From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 139
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
So when Vita took the first step, no-one came out to meet them. No doors cracked open, no curious eyes peeked out to find the source of the unfamiliar footsteps that whispered along the polished wood.
Vita staggered forward until she reached the last door on the left, stopping directly in front of it. She stared a long moment, shoulders rising and falling in taller and taller amplitude, the arteries in her neck pulsing more and more visibly.
"I have to see inside," she said. "I must."
"I'm sorry, there's someone living in it," Katya replied.
"Not at the moment. I sense no-one inside."
Katya sidled up beside her partner, just brushing against her side as she set a hand on Vita's shaking shoulder. "Vita, it's someone's place of rest. Don't risk taking that from them."
"And what of mine? Is that not why we came here?" Vita's eyes were hard, but softened in a moment into pools of liquid indigo. "Please, Katya. Don't make me turn away now. I've come so far."
Something deep within Katya twisted at the frailty in Vita's voice, a wrenching ache that made her willing to do anything to set it right again. Before her was not the Raven or the Doctor, but the vulnerable woman that had made Katya look deeply into herself one rainy night in London and decide that she couldn't go on without trying to do something about it.
It was that Victoria who had changed the course of Katya's life, and the one she was utterly helpless to say no to.
"Be brief. I'll be right here."
Nodding her profound gratitude, Vita turned to the door for only a single breath before she marched forward and vanished through the wood.
It may have been seconds, it may have been an eternity, but when Vita emerged again, her head was hanging low, eyes more distant than if she had spent the entire time gazing into the depths of space. When she had fully materialised again, the only sign she left behind on the painted wood were a pair of tears that never reached the floor.
"I need to go outside," she said.
Katya nodded and once again followed her partner's lead, descending without slowing until they burst into the midday sun, where Vita picked up her pace even further, striding across the lawn and towards the very back of the facility.
Past the gardens, past the sudden looks and whispers, past the bathhouse until they plunged into the shadows beneath a stand of maple trees, finally coming to a halt before a wrought-iron fence.
"This is the last place. The last obstacle. The last barrier between myself and freedom." Vita turned, and there were tears freely running down her cheeks. Her lips were trembling, but Katya couldn't tell if it was in relief or pain. "I had to be dragged through it last time, barely conscious, nearly dead."
She held out her hand.
"Now… I am very much alive. But I do not wish to cross it alone."
Katya looked at the fence dubiously. "You shrank it that time."
"Yes. But this time it will be even less of a hindrance. Come."
A long breath leaked from between Katya's lips. "You're sure about this?"
"Yes. I would never let you come to harm, Katya. Trust me."
With sudden decision, she did.
The moment their hands touched, Vita's Manifest surged, and the power that washed over Katya was unlike anything she had ever felt. It went through her, saturating every molecule in her body, and for the briefest, most tantalising moment, they were one being, a single entity made of magic, and there was nothing in the world that could separate them.
They moved forward together as if in a dream, the world half-perceived, propelled by nothing so coarse as flesh and blood.
The universe sang in Katya's ears, infinite possibility stretching in every direction. The stars above were the atoms within, the distances between them one and the same. Within those voids there was light. Magic. Every colour and none, the dancing waves of probability made the intangible tangible, the invisible visible, set in stone that which had been the shapeless froth of mere possibility.
And then it stopped.
The wind returned, light once again only a reflection rather than waves and particles finally ending their long journey after being birthed hundreds of thousands of years ago in the heart of the sun. The earth was solid again.
And so was Vita.
Katya turned a body that felt like it weighed a thousand tonnes to see that the fence was now behind them. How had it ever been in front of them? How had she ever been concerned about it? How feeble a barrier it had been, nothing more than air…
The tension of Vita's hand tugged at Katya's, and she turned back once more feeling closer to how she always had. "Is that… how you see the world?"
"Now you understand why I am so often loathe to come back to this one."
Katya felt at her chest, her shoulder, ran her free hand down her thigh. She had shape, dimension again. Corporeality.
Before her stood the one who had made her ever doubt those things in the first place. A witch of astonishing power, yet sublime control that made everything Katya had ever done with hers feel like she was beating at clay with a shovel while Vita was shaping the universe itself into a Rodin with nary a whisper.
The Raven wasn't a being of shadows and wrath, or of cold indifference, she was the glistening obsidian core of the most beautiful person Katya had ever known.
Her mouth worked at words unspoken but deeply felt, but then the reasons Katya had experienced anything different at all came rushing back to her all at once, and she jerked her attention to the physical Vita of here and now, who still had tears in her eyes.
She cast her sharp blue gaze above and back, to all that lay behind them.
"I'm free."
Nestled in the silent shroud of midnight, Vita slept. She didn't once cry out, she didn't thrash against her covers, she didn't so much as twitch. There was no magic, no terror as her chest slowly rose and fell, peaceful and sedate.
It was Katya who was held in tension, as she had to keep herself from brushing a few errant hairs from Vita's face, anything to ensure that she could remain as she was. But Katya knew it was more likely that she would prove to be the disturbance, so she turned back to the living room again, where a dim witchlight burned over a starburst of papers that took up the entire table.
Tomorrow—today, now—would be the most important in EVE's history, and as much as she wanted to stand watch over Vita and dare her nightmares to show themselves, she was sleeping soundly, and there was still much to do.
Katya sat herself with a cup of tepid tea and looked down at a sea of numbers, peppered liberally with all the names she had to remember for the reception that would follow the move-in only hours away. Parents and siblings, 75 in total, would be the greatest number of individuals EVE had ever hosted, plus the 24 students and the ten witches themselves.
They were out of runway. It was either pull up and fly free or crash and burn. But this time Katya's Manifest wouldn't keep them from being immolated.
She knew all that, so why was it so hard to keep her work in front of her? It kept sliding away to be replaced by the dark shadow beyond Vita's open door.
The direction her heart was tugging.
Katya's mind and body had overridden her heart for so long she'd forgotten just how strong it could be. But not how wrong.
To hold Vita's hand was one thing, but to be her, to see, for one fleeting moment, the world through her eyes was unlike anything Katya had ever experienced. Or imagined she could.
But even that seemed small compared to seeing the strongest witch in the world so vulnerable, and knowing that she trusted Katya so implicitly that she was the only one she could show it to. People used so many words to describe Vita: cold, dark, distant. But as she had stood there in her old room, half in the past and half in the present, not entirely herself, she had been very, very mortal. When recognition returned to her eyes, they were warm and bright.
Because they'd seen Katya. Sought her. Trusted her.
It had taken everything she had to not run straight to Vita. To hold her, tell her that it was all right, that she was safe. That she would never again be so alone.
But Katya had kept her distance, let the moment pass. If she hadn't, she may not have wanted it to ever stop, and that would be a truth she couldn't handle, or admit.
Would she ever be allowed to move on? To feel what she so desperately wanted to feel? She could see it, taste it, sense the barest wisps of what could be brush against her, the one kind of warmth that it had been impossible for the fire witch to summon for so long. It was there, but the traps around it were numerous, some of them already sprung, digging into her flesh and bleeding her of the hope she would ever shake them free.
From the next room came the sound of rustling sheets and Katya's wounded heart skipped a beat. She waited for a cry, a whimper, anything that would give her reason to go to Vita's side.
But nothing came.
All around Katya, the Manifests of her sisters were dimmed in sleep, Millie's and Elise's so closely bound she couldn't tell them apart. Sveta and Alex. Pretoria and Ivy.
Within Katya, even the Firebird slumbered, the white-hot fires banked.
She was the only one awake, and aware she was alone.
Her tea had gone cold, but she took another sip. If the only thing she could control was her work, then that was what she would do. Her mind and body set themselves about the task before her, while her heart was left to weep.
Normally, when a new witch arrived or returned to EVE, everyone would line up neatly before the residence, greeting her as a group. It was a show of solidarity as well as letting whoever was getting out of the car know that they were welcome and cared for.
When 21 arrived together, it was chaos.
There was a line of taxis stretching from the dormitory to the main gate, filled with not only parents, but more siblings than had been declared as coming along, leaving Sveta to run up and down the little procession verifying that every single person there was who they said they were.
One new arrival had already broken down in tears at the idea of being separated from her family, leaving Alex to try to console her, even as The Furies were going spare in their pen, barking and thundering around the edges at not being allowed to see all the new people they could smell.
Every window in the dormitory was flung open wide so Vickie could float the baggage into them directly, sometimes multiple cabs' worth for a single girl. It was a spectacle to be sure, but one that Millie couldn't actually enjoy because she was the one having to catch the baggage.
Carice was inside, having conscripted Emma and the other early arrivals into helping make sure everyone was going to the right room. Her elder sensibilities were proving to be calming to those whose introduction to their new life was to watch their possessions being hurled up to three stories through the air by the mind of their new headmistress and then caught by glowing white tentacles wielded by a six-foot Scotswoman, while the raw enthusiasm of their peers helped nudge the whole experience closer to exciting than terrifying.
Pretoria and Kat were on the ground glad-handing parents and reassuring their daughters that yes, this was normal, while keeping track of who had arrived and who hadn't, introducing roommates and answering what looked like a constant stream of questions that Millie was thankful she couldn't hear, while Ivy was having the time of her life entertaining the youngest siblings while their parents were occupied.
Elise, who handled immense amounts of highly sensitive personal paperwork every day, was sat at a desk off to one side collecting information about allergies and any other medical issues EVE needed to be aware of, as well as collecting last-minute tuition payments. One of her most senior nurses stood beside her taking it all in and not quite believing what she was seeing. Though she knew she worked for a witch, it was clear from her expression that she only now understood exactly what that meant.
Near the fence separating EVE from LAC was a huddle of fathers smoking cigars and gesticulating between the luggage show and the airfield at random and pointing like little boys every time an aeroplane took off or landed, which was more often than usual, as the Longs were keen to put on a show for people who were known to have considerable sums in the stock market. They had even made both Atlas and Juno III available for guided tours.
Barking dogs, aeroplanes zipping around at random, a young woman crying, excited jabbering and giggles, feet thumping up and down the halls in excitement and exploration, Millie felt like her head was going to explode from the noise. EVE had always been quiet, tranquil, the calm centre of her world when things elsewhere went insane. Now that her refuge had gone from that to completely mad within the space of an hour, there was nowhere left to go, and she could feel exhaustion already starting to creep in.
A hundred strangers at once was a tough pill to swallow after what they'd learned from Josephine. Millie kept looking down at the new, unfamiliar faces, wanting to scream questions at every single one of them. She trusted Sveta, but even with all ten of them on guard, it was a lot to try to manage.
It didn't help that Millie had spent her nights awake with Elise when she probably should have been sleeping, and wasn't properly caught up yet. Though Elise had restored her magically, it wasn't a substitute for real sleep, no matter how skilled the healer was. There were things the brain did while asleep that Elise couldn't replicate, she'd said, and Millie was beginning to miss them acutely.
Her thoughts were wandering, and she wasn't paying attention to what she was doing fully anymore. Carice's story so close on the heels of Josephine's revelation was eating away at Millie's insides, and she feared the choice she was having so much difficulty making was going to be made for her, sooner or later.
Stay home with Elise and prevent potential trouble, or go when called to have a chance at doing something about trouble that had already happened?
Like what was in that binder.
Vickie had been right to ask if the man Millie had killed deserved it. He had, and she would do it again if she had to. In a deep, dark place within Millie, in the place she kept locked and hidden from everyone, she was looking forward to it.
The men she'd killed would never harm anyone ever again, never do… that again. They had made their choices and paid the price, as Niamh had told her a long time ago, after the first time Millie had killed someone. Niamh had never lost a minute's sleep over the men she'd killed, and neither had Millie. It was only when she was awake that it ate at her, when she held hands that had only saved lives.
Just as it had been the day she'd first met Niamh, Millie's ultimate purpose still lay before her. Would she be a protector, or an avenger? The only thing that had changed since then was that she knew for certain she couldn't be both.
Millie shook her head, but her train of thought resolutely steamed straight ahead. She shouldn't be thinking about any of this. Today was supposed to be a happy one, especially now. The thing Millie had wanted more than anything in her entire life was within her grasp, and she'd let Josephine derail it completely by reminding Millie of what she was, and what she was good at.
What she wanted to be was a good partner to the woman she loved, to be there for her when she needed it, in a way she hadn't been recently. Elise was a doctor, on the fast track to running the entire infirmary, she needed Millie's strength as much as her sisters on the Continent did, but she couldn't be in two places at once.
What kind of life could the Red Knight provide her Angel if she was gone all the time, putting herself in danger? Secretly wanting to put herself in danger? To take the fight to those who would abuse her sisters, even if she didn't know their names or faces yet?
If she became Niamh—driven and single-minded, to the exclusion of all else. Of Elise.
Millie hadn't realised how far her thoughts had strayed until the crash of wood against wood smacked them back into place, and she looked down to see a steamer trunk laying on its side, split wide open and gushing its contents onto the floor.
She stood there blinking at it, the dim comprehension that she was the reason brightening the longer she did. Her witchscale tentacles were still out, but hung limply at her sides and she couldn't recall how or why.
"Are you all right, Millie?" came a voice into her fog-encircled thoughts.
Turning, she saw Carice standing there, very nearly of a height with Millie. Flecks of gold glittered in her ancient eyes. Though she couldn't read thoughts the way Sveta could, she was still deeply empathetic and could read body language as easily as any of the 37 others she knew. She didn't spare the trunk a glance, her attention fixed fully on her younger counterpart. "You have tears in your eyes. Is something amiss?"
Millie hadn't even been aware of it, and swiped them away with the back of her sleeve. "I'm fine!" she snapped. An instant later, heat roared up from under her collar to sear her face bright red. "I'm sorry. I'm just… tired. And it's hot as hell up here."
The look Carice gave her doubted that was all of it, but she let Millie have her lie. "All right. Well, we're almost done here. Set that right and we'll worry about the damage later. When all the girls are checked in and settled, go get some rest before the reception."
Fire bloomed about the ancient witch as she turned towards the door, hair trailing behind her as she left to meet the next arrival.
Left alone, Millie gave a last look down at Elise before shutting the window. For the first time in a great long while, Millie was happy to do as she was told.
In the middle of the most important day in EVE's history since its founding, surrounded by strangers, all Victoria could think about was how old she wasn't.
In the nearly 11 years since she had met Gretchen, they'd only met in person once, and that had been a brief lunch just before Victoria left for school. Then, Emma had been on the cusp of adolescence, full of questions about witches and magic. Now, she still had questions about witches and magic, but she was a grown woman taller than her mother, which unfortunately meant that Gretchen had aged the same amount right alongside her daughter.
