“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you but—Oh God he’s going to hurt someone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hurt wins out in the fight against my nausea. The beast and all its fiery anger roars to life. “I told you so much about me. I took you to my friend to get answers. I risked … you have no idea what I’ve risked telling you—”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I stalk to the door. “I get it. You were with the hunters all along.”
“No.”
I throw the door open more forcefully than I meant to. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have trusted you.” I look back at her when I’ve reached my bike. “I thought you’d be repelled by me, when you realised what I am and what I’ve done, but I didn’t think you’d—” I lock my jaw.
“Yasmin, please!” There’s misery in her voice but I don’t turn around.
As I cycle away from her, I hear her voice in the distance. And then it rings out in my head, shooting pain across my temple. Yasmin!
I ride faster, my heart beating hard. When I’m ten minutes away, I look at my chest. At the talisman thumping against my collarbone. The Akasha protects me from all mental interference. Nothing should be able to pass it. Fray should not be able to reach out to me.
I tighten my grip on the handlebars. What is Fray, and how can she overpower Guy’s Akasha?
NINETEEN
THE RESOLUTION
It’s the next evening, and I haven’t been able to get Fray out of my thoughts. I’m fearful of the power she has, of how she bypassed Akasha as if it was never there.
I spoke to Guy earlier, mind to mind. He confirmed what I thought: that nobody should have been able to pass the protection of the talisman. No Legendary can beat another Legendary’s power—we have an equal amount of Majick. Only a Numen should be able to best the power of a Legend-Blood, he said.
Fray is an anomaly. Cold runs through me.
I turn on a heater as I pass it and settle against the wall for a deep talk with Currer Bell. I suppose a hamster isn’t the best conversation partner, but he looks up when I start speaking—and goes back to rearranging his bed when he realises I’m not giving him a treat.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I confess. “I shouldn’t have told her anything about me. If the Numina find out I’ve told a Pure, they’ll be furious. And then I’ll have to….”
I can’t say it out loud.
“Especially since she’s working with the hunters,” I whisper. “I guess that’s how they knew we weren’t ordinary animals. So, I did betray the Red after all.”
I sag against the table. Currer ignores me. “I have to ask for help.”
I’m about to call for Mavers but someone interrupts me by knocking on the door. It’s not the thundering knock of Guy, but a dainty knock. Which means it’s either Minnie, Willa, or Fray. I shake my head. It’s not Fray—she doesn’t know my address.
“Yasmin?” Her voice sounds through the door, proving me wrong. “I’ve come to apologise. Can you let me in so we can talk?”
When I don’t speak, can’t speak, she knocks again. “Knowing my luck, this’ll be the wrong address. I bet you don’t even live here.”
“I do live here,” I manage to choke out.
“Your boss gave me your address. She recognised me from the other day, when I gave you my number.” Fray pauses, shuffling on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry, Yasmin. I should have told you about my uncle. I thought it’d scare you away if you knew, and I needed you to help me learn about my dream. I haven’t told them about you, I swear. I’ve been trying to get them out of Almery all week. I thought they were moving away, going to some other place to hunt instead, but it’s like they know. It’s like they know about you.”
I don’t respond. I’m still angry at her for not being honest with me. I know it’s hypocritical—Legend knows I’m keeping things from her—but I’m protecting the Legend Mirror. I’m following centuries-old rules. She was lying for a lesser reason.
But if she’s being honest, if she didn’t tell the hunters … who did? How do they know about Legendaries?
“I guess I did scare you away,” she sighs. I hear her leaving and curse my heart for sinking. She showed me compassion when I killed that man. She gave me a chance when I’d murdered someone. The least I can do is give her a chance when all she did was lie.
“I don’t understand why you lied,” I say, opening the door. “But I forgive you. It’s stupid of me. You can tell the hunters everything about us. But I believe you when you say you won’t.”
When she turns to me, her eyes are glossy. I feel horrible. She’s crying because of me. I hug her, hesitant until her arms pull me closer. “Sorry,” she whispers.
“It’s alright.” I’m surprised to find my words true. “I guess there are a few things you should know about me, too, if we’re being truthful.”
She straightens up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “We’re still friends, then? You don’t think I’m going to betray you?”
“No—”
“Because I don’t agree with what they’re doing. I mean, I kind of do. People are getting hurt and that needs to stop, but instead of hunting the animal they could put their effort into keeping people out of the woods. Maybe a news campaign.” I can practically see the light turn on in her head. “I could do that!”
“You could.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, jutting her chin out defiantly. “I’m going to do that. If people stay out of the woods, they’ll stop getting hurt, and then the hunters will stop. I’ll make them stop!”
I catch her shoulders, trapping her frenetic movements. “How? Please don’t do anything major. You’ll draw even more attention to the woods … and the murders.”
She covers one of my hands with her own. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to organise a protest.”
“Just.”
“I’ll say it’s inhumane, killing animals like that. There are laws about that, right? You have to get a permit.”
I bite down on my smile. “A permit to kill animals? Do those exist?”
“Yes.” She flashes me a scowl. “And I’m going to make sure they don’t get one.” She turns on her heel and stalks down the corridor, in the opposite direction to the stairwell.
“Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
“No.” She comes back, chewing her lip. “I’m actually very lost. I’ve never been here before.” She balances on her tip toes to peer into my flat. “Nice place,” she says and walks right in.
I shake my head and follow her.
TWENTY
THE FRIENDSHIP
For the next two weeks, Fray and I spend more and more time together. I read runes for an answer to her dreams, and she tries her best to summon every kind of Majick I know. So far, we haven’t been given a clear explanation and Fray hasn’t been able to do anything Legendary.
I never take off the Akasha pendant when I’m with her, though I still find myself with her words in my head when she’s angry. I could ask her to attempt Psychic Majick but I’m not sure it’s safe for her to use me as a subject. I don’t want to fall into a memory dream again, and Fray must agree since she doesn’t suggest it once.
Besides, she’d be able to hear voices if she were Psychic and she doesn’t, so I’m hesitant to mention it.
I think she’s something else. She has power enough to pass the protection of my talisman and she isn’t showing signs of any Majick I’ve sensed before.
I’m left with one option: to ask Mavers for help, to take her to the Academy.
I don’t know if she’s ready for complete immersion in my world. She acts like she’s fine with me being Legendary, like she’s coping with the possibility of having her own Majick, but I catch her scratching at a scar on her forearm when she thinks I’m not watching. A nervous habit.
When we’re not looking for answers, Fray asks me questions. She
starts with how I cope with the Change, how I get home when I wake up naked, how my bullet wound is healing, what I thought when I found myself in her kitchen. She’s amazed when I show her my shoulder, and even more so when I tell her Guy healed me.
That leads to a long talk about family, in which I find out she has a sister called Kate who is studying law at a university in London, and Fray looks at me with more sympathy than I deserve when I talk about my past relationship with Guy.
Around the middle of the week the questions change from my nature, my world, to me. I notice the shift but don’t voice it. I pretend not to notice that she twitches nervously whenever she asks something personal. I answer each question honestly—my favourite colour is the weak purple of early morning and I prefer tea to coffee, but sometimes I drink coffee plain when I need the extra caffeine. I don’t have a favourite food because I love to eat anything, and I have trouble sleeping the week before and after the Crea moon because I’m scared the beast will take over in my sleep.
I become uncomfortable with the attention after a while, even though I try to distract myself by reading the gold-leaf tome of Manticore history. So I turn the questions on Fray. She tells me everything I ask, from her favourite artist to the TV show she watches the most often—a soap with more cliché plots and predictability than a typical romance novel—to her least favourite dessert and her pet hates.
I ask about her family, tentatively mentioning her father, and find out he left when she was younger and that her mother moved to London to be nearer her sister three years ago. She has a grandmother who she loves more than the rest of her family put together, but she lives hours away in the Midlands. Her uncle is her guardian and, officially, she lives with him and his wife, though her uncle understands her need to be independent and stay in her own home.
She talks about her family with detachment. I get the impression she’s long grown used to being apart from them. I’m not sure they mean anything to her anymore, and I want to ask why they’re so distant but I don’t. I don’t want to push her.
On the seventh day she waits for me outside the Muffin Emporium, bursting with delight and mischief. “You’re coming home with me,” she says, “and we’re having dinner.”
“Like … dinner?” Panicked anticipation thrums through me.
“Yes.” She gives me a steady look. “Like dinner.”
*
By the tenth day of our friendship-slash-courtship I trust her enough to tell her about my nature. She’s human but she might not be Pure, I tell myself. It’s not breaking the rules if she’s already Legendary in the smallest way.
We lounge on my bed, watching a film on my laptop. A giant robot wades through atmospheric fog on screen, falling dramatically onto a plain of ice, but Fray’s gentle breathing has my complete attention.
“So,” she says, settling further into the cushions. “How does it work—the Manticore thing?”
“You want to know everything about my nature?”
“No. Yes. I—how do you become what you are? Do you have to be bitten or infected?”
I snort. “I’m not a werewolf. It’s in my blood. My father was a Crea and a Manticore, so I inherited the ability to Change and share his form.”
“What about your mum?”
“I don’t want to talk about her. My father—fine. My mother—not so much.”
She wriggles around until her shoulder rests against mine. “Do you get on with your dad, then?”
“I never met him. He died four years ago.”
She balls up my blanket, putting her fingers into the little holes in the knitting. “Oh.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. I don’t understand why people say that.”
“Sympathy, Yasmin.” She looks up at me, amused. “So you inherited your … condition.”
I nudge her. “I’m not The Hulk, either. But yeah, I inherited it. My parents are both Legendary—mythological—so I’m a Legend-Blood. If I had a human mum or dad. I’d be a Cross-Blood.”
“And what’s the other thing? Crea?”
“Legendaries who Change during the full moon.”
“And Dei?”
“Descendants of Gods.” She frowns so I explain, “It’s short for deity.”
A little crease forms between her eyebrows. “So if a Legendary has a kid with a human they’re a crossbreed?”
I nod. “They’re still Legendary. Numina blood is powerful.” I tense momentarily at the feel of Fray’s fingers weaving through my hair. The film is long forgotten.
“So you’re powerful?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Yes.”
“What can you do?”
You know what I can do.
She smiles and lays her head down, angling her face so she can see the laptop screen. Her hair fans out around her, some of it falling in my face. “I guess I do.”
She’s quiet for a while, and then, Yasmin?
Yeah?
What if we don’t find out what I am?
I wince. I’ll find out. Don’t worry.
She yawns and hugs a pillow to her chest. No. We’ll find out. She sighs, throws the pillow, and holds her hand out to me. “I can’t get comfy,” she says by way of explanation.
I snuggle closer and she rests her head on my chest. She yawns, “I’m staying here tonight.”
I hold my breath until she falls asleep.
*
Two days later finds me on Fray’s sofa after work, watching as she catalogues her college coursework. There are print outs and book scans and sketches in various states of completion all across the floor. If I ever saw this room spotless I’m not sure I’d recognise it.
In the middle of the disorder is Fray, cross-legged in a pearlescent cream blouse and flannel pyjamas. There was a moment when she tried to replicate her current position in a pencil skirt. I had to catch her.
“Tell me about the Red,” she says, tucking mousy hair behind her ear. She holds up a blue glazed vase for inspection. “I should know about them if I’m going to their party, right?”
“The Red is … we’re a family.” At some point I stopped referring to the Red as ‘them’. I’m not sure when that happened. “There’s this guy called Mavers. He’s like a big brother to all of us. He raised me, raised most of us. Home schooled us. Cared for us. Cleaned up our mistakes.”
“So he’s like the wizened old man of you all?”
“He’s only thirty six, but yeah.” I glance out of the window, at the rain pelting the field around Fray’s house. “Most Legendaries don’t live together like we do. It’s better for us to be separate or in couples—that way we don’t risk drawing attention to ourselves and the Legend Mirror.”
She leans forward, her work abandoned for the moment. “The Legend Mirror is your … home world? Is that how you’d say it?”
“I guess. It’s where our ancestors live, where most Legendaries are born and stay. If we’re here, we’re rejected. Our parents didn’t want us with them. It got so bad, the Numina were abandoning so many children to Earth, that Mavers had to set up a safe house.”
She tilts her head, so I explain, “Before the Academy we lived with the nearest Legendary, like foster children. But they never wanted us there. Legendary kids are a burden. But Mavers is strange, and he’s a really good person, so he took in children to help them.”
Fray motions for me to continue, her chin cupped in her hands.
“At first it was just a small group of kids and Mavers, but he had help from a woman called Amity. She’s a lot like him. She helped Mavers care for us and taught us to control our Majick and our Crea natures.
“Word spread about us in the Legendary community and the Red became kind of a folk tale. Legendary children would cross the country to Callaire looking for Mavers to take them in. After a while there were too many kids for his house, so he bought the Academy building and moved everyone there. He named his safe house after his ancestor since all the kids were fighters and survivors—they�
��d all battled their own wars, and Mars, the God of war and the red planet, was an obvious patron.”
“Wouldn’t that be a bad idea, though?” Fray asks. “If it’s dangerous to live in a group?”
I shrug. “It’s bad to live in big groups because we draw attention to ourselves. Mavers teaches us to be discreet, to keep hidden. We don’t expose ourselves. There aren’t hundreds of us anyway. Most people leave once they’re old enough, and there aren’t as many Legendary kids being dumped these days.”
“What happens if a bunch of kids are left all at once?”
Chaos is what happens.
TWENTY ONE
THE NEWCOMERS
On Tuesday I bike to Fray’s after work. I need to find a bus that goes near her house, because this constant cycling has my legs aching. Still, I take the opportunity to breathe in the open air. It’s the middle of the month, and the beast is buried beneath my own will.
The bright house stands apart from the shadows of Almery Wood. As I get closer I hear music pulsing, like the wind has a heartbeat, and I see figures in the window. I still the bike under me and debate coming back later. Fray’s clearly busy. But then her head pokes out of her bedroom window and she calls me over.
I let myself inside, following the music to Fray’s room. She bounds over when she sees me and throws her arms around me. Her hair is wild and curly, her eyes made bright by a ring of kohl. She grins like I’ve made her night by turning up.
“I brought some things to help you with your coursework,” I say as she leads me to the landing. “Though you seem to have abandoned it.”
“I’m having a night off,” she declares loftily. “One night.” She pats my face and says, “I like you, Yasmin. You know that, right?”
My face warms. “I know that. How much exactly have you drunk today?”
“Just a bottle. A small bottle.” She uses her hands to demonstrate a large bottle. “My friend came—from America! Can you believe it, Yasmin? He’s here.”
I search my brain for a name—she told me about her best friend during one of our question and answer sessions. She’s known him for three years and they talk every day, even though he lives across the world and they’ve never met. “Clark?” I guess.
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