From the Ashes of Victory: The Complete Series, page 99
part #0 of From the Ashes of Victory Series
Watching Pretoria watch Eliza was endearing, and humanising, the rest of the session passing much more quickly as Millie moved from bored chaperone to interested spectator.
Soon enough, though, it was over, and once Pretoria had made her fabric choices, they arranged for delivery to the EVE residence and had the invoice sent to the Longs directly. As they left, Millie caught Pretoria once more flicking glances at Eliza, leaving her looking more suspicious than impressed, and Millie had to bite her smile to keep it down.
"You seemed to enjoy yourself," Millie said amicably as they walked along afterward.
"I didn't even know there was such a thing as a dressmaker until today," Pretoria said. "My aunt and I made all our clothes."
Millie swallowed her smugness at having sussed that already; it was the first time Pretoria had volunteered anything personal about herself. "Were you any good at it? You seemed a bit suspicious of Miss Stone in there."
"I was… decent. Nothing I made fell apart," Pretoria said.
"About all you can ask, really," Millie replied. "Your aunt was a witch too, right?"
Eyes that had been moving from shop window to shop window shot suddenly to the ground, and a hint of colour rose to swim beneath Pretoria's cheeks.
This time, Millie didn't bother to hide her smile, and gave the flustered younger witch a friendly reminder. "It's all right. It's not a dirty word here. Witch, witch, witch. See?"
"It's…" Pretoria started, but reconsidered. "I guess I never really hid it, but after what happened…"
Millie silently cursed herself. "I'm sorry, of course. Ivy speaks highly of her."
"I learned everything from her. She raised me all by herself, taught me witchcraft. It's still hard to believe she's gone," Pretoria said.
In a house full of women who'd lost their families to varying degrees of tragedy, Millie didn't ask for elaboration, instead choosing the mercy of changing the subject. "Have you had any problems here yet? Anything I can help you with?"
Pretoria's eyes flicked to Millie and away, indecision clear on her face.
As it was a question that, to Millie at least, didn't leave a lot of room for indecision, this time she did press for clarity. "It's all right, you know. We won't take it personally."
"I… no, it's stupid…"
"Go ahead. I want to hear it," Millie said in what she hoped was an inviting tone.
It was another block before Pretoria decided.
"Your house is new, isn't it?"
"Aye, built last winter."
"So that wasn't a ghost I heard, then."
After a split second of confusion, the answer settled on Millie like a lead cape. What else could they have expected in a house full of women who had the power to take on every problem themselves? Still, she blew out a frustrated breath. "No, it wasn't."
"What was it?" Pretoria asked, thankfully in a tone that was more perplexed than frightened.
"A problem for later. Right now, I can show you the rest of the town, if you'd like."
After a moment's thought, Pretoria nodded. "All right."
"Anything you'd like to see in particular?"
Pretoria's answer came with surprising swiftness.
"What is the name of it, again?" Pretoria asked, looking down into the lazily-flowing river that bullied its way through the centre of Bedford. It was much the same colour as the River Eve in Cumbria, but shallower, and the greenery from which she peered down into this one had been put there artificially.
"The River Great Ouse," Millie said.
"Ooze?" Pretoria asked. That's what it sounded like Millie'd said. Even with her accent, Pretoria couldn't imagine what other word it could have been.
Millie shrugged. "I'm not from around here, don't ask me. I think it's spelled differently, but I've never seen it written down. Are you sure you're all right here?"
For a brief second, the horrific sound of Pretoria's lungs purging themselves echoed in her mind, but passed almost as quickly as it came. "I think so."
"All right. If you want to leave, tell me," Millie said.
Pretoria nodded, and followed Millie's lead as they walked along lush green grass, maintained by a kind of park called the Embankment—though the idea of needing to set aside a special area so you could remember what the world was supposed to look like still struck her as crazy. Pretoria's entire village had been built along the river, and it had been a struggle to keep nature from taking it back.
"Is this what London's like?" Pretoria asked, casting a suspicious eye towards the flats and other buildings that kept the reassurance of the horizon from her.
A sudden fit of coughing doubled Millie over, and it was a suspiciously long time before she was able to answer. "Ah… no. No, London is… bigger. Much bigger. I don't recall many trees along the Thames."
"What? What is there?"
"Parliament, for one. The Tower. Lots of things."
"Oh." None of those sounded terribly interesting, or worth ruining what Pretoria remembered a proper riverside to be.
"You're very strong for coming here, you know," Millie said suddenly. "I don't think I could have, if I were you."
It was Pretoria's turn to shrug. "If you were me, you would've grown up on the river. I learned to have a healthy respect for it early on. So close to the mountains, the meltwater could come in quick in the spring. You never fully trust it, I suppose."
"But you loved it, didn't you? I can hear it when you talk about it."
Pretoria kept her eyes on the water. "I still do."
"Aye, of course," Millie said, shaking her head. Her great mane of coppery hair swirled about as she did, amplifying her dejection.
"But yes," Pretoria said quickly. "I didn't know anything else until…" She swallowed hard, trying hard not to remember the grit of brown silt scratching at her throat as she did. "Until I had to leave. The river giveth, and the river taketh."
"What did it… giveth?" Millie asked, an arch of copper bent over one eye.
"Fish, mostly. It ran the grain mill, washed our clothes and our bodies, quenched our thirst."
"You drank it?"
"Of course. We lived only a few miles from the source. And it tasted a lot better than the dreck that comes out of the pipes here, I'll add." The very idea was still incomprehensible. Where did it come from? How did it get inside the house? From here? Is that why it tasted like metal?
"All right," Millie said, even if she didn't sound convinced.
But Pretoria didn't need the towering Scot's agreement, she knew what water was supposed to taste like. "So why did you ask me to stay out?"
"To get you away from that house. To show you there's more here than your room and your thoughts," Millie said.
Pretoria had surprised herself when Millie'd asked where she might want to go when she said 'a river.' It was reassuring to know that it was her automatic answer, and her earlier refusal to give into fear of it had had its intended effect.
As far as the why, Pretoria had to admit, it did feel good to stretch her legs. Artificial as it was, having the trees overhead and the sound of rushing water in her ears again was refreshing. A flare of red caught the corner of her eye, and she turned to see Millie looking at her.
"And I thought you might like to talk," she said.
"Why would I want to do that? Ivy told me enough," Pretoria said. More than enough. There was a tiny part of her that thought she was dreaming and that all of this would go away in the morning. It was more likely than being real, at this point. Or maybe she just wanted it to be.
"Aye, I heard. Did you listen?"
Pretoria bristled. "You think I didn't?"
"I don't know you enough to answer that. I want to, though."
"Why? What do you care?"
Millie's long legs chewed up quite a bit of distance before she answered. "Because I see parts of me in you," she said finally. "And I very much needed someone to answer the questions I guess you have."
"Why do you think I have any more?"
"Because I had them, too, and you wouldn't have that look on your face still if you knew the answers," Millie said not unkindly.
Pretoria turned away all the same. "You're surrounded by Manifested witches. The way I understand it, you have been for years. There are older, wiser witches I can go to for answers. Thank you all the same."
"I'm not talking about magic. You're a long way from home and you can't go back anytime soon. Parents are gone, no brothers or sisters. Other things."
"Are you trying to recruit me? Is that why you care?" Pretoria asked sharply. What did someone like Millie Brown know about loss? She had everything she could want. She had a home, a job, friends, strength, confidence, respect. She was even famous to the point a nobody from nowhere like Pretoria Ferguson had heard of her.
But if there was hurt in the Scot's eyes at Pretoria's tone, it was gone before she could say for sure that's what it had been.
Millie looked to the path ahead. "That would assume we want you."
Pretoria stopped so fast she almost fell over. "I'm sorry?"
"EVE is built on more than magic and hope, you know. It's built on trust, too. And part of trust is honesty, with each other and yourself. If you're going to lie to yourself, why should anyone trust you with their life? You can't trust you."
Blindsided, Pretoria took the offensive. "Who said I wanted to stay?"
"No-one did. Least of all you. But that doesn't mean we can't help you before you leave. You've been through a lot, and you have a chance to talk to others who have, too. Sounds better than dealing with it all yourself, doesn't it?"
"Wh-? Aren't you a security guard? Why are you talking like this?"
"Because I'm a witch first. And witches help each other. None of us would be who we are without the others. Some of us would be dead." Millie's normally lively green eyes were gravely serious. "And I don't want that to happen to you."
"Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose," Pretoria said as they began to walk again.
"A Manifested witch's heart is, by definition, good," Millie said.
"That doesn't sound like you. I barely know you, and I know that. What happened to honesty?"
"It is honesty. It's a lesson I had to learn, because I didn't know. By the look in your eyes, you didn't either."
"Of course not! I didn't ask for this!" Pretoria exclaimed, shoving her hands out and waving them in front of Millie, water droplets spraying across the water's surface and adding Pretoria's part to the river.
"And you still blame us? None of us did. It's something we all—"
"No, it isn't! You didn't—!" Pretoria exclaimed before savagely forcing herself back under control. "You didn't kill anyone," she finished quietly.
"Do you know for sure that you did?" Millie asked.
Pretoria hugged herself tightly. Of course she did. It was her fault, why else did she look like this? "I believe the people on that boat would still be alive if I hadn't Manifested."
"But you wouldn't be," Millie said. "I know who I would prefer, if it was only one of you."
"You're not God, you don't get to make that decision."
"No. And I didn't. You did."
Pretoria recoiled like she'd been slapped. "How can you say such a thing?"
"Because you're here. I've seen what happens when you threaten a Manifested witch's life. I've been that witch, Pretoria. It's why we Manifest at all. To protect ourselves, or others."
Pretoria thought on this as they approached a large stone bridge that marked the end of the path along the river. Greying with soot and age, it had once been white, she guessed. Sturdy, made up of large stones, it looked like it had been here for a long time, and would be for a long time yet. Stairs led from their path up to the road that ran over it, forming a literal corner for the figurative one she found herself backed into.
"And how many people has EVE killed?" she demanded.
"Well… none," Millie said. "Other than Niamh."
"So all of you, all of you who Manifested to save lives, whether your own or someone else's, none of you killed anyone?"
"No," Millie said.
"Then it's no wonder none of you look like this," Pretoria said, grabbing a handful of wet hair and letting it go to slap onto her shoulder again. "I've seen the pictures. That Russian fire witch is…" Pretoria swallowed, but pushed ahead, "…very pretty… and I've heard she can make fire come alive! Is that true?"
"Sort of. It looks alive, but it's not alive, really."
"Close enough. She Manifested, and not only is she beautiful, so is her magic. She helped people. You helped people. Look at me," Pretoria said, looking up at Millie so intently the tall Scot had no choice but to comply. "Am I?"
"Are you what?"
"Beautiful. Even Miss Ravenwood has a confident dignity in her photographs, what about me? I look like a kelpie. Is that beautiful? Or does it match my magic? Gloria and Ephraim were excellent swimmers, there is no way they drowned on accident."
"Pretoria, you can't—"
"Stop telling me what I can't do! You weren't there! I know what I felt! I killed them. They're dead. Do you understand? People that helped raise me, the parents of children I played with… oh, God…" All the blood rushed from Pretoria's face and her knees went weak, but she swatted away Millie's attempt to steady her and she fell against the rough stone of the bridge. "They were parents… Gloria was to be a grandmother…"
The tears, when they came, were painful. The most painful she had ever shed in her life, falling in the name of people who had tried to murder her. Stinging as they emerged, she let them burn hot streaks down her face. They tasted of salt and fear, and blinded her to the world as she fled.
Away from Millie, away from the river, away from the trees and the grass, she stumbled up the stairs into the gathering and unfamiliar darkness.
Starving, freezing, paranoid, running for her life across half of Europe, Katya had never been as mentally exhausted as she was when she arrived back at the hotel.
She'd stupidly, naively hoped they could have snuck out of Versailles without incident, getting Vita someplace she could rest. But their notoriety, gender and the fact Katya had made wings of fire shoot out of her back meant the press were waiting with baited breath to hear what EVE had to say about someone trying to blow up a peace conference.
Then word got out that EVE had stopped it, and a manageable press scrum had turned into a near-riot of reporters shouting a wall of questions. Katya had been successful in begging off the others out of respect for Vita's very obvious incapacitation, but had had to throw herself to the wolves to keep them from following them back.
For five hours she'd made herself available to both press and police, and she didn't know if she had even kept her story straight by the end—though she couldn't have lied if she'd wanted to. Her brain had been reduced to the consistency of mushy peas by the end of hour one, in no state to make up anything.
Repeating the story ad nauseam did help to drive it deeper into her mind, however, and she couldn't help but replay it over and over, even now that she had it to herself again.
By the time she'd gotten back to their rooms, Vita was awake again, and between Katya's relief and her fatigue, she hadn't eaten anything. She'd even waved off Elise's offer to restore her magically. All Katya wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep for a thousand years.
If only. Vita being awake meant she was thinking, and to the increasing concern of everyone else, doing so out loud.
"So now, not only do I have to worry about killing my body, I could literally lose my mind, as well? Unacceptable," Vita said as she paced at the foot of Katya's bed. Sveta and Elise were on the other, as Selene looked on from the chair pushed out from the desk by the window.
"But perhaps with practice…"
Elise shook her head. "You must accept it, or you will harm yourself beyond your ability to be healed. Do you wish to repeat being… gone?"
The fact that Vita didn't immediately say 'no' did not go unnoticed.
"Stop it right now," Katya said. "I can see the gears turning behind your eyes. It's bad enough you've spent the last hours taking notes when you should have been resting; you will not turn yourself into a vegetable to satisfy your curiosity about whatever you saw down there. I don't know how you could even conceive of it."
But that was clearly what Vita was doing. "It was so… different. I could see so much, and yet barely anything. I felt like…"
"No!" Katya snapped. "How dare you even entertain such thoughts? Do you know what you put us through? How panicked we were? The light was gone from your eyes, Vita. You looked dead!"
"But we know what happened now. How to bring me back," Vita protested. "I could learn so much if I only had the time—"
Katya shook her head. "I hate this side of you," she said flatly, unable to look at who she was talking to.
Vita stopped her incessant pacing and stared at Katya with wide, uncomprehending eyes.
"Do you love learning more than us? Is knowing something no-one else does so important that you would put your friends through hell to gain it? Hm?"
"Katya, I—"
Katya exploded from her bed and bore down on Vita like an avalanche. "How can you be so selfish? After everything you've been through? After everything we've been through? All of us? We've all lost so much, and you would take yourself away from us for what? You would put Millie and Elise through that again?" She savagely yanked back her sleeve to expose the scar on her left wrist. "Look at this."
"You've shown me," Vita said, unable to avert her eyes.
Good, it meant she was listening.
"And you've already forgotten! Your suicide attempt left no scars, so perhaps you need to see mine to remind yourself of what you did."
Vita's eyes darkened. "I have never forgotten. Not ever. Don't presume to tell me anything about that time in my life."
