I pick up the cracked portrait of Lukas, smile at Olilly as if nothing is amiss and stuff the pieces into my cloak pocket.
There’s the jostling click and small creak of a door being opened, a flurry of troubled murmuring and then a familiar voice rises above the others.
“Holy Ancient One! She is such a filthy animal!”
My heart drops through my feet and straight to the ground.
Fallon.
I recoil back behind the door, my legs quickly rendered to jelly, the breath sucked clear out of my lungs.
What will she do to me? My heart feels as though it will pound straight through my chest. I glance through the slit by the door frame to see Echo, Paige and Fallon standing in the room, and another spasm of fear shoots through me. Tierney is frozen by her desk, regarding them with barely concealed panic.
Olilly eyes me with abject horror, quickly realizing that I’m not supposed to be here.
“I can’t do this anymore!” Echo cries with a morally outraged wave of her hand toward the naked Diana. “She’s disgusting. Look at her! We can’t be expected...we’re Gardnerians! Not filthy, heathen whores!”
Fallon throws a blanket roughly over Diana. Diana snorts a few times, turns over and resumes snoring. “There,” Fallon says to Echo. “Better?”
“No, Fallon. No,” Echo rejoins. “Only her leaving here for good would make it better.”
Fallon laughs and throws her cloak onto a nearby chair. “She sounds like a snuffling pig.” Fallon’s smile disappears as she takes in Tierney’s frozen expression.
“What are you looking at?” she demands. “Ancient One, you’re like a ghoul.”
I shrink farther back behind the door.
Fallon glances around, as if sensing something amiss, her eyes lighting on Olilly. Her face goes hard. “What are you doing here?”
Eyes wide with terror, Olilly opens her mouth but no sound emerges.
Fallon sighs as if she’s dealing with an unruly dog. “Get over here,” she demands, straightening and pointing to a spot on the floor before her.
Olilly rushes to her, head down, hugging at the sheets.
Fallon narrows her eyes at the girl, slides out her wand and lets it rest in the palm of her hand. “What did I ask you to be?” she asks calmly.
The girl mumbles something, her eyes on the floor.
“I can’t hear you,” Fallon says.
“Invisible,” the girl mumbles.
“What’s that?” Fallon asks, holding a hand to her ear.
“Invisible,” Olilly mumbles a hair louder, her voice choked with fear. “I beg your pardon, Mage Bane, I didn’t expect you...”
“No, no, no,” Fallon grinds out slowly. “To be invisible, you have to sound invisible. Do you sound invisible?”
“Y...yes, Mage Bane. I mean, no, Mage Bane,” the girl stammers.
“Well, which is it?”
The girl just stands there, mired in confusion.
“Get out,” says Fallon, sounding bored.
Fuming, I glower at Fallon, watching her through slitted eyes. Wishing I had a wand and the power to use it.
Hugging the clean sheets, the girl flees.
Fallon blows out a sound of disgust and leans back against a desk. She lifts her wand, murmurs a spell and absentmindedly creates a roiling, blue ball of smoke that whooshes to life over the wand’s tip.
I cringe at her casual showing of power. The ball morphs into a sapphire swirl and then into a puff of gray smoke.
Fallon turns to Echo with a sly smile. “Did you hear about Grasine Pelthier?”
“No,” Echo replies.
Fallon’s grin turns malicious. “She’s to be fasted. To Leander Starke.”
Tierney’s hands freeze on the vials.
Who’s Leander?
“The glassmaker?” Paige chimes in. “He apprentices with Tierney’s father, doesn’t he?”
Pain slices across Tierney’s features, the soft rain outside hardening into a pelting downpour.
“Oh, that’s right,” Fallon says to Tierney with mock concern. “I heard something about your fancying him.”
My neck burns with frustrated outrage.
Tierney doesn’t move, doesn’t look up at Fallon. Muted thunder rumbles and the heavens open up, a sheet of rain now obscuring the window’s view.
“He kissed her,” Fallon crows to Paige and Echo.
Tierney’s head rises, hatred burning in her eyes. Lightning flashes, and the rain beats down harder.
Fallon sighs. “She said he has lips soft as silk.”
Lightning flashes again, the windows rattling as if they’ll blow in. Tierney grasps at the desk’s edge, her eyes as dark as the storm. I worriedly look toward the window and wonder if Tierney’s distress is somehow influencing the weather.
“Don’t worry, Tierney,” Fallon croons. “Fasting’s soon to be mandatory. I’m sure the Council will even find someone for you.” Fallon turns to Echo and Paige, fighting back the laughter. “Someone they want to punish.” Fallon can’t help herself; she laughs openly and glances sideways at Paige, who’s fighting back a giggle. Echo shakes her head as if they’re being impossibly childish.
Disgust wars with surprise inside me.
Fasting soon to be mandatory? When was that decided?
Losing interest in Tierney and ignoring the storm that’s blown up out of nowhere, Fallon grabs up the package she’s come in with. “Look what I’ve got,” she crows. She pulls off the wrapping paper and brown string.
A new military uniform spills out. The darker gray of a Lead Apprentice; no more lower apprentice gray. Five wide stripes of silver are embroidered around the sleeve.
“Oh, Fallon,” Paige gushes. “You’ve got your new uniform! The cloak, too?”
Fallon hangs her uniform on a wall hook, then unfurls a new cloak edged with another five stripes of silver.
Fallon throws the cloak on and swirls around.
Envy jabs at me as I take her in.
She looks dramatic and powerful and beautiful—the image of everything the Black Witch should be.
Fallon grins smugly. “And they’re promoting me to full soldier at year’s end. Twelfth Division.”
“Oh, and that’s Lukas’s division!” Paige giddily enthuses. “You’ll be together again!”
Of course they will be, I think bitterly. A perfect match in both power and cruelty.
“I’m not surprised they’re promoting you early,” Echo says with approval. “We need our Black Witch. And you’re our best hope. Someone needs to put down that awful Resistance movement before it gets any more out of hand.”
Out of hand? I wasn’t aware the fight against the weak and shadowy Resistance had escalated.
“They attacked the Sixth Division Base only last week,” Echo continues. “Dressed as our soldiers!”
Fallon spits out a dismissive laugh. “Oh, we’ll take care of the heathens’ little Resistance,” she boasts, her hand jauntily on her hip. “We’ll roast a few Keltic villages if they keep it up. The Resistance will be routed out and struck down soon enough.”
My heart thuds high and hard in my chest.
Fallon swirls again, then grows petulant and plops down on Paige’s bed. “He left today.”
“Oh, how can you bear it?” Paige cries.
“You’ll be fasted in no time,” Echo assures her. “All that worry about Elloren Gardner for nothing. I told you to ignore the rumors.”
Fallon glares at Echo accusingly. “Well, you were certainly friendly with her for a time.”
Echo purses her lips at Fallon. “Yes, well, that was before I realized she was intent on being friends with a half-breed.”
A spike of outrage over the slight to Gareth cuts into my debilitating fear.
Fallon pulls out her wand and sends up a puff of ice crystals from it. “What I would give for an excuse to freeze her blood.”
Fear renewed, I shrink back against the wall.
“Fallon!” Echo chastises her sharply. “Don’t joke so. She’s a Gardnerian.”
“She smells like an Icaral,” Fallon snipes back with a smirk.
Diana snorts, still asleep, and kicks off her blanket.
Echo eyes Diana with horror. “She’s so...disgusting! And arrogant!”
“And the way she tosses her hair!” Paige puts in, eager to be included.
Fallon rises, picks up a set of shears from the desk and grins at Echo. “I think it’s time to teach the Lupine bitch a lesson.”