Chapter 5

Fri 22nd July

The freezer was full of food again, but she had no idea what she wanted to eat. She didn't want to put a big meal in, because she wanted to work out, but she was also hungry for something substantial.

She closed it with a sigh and set about making a sandwich instead of some of the fresh new food in the fridge. As she was cutting it in half, Xena came trotting in through the back door with a leaf in her mouth.

"Ah ah! No! Take it outside!" She said, blocking Xena's way in. The dog attempted to get by her before sitting and dropping the leaf at Valkyrie's feet. "Nope. I don't want it. I just mopped in here and it's clean for the first time. Don't even think of breathing in here. No leaves. Pick it up."

Xena whined and picked it back up.

"Take it outside."

She huffed a growl.

"Fine," she held out her hand and was given the leaf. Xena raced past her, happy as could be. Valkyrie threw the leaf outside and closed the door.

She ate her lunch, listening to Xena lap down water and then grab the new toy Valkyrie had gotten her at the supermarket while she had been food shopping. It squeaked loudly every time she chewed. She couldn't finish her sandwich fast enough and jumped up the stairs to the gym.

A two-hour workout and rinse off later, she was in the Bentley and off to Roarhaven.

.*****.

"To be entirely honest, Skulduggery, I just don't care."

"You might have to."

"Well, I don't."

"Valkyrie, this is incredibly important."

"No, it isn't."

"It is."

"It's important to you. And only you. Not me."

"It should be important to you if it's important to me."

"It's a cufflink."

"It's a missing cufflink."

"I don't care if it's missing, it's just a cufflink."

He stopped in the street and she stopped with him, crossing her arms. "I am your best friend, Valkyrie. I am your most loyal friend. I would do anything for you. I would give my life for you, such as it is. All I ask is that you show appropriate grief for my losing my cufflink."

She glared at him. "No."

"It was my favourite cufflink."

"That specific one?"

"Yes, it was."

"People are looking at us."

He titled his head. "I don't care."

"And I don't care about your cufflink. Can we leave now?"

He grumbled but started walking again.

The street was full as everyone was leaving work for the evening. A lot of them looked about as tired as she felt – so much so, they barely looked at her as she and Skulduggery passed.

She felt her phone vibrate and check it. It was a text massage from Militsa.

'Hi! Do you want to meet for a coffee, if you're not busy and in Roarhaven? If not that's okay!'

She sighed deeply.

"What's wrong?" Skulduggery asked.

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Militsa asked me to go for coffee."

"That sounds nice," he said.

She grunted.

"You don't seem convinced. I thought she seemed nice."

"She is. Really, she's lovely. But I'm tired. I want to go to bed."

"Then say no."

"Yeah, but I owe her," she grumbled.

"You owe her coffee?" He asked sceptically.

"Something like that," she muttered.

To Militsa, she sent: 'Sure, meet at Esmerelda's?'

"You seem to be making a friend," he said casually.

She glanced at him. "She's alright. I don't know. She's nice. I just don't want to make friends. I'm not ready for that."

He shrugged. "It's good to have friends."

"I know. I'm going to go, alright? The place is a little way from here."

He offered her a lift of course, but she preferred to walk and have time to be alone without talking. It was tiring, she'd realised, simply being with Skulduggery for how she was expected to keep up conversation. They could be silent and she was happy with that, but Skulduggery was not very subtle with his attempts to get her to talk. She was exhausted after just half a day's work.

She text Militsa a few times as she strolled and arrived at the bakery with a clearer head. Seamus was at the till like the last time she'd visited, and a woman was with him. Her face fell the moment she saw Valkyrie.

"Hi," Valkyrie said. "Militsa here?"

"No," Seamus said, not meeting her eyes.

"Okay. I'll wait for her in then," she said, taking a step towards the back.

"You shouldn't be here," the woman said, venom in her voice. "This is a nice establishment. Families come here. We don't serve criminals."

Her mood dropped with her expression. "I'm not a criminal."

"You killed over a thousand people."

"Darquesse killed those people. Not me," she said. "I'm just here to meet Militsa. Not cause trouble."

The woman scoffed. "I know about you. You cause trouble no matter where you go. You can't help it."

Valkyrie gave her a level glare.

"I bet you want to hurt me right now. Go on, I dare you. I'd love to see the City Guards take you away. Not that I think it would do anything. The Supreme Mage would let you go with a fucking sticker," she sneered.

Clenching her fists didn't help the anger but trying to act like she was trying to relax was angering in itself. "I'm just here to see Militsa. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

She scoffed again, only for the door to jingle open behind Valkyrie's back, and the lady closed her mouth quickly.

"Valkyrie!" Militsa grinned. "I'm so glad you could make it! I wasn't sure you'd have time, being at work and all, but I'm so glad! Have you ordered?"

"No, I was waiting for you."

"Oh that's so nice," she grinned. She stared at Valkyrie, grinning, for a moment, before turning to Seamus and the woman. "Hi Seamus, hi Esmeralda. How are you today? Busy?"

"I've been well, Militsa, how have you been?" Seamus replied. Esmerelda muttered some vaguely polite agreeance.

"I've had a great day thank you, only one more week of testing left! It's almost over," she laughed. "Could I get a mango smoothie?"

"Sure thing," he agreed, and set to work on making that.

"Valkyrie?" Militsa asked.

"An iced latte."

"And an iced latte for Valkyrie please," she told Esmerelda. "Oh, wow, that cake looks amazing! Could I get a slice of that?"

Esmerelda looked like she'd rather cut off her own hand than make Valkyrie's drink, and got about getting Militsa's cake instead. Out of principle, Valkyrie asked for the same cake just to watch her slice it and put it on a plate for her.

Militsa thanked them both and they went into the back to the table they had sat at the last time. The same response of the room going quiet happened, and when they were sat and Militsa had dropped her two heavy bags to the floor with a sigh of relief, the whispers began.

"God, do they do that everywhere?" Militsa asked loudly.

She couldn't help but give her a bland smile. "Oh yeah. It doesn't stop."

"It's sort of rude." She got some glares of her own from across the room and glared right back until the people looked away.

She shrugged. "How has the testing been going?"

"Good, actually," she said, allowing the change in subject. "To be honest, I think a lot of that is because a book I've been waiting to come out finally released. I've been reading it while the students are writing."

"Let me guess, it's on Magic Theory?" She asked.

She laughed. "Yep! It's called 'The Theory of Magic and Other Things' by this woman called Jessamine Silverthorne. I won't lie, I have such a big crush on her."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is she hot?"

"Absolutely," she said instantly, getting her phone out. She tapped a few times and showed her the screen, showing a slightly younger looking Militsa with a middle-aged looking woman with golden blonde hair, red lips, dark eyes, large breasts, and at least six-foot tall.

"She is hot."

"She really is. I have the biggest crush. Plus she's so smart, like, insanely smart. I was twenty when I went to her book signing for her other book, 'The Theory of Advanced Magic in a Metaphysical Sense', and I had so many questions, and she answered them all like it was nothing. It was so cool. Anyway, this new book came out over the weekend and I've spent every test my students do reading it," she explained rapidly. "She's focusing mostly on explaining and teaching new concepts of Magic Theory to younger generations whilst incorporating older understandings so that a person can understand as much as possible in one book. Some theories overlap and some contradict, you see, and others are standalone, so learning them all can be really hard to understand. There's a timeline in there! It's so amazing! I started writing a timeline when I was sixteen and I didn't realise how many ideas I hadn't read about!"

"That's pretty interesting."

Seamus came over with their drinks and cake, pausing Militsa's spiel for a few moments before she began again.

"The most exciting part, though, is the chapter I'm on right now," she grinned, reaching down and grabbing the book out of her bag, and pushed her cake out the way to fit the thick volume on the table. Valkyrie took a forkful of cake. It was delicious. "Chapter seventeen completely supports my theory for your magic."

"Really?"

"Absolutely! Do you want to hear?" She asked excitedly.

Valkyrie nodded as she was expected to.

"Basically, I think you have Unknown magic," she said, eyes bright, "and not just like no one knows what your magic is. I heard that story of how you got your magic, with alternative dimension Mevolent zapping you with some magic nulling gun. How you had no magic at all after, right?"

"Right."

"So when you had no magic at all, literally nothing, you had nothing between you and the Source of all magic when you had your Surge, meaning when you got your Surge you didn't have the filter every other human on earth has, meaning your magic is Unknown."

She nodded. "I don't understand. What does that mean?"

"It means," she grinned even more, "your magic should be able to do so much! It has potential, literal potential, to do anything. Everyone else locks in on just one thing in their Surge, but you didn't. My theory doesn't mean you can do anything, necessarily, like not all magics, but that whatever allows everyone else to choose whatever they want in a limited way, you should have access to."

"So your idea on being connected to the Source of all magic…?"

"That's the magic you have. You have that magic, that unknown thing that other people take, filter through their Surge, and have just a piece of. You have it before it's filtered."

Valkyrie nodded with some more understanding. "That doesn't sound bad," she said, stirring her latte and taking a sip. "But. I can't do lots of magic."

"What can you do?"

"I can shoot energy, or lightening, or whatever it is. And I get visions of the future, which I can't control. I can see people's auras. That's about it," she listed.

Militsa nodded. "You said before you don't really know how your magic works."

"I don't."

"I think a part of that is because you are in the beginning stages of learning it. Take, for instance, when you started learning Necromancy. I know you were a prodigy and could have been the Death Bringer, as awful as that is to say out loud now days, so you were good at using it from the start, but there was stuff you couldn't do when you stopped, like wreathing or shadow walking. Am I right?"

"Yes."

"This is, like, the same thing! It's a new magic to you, and to everyone, so you just need to learn it like any other! Like you had to learn all the other magics you used to use."

"Yes, with no teachers or a clue what I'm doing," she muttered. Also, she was fairly sure Militsa was not explaining a lot about Magic Theory so she was only understanding some of her theory. "Lucky me."

Militsa softened. "You'll get it. You're super smart, and you work with smart people. I'm sure you'll get it over time. And we can see if my theory is right," she grinned cheekily.

Valkyrie gave her that. "Sure. We'll see how it all goes. I've wanted to ask, actually, why you started working at Corrival. There has to be other magic schools."

"There are," she nodded, swapping her book and the cake. "It's really boring though. I wanted to move to Ireland, and I wanted to move to Roarhaven the moment I heard about it. A whole city, entirely secret? It's like a work of fiction, and I thought it was amazing. I had left the Temple already at that point and was living with my parents which was not something I was thrilled about, so it was a good opportunity. There was a different Magic Theory teacher working there at the time, but she announced her resignation after six months, so I applied. It was really hard to get the job. The Supreme Mage is in charge of hiring at Corrival, or at least gets the final say, and she really doesn't like Necromancers at the moment. I applied a bunch of times, took a bunch of tests, wrote some essays and did a few trial months before getting formally accepted four years ago."

"And do you like it, now you've got the job?"

"One hundred percent," she nodded, speaking through a mouthful of cake and around her hand. "I never expected it, sure, but it's a good mix of what I like. I've met a bunch of great people and have a ton of friends. No one cares I'm a Necromancer, at least for the most part."

"I can understand the appeal of that."

"I can imagine," she said softly, sobering herself.

"Okay, so you like it, but be honest," Valkyrie asked, "what's the worst bit?"

She laughed. "Oh my God, the drama. It's sometimes the best, but when you're involved, it's the worst."

"You got into drama?"

"I know, I know!" She said, flushing. "I didn't want it to happen. It was my fault too. I – I dated one of the other teachers."

"Tell me everything."

"Oh my god," she grinned. "Okay, so there's a woman, I don't know if you met her, Arabella Wicked. She teaches Magic Theory as well."

"I haven't met her."

"She's tall, a bit taller than you, blonde. She's very pretty. We had similar interests and all that. I fell head over heels for her at record speed. She dumped me completely out of the blue after three years together. She didn't want to settle down and thought I was, I don't know, too comfortable I guess."

Valkyrie frowned. "What?"

She got a shrug back. "I don't know. It didn't work out at any rate. I was devastated. She was the first person I had fallen in love with and it really screwed me up. Arabella's a little gruff, but she's kind too, and she's not cruel or anything. I broke down in the staffroom and told my friends what happened the next morning without meaning to, some other teachers said I was stirring drama and trying to make them pick sides between us, yadda-yadda, it was a whole thing. We get on fine now though, we're basically friends."

"Even though she dumped you like that?"

She shrugged again, smiling. "You're friends with Fletcher."

She looked away. "Touché."

"Was that too far?" Militsa asked, wincing. "I'm sorry if that's too far. I didn't mean to imply anything or hold something against you or something. You were so young and all, it doesn't even matter anymore."

"Look, it's fine," Valkyrie shook her head. "I don't care."

She didn't seem convinced but agreed anyway. "Did you say you were working today?"

"Yeah," she said, grateful she wouldn't have to listen to apologies. "Just investigating some houses of known criminals, nothing exciting."

"Have you caught any bad guys today?"

"Not today."

"You'll catch them next time," she grinned.

She gave her a half smile back. "For sure."

"Have you been, you know, okay at home?" She asked more quietly.

The smile fell and she stirred around the remaining ice in her glass mug. "It's fine. I got the floor clean and did the shopping. Thank you again for helping me out. You really didn't need to."

"It's fine," she smiled. "That's what friends are for, right?"

She raised an eyebrow. "The day I see Tanith Low cleaning I'll assume the world is ending," she said drily, getting a laugh from Militsa. She missed her sister. "I should probably get back soon. Xena needs feeding."

"Sure, of course! You're super busy and all."

"Dogs wait for no one when foods involved," she joked. "I wouldn't put it past her to learn to steal food."

"Aw, she's so smart! I'll just finish," she said, putting the book away and drinking the last of her smoothie quickly, standing.

Valkyrie grabbed the heavy bags for her, slinging them over her shoulder. She led the way to the till, and Esmerelda had the total already ready, almost leaning over the counter as if she thought Valkyrie would walk out without paying. She grabbed her wallet.

"No, no, you paid last time," Militsa said in her teachers' voice.

Esmerelda glared daggers into Valkyrie while Valkyrie raised an eyebrow back at her and put her card to the machine. Militsa glared at her.

"I can pay for myself."

"I would imagine so," she said, opening the door and walking out. "But I can too, so I did."

"I don't need people to pay for me."

"Okay."

"I can do it."

"You said."

"Next time, I want to pay. I mean it. I don't like taking from people without giving back."

"You did pay last time."

"I didn't–"

"You bought pies," she said. "That was dinner. So it was my turn."

She went to argue but then closed her mouth sulkily. "Okay fine, that's fair. But I'm still paying next time. I mean it Valkyrie."

She rolled her eyes at the childishness. "Which way is your house? I'll walk you back."

Militsa looked shocked and then excited again, beaming a smile. "Aw, that's so nice! It's this way!"

They walked in silence down the road, passing a few people along the way. Militsa would look at her every so often. They arrived at a block of flats and Militsa turned to her. "This is me."

Valkyrie handed her the bags. "Thanks for inviting me for coffee. It was nice."

"Anytime! Have a nice rest of the afternoon. And text me, if you need anything, or what to go for coffee again, or to eat, or to talk, or anything really. You're my friend and all!"

Valkyrie nodded. "I'll remember."

"Good! You should! Have a nice night!"

"You too."

Militsa stood there for a moment longer and then finally opened the door to her apartment building, disappearing with a wave Valkyrie awkwardly gave back.

Bam, another one. Also review or else I'll steal your knees.