From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 195
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
Sketching out her thoughts on paper, however, proved to be helpful. Condensing and polishing the buzzing cloud of responses gave them more of a shape and made them feel less like anxiety. Should the best happen, she would have to scrap the entire thing and start over, but for now it served as a kind of journal entry for herself, if nothing else.
Journaling was one thing Katya had meant to begin doing again, but had never found motivation enough to overcome the feeling it was just more paperwork. The stories the elder witches told of not being able to remember very much of anything from their early lives had always struck Katya as tragic and unfair, yet also understandable. The journals she'd kept when her mother was alive had burned in the fire that killed her, so in a way, Katya's memories had already been stolen once. Externalising them again felt like tempting fate. All she could count on was her mind; she had to trust that whatever she put in it was safe.
Then she thought of Vita, and her story of living as November, and was reminded of how fragile that was, too.
Signing and sealing the last letter, Katya pushed away from her desk. It wasn't the time for such thoughts. She had been writing all morning; she needed fresh air and to give her eyes a chance to focus on something that was more than a foot away. Like the post office.
For the first time since Germany, she ventured into town alone. She took the long way, through the airfield, allowing her to take in the sights and sounds of life in Longstown at work. It was easy to take for granted where she lived, the uniqueness of it.
It helped that the previous night had taken a great deal of the pain from Germany away. The uncertainty that any of it had mattered, that it had all been in vain or the secret self-sabotaging thoughts that she had made the trip to satisfy her own ego.
It had mattered—the look in Millie's eyes last night confirmed it. Katya would never believe that her own life was worth a one-to-one trade for Niamh's, but now they knew that her sacrifice had given them so much more. Niamh hadn't just saved Katya, she had helped save an entire country, maybe even a continent, and for that she deserved to have her name sung for the rest of history.
It was always a shock, after healing from an injury, to realise just how much pain was now gone. Just to survive, to get through one day to the next, Katya had got used to bearing it, even incorporating it into her identity. More than just the wounds was the knowledge of those wounds, the fear of tearing them open again, the fear that she was in some way crippled by them.
Being in and amongst the bustle and energy of the airfield and its attendant factories and seeing EVE from a distance, it all seemed… clearer somehow. Brighter. As if she had been existing in a fog for so long she'd forgotten what it was like to live outside of it. What real colours looked like, what laughter meant, that the path ahead wasn't an impenetrable void in which only horrors lurked.
What true optimism felt like. Not just hoping for the best, or thinking that something good might come of a given endeavour, but true belief that it would. That it was okay to plan for the future, to be happy and not fear that something awful happening would be the natural consequence.
There was still a great deal of work ahead, but for one brief walk, Katya could build, plan, enjoy, and think—believe even—that someone wasn't going to swoop in and take it all away. The events in Germany had tested her, and she had passed. It wouldn't be the last, but she was bound and determined to pass the next one, too.
She deserved no less.
The morning after the election, energy as Victoria had rarely felt fizzed and bubbled in her veins, imbuing her with the overwhelming desire to do. Helga's incredible accomplishment was, in many ways, a singular encapsulation of everything Victoria had been fighting for her entire life—little was more motivating than the success of another of like mind with similar goals.
Acting from a place of such grandiose positivity was still novel. Victoria's actions had always started from negativity—what she couldn't do, what she had lost, what she wasn't. Now that she had seen what could be done, the desire to replicate it felt akin to a compulsion.
While inside of an entity like EVE, it was difficult to discern the effects it had on those outside; incremental progress viewed from so close sometimes felt like no progress at all. The students were proving wonderfully illustrative, though the sum total was often lost in a fog of details. But that, as Victoria had recently learned, was exactly where stars were born. From vast, opaque clouds came the sudden ignition of a solar furnace that would burn for billions of years, providing the light and heat necessary to give rise to new life.
Katya was one such star, and now Helga, her binary twin; bright beacons to burn away the shadows and draw those who had been forced to live in perpetual darkness into the light.
Another surge of motivation rippled through Victoria strong enough to make her shiver down to her fingertips.
Because no matter how hot or bright Katya and Helga burned, there remained a shadow only the Raven could banish, one that would remain forever if she failed. As Katya had intimated, Victoria's advantage was time: the dragon still slumbered.
She was determined to slay it before it could awaken.
The maths were fundamental to the universe, they couldn't be undone. Immutable, intangible facts had a way of resisting erasure, so it was hopeless to strike from that angle. But there was a chance to come at it from the soft underbelly, while it was still in the shell.
That was decidedly not hopeless.
She started her pursuit with a run to the department store. Normally, she was not one to get overly excited about her purchases unless it was a book or twelve. They were her single vice, leaving the other funnels into which she poured her disposable income purely practical. The fabrics of her suits were nicer than when she was younger, the leather of her shoes a little shinier, but it was a tendency that had remained largely unchanged as long as she had had money of her own to spend.
Today was different.
Books and clothing didn't come in boxes generally—if they did, certainly not packed in an entire forest's worth of paper. And no-one, not even Victoria, was above the simple joy of unpacking a sealed box with her name on it.
Let alone three.
With the tip of her tongue clamped firmly between her teeth, she took her time with the experience, even going so far as to use her hands and a letter opener over the course of minutes rather than magic over seconds. Every crinkle, every crease brought delight as it could only to those obsessed with minutiae as she unwrapped the fragile contents and set them on her study desk, which had been cleared of books for the first time since moving in.
When they were arranged just on the edge of direct sunlight, she stepped back and took in her newest flatmates: a vase, an ash tray and a punch bowl big enough to fit over her head.
They all glowed an eerie yellow-green.
Despite herself, she clapped her fingertips together and smiled. Finally! A concrete path to some kind of progress that didn't involve the gnashing of teeth and doing the same maths over and over again to quell the inordinately loud voice of doubt shouting from the back of her mind.
Designed for aesthetics (though not any kind Victoria was privy to), for her purposes they were eminently practical, and she plunged her Manifest senses into the ash tray with an almost manic glee.
It was everything she had hoped for.
But the experiments she had planned would have to wait to begin in earnest—the sound of the front door closing was followed immediately by her name being called.
Hearing Katya's voice made Victoria's smile even broader. "I'm in my room! I've something to show you!"
Katya appeared soundlessly in Victoria's doorway and stayed there. Her silvery brow spoke of confusion.
Spinning on her toes, Victoria loped to her side and kissed her on the cheek. "Aren't they wonderful, darling? Come."
Katya let herself be guided by the arm deep into Victoria's sanctum, never taking her eyes off the glowing interlopers. Though the shapes were utterly mundane, now that another pair of eyes was on them, Victoria could see how they might appear a bit odd.
But when her clear excitement failed to ebb, Katya resigned herself to whatever the answer might be when she asked, "What are these made of?" She pinged a fingernail against the vase, appearing only mildly surprised it didn't crack. Or swallow her fingertip.
"Uranium glass," Victoria said proudly.
"It's hideous."
"I didn't acquire it based on appearances, if that worries you. When I'm finished it will be perfectly clear and colourless. I don't much care what happens to it after that. Perhaps I'll try to turn the glass back into sand."
Katya blinked at her. "Finished? What are you going to do?"
"Extract the uranium, obviously. We've no need for a punch bowl or an ash tray. The vase I am indifferent to."
"Extract… here?"
The boxes on the floor were suddenly less amusing. "Yes. I apologise for bringing it into our flat, but I can think of no more secure, secret place."
Though Katya seemed only provisionally convinced, Victoria barrelled ahead with her explanation before it could be revoked. "I want to feel it, understand it. Become familiar enough I can recognise it immediately from a distance. This was the simplest, least conspicuous way to get my hands on some. I don't need that much, in any event."
"Uranium," Katya said. Though it hadn't come out a question, it had certainly been one at some point on the way out.
Victoria felt her giddiness drain away, revealing the true shape and contour of her objectives. "This is only a rudimentary investigation. I've never worked with an element this massive before, so I've no idea what it feels like. I know what the maths say it should, but I need to be certain relative to my power and skill. Lead is as high on the periodic table I've manipulated to this point—10 protons short of uranium, isotopes of which are very heavy with additional neutrons. It's those neutrons that what would hypothetically enable the chain reaction, so I need to… taste it, as it were."
Victoria squeezed Katya's hand. "It is through your encouragement that I do not simply lie catatonic on the floor when this subject comes up. I am seeking a path forward if I am to find a solution before the problem arises. This is it."
Katya blew out a breath, her attention going from Victoria to the glass and back. "All right. But what of the Red Zone project? Remembrance Day is only six weeks from now."
"This is ancillary to my range experiments. The Red Zone project takes precedence. These are… first steps. Getting a feel for things. I am aware of my obligations and fully intend to keep my promises. I love you, Kiska, which also means I respect you. I will not disappoint you."
"I never doubted it. Still, it's nice to hear." Katya brought Victoria's hand to her lips and her heart gave a little flutter.
It was impossible not to be charmed. Victoria had been as vulnerable to it as anyone, even early on, but to have it so singularly directed, infused with such open affection, left her tie feeling tighter than it had a moment before.
But the moment quickly passed, as Katya turned her attention back to the glass. "I don't completely understand, though. The energy project you described sounds like something out of H.G. Wells, how do you get there from…" Katya pointed at the vase with her chin, "here?"
At this, Doctor Ravenwood asserted herself again and all thoughts of soft hands and softer lips evaporated. "The weapons I have theorised, regardless of timescale or creator, would be dependent entirely on uranium to function, by my calculations. Part of the reason I want to experiment with it is to determine which isotope would be most useful, if any. The presenters I saw did not have the answer, and finding it first could prove to be an advantage. Whatever the answer, it will be highly radioactive, so I will not be experimenting with it."
Katya backed away from the vase. "Radioactive? Isn't that how Marie Curie died?"
"It is. This form of uranium, however, in these concentrations, is harmless as long as it is not ingested or inhaled. What few particles it does put off are actually quite pretty," Victoria said just as an alpha particle pinged off into the aether. It never made it through the paint on the wall.
"But you're the only one who can see them."
"Correct. And lamentable. But I believe I have found the Achilles' heel of the fears I outlined to you. Much as Angelique argues that the causes of fanaticism must be attacked at the root, I believe so too must these weapons. The maths are immutable, but the fuel is mundane."
"All right, I follow. But don't you dig uranium out of the ground, like iron and gold?"
"Yes. And my calculations show that this most common form is not fissile. I must first determine if one exists that is," Victoria said to her kaleidoscopic reflection in the punch bowl.
"And then what?" Katya asked.
"I am still considering what might be actionable on my part. As for yours, I believe that even if this peace agreement of Sveta's is successful, it will only delay the danger, or push it overseas. Ensuring world peace in perpetuity is a noble goal, but one easily thwarted by human fallibility. The Pax Romana was followed by centuries of civil war and strife that resulted in the Dark Ages. If these weapons are allowed to exist in any numbers, that is exactly where we are going to return to. From a kingdom of gold not to iron and rust but glass and ash."
Sensing a renewed apprehension, Victoria pulled aside her necktie and placed Katya's hands directly over her heart. Her pulse was slow and steady. "Do you feel that, my light?"
"Yes, my shadow."
"So long as you do, I will work to prevent that from happening. Yours is to ensure peace through talking and example. Mine is to remove the tools by which it might be broken." Victoria ran her fingers through silky white hair and looked up into eyes of ice blue. "Carice told me that you and I together are going to change the world. I fully intend to prove her correct."
On a day that fully and proudly identified as belonging to autumn, Millie went for a walk with Elise. A long one. Through Longstown and most of Bedford, they followed the river along the same path they'd taken the day Millie made her wedding proposal. Without a boat this time, the route was less direct and not nearly as smooth, since some of the roads they took weren't finished yet.
The further from town they got, the newer everything became. The forest had been punched through, the fields graded, making way for the future as people envisioned it.
Or, at least, were considering envisioning it, in Millie and Elise's case.
If nothing else came of the trip, the walk was good for both of them—refreshing and introducing them to parts of town they'd never been to before (mostly because they hadn't existed).
Always a good idea if planning to stay.
The river proved a helpful guide, even when they couldn't see it directly, the main road being built out of town followed it closely enough to bring them exactly where they wanted to go while making it almost impossible to get lost.
When they arrived at their eventual destination, they both realised it wasn't the first time. By their reckoning, it was only a hundred-or-so yards away from the exact spot Millie had proposed, and she had to firmly quash any ideas about destiny and fate.
On top of that, the river looked and sounded completely different from the bank, mostly because Millie wasn't having to keep a boat from running into anything. The burble was omnipresent, a kind of white noise that Millie immediately found relaxing. That did a far better job at weakening her resistance to the place.
What there was of it. Currently the house was a foundation and a pile of bricks suggesting they were thinking of becoming a house, surrounded by mud and grass that had been repeatedly pummelled by heavy construction equipment.
"This part of the river has not flooded in centuries," Elise said as she flipped through an information packet thicker than the October issue of Magic. "It is one of the reasons the Longs chose to establish Longstown here."
"I suppose if we are going to trust anyone's opinion on real estate, we could do a lot worse," Millie said.
Unfurling a witchscale blanket near a bright red string that had been staked into the ground demarcating the property line, they sat down and tried to imagine the view decades from now.
It was certainly different from an airfield.
And lonely.
Elise's presence helped, but not as much as Millie would have imagined.
"It is very quiet," Elise said. Her deeper feelings came across the Bond, in surprising harmony with Millie's.
Or were they? It was hard to say anymore which of them was feeling what, ironically making talking more important sometimes.
"It is that, aye," Millie said.
Surrounded by nature, it was also a bit dreary, but that was only because it was October. The sky was a uniform slate, while the leaves were in the last stages of turning; damp browns were all that were left. Occasionally one would fall onto its own reflection and drift away, perhaps to be caught in the next thatch of reeds or all the way to the North Sea. The area had been spectacular in the summer, but Millie's memory could also have been biased by one of the happiest moments of her life.
"When we talked about it before, it felt so exciting. Now that we're here, it's a bit…"
"Distant," Elise finished.
Millie nodded, and they both looked in the direction of the airfield, and EVE. Their sisters, the girls, even the industry of Longstown lent energy to every moment there whether they knew it or not. Vickie and Kat's Manifests, the deep mountain lake and the blazing sun, weren't a few strides away anymore. Being able to sense them at all from this distance was probably some kind of witch-y record heretofore unheard of, but all Millie could think about was how much comfort she'd taken from having them so close. Not only their power, but the people that power inhabited: Millie's oldest friend and one of her closest, people she could go to at any time about anything. They blended into one every night now; there was a reassurance in that, too.
But such constant reassurance was one of the reasons Millie was even thinking of leaving. Vickie was going to be okay, and so was Kat. With all the progress being made in the world, the danger to witches was the lowest it had been in history, a permanent peace in Europe perhaps only months away, and with the great Sword of Damocles that was Alex having been taken down…
