Her lungs weren’t actually on fire. Aside from the impossibility she had come to know what fire felt like. The warmth, the glow, the way it licked over her skin leaving her unscathed in its path. Didn’t feel like that. This made her chest ache, her throat feel tight and every breath felt like a fraction of the precious air she needed.
“Keep it up! I told you, you drop you’re done.”
That was the reason she was having such a terrible day. Rewind the clock a bit.
Written tests were rarely difficult. Equally rarely were they interesting. Education in Rivka’s experience was usually not much more than rote memorization. She was not blessed with a perfect memory- one couldn’t have everything- but memory could be trained just like everything else. Memorizing a piece was easy. The movement of her fingers, whatever the instrument, created a roadmap; even if her mind could not recall, her fingers could. The sequence became muscle memory. Memorizing anything else wasn’t much different. In fact she usually did it exactly the same way; map a concept to a piece. Each phantom note recalled a piece of information.
Preparing for Nova Lux’s tests was a little different. There were fewer facts to memorize, fewer pieces of information to recall on command. But the principle remained. Tie a concept to a piece and her fingers could lead her through every relevant thought. Then it was just articulation. Outline her thoughts, explain her reasoning and the rest handled itself.
Preparing for this evaluation was the next best thing to impossible. Individual assessments were just that. The identity of her evaluator, the nature of the test, all of these were obscured from her. The only thing she knew was where and when to show up.
And she’d been waiting for three fucking hours.
She didn’t have the woman’s name or number, so there was no contacting her directly. ‘Surely she’s just a little late’ had expired hours ago. Then she’d wondered if she had the right place. After checking- multiple times- that she did she had segued into irritation. She had stood waiting patiently, leaned on the wall, sat on the floor, and now had progressed all the way into laying on the floor with her hands clasped behind her head. What else could she do? Where the was this woman?
“Comfortable down there?”
The sort words caught her attention and Rivka sat up too quickly to avoid smacking her head on the same surface that was keeping the sun out of her eyes. Air sucked in through her nose and she suppressed the urge to curse. Loudly. But rubbing her forehead gave her a chance to look over the speaker. Dark-haired. Green eyes. Tall. Could have been twenty five as easily as twenty. Nondescript clothes- light jacket, plain black shirt, jeans and well-worn boots. And on second look what seemed like a pair of headphones around her neck.
She also clearly expected an answer to her not-rhetorical question.
“No. But I’ve been waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“My evaluating Ars Magi.” Her voice was definitely soft. Curiously soft. Like she was in a library, or raising her voice might strain it. If the background noise wasn’t so low Rivka might have had a hard time hearing her. “She was supposed to meet me three hours ago.”
“Was she? I say I’m right on time.”
Rivka blinked. There was no helping it. It wasn’t a surprise that this was her evaluator, it wasn’t hard to guess. She was prepared for all sorts of reasons why she might be late. But not in a million years did she expect her to just say she wasn’t late.
“You were supposed to be here three hours ago. I have the notice. Right here.”
“So?”
“So… You’re late.”
“I rescheduled.” The older Magi shrugged. “I changed my mind. I had somewhere more important to be. Take your pick. What does it matter? You’re a cadet. This evaluation is important to you, but it’s just a part of my job.”
“No,” There was a note of dismissal- almost disdain- in that soft voice now and Rivka bristled. She shot to her feet, the ache in her head forgotten, and crossed her arms. “You’re late.”
“Prove it. Did you know your name’s wrong?” The Magi drew a folder- one of the big ones, with a notebook on the opposite side- out from under her arm and opened it. “Rivka Sokolov. Isn’t it supposed to be Sokolova?”
“My… delivering doctor. They weren’t from the Russian diaspora. My Mom has awful handwriting, they thought she meant to write ‘Sokolov’.” Rivka was off-balance. The bareknuckled disregard rocked her back, but that was the point. She was sure of it. It had to be some mind game. “What about it?”
“Just wanted to make sure I had it right.” She leafed through a few pages. “Well, Rivka Sokolov, we’re going to be going on a hike.”
Hike didn’t prove very descriptive. In the sense that they were moving by way of their own feet, yes. Otherwise? Not a fucking thing in common. Miss Evaluator was moving along no problem, aided by a magitech bike. She probably had it in the lowest gear— how should she know— but that was still too fast to keep up with. That wouldn’t be a problem if she could transform. But she wasn’t allowed.
Know what else she wasn’t allowed? Breaks. If she slowed down that soft, bored voice tinged with distaste started counting down from ten. She could game that a little, buy herself a couple paces to breathe during the countdown, but that only lasted a little while. By now she had been running so long that if she slowed down she was sure she would stop. Pitch into the dirt, maybe, but she wouldn’t be able to pick the pace back up. So now she was keeping the pace constantly, every step her muscles felt worse and her lungs burned harder. She had been sure she would drop a while back. Now she thought she’d just die.
“Stop.”
That voice was so quiet she barely heard it. When she heard it she still barely processed it. She was so starved for air, for rest, that it almost didn’t register. It wasn’t until the bike stopped that it clicked and then she just… Dropped. Like her strings were cut. Her legs gave out, she hit the concrete and barely caught herself on her hands. She wasn’t panting, panting didn’t cover it; she tried to suck down air like she’d never taken a breath, like she could pull in every bit of oxygen around if she tried hard enough. Rivka was used to being a little short of breath. Singing was a passion, and to be good at it she needed to have lungs fit to shout the Devil out of Hell. Good, strong lungs. But never, ever had she been so out of breath. The red haze in her vision wasn’t even noticeable until air brought its absence, stopped her head feeling light enough to float away. The older Magi was just leaning on her bike, watching with distant and unreadable eyes. Bored. Waiting for her to stop looking like a fish on dry land.
That really, really made her mad.
She pushed herself back to her feet with bloody knuckles, wiped them off on her pant leg, and met her evaluator’s eyes as steadily as she could.
“So what now?”
“Do you know where we are?” She gestured with a hand, pulling a small pack out of the bike’s pannier bag. Rivka followed the movement, taking in what was around her; a place that might once have been a busy suburban region on the water, with commercial buildings and docks along the bank. But it hadn’t been used for decades. Maybe longer. No one lived here, no one had in a long time. Nature was overtaking it again, crumbling buildings and eroding docks. The Nox wasn’t too heavy so they hadn’t strayed completely outside Palmyra’s reach, but… Very close. “This used to be an important, industrious port city of your native Russia. When the Void came people ran. Russians fled east. Many from what used to be Japan fled west. They met in the middle, right here. This one city.”
“But there was nowhere to go. Many stayed here, made this place into Palmyra like we know it now. Some, the most desperate, took to the sea. Right over there, do you see?” Her extended finger lingered on the waterfront, among the rotted and crumbling ruins of docks and moorings. A little further, out into the water, sunken ships protruded from the surface like cairns marking the dead. Skeletal wrecks of dreams and livelihoods, lost to the merciless black water that had claimed them. “There was nowhere for them to go, either, but they tried. They tried, and they prayed so desperately that somewhere they might find safe harbor. Do you know where they went?”
Rivka shook her head, something in her tone raising prickling at her spine. The fire that she had building, the anger she had stoked, banked instantly. Left behind was only weariness.
“Nowhere. In their desperation they sailed straight into the Nox.” The finger curled back into her fist. “Their flight damned them. They never came ashore. Their boats were never seen. Out there, in that black fog, they became monsters. Sunken beneath the waves on rusted ships, forever adrift from any hope of salvation. We’re at the very edge of Palmyra’s shields. The Nox is heavy here, I’m sure even you can feel it.”
“Why are we here, then?”
“Maybe to make a point. To show an arrogant, disrespectful cadet that monsters have been made here. That they can still be found here.” She leaned in closer. “Maybe it was to take you far outside any comforting surroundings. Maybe it was to make sure no one would bother us, or see what happens out here.”
The last, so calm and assured, made the pit of her stomach fall out. Brought an awareness that maybe she was further outside her depth than she realized. The moment passed and her evaluator swung her legs over to the other side of the bike, standing and beginning to stride in that direction.
“Don’t ask questions. It’ll be dark soon. We’re making camp.”
“With what?”
“I brought gear.” She swung the pack side to side. “Since you didn’t bring anything with you, I assume you’re set. No transforming. You can make a fire without your magic. I suggest it, it gets pretty chilly after dark.”
Chilly proved to be an understatement. Temperatures stayed above freezing— not that it
felt like it. The area, Rivka vaguely knew, hadn’t been warm
before the Void but after the Nox blanketed the world it was worse. So little sunlight reached much of the surface that outside the shields would be bitterly cold, even if the Nox didn’t kill you.
She had time to think about it— longer than was comfortable, and shorter than restful. She had barely blinked her eyes, closed them to the more distant campfire ahead for merely a second, when a boot nudged her ribs.
“Get up.”
Rivka made a noise that wasn’t even human, let alone an answer. Her muscles ached, the brevity of her rest disorienting more than restorative. The boot nudged her ribs again, harder, and she realized she could barely see the Ars Magi. At the edge of Palmyra like this the light pollution was nearly zero, and no stars could shine through the sky; the only light came from the low, flickering flames that cast her surroundings in shades of dark and darker. Darker was pulling her foot back again when Rivka slapped at it, managing an irritated; “I’m
up, is it still
night?”
“Do the Void have to make a schedule?”
Again, that disdain. The anger that coursed through her veins scourged away the remnants of sleep and she pushed herself upright, stubbornly ignoring the way that her body complained. She would
not give this icey bitch the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort.
“No, but
human beings tend to know why they’re doing something. And when.” She locked eyes with her evaluator— what she could see of them in the dark— and brushed herself off. “In case they forgot to tell you that.”
“Coffee. Ration bar.” The Ars Magi pushed a tin mug and a wrapper into her hands harder, Rivka thought, than necessary. “Eat quickly. Maybe it’ll shut you up for a minute.”
For an instant she thought about throwing that coffee in the Magi’s face— maybe contact with liquid would melt her, like the witch she was. Every piece of her body language, her
tone radiated aggression. This little moment alone had enough pressure to start a real altercation anywhere, and any
when else. Knowing that was what she wanted— that the witch was still playing some kind of
game— cooled the impulse, and she settled for slurping the awful coffee instead. Loudly.
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“God knows how you got past the headshrinks.”
Rivka washed down the first few bites of her ration bar— a substance more likely to make someone wish for death than survival— with bitter, gritty coffee and waited. She was supposed to ask, that was the next step in this little game. It was a tiny victory, even petty, but she wouldn’t
ask for an explanation. The Magi would have to offer it up herself. It wasn’t like she’d missed a chance to rag on her yet.
“I had the chance to read your file before the evaluation, and I can’t see how they didn’t flunk you out from the jump.” The explanation came right on schedule. “I know we’re always desperate for more Ars Magi, but you just shouldn’t have qualified. There’s a reason we test for screw-ups like you. You’re my problem now, though. So I have to figure out which kind of mistake you are.”
“Yeah?” Taciturn silence couldn’t hold up forever. Subtlety wasn’t doing the trick, so the witch stopped pulling her punches. Understanding it didn’t do anything to stop her from getting pissed. The words slipped out of her mouth without asking her brain for permission. “Which kind am I?”
“Well, my first thought is you’re just a spoiled brat. An arrogant little narcissist.” Her voice didn’t get any louder, she just continued in the same soft and disdainful tone. She wasn’t
detached, the strength of her opinion was too much for that. Still the vitriol wasn’t
personal; it was the manner of disgust you reserved for shit on your shoe, knowing it had no agency of its own but feeling wroth with its presence nonetheless. “I had a roommate like you when I was going through the academy. Brilliant. Talented.
Lazy. She had that same
artistic temperament, that breed of perfectionism that means nothing gets done at all. But that’s okay, because you’re a
genius just like she was.”
There was
venom in those words, bubbling beneath no matter how controlled they seemed. Venom she had underestimated. This attitude wasn’t the game she’d pegged it for, not quite, and that realization shifted the whole of the Earth beneath her feet. Her mouth was too dry to answer, and the Ars Magi didn’t really wait; she pushed a harness and a rifle into her hands, something satisfied in those eyes dimly seen.
“We’re going to get to the rest of your test now. Put in the earpiece,” She demonstrated by pulling the device out of a pouch on a second harness, and pushing it into her ear. “We’ll be able to communicate for the duration.”
“This harness will pick up magic.” She swung it from her finger, gesturing at it with her sidearm. “Your rifle’s output has been limited. It’ll still sting, but mostly it’ll just be enough to trigger the sensor. We’re both going to wear one. If yours records more pulses than mine, you lose.”
“And if yours does?”
“You win. Obviously.” Rivka got the sense her eyes had rolled, while both fastened the harnesses around their torsos. “You’ve got half an hour’s head start. We’ll end when I decide I’ve seen enough. You can go in any direction.”
The Magi reached for something on her wrist, and Rivka heard a single beep.
“Start.”
Rivka dropped to one knee, rather than beginning to walk, and checked her laces. Then she checked the laces on her other boot. Then how secure the sling on the rifle was. Her evaluator’s foot started tapping while she checked the sight’s alignment and the rifle’s charge.
“A head start is supposed to be for moving, you know. Or do you think the test is on how well you tie your shoes?”
“Never,” Rivka replied, finally slinging the rifle’s strap across her body. “Trust a weapon you haven’t personally examined and fired.”
She rose to her feet in a smooth motion, leveled the rifle and put a single low strength shot into her evaluator’s chest. The older Magi staggered in the brief flash, and Rivka stepped away around the corner of the building while the harness beeped a shot recorded.
“Think you’re funny, cadet?”
“Very. But the head start is for me, not you. If you’re as good as you think you can make up the point difference fast.”
“I will.” Absolute surety took a little of the fun away, sent a little splash of cold water through her system. But Rivka had been keeping time, and her lead was far from over. Which was fortunate, since she could barely see in the dark. She’d tripped twice already. But she knew what she was looking for, the witch could yap while she searched. “Captain Wei was the first one to be a little suspicious. Unfortunately for you.”
“Of what?”
“Of what I think you might really be. Wei thought you were just a pain, a singularly unlikable cadet. But she noticed at the end of the ambush, when you were almost out of the subway. The moment you almost kept walking. Left everyone else to fend for themselves.”
“I didn’t,” Rivka protested, pausing in the street. “Wei
told us to keep moving.”
“Which, I can’t help but notice
you disobeyed.”
“What? Would you make up your mind? Is it a problem that I almost left, or that I didn’t?”
“Both.” Came the reply, to Rivka’s exasperation. “Disobedience isn’t a good trait in a cadet. But an unwillingness to leave anyone behind is a good trait in an Ars Magi. It’d be a good thing if I thought that was it.”
“I don’t, though. I just think you were too afraid.” The ridicule flowed into her ear, that venom burning through her like fire. She had no idea what this witch’s problem was. What the
hell she’d done to earn this kind of reception so fast. “Thought you were better off sticking with the group. Hiding behind Selma, that’s your way isn’t it? Perfectly brave as long as someone else is in the firing line.”
“Go to hell.”
“Struck a
nerve there.”
It was a change felt not seen, like a note’s change too low to be heard over the group’s composite but perceptible in the hands of a skilled musician. A change in pressure, a little blip on the sixth sense that came with the ability to manipulate the Nox. She
felt it move, as if drawn into a vacuum, and she dropped to the street before she’d even processed it.
The shot struck a ruined building two feet in front of her, shattering a portion of the wall and sprinkling debris on the street. That wasn’t the same as her rifle.
she would’ve barely chipped it. What the hell was she playing at, that—
Could have been her head.
“… sure what I think, yet.” The voice continued in her ear, when the flood of adrenaline allowed her to hear again. Rivka’s blood ran abruptly cold, the bottom of her stomach dropping away completely. She felt
sick. “Whatever the reason, though, you’re
my problem now.”
“Are you
insane? That would have killed me!”
“Probably.” Her evaluator allowed, the same disinterest that had pissed her off chilling her very bones. “Crippled you, at least. That was the point. You were right when you told Dr. Oaken that your powers made you akin to a god, a minor one at least. All that power, in
your hands.”
“So what? You’ll
kill me?”
“If I have to.” The words cut like a knife, and pushed away Rivka’s indecision. Her brain hadn’t caught up, not just yet, but she was in
danger. Just like in the subway. If she stayed still she’d die. She rolled to one side of the ruined street, pushing herself back up to her knees and listening carefully. “You can’t be allowed to keep that power. It’d be better if you quit. Just went away. But you’re too arrogant for that, or you wouldn’t be here, would you?”
“I’m here to be an Ars Magi,” Rivka managed, pressing ber back to a wall and breathing slowly. In the dark, she couldn’t see where to go. Or where the older Magi might be coming from.
“You’re here to be special. It’s nothing but ego.”
Again, her instincts screamed and again she heeded them; she dove and rolled aside just before another
crack of force shattered part of the wall she’d leaned on. Just like in the subway, she knew, this was not a straight fight she could win. Insane or not, her instructor was a full Ars Magi skilled enough to be asked to evaluate a cadet. Victory was
not assured here. She had to escape. In the dark she wouldn’t be able to see, she’d be hopelessly lost even if she could make it more than a few feet without tripping. And she—
“Did it bother you, killing humans?”
“What?”
She wasn’t quite fast enough this time, but fortunately the building was thick. It passed through one wall and a second, hitting her in the side and knocking her to the street. She felt the vibrations all the way through to her
teeth, let alone the ringing in her ears. Lucky break that it had to be bleed so much energy before it reached her, or she’d be feeling more than an imminent bruise. Now if she could just listen…
Listen. The vibration, the ringing— the Magi had to have sound for an elementum. That was half, at least, the reason to keep talking to her. Every time she spoke the lunatic could zero in on her and fire, no real sight needed.
That was a problem, but it was one she understood. She had the parameters of the situation, she could work it out. But she’d have to play along a little first.
“Is it bothering you?” She asked, jogging slowly down the street as soon as she finished speaking. The next shot, just as she’d been hoping, impacted where she’d
been when she spoke. A sort of echolocation, then, for sure. Don’t speak and stay still.
“A little. But that’s not what I asked.”
“When have I killed anyone?”
“In the subway? Wei’s report made it clear. She had to read all four of you in on what they were.” Right. The… Zombies, for lack of a better word. The infected. The people in the subway. Driven mad, perhaps, by the Nox but beyond a doubt no longer human. Not when they could take a shot to the head and stay standing. She’d never admitted it, not out loud, but it had taken more than a week to stop having nightmares about them. She still did, sometimes. “Wei says you didn’t hesitate. Not when you didn’t know who they could be. Not when you saw that they might be people, either.”
“They had Chie.” The words were slow to come out, hampered by fear and the
memory of fear. She didn’t move as far, this time, but she needn’t have bothered; the shot didn’t come. Was she out of position? Trying to disguise the trick? “And Crystal. I had to, even if they’d been human.”
“If?”
“Do you think they still were?”
“Are we?”
“… I’m not sure.”
“That’s something. For what it’s worth, I doubt there was anything else you could do. But there’s our problem.” Rivka heard, she was sure, boots on rubble. Maybe a couple streets over? “You didn’t hesitate. Actually, I hear you tried to
bill the Academy before they recovered your luggage. No idea what state your escort might be in, no idea how many people might’ve died in the subway, and you thought you’d submit a complaint?”
“An Ars Magi should be brave. Carry on whatever the cost. But they shouldn’t be numb to it. With the power you have, you could do so much damage. Just don’t think you’re wired right. But it’s not your fault they didn’t see the signs. One chance, Sokolov. Give up.”
“… Nyet.” Panic began to burn away, gradually but with greater fervor every moment. This witch didn’t know a goddamned thing about her. She’d already decided, right there in the subway, that she was an
Ars Magi. Qualified or not, with power or without, she had chosen to
protect. She wouldn’t give up because this nut demanded it. She wouldn’t die because she decreed it. Not without one hell of a fight, first. She had promises to keep. Expectations to live up to.
Like hell was she going to let all those girls down now.
She had a plan, too, at least a bit of one. Enough maybe to have a shot. The sun was rising enough to see, just barely, but her hunter’s sound trick would serve her better for a while yet. She could use that. And she could use the oil drums that hadn’t quite been used up during the panic, right here by the street. Rivka slammed a brick down on the lid, letting the metallic sound ring loud and clear, before taking off across the street at a dead run. The shot hit the building, just like she’d expected, but that hadn’t been the point. The point had been to get her to focus those senses in one place.
It wasn’t much, not without giving herself away completely. If she transformed first, her hunter would hear and she’d be finished. But here, at the edge of Palmyra’s shields, the Nox was thicker. She’d had the potential to use it before they placed this stone inside her.
She just needed a spark.
The moment it answered her call, the brief second when Nox became
fire, she started moving. This was where it’d be tricky. She started running with all the strength she could muster, adrenaline permitting her to ignore the burning in her muscles from a run that in hindsight was clearly meant to weaken her. The barrels went up, loud and bright, and she heard the cry of pain from her hunter. Certainly it hadn’t helped her super hearing, and if she was very, very lucky she might’ve been close enough to take some of the blast.
Now it was a matter of if she could reach the magibike before the Magi recovered and realized what she was doing.
One block.
Two.
Three.
Fou-
The shock hit her shoulder and knocked her spinning to the ground, but she knew better than to stay still. She kept rolling so the next one didn’t strike home.
“That was clever,” Her evaluator growled, extending her Gladius; a long, blade bisected so as to resemble a tuning fork. That confirmed her elementum for sure, at least. “Should’ve taken the deal. Used that brain someplace else, you arrogant brat.”
“I am so
fucking sick of you!”
God above, if she was going to die she was
not going to listen to this
nagging any longer. The curse came out without grace, without music, without patience; she simple
screamed the last, pure desperation as she reached for the magic at her core. So bright was the flare of magic, of flame, that the shape was burned into any retina in sight. Another sonic bolt flew, but it was all wrong; Rivka was moving, shot out like a rocket, and the older Magi couldn’t see to adjust.
She was blinking the light away when the moment passed, but she wasn’t idle. And for all her fucking
lunacy, she was
good. The edge of her sword was pressing against Rivka’s stomach. Only her greater durability and her Parma kept it from biting into her as her chest rose and fell, breathing raggedly after the sudden exertion.
But her bayonet, held in her off hand, was at the older Magi’s throat, and her rifle pointed at the ground between them.
“Now what, you fucking psycho?” She breathed, staring down those disdainful eyes. “What’s the play?”
“You can’t kill me.” The Sonic Magi’s voice was soft again, but no less angry. “Even if you could do it without dying, they’d
never believe you.”
“Think they’ll buy ‘training accident’ after what I can do to you first?”
“… Why do this?” The Magi tilted her head, as much as she could with a blade at her neck. “Your only chance was to run. You’ve got a chance of taking me with you, maybe, but
no chance to get out of here. Why struggle like this? Why not take the deal?”
“Because
I chose to be an Ars Magi. Because
I write the symphony of my life, and that means I write how it ends. I won’t write such a pathetic ending.” Her bayonet pressed a little closer, the edge beginning to heat red hot. “I deserve better than that. My team deserves better than that. Everyone I could ever have helped deserves better, even
your psychotic ass. And frankly? Because fuck you.”
“…”
That, after the morning she’d had, was when Rivka thought she might have lost her mind. When the Magi started laughing. Softly at first, but with genuine mirth that seemed a little more natural on her face than veiled disdain had. She pulled away her sword, very carefully, and held her other hand up palm forward.
“You can breathe now, Rivka.”
”What?”“Here. Nice and clear.” The opposing Magi’s Parma faded away, replaced again by her clothes from before. Rivka stared, a little blankly, which she seemed to find just a little funny. “You can keep the gun on me, if you want. No trouble. I promise. I’m Kraya.”
At a loss for words, Rivka withdrew a couple steps. She didn’t put the bayonet down, not just yet. She couldn’t quite get the question to form in her mind, the one with an answer that might make this lunacy make sense. Instead all she managed was; “Why?”
“Tell you over a proper breakfast. Come on, follow me back to camp. You can stoke the fire back up for us before you relax.”
Kraya headed for camp, comfortable and casual as can be despite the potential for a gun aimed at her back. Still a little dumbstruck Rivka trailed behind for the few blocks to camp, where a dying fire waited. Kraya shrugged off her harness and dropped her sidearm on her pack, gesturing patiently with a hand towards the fire.
If her evaluator was acting, Rivka couldn’t see any reason for it. Or sign of it. She might have been completely, genuinely certifiable but that… Just didn’t seem to fit. Maybe she really had just completely snapped, and none of this was happening. That didn’t really track either, though. So she stoked the fire with her rifle, encouraged the flames to new life with her magic, and sat down on a conveniently sized rock.
“Thank you. There’s coffee, but I’m not ready for
more energy just yet. I doubt you are, either.” The older Magi hung a pot, evidently pre-prepared, above the fire. “First of all, in case it wasn’t obvious— you passed.”
“Passed
what? What kind of test was—“ The musician trailed off helplessly, gesturing futilely around as though the movement could finish her sentence.
“The most important kind.” Kraya settled on a rock of her own, stirring the pot idly. “I’m sure it was distressing. I meant it to be. I had to have you under duress, if I was going to be sure I got the honest truth.”
“Truth about what?”
“Who you are. Rivka, you have the vices of your virtues. Talent and passion serve you well, but you can seem pretty intense. Aloof. Mercurial.” She laughed again. “I gotta tell you, your psych report was a real read and a half. The thing is, I know you’ve got the skills. I can read your file to see that. Could have told you that even without reading your file. But all of that passion, how do I know what you’ll do when there’s someone you don’t want to save? When your duty requires that you put your life on the line for a real piece of work? They’re people, too.”
“Doesn’t matter who they are. I decided to—“
“To be an Ars Magi. Be a hero.” Kraya smiled more gently and picked up a pair of tin plates. “That’s good. It’s the first step. You’ve shown a lot of it, too. Three or four times, depending on how you want to count, you’ve jumped in to help someone else and risked your own hide to do it. For people you like. For people you’re neutral on, even. But you’ve got a temper, too. Not hard to notice.”
“… You thought I might hurt someone?”
“No. Psych eval doesn’t think so. I didn’t think so. But ‘think’ really isn’t good enough.” She leaned in while ladling out what looked to be potatoes cooked with onions and— Rivka’s mouth watered— bacon. “You really do have power. If we were
wrong, people could get hurt. It’s happened in the past.”
“How are you so sure now? I mean, I only proved I was willing to make a great big mess before I died.”
“Yes, you did. Good attitude for it, too!” Her laugh was louder, and she passed over a plate. “No, that’s not what I meant. In that moment there were half a dozen different ways you could have tried to kill me. If that was what you wanted, you could have gotten to it even after we got into our little standoff. You seem like you’d have wanted to get some choice words in first, even if no one was going to remember them. But there was plenty of time. You didn’t
want to kill me.”
“I kinda did.”
“Well, yes. After pushing your buttons that hard and that long, I’d be surprised if you didn’t. I should say you didn’t want to
have to kill me.” Kraya shrugged, taking a few bites of her breakfast. “A small distinction, but an important one. I am, now, completely reassured.”
“So, that was all an act?”
“Sort of.” Kraya waggled her hand, palm down. “Just like your virtues produce your vices, the best lies are hidden in truths. Sometimes they’re the same thing, depending on how you present them.”
“… Did you really know an artist like that in the academy?”
“She was my roommate.” Out came two mugs, as Rivka’s own Parma finally was permitted to fade. “That’s where the truth of it ends, though. She’s brilliant, always has been. Once I understood her better.”
“Now what?”
“Now, we’ll have breakfast. Coffee. Let the sun come up properly. Then we’ll run through a few skill checks, just to give me a proper, personal idea of what you can do without all the extra psychological warfare. Give it a few more hours and we’ll have you back with your team yet.”
FlappyTheSpybot
Plank Sinatra
The World
Forsythe
