“All women are superheroes.” Isabeau took the book back. “Unicorn hunters or not.”
I looked at her curiously. “So you don’t regret missing out on being a unicorn hunter?” My mother did. Even Marten had seemed jealous that the abilities belonged only to the females of the family. “You don’t wish they were around when you were …” Don’t say eligible. Don’t say eligible. “ … younger?”
“Not a bit!” She shuddered. “I have no interest in hunting—unicorn or otherwise. I’ve always liked chemistry and medicine. And if I wanted a hobby, there was gardening. I like flower arranging, too, come to think of it.”
I could hardly compare unicorn hunting to flower arranging, and my face must have shown it.
“I do not mean to belittle your skills, Astrid,” she added. “And I do think of it that way. You have a marvelous skill, and one that is very useful to my work. Which is why I wish to hire you. The same way I would hire a skillful architect to build my house or a skillful chef to prepare my food. I can admire your abilities without being envious of them.”
“My life isn’t something to envy,” I said softly.
Isabeau regarded me. “No. I don’t think it is.”
The bedroom she led me to was spacious and placed near the front of the château, at the farthest possible corner from the einhorn enclosure. The walls were papered in a subtle gold and cream stripe, and the bed linens matched in shades of gold, beige, and ivory. Lamps burned in every corner, and a tall vase of white flowers stood near the door.
“I’ll get you something to wear and be right back,” Isabeau said. “The bathroom is right through that door.”
The bathroom was almost as big as the cell Cory and I shared at the Cloisters, and featured a claw-footed tub with a high back, a marble vanity, and gold fixtures.
I was almost afraid to touch it.
Isabeau returned with a pair of white satin pajamas. “This probably isn’t your style,” she said, “but it’ll do for the night.”
“Thank you.” The material felt almost cold to the touch, and slipped over even my bowstring-calloused fingers as if made of water. “You’ve been way too kind.”
“I’ve been nothing more than civil, Astrid. I’m sorry if your experiences have led you to expect anything less.” She came closer and tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “I don’t believe you are being properly looked after, ma chère.”
I swallowed heavily and looked away.
Isabeau still seemed to be looking at me. “Were you my daughter and charged with such a difficult duty, I would wish for someone to take very, very good care of you.” Her voice broke on her final words. “Have a good night.”
I looked up, but she’d already turned away.
Once alone, I decided to run a bath. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken one—they didn’t have bathtubs at the Cloisters—and this tub was especially lovely. There was even a selection of bath oils placed nearby, all in pretty glass vials stopped with tiny corks and smelling strongly of fresh herbs. I picked the one that reminded me most of chamomile and sprinkled it liberally into the bathwater, then sank in up to my neck and closed my eyes, breathing in the scented steam and letting the heat seep into my bones.
I soaked until I was pruney and ready for sleep, then wrapped myself in a big towel and combed out my hair in front of the beautiful mirror. I put on the silky pajamas and padded back into the bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief. For the first time in ages, I’d sleep under a ceiling not studded with the bones of murdered unicorns. I couldn’t feel their buzz in my head. I couldn’t even sense the ones in the yard anymore. The satin I wore didn’t irritate my scars like most of my shirts. Instead, it almost seemed to caress the raised bumps on my skin. The bed sheets smelled like lavender, and the scent of herbs misted their way through my unicorn-wracked senses.
I laid my damp head against the cool, fragrant pillow, and breathed a deep sigh of relief.
Were you my daughter … I would wish for someone to take very, very good care of you.
But I wasn’t her daughter. At best, I was her extremely distant cousin. She was a Jaeger. The head of Gordian Pharmaceuticals.
I sat up, startled into wakefulness by my sudden comprehension. Isabeau was all of these things. And I really, really wanted to work for her.
I wanted to see what was going on here. I wanted to take part in the search for the Remedy. I wanted to fulfill my duty as a unicorn hunter, but I hated life at the Cloisters. I hated being stuck there, polishing weapons and wearing habits and traveling around killing wild animals. Here, I could protect people from the threat of killer unicorns without necessarily having to kill them. It was win-win.
Besides, if I stayed here, I could keep an eye on Gordian, make sure they weren’t doing anything sketchy. I would be right here if, by chance, they did hear anything from Seth. I could go back to school—I could take collegelevel science classes.
And I could learn more about some Llewelyns that I actually respected. Medically minded Llewelyns like Isabeau was talking about. Like Isabeau herself.
When Clothilde Llewelyn had wanted to leave the Cloisters, she hadn’t taken the coward’s way out, availing herself of the services of an actaeon who’d strip her of her powers and leave her in the lurch. She knew that her duty was not necessarily to the Cloisters but to the human race. She was charged with protecting people from unicorns, whether that meant killing them or sending them away from the human population for good.
Or even watching over a herd to make sure they didn’t escape their dedicated enclosure.
I could fulfill my duty as a hunter right here, and I was far more suited to the job than anyone else at the Cloisters. Couldn’t say that about the position as Cory’s bodyguard. Any of the other girls could do that, maybe even more skillfully.
I’d take the job. I just had to convince my friends it was the right choice.
10
WHEREIN ASTRID BREAKS THE NEWS
“Well, it’s no secret you’ve been miserable here,” Phil said when I called her. “Which is why I agreed to let you go with Cory in the first place.”
“So, in your mind, there’s no difference between me living in London and me working for Gordian Pharmaceuticals?” I asked.
She sighed. “Whatever, Astrid. You didn’t seem to think I needed to know what you were up to when you left here. Why do you want my approval now?”
Maybe because she was my most trusted confidante. Or had been until recently. Neil’s revelation had been accepted, begrudgingly, but now Phil was mad at us for keeping secrets. Or as she’d put it, “conspiring against her to undermine her authority as donna.”
Perhaps it was good I wasn’t at the Cloisters this morning.
“It’s not your approval I want,” I said. “Just your understanding. I’m doing this partially for you, you know.” I’d come to France for her to begin with. “The extra money will come in handy at the Cloisters. It’ll relieve some of the pressure you’ve been under, some of your dependence on the Church. You can concentrate on your conservation efforts.”
“Don’t you think there’s a particular irony to helping support my conservation efforts through precisely the kind of exploitation my efforts are trying to eradicate?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
My mother was even less approving. “I don’t like this, Astrid,” she stated from across the ocean. “You’ll be wasting your talents. Doing what? Playing security guard for some corporation? That’s no way to distinguish yourself as a hunter.”
“I’m not interested in distinguishing myself as a hunter.” Not half so interested as I was in, say, finishing high school. “And the money they’re paying me will be supporting the Cloisters.”
“I told you, once the book deal comes through, I’ll have plenty of money for the Cloisters.” My mother sighed. “Unicorns are so hot right now. And you could be at the forefront of that, too, if you’d just—This is such a waste, Astrid.
Can’t one of the lesser hunters do this instead?”
“For the last time, Mom, I am one of the lesser hunters.” Plus, Gordian could offer me school and science and safety, which I needed far more than any of the dubious glories of unicorn hunting in Italy.
“That’s ridiculous,” Lilith said. “You, whose first kill was to single-handedly take down a re’em—”
“Hardly single-handedly,” I said. Dorcas and Phil had helped, and the unicorn in question had been very distracted at the time, intent on killing Ursula and Zelda.
“Who survived an attack from an entire pack of kirin—”
No thanks to Lilith. She’d been the one to send us up against that pack. “Barely survived,” I corrected. Even then, my survival had been thanks to the timely intervention of Bucephalus.
“And the only living human to face down a karkadann—”
Is that what she’d been telling the people on the networks? No wonder they thought I was some sort of unicorn-hunting wunderkind.
“You’ve got such a compelling story, Astrid. And now, to give it all up and live in obscurity—”
“You’ve got that right,” I countered. “I want to live in obscurity, Mom. Not die a unicorn-hunting celebrity. These battles are not fodder for the nightly news. These girls are taking their lives in their hands every time they go after a unicorn, and—”
“And you’ve left them to do it alone, without your significant skill set and experience.” Lilith clucked her tongue at me. “Not very responsible of you, Astrid. And to think you once wanted to be a doctor, to save people’s lives.”
I always found it very difficult to speak to my mother. Now that our conversations pertained to actual life and death situations, it had become nearly impossible. I had saved people’s lives. What had she ever done but put them in danger and profit from it?
Finally, I called Giovanni. We hadn’t spoken since before I’d left the Cloisters.
“After everything that happened with Gordian?” he asked, suspicious. He, too, had been taken in by Marten Jaeger last summer. “How can you trust them?”
“This is different.” I explained Isabeau’s position and summarized her offer. “There are so many benefits to my being here. School, and a more regular schedule, and less danger. And I can keep an eye out for Seth.”
“I say let the police handle that,” said Giovanni. “And as for less danger, it’s you alone with a whole herd of unicorns. How is that less dangerous?”
Giovanni had an especially difficult time imagining unicorns as anything other than the bloodthirsty kirin. I decided to change the subject.
“Also, I can ditch the habits.”
“But you promised to send me a picture of you wearing one!”
“Over my dead body.”
“Darn.” Giovanni laughed. “You know, I’ve got a reputation for being straightlaced around here, what with the whole dating-a-nun meme that’s made its way around campus.”
Quite a change from the hard-partying reputation that had gotten him kicked out of his last school. “Yeah, I heard something about that when I called the other day. About me really being a nun. Though you’d think that would make you sound like even more of a bad boy.”
“You mean because I’m stealing you away from your religious vows?”
“Something like that.” Though it turned out I didn’t need Giovanni to play actaeon. There were alternatives to life in the Order.
“I’m still worried about this,” he said. “How do you know they’re going to keep their word this time?”
“Well, it seems to be working out well for Brandt.”
“Brandt?”
Oh, right. I explained, as briefly as possible. “Wait, you’re living in France with your ex-boyfriend?”
“That sounds a lot worse than it is,” I admitted. “Very un-nunlike behavior,” Giovanni agreed. “Should I be worried?”
“Of course not.” I rolled over. “He’s just another person in the house.”
“A boy person.”
“Yes.”
“That you used to date.”
“The very same.”
“Who is not three thousand miles away.”
I smiled. “You jealous, Giovanni?”
He was quiet for a moment, taking the question far more seriously than I’d meant it. “No,” he said at last. “I mean, not like I don’t trust you. But of him, yes, I’m jealous. I want what he has. I want to be near you.”
I smiled, though I knew he couldn’t see it. I wanted that, too, but for now, I’d take this. A job, a chance, Giovanni on the phone saying he missed me. For now, it would be enough.
Under these inauspicious circumstances, my tenure as an employee of Gordian Pharmaceuticals began. Isabeau sent into the city for my belongings, and when they arrived, her mouth dropped open.
“Rags,” was her verdict, wrinkling her nose at my pile of faded T-shirts and cargo pants. “And summer clothes. I can’t have you traipsing about the grounds in these.”
I looked over my meager wardrobe. “Things get ruined when I hunt in them,” I said. “I don’t want anything too nice.”
“You’re not a nun here, Astrid,” Isabeau argued. “And if you do your job right—protecting the people around here from unicorns and vice versa—there’ll be very little to worry about in terms of bloodstains, either. Besides, you’ll need winter coats, school clothes. I absolutely refuse to let an employee of mine look like a hobo. We can go to Limoges this afternoon and visit the shops.”
She took in my stricken expression.
“Unless you’d prefer to travel to Paris for your clothes.”
I choked. “I can’t afford—”
She waved me off. “Naturally, Gordian will finance your wardrobe, Astrid. Just like your room and board. Don’t even think of it.”
“Thank you, but I really can’t let you—”
“You let the Catholic Church give you these horrid green things, oui?” She gingerly poked at the corner of my hunting habit.
“Well, yes, but—”
“I refuse to be upstaged by the Pope, chère.” Isabeau laughed. “Particularly when it comes to fashion.”
I drew the line at Paris, though Zelda would probably have struck me dead if she knew.
Isabeau dragged me to half the shops in Limoges. We bought wool pants and belted raincoats, cashmere sweater sets and silk tops, and a new pair of hiking boots to hunt in. We bought skirts “for school” and knee-high boots in both black and tan with leather satchels to match—”only get the kind with pockets large enough for your hunting knife, chère“—and fingerless leather gloves in case I had to shoot something after it got cold. Isabeau wanted us to consider party clothes, but I took one look at a rack of low-cut, sleeveless dresses and backed away slowly.
Even in the highly unlikely scenario that I’d attend some sort of formal event, I’d never wear an outfit that so clearly revealed my hunting scars.
“How silly,” Isabeau had said. She’d laid hands on my shoulders in the latest shop’s open-plan dressing room and faced my bare back toward the mirror. “Your scars are a part of you, Astrid. They mark you as a survivor.”
Her hand hovered, fingers splayed wide, over the scar that spread out like a starburst from the center of my back.
“You do not deny that these things happened to you, do you? You fought with a unicorn; you emerged victorious. Did this not happen?”
“Yes.” I looked away from my reflection. “But it’s so ugly.”
“No.” She lowered her hand and turned back to me. “What happened to you was ugly. It was painful, horrible, terrifying. And that’s what you see when you look at these scars. You see being attacked. But what you should see is the strength of your own spirit. You survived—something almost no one else would.” She put a hand on the scar near my elbow. “And you saved a life.” She pointed at the scar beneath my ribs. “You were brave and strong, and you persevered where many people would not.” Her eyes met mine. “Your scars
are beautiful, Astrid, because they reveal the beauty of the woman who lives inside your skin. Tu te sens bien dans ta peau.”
And then she made me buy some new camisoles, lingerie, a silk robe, and a bathing suit.
After shopping, we stopped for coffee and snacks at a café, and Isabeau mapped out my work schedule. Keeping the unicorns pacified would be paramount, and she explained how they’d discovered with their last resident hunter—whose name and family origin she still refused to divulge—that the einhorns’ wildest behavior tended to coincide with the hunter’s periods of absence from the château.
This took a period of discovery? It seemed blindingly obvious to me.
“And yet,” Isabeau said, “it is not practical or advisable for you to be constantly on call—or even on site. How can we go shopping if that is the case?” She smiled at me. “How can we enroll you in classes at the university? No, it will never do. So we’ve learned a few tricks that can, for a short time, delude the creatures that you are still nearby.”
I leaned in, interested. “A unicorn-hunting decoy?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Or more correctly, a scarecrow. Clothes you’ve worn work well, as does varying your schedule so that they never know when it’s you and when it is simply your essence, left behind as a reminder.”
“But unicorns don’t use scent or time to sense my presence,” I replied. “They do it just as I do—through magic.”
Isabeau cocked her head at me. “Is that so? I have always understood that hunters interact with the unicorns using every sense. A hunter can see and smell things we cannot.”
“Yes, but those are the—” I paused, searching for the right words. The ones that would make me sound at least marginally sane. There was a definite distinction between believing in the magic, as Isabeau did, and listening impassively to a hunter describe how she doesn’t really look at the unicorns she shoots anymore, just pinpoints their location on the massive, magical radar in her mind.
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