by Janna Ruth
Wulf nods. “Yeah, unless there’s a new spirit making trouble, it should be quiet for a while. As you said, the sylphs need to regroup. And soon, there’s summer when they’re not as active. I don’t think we need to worry about them until the autumn storms.”
I don’t know if he’s done it on purpose, but I notice that he’s said we. Could there be a future waiting for me in Berlin?
The Hungarian spirit seekers are on their way out when we return. “Hey,” Iván calls. “You guys want to join us at the baths?”
“The baths?” Wulf asks.
“Yeah, we’re just heading to the Palatinus Strand Baths here on the island. It’s nice having it so close. I’m sure we could lend you some swimwear and towels if you didn’t bring any.” Iván sounds a little as if he can’t really believe anyone wouldn’t bring their bathing suits to Budapest, a city that prides itself on its many thermal baths. It’s said you haven’t truly taken a bath until you visited the Széchenyi Thermal Bath, which is a public thermal pool in an actual palace.
Naturally, I don’t even own a bathing suit, and it wasn’t on the list of things Camille thought to buy with me in the early months of spring. I look up at Wulf, waiting for his verdict. I notice that József isn’t part of the group, so he might prefer to stay with him instead. But Wulf nods. “If you could do that, yeah. I guess we can all use some relaxation.”
“All right. Let’s get you two outfitted then.” Iván skips down the stairs again.
Meanwhile, Rebeka sighs. “I’ll see if I have something that fits you.”
I blush at her words, glad that she’s chosen to speak Hungarian. Since she is blessed with a curvaceous figure, contrary to my skeletal features, I doubt she’ll be successful.
I follow her down to her room, and she goes through quite the assortment of bathing suits before throwing a green piece at me. “That should do,” she announces. Judging from the rest of her collection, Rebeka’s picked the one she was about to throw out soon. My assumption is proved right when she adds, “You can keep it.”
“Thanks,” I say in what I hope was a polite tone.
Rebeka grimaces. “And try to keep away from my man, okay?”
So, that’s her problem. I should’ve guessed. “Honestly?”
“I don’t want you to read anything into his interest. Iván’s just being nice.” Which sounds about the opposite of her, though she looks more insecure right now than nasty.
I remember how he treated her during the nymph attack and allow myself to cut her some slack. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’m not interested in him.”
“You’re with Wulf, right?” she asks, and sure enough, all malice has left her voice.
My face glows as the blood rushes to my head. “No. I mean… no, we’re just…” What are we exactly? “Something.”
Rebeka grins. “Well. Hopefully, he likes the bikini.”
I’m sure my face is bright red as I follow her out of her room. Immediately, Rebeka hangs herself on Iván’s arm, all but cooing at him.
Watching them, my thoughts return to what she said. I haven’t even considered that Iván’s friendliness could be anything else. It’s not that he’s bad looking, but he’s definitely not my type. Which is primarily due to me not having a type. It’s definitely not Wulf, even though my brain keeps wondering what he’ll look like undressed.
This late, the Palatinus Strand Baths aren’t very busy. Most tourists have already left for the day, leaving the locals to enjoy the pools and thermal bath. After Rebeka voiced her worries, I keep my distance from her and Iván, soaking on the opposite side of the bath. The bikini fits rather loosely, even with a couple of extra knots in the string, but as long as I don’t go diving in the big pool, I should be okay. I definitely plan on leaving it behind when we leave Budapest.
The heat of the water crawls into my bones, wrapping me in one warm cocoon of pleasure. On the opposite side, Iván and Rebeka are kissing while the other two spirit seekers that accompanied us are engaged in lively conversation. As for me, I enjoy the solitude.
That is, until I hear steps behind me. Raising my head, I look up at Wulf. Water pearls from his pale skin, running down the lines of his gluteus and calf muscles. I force my gaze to gloss over his trunks, but it gets stuck on his abs and chest before I can drag it up to his face. He’s got the audacity to smirk. “Care if I join you?”
“Sure, I mean, no, go ahead.” Gosh, Rika, get a grip on yourself.
Still, my eyes return to trailing the muscles on his upper body as he slips into the hot water next to me. He’s so close there’s barely enough space for the water to flow between us. I draw up my knees and wrap my arms around them while he purrs in pleasure. “Oh, this is good.”
It’s the heat that makes my cheeks red. It has to be. My gaze wanders aimlessly to the trees on the far side. A safe view, if a boring one.
“Come on, relax a little,” Wulf mutters.
Keeping my face turned away, I slowly lower my legs again. “I haven’t really done this since I was a child.” My Budapest days seem so far away.
“What, swimming?” he asks.
The indignation helps ease my neck muscles. “No! I’ve done swimming.”
For a moment, Wulf is silent. Then he says, almost murmuring, “Relaxing then?”
I want to tell him no because that’s not what I meant when I said it, but the question strikes a chord deep inside me, and I realise that he’s right. I haven’t really relaxed since that fateful night eight years ago.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like to live on the streets,” Wulf says when I keep quiet. “To have no place to go to, always be on the move, always hungry, cold…”
“You don’t really have to go hungry in Berlin.” Maybe I’m focusing on the wrong thing, but at least I’m talking. “There are so many food banks you don’t need to worry about that.” That is, once you get over yourself and ask for the food. It took me a few weeks to find the courage to enter one of the food banks. I was too afraid someone would recognise me.
“Hmm.” I can feel him shift next to me. “I guess that’s why homeless people aren’t falling over themselves when you offer them food.”
I cast him a glance. Wulf is leaning back, eyes closed. “It depends,” I tell him. “If you only buy someone a dry piece of bread, then yeah, not much excitement. But it’s not like you get used to quality food on the streets.” Since he’s not looking, I might as well steal some more glances at his chest.
“Makes sense,” he answers lazily.
I leave him to relax and study my body instead. It really is rather skeletal. Not much on the chest, either. And let’s not even start with the scars on both of my arms. Speaking of scars, there’s quite a few on his body as well, probably from his fights with the spirits. I can’t really see them well, but there seems to be a big one across his back.
“What are you looking at?”
Shit! Why did he have to open his eyes now? Flustered, I stare straight across. “I was just… sorry.”
“Just what?” Am I imagining it, or is he taunting me?
“Just…” Before I can think of what to answer him, something catches my eye. Not too far from Iván and Rebeka, a medium-sized salamander crawls through the grass. The spirit seeker commander can’t see the spirit since Rebeka is still very much in his face.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a salamander that big. This one’s as large as a beagle, but with a one-metre-long tail that swishes left and right behind them. Under their steps, steam rises in the air. Slowly, they move towards the water.
“Oh, come on.” Wulf has followed my gaze and is seeing them as well.
Did I tell you that salamanders aren’t the greatest fans of water? Not even warm water?
“Get out!” I shout at no one in particular, scrambling to my feet. In the meantime, the salamander deliberately dips their claws into the water.
Wulf is slow to rise, but he does and not a moment too late. Already, the tem
perature is rising.
I climb out of the water, giving Wulf a hand just as the first screams arise. People are scrambling to leave the pool, which is suddenly nearing the boiling point. Iván and his spirit seekers have jumped out, though judging by their pained expression, it was a close call. Not everyone makes it in time. More than one person has lost consciousness in the water, and there’s nothing anyone can do to save them from drowning. Not without getting boiled as well. Some of those who made it outside are collapsing on the rim from the sudden overheating and shock to their nervous system.
“What do we do?” I ask Wulf, only to find him gone.
I don’t spot him again until he charges out of the changing rooms on the other side with his staff. Of course, he brought his weapon to an afternoon of relaxation. He runs over to the salamander and stabs them in the back with his staff. Immediately, the spirit bursts into flames, forcing Wulf backwards. As he retreats, though, he draws the salamander away from the pool, leaving the water to cool again.
Instead of joining the fray, Iván slides back into the hot water and begins rescuing those he can get to. He must have given the other two spirit seekers a command because they sprint from the baths while Rebeka helps Iván by pulling the people out on land. Some others are starting to provide first aid to the ones that collapsed.
As for me, I keep staring back and forth amid all that misery. There are children who got hurt. So many people have passed out. Some of whom might be dead. And Wulf is still fighting with the salamander.
Something is off about Wulf. Granted, there’s no easy way to fight a ball of literal fire, but he keeps retreating, only rarely making a stab at the flames despite them coiling away from the spirit seeker wood. This isn’t the calm, collected commander I’ve seen during our fight against the nymph.
And then it hits me. He’s afraid.
Wulf fought off salamanders for close to two months. He’s seen his fellow seekers killed in front of his eyes.
Suddenly, I’m no longer frozen to the spot. Instead, I sprint past the people on the ground, grab a bucket, and fill it with some of the water from the cold pool on the other side. It’s harder to move with a heavy bucket, but I hurry as much as possible until I’m close enough to the spirit to splash it.
That thing I said about salamanders not being fans of water? Well, this one really doesn’t follow the rules. I manage to douse some flames, but they come back stronger than before, and they shoot straight at my face.
Before I can feel the heat, a wind picks up around my shoulders and blows the fire away from me. Aeola has come to my help just in time.
“Are you all right?” she asks, and I nod, not willing to draw Wulf’s attention to her.
It’s too late for that, though. He glances at her and frowns for a moment before turning back towards the salamander. “Let’s lure it to the river,” he says instead.
“Water doesn’t help,” I shout back over the hissing of the flames.
“Not even an entire river?”
I honestly don’t know, so I shrug my shoulders. “Let’s give it a try.” In my mind, instead of a bedraggled salamander, I see the entire Danube in flames.
Wulf seems to have got over his fright. He’s swinging his staff around with such speed and power it’s mesmerising. He never actually strikes the salamander, but even the spirit seems to be impressed because they keep retreating now. Slowly, we move away from the baths towards the strand.
I’ve just decided that this works when the salamander charges Wulf with a speed I’ve only ever seen sylphs reach. Wulf has no chance other than to use his staff. The wood cuts through the flames and hits the salamander’s jaw from below. The impact throws the spirit off course, but they turn back around with a vicious hiss.
Just then, the Budapest spirit seekers led by József arrive. The two with Iván must have alerted him and the others when they went back for their staffs. Immediately, Wulf assumes command, bellowing positions to the five seekers. His eyes meet mine. “Get the trap ready.”
Right, I guess that’s my job now. Before I can ask which trap, since there’s none is hiding in my bikini, József throws one at me. I leave the fighting to the others and concentrate on feeling my way through these rings.
They look like a salamander, and they’re definitely burning up like a salamander, but as with the nymph, there’s something else in them. Something that doesn’t belong there.
Water.
The trouble is water and fire are on opposite sides of the spirit-type ring. Putting it between them like I did with the nymph gnome will put me squarely into the sylph range, and that’s something I’m definitely not seeing in this salamander. To win some time, I arrange the second ring regarding their strength. While I’m doing that, I notice that the lower ring doesn’t really make sense. Where are the dryads? There are only symbols for the four main spirit types: nymph, gnome, salamander, and sylph, but there are many more spirits than those.
Come on, Rika, think. The others are already nearing the Danube shoreline.
Suddenly, I have an idea. Maybe the lower ring isn’t as simple as setting a spirit type. Maybe spirit types rely on a physical property I have no idea about, a continuous range that translates to fire and water spirits at its opposite ends. Those symbols could just be a visual prompt to make things easier. But just because there’s a sylph symbol on the outside of the ring might not mean it only translates to sylphs. I don’t know if any of this makes sense, but I decide to trust my gut.
I turn the ring as far towards the nymph symbol as I dare and let my magic work the third, fine-tuning ring. By the time I’m done, the spirit seekers have pressured the spirit to the shoreline. The salamander’s tail whips through the water, leaving it boiling in its wake. If the Danube is cooling them down, they don’t show any signs of it. But during their retreat, the salamander has been hit by several spirit seeker weapons, and that has slowed them down.
Time to try out the trap. My heart hammering in my chest, I activate it.
The suction is immediate. Flames are shooting towards me, and I shut my eyes tight. Fortunately, I’m not engulfed by fire, but the metal under my hands grows warmer.
Carefully, I open one eye to check on the salamander. Their flames have been extinguished, exposing the scaly skin to the spirit seekers, who strike it without mercy. Meanwhile, the trap grows hotter and hotter. Pain covers my hands, and I all but drop it in the grass when the salamander themselves start dissolving and entering the trap, I don’t know if it’s the nymph part of them, but as they do, the metal cools down ever so slightly. As soon as I’ve capped the trap again, I let it fall, turning to Aeola to cool my hands.
She helps me out for about ten seconds before she shies away. I can hear long strides behind me. Turning around, I see Wulf approaching with a grim face. He crouches down and picks up the trap.
His anger is so palpable I almost take a step back. “I caught them,” I explain lamely.
He gets up to glower at me. “Great, now get a trap ready for that sylph of yours.”
Shit.
Not only does he know I smuggled her to Budapest, but he’s angry as hell with me. It doesn’t even matter that he saw Aeola defending me. For Wulf, she’s still a sylph, and thus, not to be trusted. Naturally, Aeola took to the air before anyone could even try to capture her, but that doesn’t stop Wulf from being angry, and dare I say, disappointed with me. He doesn’t make a scene in front of the others, but I can feel his wrath seeping into me like the heat from the salamander.
We don’t return directly to the convent but check on the people in the bath. Emergency services have arrived in the meantime, and the scene bustles with activity. It doesn’t distract from all those people covered by white blankets, though. The sight makes my stomach twist around itself. I keep reminding myself of what Wulf said to me yesterday. How he’s seen so much death in his life.
It seems impossible that one spirit alone could have wrought such destruction, but I can’t deny it. I
’ve seen it happen.
Wulf wears a grim face as he strides through the crowd, surveying the place. We find Iván at the end of the pool, as he tries to tell the paramedics that he doesn’t need any medical help. The guy has blisters all over his bright red skin, and yet, he refuses to step into an ambulance. It’s only after his brother rushes to his side and has a talk with him that he relents. As the ambulance pulls away, I spot Rebeka nearby, crying her eyes out.
The return to the Budapest base mimics a funeral march. Everyone’s looking down. No one speaks.
At the trapdoor, József says aloud, “I’ll take care of the press release.”
Wulf puts a hand on his shoulder, his voice low. “He’ll be fine.”
József nods before descending into the darkness.
I want to stay outside, but one dark look from Wulf forces me to follow everyone else. We barely reach the lower level when he grabs my arm and pulls me into the bedroom they’ve given him for the stay.
Before I can look around, he slams the door shut and snarls at me. “I told you to get rid of her.”
“And I told you she’s a friend.” I latch onto his anger, drive its teeth deep into my skin to free my consciousness from the shock and terror I’ve felt ever since the water started boiling.
Wulf paces around the little room. “How could you bring her here? Did she follow you? Did you ask her to come?”
I’m sure as hell not going to tell him how I used a trap to transport her. He’ll rip my head off, and I kind of like mine. “Does it matter?”
He keeps fuming. “Does it matter? Does it matter that you never listen to me? That you’re insubordinate, in…”
“You’re not my commander.”
My quiet words stop him cold in his tracks. He looks at me coolly, as if to claim otherwise, but then his eyes harden. “Very well. This isn’t a place for civilians, though.”
Scoffing, I shake my head. “You know there’s a range between commanding me and pretending I don’t exist?” Sure, I could leave the base, stay in Budapest, and try to make a living here. There are certain advantages to the idea. I would have all the time in the world to search for my mother… and waste another eight years not getting anywhere.