by Janna Ruth
It’s already past midnight. Everyone’s gone to sleep hours ago. Could it be?
I fix the door with a stare. Before I can decide, though, I hear a second knock, and now I realise that there’s no one behind the door. No, the knocks are behind me, against my window, which is a bit peculiar since I’m on the second floor.
Wrapping the towel tighter, I open the window and look outside. Nothing but darkness.
Then I pick up a whisper. “Aeola is in trouble. Follow me.”
No questions asked. If your friend is in trouble, you come, spirit or not. I dash to where I dropped my clothes before and put them back on. Then I grab a jacket—only bought two days ago—and unlock my door.
I don’t bother with turning on the light, which is a mistake because I run straight into someone.
“Rika?”
Oh shit, it’s Wulf. Why the hell is his room next to mine? A commander should have a suite somewhere far, far away from me.
He turns on the light in the corridor and studies me. “What are you doing here?”
Look, I’m all for late-night encounters with the man I’m attracted to, but this is not the time. Actually, scratch that. It’s never the time. “I… Uhm. I was thirsty.”
“And you were going down to the hall in boots and jacket?” He runs his eyes down my body and up again, not noticing that I forget how to breathe in his presence.
Annoyed, I push those inappropriate feelings away. “Sure. It’s cold down there.”
Wulf snorts and crosses his arms. “I saw a sylph flying outside. Is it yours?”
He could’ve led with that. Dammit! Why does this guy have to have such a high NAV? No one else ever bothered me about my spirits. “No.” That’s only the truth, after all.
“And I’m supposed to believe this?” At least, his attitude makes sure those inappropriate thoughts of mine dry up quickly.
“It’s not Aeola. Can’t you see that?” Okay, that’s a little unfair. He only ever had a quick look. “The sylph you saw looks nothing like her. Aeola’s face is much longer and…”
He drops his arms with a groan. “You think I care what she looks like? They all look the same to me.” I notice how he uses her correct pronoun this time.
“But they aren’t… the same, I mean. Spirits are just as individual as us…” And I would love to teach him all about their difference, but my friend is in trouble. “Anyway, I need to go.”
I want to pass him, but Wulf grabs my arm. “You’re not going out there!”
Okay, all attraction is definitely gone. “Let go of me.” To his credit, he does so immediately. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Actually, I can. This is my command. And you’re not going out there to meet with a sylph. Especially not unarmed like that.”
He’s got a tiny point there. To help Aeola, I might need a staff. “Great, I’ll pick up a staff downstairs before I open the door.”
“Absolutely not.” Anger creeps into his voice. “Rika, you’re not officially one of my seekers, but I won’t have you going off at night with a sylph.”
“What are you gonna do? Tie me down?” Aeola needs me. I don’t have time for this debate on principles.
Wulf’s face darkens. “If I have to. And then tomorrow, you’re gonna pack your bags and get your ass out of here.”
“Bag,” I correct him sharply, as if that really matters. It only took him a week to come to the dreaded conclusion that I don’t belong here. And he’s right. It’s just that there’s nowhere else to go. The thought of losing this place and the people within makes my throat grow tighter. Maybe if I’m being more honest with Wulf instead of riling him up any further, I can convince him to let me stay. “Look. I’m sorry I’m not what you’re used to. You know, obedient, asking no questions…” And just like that, the mocking has slipped back into my voice.
He draws a deep breath, balling his left hand to a fist and relaxing it again. When he speaks again, he sounds strained. “That is not what I expect. What I do expect is exercising more caution when it comes to spirits knocking on your window at night.”
Okay, time for the truth. “My friend is in trouble. I know you hate all spirits, but I happen to care for her. So please let me help her.”
“It’s a trap,” Wulf says, crossing his arms again. At least, my honesty has taken off some of the edge in his voice.
“No!” Of course, I don’t know that, but I refuse to think of spirits that way. “And even if it were… Would you risk doing nothing when your friends could be in danger?”
“I’m not friends with a sylph.” And the sharpness is back.
Raising my chin, I say, “Well, maybe you should try it one day.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “Throw me out if you must, but I’m going.”
A door opens behind me, but I don’t care who it is. With one last glare for Wulf, I take off.
“Rika!” he calls after me. I close my eyes, but no footsteps follow me to the stairs. Instead, I can hear him talking to someone else in hushed voices. Well, he can bitch all he wants. Aeola’s safety trumps my own.
I’m almost at the gates, having picked up a staff, when I hear someone running after me. “I’m going, whether you want me to or not,” I say while spinning around.
“That’s okay.” It isn’t Wulf, but Camille, who runs after me, her own staff in her hand. “I’m going with you.”
“You need to stop making sneaking out at night a habit,” Camille tells me as we follow the foreign sylph along the waterside. She can’t see the spirit but trusts me enough to never question it. “I told you we’re a team now.”
“Maybe you should tell Wulf that,” I answer, slightly distracted by keeping sight of the sylph above us. “He told me to pack my bag and leave.” The consequences are real, but they’re worth it.
Camille keeps looking around for spirits she can’t truly see. “I heard. And I talked to him. It wasn’t right of him to pull that card. It’s just…”
“What?” I ask, annoyed. “Don’t tell me this is some sort of tough love. That he’s worried about me or something stupid like that.” I’ve had experiences with tough love, and let me tell you this, there’s nothing loving about being told what to do or who to be.
“That’s not it.” Camille sighs deeply. “You’re trusting your life into the hands of a sylph. More than one sylph.”
Exasperated, I stop and look at her. “Not all sylphs are the same. They’re not all like the Erlking.”
Camille looks terribly sorry when she says, “But to Wulf, they are.”
With an angry huff, I get back to striding along the shore. “Well, that’s his problem then.” I’ve got no time for small-minded people.
“It is.” Camille hurries after me. “And you’d likely be the same if you watched your parents murdered by them.”
A chill runs down my back, taking my breath away. “What?”
Camille clicks her tongue, annoyed with herself. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but maybe it helps you understand where he’s coming from. Where we’re all coming from.”
“His parents…” I don’t know if I want to know the details, but she can’t leave me hanging now.
After a sigh, she explains. “When he was nine years old, he and his parents went hiking. They were on their way back when they got caught up in a storm. They found his parents’ bodies in the morning. A horrible accident, according to the police, but Wulf saw the whole thing. He saw the spirits, saw how they targeted his parents.”
My anger has grown smaller and smaller until it is nothing more than a pea-sized marble in the pit of my stomach. I’ve seen enough storms in recent weeks to know only too well what Wulf has been through.
Camille carries on in a quiet voice, “When the police heard his account, they contacted the SSA. The academy took care of him.”
I blink away the tension in my eyes that usually precedes tears. “Maybe they should’ve got him a better therapy than whacking his trauma with a staff.” Don’t
get me wrong. I feel terribly sorry for Wulf. Watching your parents die when you’re not even ten years old is unspeakable. But knowing that he got instantly snatched up by the SSA and probably been in training longer than any other spirit seeker explains so much. He’s been practically spoon-fed all this nonsense about spirit aggression.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Camille. “I get that he’s wary around them, but it doesn’t make it right.” Then I stop and regard her closer. “What about you? Did something like that happen to you, too?”
“No,” Camille says quickly. “I never lost a loved one to a spirits attack.”
“Then why are you fighting them?”
Camille blinks and looks at me as if she hoped that wouldn’t have to come up. But it does, and we both know it. “Well, for one, I’m wary about spirits. I’ve been fighting them for ten years now, and I have seen a lot of destruction and heartbreak. And sylphs… we had so much trouble with them lately. We barely saved Berlin from the storm of a century. I believe you about Aeola,” she quickly adds. “But it’s difficult for me to trust one of them. Especially when I can’t see them. All I’ve got is your word.”
Wulf could have more, but I doubt he’s willing to give it a try after what I’ve just learnt. “And still, you’re here?”
Camille winces. “Your friend is in danger. Right now, it doesn’t matter whether she’s a sylph or not. If you want to help her, I’m with you.” Then she claps my back, getting us to move again.
We’ve entered the forested area around Lake Tegel, and it’s so dark I have to follow the sylph by sound only. Camille has turned on her flashlight to make sure we don’t break any ankles.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Camille asks after a while of stumbling through the forest.
I touch her arm to will her silent because I’ve just picked up some hissing in the air. A breeze strokes my cheek. “She’s ahead.” Then the sylph who led me here vanishes, leaving behind a waft of fear.
Grabbing my staff tighter, I nod to the front of us. “Careful now.”
Camille turns off her flashlight, and we try to make as little noise as possible in the forest, which… you guessed it, still makes us sound like a pair of elephants in a china shop. Still, I can hear the wind rustling in front of us, and after a while, I can make out words.
“You don’t deserve to live, traitor,” one sharp voice says, followed quickly by another, “It’s all your fault.” In the moon's light, I can see three sylphs talking to a hollow, fallen tree.
It reminds me of a group of bullies cornering their victim in an alleyway. “Get away from her!” I shout, making it a point to swing my staff visibly in front of me. So much for stealth.
Camille tenses next to me, ready to jump into a fight as soon as I tell her.
One sylph comes swooshing towards me, much like the one from the test. “There you are.”
Looks like Wulf was right about the trap. I raise my staff just enough to discourage her frontal attack, and she flies over my head, leaving my hair tousled. “Yes, here I am,” I announce loudly. “And if you don’t leave straight away, you’re going to meet the same fate as your father.” To Camille, I blurt, “There are three of them. One is above us; the other two are around that log, threatening Aeola.”
Something snaps above my head, and suddenly, Camille swings her staff, knocking away a branch thicker than my thighs. Her staff shudders under the impact, but it holds. “Go!” she shouts. “I’ll take care of this one.”
Just as I duck away, an entire onslaught of branches comes crashing from the trees. I don’t want to fight these sylphs, but they’re not leaving us any choice. One of the sylph whistles into the hollow log. “Aeola, your human friend is here. Don’t you want to watch as we rip her apart?”
“Stay where you are, Aeola! I can take care of these bitches.” Fuelled by my anger, I bring down my staff between the two.
They manage to swoop away in both directions, blowing a shower of half-rotten leaves and twigs into my face as they do so. “Revenge!” one of them shouts and comes back at me, bringing a fallen branch with her.
‘Make sure it hits in the middle’ comes to my mind, and I raise my staff just in time to catch her branch between my hands. The sylph can’t withstand any pressure, so the branch falls to the ground as soon as it makes contact with my staff. She tries to get away, but I strike her from behind, causing a scream of agony.
Meanwhile, Camille has got on top of the shower of wood I left her in, but she can’t reach the sylph high up in the treetops. The third one is just about to attack her from behind.
“Behind you,” I shout, and like clockwork, Camille turns around and slashes through the sylph. The spirit dissolves in yet another ear-splitting scream.
The first sylph comes down, but she attacks neither Camille nor me. Instead, she flies to the sister I hit and wraps her in her embrace. Snarling, she turns to me, “Don’t get in our way. This is sylph business.” Then, the two of them blow away.
“Where are the others?” Camille asks, still poised to fight.
Lowering my staff, I say, “They’re gone.” Then I fall onto my knees next to the hollow log and peer inside. It’s only when Camille hands me her flashlight, I can see Aeola huddled as far back as she can. A little softer, I repeat, “They’re gone. You’re safe.”
“Rika?” Slowly, she unfolds and hovers closer. Too many patches of her look more translucent than the others, wounds from the battle with her father and fresh ones from just now. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to get you, of course.” When she rushes into my arms, I tell her about the sylph that led me here.
“Oh, brave Boreo,” she sighs. “I didn’t know he’d dare to blow close to your place.”
“He led me here.”
Aeola smiles. “May the winds bless him. But you shouldn’t have come.”
Cradling her in my arms, I get up. Camille looks at me with curiosity, but I ignore her for now. “Aeola, I’ll always come when you need me. Was this what you didn’t want to tell me? That your sisters are blaming you?”
“They’re just angry,” Aeola explains. “It’ll blow over soon. Maybe in a decade or two.”
I give her a flat stare. “That’s it. You’re coming with me.”
Shocked, she tries to escape from my arms. “Into the citadel? Where that man who wants to kill me lives? The one who can see me?”
She’s got a point there. Only, I don’t know what else to do. “I’ll talk to him…” Camille shakes her head. “We’ll hide you.” Now, Camille widens her eyes in shock. Well, too late. She wanted to tag along. “On the tower where we first talked, no… that’s too easy to reach for your sisters.” I try to recall the citadel in my mind. “Oh, I got it. There’s a nook at the back of the citadel. You can’t really see into it from the courtyard, and there’s absolutely no reason why Wulf should go in there. You’ll stay down there.”
“I don’t know.” I can feel the fear hanging around Aeola.
“Please. Let me do this for you.” I look up at Camille, begging her silently for consent.
Camille sighs. “He never goes there. Nobody does. She… You should be safe, Aeola.”
Aeola looks at her. “She can’t see me, but she speaks to me,” she notes in surprise.
I press her a little closer to me. “She knows you’re here. And she cares.”
CHAPTER SIX
CAMILLE AND I get Aeola safely into her new home. I know that this is only a temporary solution. Sooner or later, Wulf will find out about her and give me grief about it. I also hate that I’ve made Camille an accomplice. So far, she’s been saint-like, but I don’t want it to backfire on her. She shouldn’t have to choose between her best friend and… well, me.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Camille says, subconsciously tugging her braid. It’s clear that her tolerance for pro-spirit behaviour has reached a limit for this night.
“Thank you so much,” I whisper and watch h
er leave, feeling like I took advantage of her kindness.
The nook I brought Aeola to is surrounded by large walls, but big enough to roam around. There’s even a tree growing at the back and enough grass to lay down a picnic blanket. I know it’s not perfect, but it’ll do for now.
“You need to fly low,” I tell her, wincing at my own words. How cruel is that? Forbidding a sylph to fly? Aeola saved my life. If she hadn’t, none of this wouldn’t have happened. Not the other sylphs’ ire, not the fear of discovery. “It’s my fault your sisters are angry at you. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be free to roam the skies of Berlin.”
“But then you’d be dead,” Aeola says, curling in on herself in my arms. So many spots shimmer silver in the moonlight. She hasn’t even fully healed from her battle against the Erlking. “And I like you more than them,” she adds, surprisingly adamant.
Gently, I stroke her shape. It’s a bit like catching the wind between your hands, breezy and cool. “Same.” Her sisters were nasty. It seems like Aeola is the exception to the rule, just as Wulf has said. But then I remember the sylph that led me to her. He was willing to help us. “What is happening in the sylph world?” I can imagine the Erlking left behind a bit of a power vacuum.
Aeola deflates, sinking deeper into my arms. “Nobody knows what to do. We followed my father for so many years. I can’t even remember a time when we didn’t. Now he’s gone, and no one knows what happens next or who to follow now. Some blame me for working with the spirit seekers; others are secretly glad I helped you defeat him, I think. No one really wants to show that, though. They’re too afraid to get into trouble.”
“Like you did.” I sigh. This is all my fault. Then a different emotion makes itself known. “You know what? They’re all cowards. The whole lot of them. None of the others wanted to be sucked into that storm! You were the only one that stood up to the Erlking.” Three of them banded together to harass her, just like regular bullies, and the best her allies could do was to lead me to them. “You’re the bravest of them all.”