by ‘You look like a parti-coloured rain cloud,’ was Zareen’s comment upon my appearance at her door.
She has a little cupboard of a room in the west wing, sort of near the library. It stood empty for over a month while Zareen was off enduring — er, benefiting from — her own, post-mission treatment back at the School of Weird. If I’ve had a tough time of it lately, try talking to Zar. By the end of a certain few, chaotic weeks, she was half out of her wits and I hadn’t seen the whites of her eyes in a while.
She’s better now. I think.
‘I’m grumpy,’ I agreed, plopping down into the only unoccupied chair in Zareen’s tiny little room. I produced a few raindrops in illustration of my point, and they rained with cheerful greyness all over the faded crimson carpet.
‘Let me guess…’
She was lounging in her chair as was her usual wont, her booted feet up on a corner of her disordered desk. The green streaks in her black hair were brighter than usual; freshly dyed. She’d lost the inky shadows under her eyes, mostly, and she was a normal-for-her kind of pale, not bone-white.
Most of all, she’d got her withering sarcasm back, as she proceeded to demonstrate.
‘Word is the regulator’s ready for testing, which ought to please you. But you’re not pleased. So, you’re officially too special and important to be sent out with it, is that it? Poor Ves.’
I glowered at her. ‘Milady’s reluctant to interrupt my studies.’
‘With Merlin. The actual, literal Merlin, with whom many a person would kill to study.’
This is what I like about Zareen. She’s bracingly realistic.
‘You make a good point,’ I allowed.
‘I’ll swap places with you.’ She laughed at the look on my face, showing off a new tongue stud: poison-green and glittering. ‘Not for real. It’s not like Ophelia wouldn’t notice.’
‘No, that’s actually a great idea,’ I said earnestly. ‘Merlin’s got such a lot to teach. Everybody should benefit from it. Not just me.’
‘Said in no selfish spirit whatsoever.’
‘Zero self-interest involved,’ I agreed. ‘Not one iota.’
Zareen shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a lecture or two, but good luck getting it past Ophelia. And Milady.’
Ophelia was rather retiring. Curiously so, for a person with her kind of power. She was obviously most comfortable in her own cottage, teaching one person at a time (preferably me). She wasn’t the type to volunteer herself as a lecturer.
I had a notion Milady might like the idea, however.
‘Wouldn’t get me out of Tuesdays, though,’ I said, regretfully. ‘I want only one glorious, glittering week…’
‘Risking your life for the good of Queen and Country?’
‘See. You get me.’
Zareen shook her head. ‘Ves. Can you think of even a single time someone has seriously said no to you?’
I sat up a bit. ‘Loads. Milady often says—’
She held up a hand. ‘I’ll rephrase. One single time someone has seriously said no to you, and you didn’t just go and do it anyway. And get away with it.’
I dutifully thought.
‘Nope.’
‘There you go.’ Zareen quirked a brow at me.
I took this to mean, Go do your Ves thing.
She was right. I was going, one way or another. I’d rather do it with Milady’s official sanction than without, but whatever.
I felt better.
‘Hey, maybe we can take you along, too,’ I offered, brightly smiling. My idea of gratitude. Not everybody appreciates it.
‘Seems unlikely there’d be cause,’ was her only reply. And she had reason. I mean, Zareen’s particular talents might more rightly be termed peculiar.
That said.
Famous last words.
***
I worked my magic on Ophelia next (the charismatic kind, not the enchantment kind. The former might not succeed, but the latter would get me squashed like a bug).
I found her intransigent.
‘But you’d be wonderful,’ I protested, smiling in the face of a flint-eyed glare from my usually mild-mannered tutor. ‘Think how much everyone would learn!’
I’d hopped through to the Merlin cottage via the personal gateway I have in my room. Ophelia made it for me, even drew a pretty silver star to mark the location. I chose to interpret that as a mark of special favour, not merely a practicality. I mean, she could have just drawn a big, black ‘X’.
I found her engaged in study, as was common. That, or she was indulging in her secret(ish) passion for Georgette Heyer novels. She was tucked up in an overstuffed armchair and I couldn’t see much of the book she was clutching, except that it looked rather ragged.
Having swept in like the whirlwind I am, I’d started arguing for the lecture immediately. ‘Ophelia! Zareen and I had the best idea.’
It all went downhill from there, but, to be fair, that was according to plan.
‘I am no lecturer.’ Ophelia shut her book with a decisive, and disapproving, snap. I caught a glimpse of the title before she hid it away. The Talisman Ring. ‘And,’ she added, somewhat ruining the impact of a statement so sternly intoned, ‘Merlin’s arts are not for everyone.’
‘True,’ I agreed. ‘Just for you. And me.’
She looked at me with an expression I tried not to interpret as second thoughts on that latter point.
‘I understand,’ I said hastily. ‘Wouldn’t dream of pushing.’
She waited, sceptical.
I suppose, after a couple of months, she’s getting used to me.
‘Can I have next Tuesday off?’ I said, possibly rushing my fence a bit. ‘And maybe the one after that?’
She blinked, and her hauteur deepened. ‘For what purpose?’
‘There’s an important assignment I need to be involved with. Might take a week or two.’
‘Oh. Of course.’
It was my turn for a surprised silence. ‘Really?’
‘Certainly. I am not so stern a task-master as all that, I hope. There is time.’
‘Oh. Well. Thank you.’
She studied me. ‘Your first proposal was a deliberate attempt to unsettle me so I would agree more readily to your second.’
I opened my mouth, hoping some glib defence would spring easily to my lips.
It didn’t.
‘You needn’t have gone to such lengths. While the prospect of your temporary absence seems trivial in comparison with the horrible prospect of my performing lectures for the benefit of a hundred reluctant students, I would have agreed anyway.’
‘I see that now,’ I said in a small voice.
‘Consequently, the complimentary nerve-shattering was unnecessary.’
I mulled that over. She was right. Why had I imagined I’d have to manoeuvre her into it? It was Milady who arranged my schedule — and held decided opinions about it, at that.
Perhaps I’d got so used to dealing with my mother, I’d forgotten that not everybody said ‘no’ as a matter of course.
‘I apologise,’ I said. ‘Another time I will simply enquire.’
To my relief, she began to look more amused than affronted. ‘I perceive that few people ever really refuse you anything,’ she said, curiously echoing what Zareen had said earlier in the day.
I began to wonder if I was viewed as a spoiled, wheedling child by the Society at large, and decided not to pursue the subject any further.
‘Just my mother,’ I offered. ‘It doesn’t stick.’
***
Three days passed; days in which Indira remained close-mouthed about the regulator, Milady did not summon me for a mission briefing, and Jay did not return.
By Friday my mood had gone from grey and drizzly to storm warnings, take cover.
By Sunday I was out in the unicorn grove, sulking. I’d love to say something more flattering, like, acknowledging my feelings and engaging in judicious self-care, but I was sulking. The ears were down, the tail was drooping, I was eating grass, for goodness’ sake.
So when Jay suddenly appeared, the sun came out again in my sad little world and I went to meet him all a-frisk.
‘And there she is,’ said Jay, striding into the heart of Addie’s grove and smiling. I think. I may not have mentioned this, but human expression can look a little different when you aren’t presently being one. The stretching of Jay’s face in sideways directions, the baring of the teeth; these registered with me as good and odd in about equal measure.
I gambolled coquettishly towards him, tossing my mane. If there was a just goddess in attendance then there ought to have been an opportune gust of wind at just that moment, blowing back my hair, and a ray of sunlight like a star gleaming at the tip of my horn.
There probably wasn’t.
There definitely wasn’t, for Jay’s smile disappeared and he took a step back. ‘Wait. Are you okay? What are you doing? Is there something wrong with your legs?’
I suppose unicorn mannerisms are no more easily comprehensible to a human. So much for my joyous prance of welcome. I sniffed and shoved him with my nose.
He grinned and stroked it for me. ‘Do you fancy coming out, or should I come back next week?’
I answered this question by setting off for the exit at a brisk trot. Jay had to run to keep up with me, which he did with enviable grace. He looked good. Like always. Dressed in jeans and his beloved black jacket. Slightly tousled hair, but the look suited him.
‘Great, so,’ Jay said, keeping pace with me without apparent effort, ‘what do we know about Silvessen?
What? I shook my head. Nothing. What are you talking about.
‘That’s what I thought. Which makes it the perfect choice, I suppose, because if even you don’t know anything about it then probably no one’s very attached to the place. Means we can do some pretty thorough testing and just, see what the results are, no great pressure. I— uh, Ves? Wait?’
This speech confused me to the point of frustration, for I had no idea what he was talking about and no way of saying so.
So, I took off for the exit at a dead gallop, leaving Jay to high-tail it after me. So to speak. Oh, what kind of a unicorn would he be, if he could be one? Dark and sexy. No question.
Having wound my way through the maze of silver-leaved bushes, roses that shouldn’t have been in flower, draping willow trees and other faerie paraphernalia with practised ease, I raced over the threshold of Addie’s grove and collapsed in a Ves-shaped heap on the other side of it.
Jay took another couple of minutes to reach me, time which I spent checking that my clothing was correct (yes), arranging my disordered hair (important) and regaining my composure.
So, when Jay burst out of the grove, looking windblown and wild-eyed and, I judged, confused, I was able to say, with a certain icy cool: ‘Testing? Testing what?’
‘The, um. The regu— Milady hasn’t told you?’
‘No. She has not.’
Jay stopped dead. ‘Oh.’
Oh indeed.
This was it, then. My request had been denied. I’d been excluded from the mission I had a unique right to be part of — even Milady had agreed that no one was better suited to the job.
And, okay, I was going to find a way to go along anyway, sneak if I had to. But, still. Everyone else thought I should be left out.
I felt like I’d been punched.
‘It’s… probably because of your training,’ Jay offered. ‘It’s really important.’
‘That’s what Milady said, when I asked her if I could go last week.’
Jay nodded. ‘It is really important,’ he said again.
I felt too forlorn to reply. I wasn’t even angry, just gutted. Jay was going, Indira would be going, someone from the Troll Court, most likely — maybe even Emellana Rogan, my personal hero.
And I’d be stuck at home, going deep with myself so I could understand just how much magick and lacerated feelings were lurking down there.
‘I’m sorry, Ves,’ said Jay, apparently reading some fraction of this in my face.
I nodded and turned away. Back Home, then. I had homework for Ophelia that I hadn’t finished, because I was hoping I wouldn’t need to for a couple of weeks. Then, on Tuesday, lessons. Or… or a rule-and-law-defying stealth pursuit of Jay’s mission to Silvessen.
I was losing my enthusiasm to even try the latter — and that wasn’t good.
Jay walked beside me in silence for a couple of minutes. I wanted to ask him how his latest assignment went, or how he was doing today, but words didn’t come.
Eventually he said, ‘No. You’re right, it isn’t okay.’
‘What?’
‘You should be with us.’
I tried a smile. ‘Surely the law-abiding Jay isn’t suggesting I break ranks and hare off after you.’
‘I’m not suggesting that.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m suggesting I’ll refuse to go unless you’re coming too.’
‘Oh!’
I sneaked a sideways look at Jay. He had his mulish face on, jaw set, eyes steely.
‘Jay,’ I said. ‘I appreciate that.’
He merely nodded, brusquely, and strode on.
This time, it was me who had to trot a bit to keep up with him.
