Chapter 16
Rising at dawn was one thing. Rising at dawn for some yoga stretching was actually rather pleasant. But following that rather pleasant stretching by being whipped into squats and lunges changed the entire complexion.
She kept up, well enough, but squats, lunges, jumping jacks with Historia smiling, even letting out a occasional laugh, as she herself struggled through them, without even a single hit of coffee, made Annie want to try out her right jab on her friend's beautiful face.
Then came the dreaded push-ups.
She was the only one of the six who couldn't manage more than two. One and a half if she was honest. Even with her knees down in what Mikasa called (with a definite sneer) girl push-ups, she struggled.
She would get stronger.
Pull-ups, not even one. Crunches until her abs screamed. More stretching, thank God, then a jog down the cliff steps, along the beach, then back.
Where she just collapsed on the grass in a gasping heap.
"I hate you." She could barely pant it out. "Especially Eren, but all of you."
"That's a start. Who's on breakfast detail?" Eren asked.
"The chart's in my room. Someone who can still walk should go get it."
"I'll get it." Historia, barely winded, dashed off.
From her prone position, Annie bared her teeth. "Maybe I hate her even more than Eren."
Moaning, she rolled over, made herself stand on wobbly, vibrating legs. Actively scowled when Historia bounced back with the chart.
"I cook with Armin today. I can make the coffee. I know how. It's so pretty!" She turned the chart around for all to see.
Annie had color-coded it, and since she'd been in a fine mood before this morning's torture, had illustrated it.
Pretty little drawings of pots and pans, a lawn mower, a garden, pecking chickens, the pool, and so on, along with sketches of everyone beside their names.
"I want that," Armin said immediately. "I want that when we're done. It goes in the kitchen for now, but I'm calling dibs. Let's go cook, Historia."
"Can I break the eggs?" she asked as they headed toward the villa. "It looks like fun."
"There's a woman who makes her own fun. Let's find out if she can make coffee."
"Hold on a minute," Eren said to Mikasa. "You got any Tai Chi?"
Mikasa tapped her right fist into her open left palm. "Sure."
"Take Annie through a beginner's lesson."
"What! Why? No!" Though it shamed her, Annie was weak enough to look at Bertoldt for help. But he only smiled, gave her arm an encouraging pat.
"It'll help with your balance and centering," Eren said. "You want to catch up with everyone else, you need a little extra. Twenty minutes should do it. How about you show me some of what you've put together," he said to Bertoldt, "while their cooking."
"All right." Bertoldt took Annie's face, kissed her lightly. "Twenty minutes," he repeated, and left her.
"I want coffee," Annie insisted. "I want to sit down. I think I want my mommy."
"There's no whining in Tai Chi. Feet slightly apart, knees loose. Breathe from here." She slapped a hand on Annie's aching abs.
"Oh, God."
"You wanted a unit, Ann. Looks like you've got one."
"It hurts."
"No pain, no gain," Mikasa shot back with merciless cheer. "I'll go over philosophy later, because I damn well want coffee, too, but for now, breathe in from your center, and do what I do."
At least the movements were slow, and she had to admire Mikasa's fluidity as she tried to mimic them. But that didn't stop her quads from aching like rotting teeth.
By the time she sat down she could have wept and whimpered for coffee, but she damn well knew where her center was as it quivered from exhaustion and begged for food. Armin produced a platter with a golden mountain of pancakes. Where she'd usually have eaten one, she ate three, actually contemplated a fourth before she decided it might make her sick.
Eren looked across the table at her. "You're up."
"I don't want to be up. Maybe not ever again."
"I believe he means your clever and creative chart." Bertoldt gestured to where Historia had propped it on a chair, like another team member.
"Oh. Well. I've got me and Bertoldt on cleanup, Mikasa on Apollo and chickens."
"Wolf in the hen house."
Mikasa sent Armin a sharp, sweet smile. "You're a barrel of monkeys."
"Historia and I hit the garden to weed and harvest," Annie continued.
"I'm on the pool, Bertoldt's on the lawn mower. Historia's on laundry." Armin grinned at the chart. "Leaves Mikasa and Eren on the supply run. I think I like the pictures of the bag of groceries and boxes of ammo best."
"Give me ten for the cluckers, another ten to grab the shower." Mikasa downed the rest of her coffee. "Another five to make a call, see where we can find the best place for ammo."
"The household supply list is on the dresser in my room."
Nodding at Annie, Mikasa pushed away from the table. "Got it. Fifteen tops," she said and jogged off. How could she jog, Annie wondered bitterly, to deal with the chickens?
"Might as well grab a swim before I play pool boy."
Eren rose as Armin did. "Fifteen minutes to add anything to the supply list, otherwise, you get what you get."
Historia sat a moment after the others had left, then looked apologetically at Annie. "I don't know how to laundry. Can you teach me?"
"Go ahead." Bertoldt waved them away. "I've got this."
By the time she'd finished giving Historia a lesson on separating clothes, water temperatures, cycles, he'd nearly finished the dishes.
So she and her partner for the morning went out to the garden with hoes, rakes, shears, and a plastic tub from the shed.
They worked with Historia happily humming. She could hear the rumble of the lawn mower, the drone of bees, and the swish of the sea at the base of the cliff.
All so normal, Annie thought, so everyday. Anyone looking at the picture would see a group of people tending to household chores. But they were far more.
She bided her time, noting that Historia caught on quickly to hoeing out the weeds, just as she'd caught on quickly to the basics of doing laundry.
But she'd clearly done neither before.
"So you have five siblings," Annie began.
"Yes."
"You must miss them."
"I do, but I'm happy here. Even though we have to fight, and some of the work is hard."
"Five siblings," Annie repeated. "And you've never done laundry before."
"Today I'm doing laundry."
"So you had staff?"
Obviously puzzled, Historia straightened, mimed holding a tall stick. "Staff?"
"Not that kind. People. People who do things like laundry and cooking and cleaning."
"Oh, We're staff now."
Historia bent back to her weeding, avoiding Annie's eyes.
"You've never really said where you live."
Historia weeded another moment, then stopped, turned to face Annie again. "Will you be my friend?"
"I am your friend."
"Will you be my friend and not ask what I can't tell you? I can promise, I have nothing bad. It's..."
"Like an oath."
"Yes."
"All right."
Historia reached out to take Annie into a hug. "Thank you. You taught me laundry." She eased back, smiling. "I'll teach you how to..." Bending over, she lifted her legs into a ridiculously fluid handstand.
"I think that's going to take a lot longer than teaching you how to do laundry."
"I'll teach you." Historia dropped down again. "And we'll find the stars. When we do, and they're where they belong, I can tell you everything."
"All right. And whatever it is, we're still going to be friends."
After gardening and laundry, after supplies were put away and they ate the gyros Mikasa brought back from the village, Annie had her first lesson in gun safety.
A very patient Armin spent considerable time with her and Historia, the only ones who'd never fired a gun, showing them how load, unload, reload, how to sight, how to use the safety, how to take it off.
As instructed, Historia slapped the magazine into one of Armin's 9 mms.
"I don't like it. It feels cold and mean."
"You don't have to like it. You have to respect it. A lot of GSWs are accidents, from carelessness. Gunshot wounds," he explained. "People who don't learn how to properly handle a gun, who don't properly secure it when not in use. Some insist guns don't kill. People do. But guns do kill, and knowing that, respecting that, is really important."
"Did this gun kill someone?"
"No. But I know it can. I know I can. If there's no choice."
He looked down to where the others had set up a temporary target range, with paper targets over a thick sheet of wood.
"Time to try them out. Safeties on."
Annie didn't like the feel of the gun any more than Historia, but she carried it down to the range, where Mikasa took over the lesson.
"We're going to start with stance and grip. Basic Weaver stance," she told Armin. "Two-handed grip."
When she demonstrated, Historia shook her head.
"Armin shoots the gun with one hand."
"And when you can shoot like Dead-Eye here, be my guest. For now, two hands. Your dominant hand presses the weapon forward slightly, and the other draws it back. Balancing. This'll help you with the recoil. Dominant foot back and to the side, the other forward, knee bent. Most of the weight's on your front foot."
She had them practice, again and again, getting into position, lifting an unloaded weapon to eye level.
"Okay. Who wants to shoot first?"
"Annie does," Historia said immediately.
"Okay."
"Load it like I showed you," Armin told her.
When she had, Mikasa stepped behind her. "Take your time, take your stance, raise your weapon." She laid a hand on Annie's back. "Don't hold your breath when you squeeze the trigger. Squeeze it, slow and smooth and let your breath out."
She did, felt the kick all the way to her shoulder, and the force of it, the sound of it like a punch in the heart.
She didn't miss the target entirely, but put a bullet in the second ring in, to the right.
"Not bad. Adjust your stance, relax your shoulders. Try it again."
The next shot hit higher, and still well to the right of the center.
"You're pulling it to the right, Think about that, fire again."
Lower this time, Annie noted, and another ring closer.
She fired several more, never hit center, but shot what Mikasa called a decent grouping.
She stepped aside, more than happy to unload and set the gun down, so Historia could step into line.
Mikasa adjusted her stance, her grip, then stepped back.
Historia fired when told, missed the paper target, plowed a bullet into the wood.
"Okay. It's okay. Don't hold your breath. Don't close your eyes. Eyes on the target this time, and squeeze the trigger."
She did, hit the white of the paper, then lowered the gun.
"I won't learn this. I'm sorry." Deliberately, she unloaded, handed the gun carefully to Armin. "I'm sorry, I can't learn this. I'll work harder, and I'll fight, but I can't do this. It feels evil in my hand. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. Hey, don't," he said quickly when her eyes welled with tears. "We'll find something else for you. No guns." He looked meaningfully at Eren. "She doesn't have to use the gun."
"Her call."
"Yeah, it is. See that." Armin holstered the weapon, put an arm around her shoulders. "Your call."
"I'm going to fold laundry. Annie showed me how. I'm going to go fold laundry."
"We'll think of something else," Armin said to the group when she dashed off.
"I might be able to come up with something." Bertoldt looked after her. "Something that would give her a weapon, a defense, and not upset her. Let me work on it."
By the time, they'd concluded what Annie thought as a Weaponry 101, she found all the laundry finished, folded, and her own share neatly stacked on her bed.
And the house sparkled.
She found Historia in the kitchen, diligently unloading the dishwasher.
"I cleaned the house."
"I'll say."
"I'm sorry."
"You need to stop being sorry. No one's mad at you."
"I didn't do my task."
"Because it's wrong for you. Everyone understands." Annie thought of her sore and aching muscles, weighed against friendship. "You said you'd teach me the handstand. You could give me a couple private lessons before you work with everyone. Give me a , ha-ha, leg up."
"Yes, I can. I will."
"How about now?"
She failed, and even when Historia held her legs, Annie's arms and shoulder muscles quivered and pinged like plucked harp strings. During the group lesson, after multiple face and/or ass plants, she was relegated to practicing simple forward and backward rolls.
She would get stronger. She would get better.
Deeming herself finished, she took her aches and pings off for a soak in the hot tub. She considered doing laps, as Eren had suggested, but the way her arms and legs felt, she'd probably sink straight to the bottom of the pool and drown.
Besides, she damn well earned a break.
She hit the jets, ahh, adjusted her sunglasses. She'd just sunk down to her chin when she saw Historia and Mikasa coming her way.
She liked their company, but at the moment she'd have preferred the moans she knew would come to be a private thing.
Mikasa set a pitcher of margaritas on the table, poured three glasses. And Historia held up a small bottle.
"Bertoldt said to add this to the water."
"What is it?"
"Lavender and rosemary and..." She looked at Mikasa.
"Magic. He said it would take care of any muscle soreness. Dump it in, Tori. We're going to test it out." Mikasa handed Annie a glass.
"I'm not sore." But Historia poured in the pale green liquid.
"She tempts me to say fuck you." Mikasa boosted herself into the tub.
"Consider it said." Annie closed her eyes, sipped the frothy drink. She heard the splash as Historia chose the pool instead.
"I hurt everywhere, and it's worse knowing I'm going to be squatting and lunges and running at dawn tomorrow."
"Add in upper body work."
Annie slitted her eyes open. "Consider it repeated in your direction."
"We'll be diving tomorrow, so that'll mix things up. And maybe we'll get lucky. I left Armin and Eren working out where."
"Bertoldt?"
"He's got a brainstorm about Historia's deal, so he went up to work on it."
Annie decided she'd go up and help him with it. Eventually. "God, this smells so good. Why don't I have one of these at home?"
"A hot tub or a hot magician to make you magic hot tub potions?"
She smiled to herself. "Both."
"Bet you could get both."
"Bertoldt, in my little house in the mountains? He has New York, and Germany. My place is so isolated, so quiet, and he's...he's larger than life. All that power. He banks it, that's control, but it's huge, and passionate, and more than could be satisfied living in a little house in Liberio."
"Will you be, once we're done with what we're here for?"
"I don't know anymore." And that shifted her balance. "But I think I'll always need a quiet place to go, to live, to paint. I'll never block what I have again, or feel I have to be alone. I know more about myself, what I'm capable of. I know what it is to be part of something really important. Something worth fighting for. And when I look at myself now...
"The mirror sees the truth, hard and bare. What she fears and fights against lives in the glass. And there lies her end, one only the stars can change. She fears her end."
She came back to herself with Mikasa gripping her arm to keep her head above water and calling for Historia.
"I'm all right. I'm okay."
"Take a hit." Mikasa pushed the glass back in her hand. "I saved it when it started to tip out of your hand."
Annie shook her head, let out a breath. "Give me a second."
"The water's too hot, and you're pale. Come, cool off in the pool."
"Good thinking." With a nod to Historia, Mikasa put the glass aside, pulled Annie to her feet. "Out and in, pal."
She obeyed, as she did feel too hot, and somehow too...loose. The cooler water of the pool helped offset the dizziness so she was able to climb out again on her own.
"Do you remember what you said?" Mikasa asked her.
"Yes. About a mirror, about the truth in it. I'm not sure what it means."
"We should go in," Historia decided. "Out of the sun."
Yes, Annie thought. She'd get out of her wet bathing, take a moment or two to settle. "One good thing." She rolled her shoulders before wrapping herself in a towel. "I don't ache anymore."
Though she brushed off the offers to help her change, she realized they'd gone straight to Bertoldt when he walked in before she buttoned up a dry shirt.
"Let me look at you."
"I'm all right. They didn't have to interrupt you for this."
He simply put his hands on her shoulders, took a long study of her face. "No headache?"
"No. I didn't try to block it. It comes on in a wave, and it leaves me a little shaky, but it didn't hurt. You were right about that."
"Describe what happened."
"Mikasa and I were in the hot tub, Historia put your potion in the water. Wonderful, by the way. I was relaxed, and we were just talking about..." She adjusted there. She certainly wasn't going to bring up Mikasa's suggestion he'd come live with her in Liberio.
"Talking about what?"
"How I knew myself better since all this started, and knew what it was to be part of something. Then it was that wave again. It's like being pulled by an undertow. But this time, I tried to go with it instead of fighting to stay up."
"What did you see?"
"I-" She broke off a the knock on her door.
"Are you okay in there?" Armin called out.
"Yes. I'm coming down. I need to organize my thoughts," she said to Bertoldt.
"All right." He ran a hand over her damp hair. "We'll go down."
They'd already gathered on the terrace, so she sat, took a breath. "I'm sorry because I don't really understand what I meant, what I saw. It might have been a room, it might have been a cave. Everything was gold and silver and shining. Like a really elegant house of mirrors. It was like I was standing there in it, but I couldn't see myself. Then I picked up a mirror, but it wasn't my hand. I think it was hers. Marley. She picked up this jeweled mirror, but when she looked in it, when looked back was not just old. Ancient. Gray and withered. Sunken eyes, thin gray hair. Hardly more than a skull. Nothing else reflected. The glass around that image was pure black.
"The glass shattered, and that face was in all the shards, hundreds of shards. And the shards went to smoke, and it all went dark."
"You said the mirror sees truth," Mikasa reminded her.
"I know."
"An allegory?" Armin suggested. "She's ancient, being a god, but the mirror sees her soul and heart or whatever you want to call it as withered and dark?"
"We don't need a seer to know that," Eren pointed out. "Maybe she's got a Dorian Gray thing going."
Struck, Mikasa pointed a finger at him. "And the mirror reflects what she really is. It ages, shows her sins and all that while she stays young and beautiful."
"It's a theory."
"A good one. If there actually is a mirror, and we destroyed it, there lies her end."
"I don't know. What I saw... She destroyed the mirror. She'd hardly end herself."
"Another mirror, another glass," Bertoldt suggested.
"I'll do some digging on it." Mikasa picked up her margarita again. "You said only the stars could change it. We can speculate that's another reason she wants them so bad. There's a way to end her, not just stop her, but end her. And if she gets the stars, the way's done."
"I'll do some checking on mirror spells," Bertoldt added. "The stars remain first priority. Have you two chosen where we dive tomorrow?"
Eren nodded. "We mapped out routes to three caves. We should be able to do all three, but we can hit two for certain. You'll want to get a meal in before sunset," he said to Mikasa, "so-"
"Before we get into that," Armin interrupted. "And whatever else is on today's agenda, I've got something I need to explain. I needed to talk to my family first. My grandfather especially."
"Regarding the compass," Bertoldt said.
"Yeah, that. There's a little more to it." He took it out of his pocket. "Using it with a map can show you where you should go, for what you need or want. But it can do more than show you. Even without a map."
"Like what?" Mikasa demanded.
"Well. Like this." Armin held the compass out in his palm.
And vanished.
"What the holy fuck!"
As Mikasa swore, Historia jumped to her feet. "Where did he go? Where is he?"
"Up here," Armin called from the terrace, waved. Then vanished only to reappear in his seat at the table.
"You're a magician, too!"
"No. It's the compass," he told Historia. "It's linked to me, yeah, but it's the compass. I just gave it where I wanted to go, an easy one, to the terrace up there, and back here."
"That's more than a little." Eren held out a hand, examined the compass when Armin gave it to him. "How is it linked to you?"
"Whoever holds it can pass it to another. Not like I just did to you. It's a formal deal. It's mine until I pass it to the next. Traditionally a son or daughter."
"You really save on airfare," Mikasa commented.
"Ha. Yeah, handy there. There's actually a little more." He took it back from Eren, turned it over, ran his finger around the circumference.
A second lid opened to reveal a clock-face.
"Man! You are not going to tell me it's like a time machine."
Armin gave Mikasa a weak smile. "Sort of."
She leaped up. "Oh, my Jesus, the places I could go, see. Mayans, Aztecs, Celts. The land bridge, the freaking pyramids. Where- When have you been?"
"Not that far back. Look, you've got to take a lot of care when you use it to time or place shift. A lot of care. Say you get an urge to watch the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. First, you're dressed all wrong, and somebody's going to notice. More, what if you drop down in the middle of the road and a wagon runs over you? Or you get hit by a stray bullet? Even if you live through it, you've changed something. And that can change something else, so when you come back it's not exactly the way you left it. Now you've got to go back and fix it."
"Space-time continuum. Got that, but you went there, right? Got a look at the Earps and Doc Holiday."
"Yeah, and let me say it was fast and ugly, the gunfight. Time shifting's tricky, and you learn really fast, because you're taught and trained, but you have to learn by mucking up, not to use it for entertainment."
"How far?" Eren asked. "How far back can you go?"
"I don't know if there's a limit. I've heard stories, I was weaned on them, of people who didn't come back. The compass always comes back, but some of the ones who held it haven't. Because maybe they went too far, or they ended up miscalculating time or place just enough to end up in the ocean or in the middle of a battlefield, an earthquake."
"And forward?" Bertoldt asked him. "Is that part of it?"
"Even trickier. You want to see how things are going a hundred years from now? What if eighty years from now things went really bad? You figure to hit Times Square, but instead there's nothing. Or you drop down in the middle of a war, a plague. Even something as basic as the forest meadow is now a five-lane super highway and you're pancaked. You can calculate pretty well going back, but forward? You can't calculate what hasn't happened."
Armin closed the lid on the clock-face. "I've gone back and sideways and around in circles trying to get handle on what we're after. Before I got here, before I met any of you. I'd get bits and pieces, variations on the legend or the mythology, but nothing solid. And when the compass pointed me here, and now, that's where I came."
Historia touched his hand lightly. "Are you from now?"
"Yeah. Born eighteen years ago. And listen, if I knew how to get back to when and where this all started, maybe I'd risk it. But that's more than I've been able to do. And if I could, I don't know if there's anything I could do anyway."
"Can you take anyone with you?"
"Yeah. I took my brother back to Dodger Stadium to see Jackie Robinson play. It was his birthday, my brother's, and my grandfather okayed it. But I've only tried it with one person. Theoretically, I could take more. We don't talk about this outside the family," he continued. "It's like your deal, Mikasa, sort of. I went over this with my grandfather and I was going to bring it up last night. But you had to wolf out."
"Huh."
"Something like this gets out and you've got all kinds of crap to deal with. This asshole got wind of it, and he's been on my ass for five years now. Son of a bitch tried to ambush me last year in Morocco where I was following a lead. Gave up trying to buy it, and tried to shoot me instead. Fucking Braun."
"Wait a minute. Wait." Teeth bared, Mikasa leaned forward. "Reiner Braun?"
"Yeah. You know him?"
"I know him. Likes to bill himself as a rescuer of artifacts, as an expert on mythology, a consultant, adventurer, whatever suits his needs. He's a thief, a cheat, and I can't prove it, but I know he killed an associate of mine. He's onto you, to this?" she added, tapping the compass.
"Yeah, he is. I lost him after Morocco."
"He won't give up easy. I'll make some calls, see if I can find out where he is. If he's anywhere close, we need to defend against him as much as Marley."
"Does he know about the stars?" Bertoldt asked her.
"Reiner knows something about everything." She picked up her drink, scowled into it. "Son of a bitch Braun. If he gets wind you're here, Armin, that I am, that we are, unless he's hot on somebody else's ass, he'll be all over us. He's slit your throat for that compass."
"Yeah, I got that loud and clear in Morocco."
"For the stars?" She drained the rest of her drink. "He'd gut every single one of us."
"Then we'd better find them first." Eren rose. "I'm getting a beer."
"Bring some for the rest of the class." Bertoldt turned to Mikasa. "Tell us about Braun."
"Smart, plenty of letters after his name. But more, he's ruthless. He's got plenty of scratch."
"He had a..." Historia scratched her fingers along her arm.
"No, it's another word for money, but he's got piles of it. Big load of family money, then whatever he can steal. He'll take any contract if it pays enough. My sources say he's the one who arranged to abduct the white rhino, northern species, critically endangered, out of the conservancy in Kenya. Left two people dead. Nobody could prove it, and they've never found the rhino."
"Why would anyone steal a rhinoceros?" Annie wondered.
"Because somebody paid him, a whole bunch of a lot. Most likely somebody just as rich and just as vicious as he is who wanted to hunt it. A lot of sick bastards get off hunting rare and endangered."
She shook her head at the beer Eren brought back. "If he knew what I was, he wouldn't rest until he locked me in a cage and sold me to the highest bidder. Anyway."
She pushed that away. "He's around the same age as us, has bases in New York, Paris, Dubai, an estate in Devon. Probably more. French father, German mother, raised primarily raised in England, from what I know again. If I had to label him, I'd go with narcissistic sociopath. He's got mercs and a couple ex-Special Forces on his regular payroll, and picks up freelancers for specific jobs. But he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, or bloody. My take is he enjoys it.
"My friend had contacted me, way juiced. Told me he was dead sure he'd found Carnwennan, asked me to head to Cornwall, help him verify."
She changed her mind on the beer, took one after all.
"What's Carnwennan?" Annie asked her.
"King Arthur's dagger. Plenty in my line believe it pure myth. I don't happen to agree, and Westle, Dr. Westle, dedicated most of his professional career to Arthurian pursuits. When he said he'd found it, I believed him. It took me a couple of days to wrap up what I was doing and get to him. When I did, he was dead. Garroted, but not before he'd been tortured, not before his lab was trashed and torched, and him with it. No sign of Carnwennan, of course, or any of his notes, any of the other artifacts he'd found. Reiner was spotted in Falmouth, and that's not a coincidence."
She got up. "I'm going to make those calls, see if I can find out where he is and what he's up to."
"And we'll deal with him, if and when," Bertoldt said when Mikasa walked off.
"Him, his mercenaries, and hired guns," Eren added with a glance at Historia.
As if she'd waited for a cue, she sprang up into a series of flips across the table, and ended braced on her hands with the heel of her left foot a bare inch from Eren's face.
He laughed, so quick, deep, appreciative, that Mikasa, from several feet away, glanced back in his direction.
"Okay, gorgeous. You know how to prove your point."
"I can fight." She did a fluid roll off the table to land lightly on her feet.
"I'm working on something for you. In fact, I should get back to it." Now Bertoldt rose. "But I need something from you first."
"I have coins, and the...the scratch Mikasa gave me for some of them."
"No, mo chroi." He took a small vial from his pocket. "I need just three drops of your blood."
"My..." She blanched a little.
"What I make for you needs to be of you. To hold what you are, your light, your heart, your strength." Now he took out a small ritual knife he'd cleansed. "Just a tiny prick from your fingertip. Third finger of your left hand is best."
Saying nothing, she held out her hand, reached out for Armin's with the other.
With his eyes on hers, Bertoldt used the tip of the knife, held her finger over the vial so three drops slid inside.
"There now." As he might with a child, he kissed her fingertip. And the tiny wound healed.
"It didn't hurt."
"Because you're very brave. And your courage is in your blood as well."
"What will you make me?"
"A surprise." Now he kissed her cheek, then turned, looked at Annie. "I could use your help with it."
She went with him.
"You don't seem very concerned about this Reiner," Annie said.
"He's a man, however dangerous."
He walked into his room. As he slept in Annie's now, he arranged his as strictly a work space. At the moment, his cauldron sat on a waist-high stone pedestal in the center of the room.
"Bertoldt, it's one thing to fight, even kill those things Marley sends at us. But human beings?"
Killers, he thought, but only nodded. "There are ways to defend, even attack, without spilling blood. I'm working on just that here for Historia."
She looked in the cauldron, frowned at the amber liquid. "What is it?"
"That's where I could use your help. I've nearly done the mix, but what I add, how I proceed depends on what shape it will take."
"What will it do?"
"Deflect. Destroy, yes, what is conjured from the dark, as it will deflect with light."
"A shield?"
"I'm considering." He circled the cauldron as he spoke. "A small shield, she's agile enough to learn to use it, move with it."
"But she wouldn't have her hands free."
"Also a consideration. A kind of breastplate, perhaps, but then it would stationary, only moves as she moves. She wouldn't be able to defend herself from both front and back, or only as she turns, and even as quick as she is..."
She could see Historia in a breastplate, the lithe and lovely warrior princess. "How would it work, exactly?"
"With a beam of light. The beam strikes what's made of dark. Deflects, destroys. The shield might be-"
"Can it be two?" she interrupted.
"Two shields?"
"No. I was thinking bracelets. Like cuffs, I may not know my superheroes like Armin, but I know Wonder Woman."
He laughed as Annie brought up her arms, punched them out. "Wonder Woman. Well then, of course. She'll have her magic bracelets, have her hands free, and be able to deflect and defend from any angle. That's quite brilliant, faidh."
"Can you make them pretty? She'll wear whatever you give her, but pretty would make her happy."
"I can do that." He cupped a hand under Annie's chin, tugged her up for a kiss. "In fact, we'll add what will look like a design, and will add power and protection."
He moved across the room to his books, chose one, began to flip through it. "Here. This will do well, I think." He gestured to her.
"Is it Celtic?"
"It is, yes. My blood, and the power and protection will be imbued by me. Would you draw them? Two bracelets carrying this design. As you see them."
"All right. Let me get my sketch pad."
She hurried to her room and back, already imagining the cuffs. About an inch wide, she thought, slightly rounded, with a thin edging, like a tight braid.
And Bertoldt's Celtic symbols circling them.
"You didn't say how they'll clasp."
He only smiled. "Magic. No beginning or end," he added. "A true circle." As he spoke, he chose a curl of wire. "Bronze. For a warrior."
With his free hand he levitated the cauldron a few inches, flashed fire under it.
"No blade, no steel. All light. And in light the power to defend, to deflect. To destroy what comes from the dark source, to defend against what wishes to harm. The blood of the warrior." He held up the vial, turned it over to let the three drops spill into the cauldron. "And of the magician." Using the same knife, he used the tip on his own finger, added three drops of blood.
"Power and light bound by blood, cored by the ancients." Now he let the wire drift into the quietly bubbling liquid. "Stirred by wind."
He blew on his outstretched palm, and the liquid stirred.
"Sparked by fire."
The flames rose and lapped the pot, glowing red.
"With water from both storm and sea to cure. And earth from holy ground to bless."
Water first, spilled brilliantly blue from the bottle he chose, then earth, deeply, richly brown.
"Do you have the sketch?"
She'd drawn them, but could barely breathe now. Power thumped in the air, and the air had gone as blue as the water he poured. In it, he was the light, radiating it. When he turned his head to look at her, his eyes were onyx.
She held out the sketch.
He said nothing as he studied it, but nodded.
He held it high in both hands.
"Power of thee, power through me. Forge the weapons for the light, through them run the magics bright. Blessed by thee, given by me to a warrior in this fight. With them grant her might for right. In this image form them, with out blood burn then. Spark now fire, wild and free!"
The sketch flared, flamed in his hand, and the flash that remained of it shot into the cauldron.
"As it will, so mote it be."
He held his hands over that flash, those sparks.
"Cool now. And it's done."
It was just a room now, in the quiet light of coming evening, with the cauldron sitting quiet on the stone pedestal.
"I can't breathe," she told him.
He turned quickly, the eyes that had been so wildly intense now filled with concern.
"No, I don't mean-" She waved him off. "It's just. Breathless. That was magnificent, and I'm breathless."
"It's a complex and layered business to create a tangible thing from elements and will. It takes considerable energy."
"I could see that."
"Does it frighten you?"
"Not when it's you. No."
He held out a hand. "Come, see what we've conjured."
"I didn't-"
"Your sketch. So what came from you, beauty and imagery, is also in this." He took her hand, and with his other, reached into the cauldron.
The cuffs were exactly as she'd drawn them, down to the etched symbols, the thinly braided edges. The bronze glowed in the lowering light.
"Can I..."
"Of course."
She ran her fingertip over them. "They're beautiful. She'll love them for that alone. I love...I love that you made them for her, that you understood she needed another way, and made something strong and beautiful and from light. You..."
Swamped with emotion, she looked up into his eyes. "You really do leave me breathless. Beyond the power, Bertoldt. Whatever happens, this time with you? It changed my life. It's opened it."
"You've changed mine." He took her face in his hands, kissed her gently. "Enriched it. I'll make you a vow, faidh, though I don't have the sight. When we take the stars to where they belong, we'll stand together, just like this, in their light."
"That's a vow I want both of us to keep."
"Then trust we will."
She leaned against him a moment, staring out at the sky, the sea, the promontory where she knew they'd also stand together in the teeth of a storm.
"It's getting late, I lost track. You and I are on kitchen detail."
"That's a bloody shame, as I can think of something I'd like to do with you much more."
"Hold the thought, but Mikasa needs a meal before sunset. And you should give Historia her bracelets."
"If you must be practical. Then you'll take a walk with me later."
"A walk's what you'd like to do with me much more?"
"First." He took the bracelets she gave back to him, then her hand. "I think we'll have had enough of battle plans and tasks," he said as they started down. "And I'd like a walk in the moonlight with you."
"Then it's a date." She saw Historia playing tug-of-war with Apollo with a thick hunk of rope. "You should take them to her, and I'll get started on dinner."
When she left him to it, Bertoldt started across the lawn. Apollo broke off the game long enough to bound toward him for a greeting.
And Historia's eyes widened when she saw the bracelets in Bertoldt's hands.
"Oh! This is what you made for me?" She pressed her palms together, laid them on her lips. "Look how they glow in the sun."
"They're of light."
"And blood?"
"Yours and mine. They're only for you, and can only belong to you, or your blood, someone from you," he qualified.
"Thank you." She took one, almost reverently, then puzzled over it. "I don't know how to wear it. Is it for the wrist?"
"That's right." He took her hand, and the one he still held. "If you want it, it'll go on. But understand, it's both weapon and shield."
"To help me fight, without the gun or a knife."
"That's right. Without a gun or knife, but with power and light."
"I will fight."
When Bertoldt put her fingers through the cuff, it shimmered over her hand, onto her wrist, settled there, firm and true. Historia did the same with the second.
"They're beautiful."
"Only you can take them off."
She shook her head. "I'll wear them always. Thank you." She wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Let me show you how they work."
"Yes, please."
He lifted a hand, and formed a dark, spinning ball just above his palm, then sent it into the air. Then taking her arm, bent at the elbow, turned it toward the ball. "To start, you have to think, to aim, to be deliberate. But then it'll be instinct. Deflect the ball."
"Deflect?"
"Your light, Historia, against the dark, Use it."
He helped her this time, this first time. The thin beam of light shot from her cuff, struck the ball.
"I feel it," she murmured.
"That's right. Do it again."
She surprised him, lifting her other arm, and sent the ball wheeling.
"You're a quick one."
"I feel it," she repeated. "But what if I make a mistake? What if it strikes someone? I don't want to hurt anyone."
"It only harms the dark, or someone with dark purpose. It comes from me as well, and I have a vow. Sacred to me. To harm no one. What I am, what I have, I won't use to harm any but the dark."
"It's my vow, too. I take it with you. I will fight the dark." She lifted her arms, shot out light from both so the practice call winged right, then left.
"Yes, a quick one. Destroy it."
"Destroy?"
"I'll give you another. Destroy this one."
The light, brighter, sharper, struck the ball, and with a flash it vanished.
"If the things come back, attack us, I can do this. They're evil, so I can do this." Her eyes went hard, grim. "I can do this and break no vow."
"You do this, as I do, to keep one. To destroy the dark, to find and protect the stars."
"These are more than a gift. Even more than a weapon. You gave me purpose." Those sea-witch eyes, usually so full of fun, met his with intensity and strength. "I won't fail you."
"I know it."
"I like that they're pretty."
"Annie designed them for you." He conjured another ball. "Practice. I've got kitchen duty."
"I'll work very hard. Could you make a second, now? The evil doesn't come alone."
"Good point." He made three, gave her a pat on the shoulder, then left her to it. He could hear the snap and sizzle from her light as he crossed the lawn.
Armin stood on the edge of the terrace, his hands in his pockets, a baffled grin on his face.
"You made her freaking Wonder Woman."
"Annie's idea. It suits well, I think."
"Are you kidding? Look at her go."
Bertoldt glanced back, watched Historia do a running forward flip, firing at one ball from midair. Striking the other two on landing.
"Makes me feel like a git for ever thinking she needed to use a gun." As he had with Historia, he gave Armin's shoulder a pat, and went to the kitchen.
Historia showed off her new moves before dinner, proving herself a tireless as well as a quick study.
"I wouldn't mind a pair of those." Hands on hips, Mikasa watched Historia flash the trio of balls while executing a series of tumbles.
"Three nights a month you'd need four."
She sent Armin a sidelong look. "Har-har," she said and took his beer. "Are you sure she can't miss and zap one of us?"
"Very." As instructed, Bertoldt slid the fish from grill to platter. "You'd feel something, like a bit of static electricity."
"Does that include wolf form?"
"It's still you, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is. Maybe we should test it out anyway. Armin can be the target."
"And a har-har back."
"No joke, we should-" Mikasa broke off as her phone signaled. "Hold on."
Annie brought out a bowl of sauteed vegetables in pasta and a round of bread on the cutting board.
"That's dinner," she announced.
Armin gave a whistle of approval when Historia blasted all three balls out of the air. "Talk about dead-eye."
Mikasa shoved her phone away as she sat. "The word from two sources is Reiner is currently in London, so something we shouldn't have to worry about for now." She looked out, judging the position of the sun and her time. "I like to sleep in, when I can, after the last night. I guess that's not happening."
"We drill at dawn." Eren heaped food on his plate.
"I like to drill." Historia plopped into the chair beside Armin. "Some of it's like dancing."
Through the globe Marley watched them. It infuriated her that the images were blurred, as if through layers of gauze.
The witch, she thought, had drawn a curtain, and had more power than she'd bargained for.
Not enough, not nearly enough, but infuriating.
She set the globe aside, picked up her goblet to drink.
Let them think they were protected. Let them feast and laugh. For when she was done, the laughter would be screams.
She called one of her creatures so it perched on the arm of her chair while she skimmed her fingertip over the rough ridges of its face. She could send an attack, just to watch them scramble like ants, but it seemed wiser tp let them have that feast, to let them believe they'd won some battle.
And let them lead her to the Fire Star.
When they did, if they could, she would take it. She would rip them to pieces, crush their bones to dust, paint the sea with their blood.
She wearied of waiting, wearied of only watching through the curtain of magic. She stroked her creature nearly into slumber. Then snapped the head from its body with one vicious twist. She added some of its blood to the goblet as a woman might add cream to her tea.
She imagined, as she drank, it was the witch's blood, and his power ran in to twine with her own.
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