Verna’s side and gently picks her up, then lays her down on the couch. Verna’s breath rags out in rough drafts. He brings intertwined hands to his mouth, and a warm yellow glow radiates within the conjoined palms. In one sweeping movement, Quincy throws the glowing light down Verna’s throat. A warm sensation fills Verna’s chest, imitating the hot and humid air she breathed as a child, when she lived in the southern Lux territory years ago. She closes her eyes and wills the pain to leave her body. The incantation seeps out of her skin like sweat, leaving glittering dew on her limbs. “I was worried something like that might happen,” Quincy says. “The blade went into your chest cockeyed, nicking your lung.”
Verna tentatively inhales. “Thank you, Quincy.” She smiles, not only for Quincy’s quick reflexes, but also out of satisfaction for knowing that Quincy isn’t quite as skilled as he pretends to be. No proper healer would miss a nicked lung. Verna darts her eyes to the window. Dusk falls upon them.
“No need to thank me, I’m just glad I was still here when it happened.” He smiles, lifting his hand and running it through his brunette hair. “Listen, I’d like to stay the night to keep a watch on your vitals.”
Unease washes through Verna, but dare she protest again? If he had healed her properly this time, there should be no need for his care. “That won’t be necessary. Now, if you’d let yourself out, I must get some rest.” She doesn’t need to look at his face to see the shock mingled with surprise. This isn’t the way Lux treat each other, but Verna doesn’t have the patience to care about how she appears at the moment.
Verna gropes the side of the couch, pulling herself up to a sitting position. She navigates into the kitchen, then turns right her room. Listening to Quincy’s footsteps as he stumbles through the rubble, she turns to watch him leave. The door slams shut.
Verna takes a deep breath. As she exhales, the unease releases, too. Pleased with finally being alone, she prepares herself for sleep.
It is in quiet moments like this when she thinks of Lilah and what her day has entailed, whether she finds herself in trouble or in need of motherly advice. Verna knows she’s not Lilah’s mother, but she still allows herself to indulge in thoughts such as this. It can’t be harmful, loving the child. It is what she needs most, to be loved.
Walking into her cozy bedroom, she sees the familiar honey-colored walls and floral-patterned blankets. Verna falls asleep the moment her head touches the thick pillow.
Pain radiates through Lilah’s arm as she rolls off her bed and walks three doors down to Alicia’s room. Faint voices echo out from the girls’ rooms like ghosts hidden within the walls. Light escapes beneath their doors creating oblong shadows that flood onto the opposite wall. Lilah hastens toward the door and knocks faintly, whispering, “It’s me.”
Alicia must float to the door since Lilah hears not a single footstep from the other side. The bright light from the open door shadows her friend’s warm face as she motions for Lilah to enter.
Except for its furnishings, Alicia’s room looks nothing like Lilah’s. Piles of clothes cover the bed, obscuring the geometric pattern of Alicia’s blankets. Notes litter the floor and masses of books spread over her desk. Alicia studies history and language, which fits her scattered thoughts and wise insights. Most, if not all of the time, she is off in another world.
Lilah observes her friend under the candlelight, code by the Order—the new rulers of the land—to safeguard the environment from the destructive energy methods used in the past. When Alessandra Hilt performed a coup d’état, decapitating Consul Aulus Petilius Varius and murdering his family, effectively starting the Sisters’ War, the previous consulship was laid to waste. Lilah learned about it in one of her history classes years ago, though now the details have turned fuzzy. Once Alessandra disappeared and the Six punished Florence, the Order took control of the territories, while the countries across the ocean, those controlled by Florence or Alessandra during the war, had their autonomy returned and formed city watch squads. The Order exists as a unified group of thirty “carefully” selected members among different parts of the territories, though the majority of them are Lux; it is not a secret that the Order was initiated by them. Lilah couldn’t blame the Lux, both
sides of the war had Nox leaders. She smirks. They needed a way to make themselves known again.
Lilah became friends with Alicia tentatively at first. She seemed to appear anywhere Lilah happened to be outside of classes, since they didn’t share a single one. Despite Lilah’s best efforts to protect herself against spontaneous social interaction of any kind, Alicia had made a clear effort to talk to her. It wasn’t that Lilah particularly disliked Alicia on first meeting her, but Alicia’s enthusiasm made Lilah wary. Maybe the reason their friendship grew was because Alicia isn’t a warrior—the competitive factor nonexistent. Then, after Alicia made a snarky comment under her breath directed at the director, Lilah could no longer deny the fact that she liked Alicia’s company. She broke her rule and let herself become friends with a classmate.
“Thanks for the food.” Lilah points to the plate sitting on the edge of the bed, on the precipice of falling.
“I only ask that in return, you tell me every single detail of what happened with the director.” Alicia leans forward, her straight chocolate hair falling in front of her round olive face, and cocks her brow. Lilah relays what the director told her. “Well, at least he didn’t expel you,” Alicia says, shrugging.
“Yeah,” Lilah says. “Only a few more weeks . . .” She grabs the slice of wheat bread and rips off a piece to shove in her mouth. It tires her to chew. After eating the bread, she picks up the small chunk of brie and devours it, too.
“Who knows how things will end up? After the Ludi, you might be a star!” Alicia brandishes her hands and shakes her fingers, breaking into laughter a little too loudly.
Lilah laughs along, too; she can always count on Alicia to make a joke. “Thanks.”
Premonition Page 3
