Wither & Wound

by Demitria Lunetta

One arm is curled protectively around her stomach, where a bulge is just visible. That pregnancy will kill her. That pregnancy is me.

  I drop the stone back onto Themis’s desk.

  “Just for the record, that stone is an asshole.”

  “Well, yes, that’s quite possibly true. It was one of Hermes’s little inventions.” She pauses and then adds with a significant look, “And you are apparently one of Zee’s little inventions.”

  I bury my head in my hands. “I don’t want this.”

  “You are his daughter,” she tells me firmly. “And you have the power to threaten his life.”

  7

  With my thoughts and emotions in an uproar, I’ve still got to get to class. Campus has been a mess. A low enrollment rate this term has all the gods on edge, and I don’t want Artemis using me as the example for what happens to students who are tardy.

  As I rush to the clearing where we’re meeting, Artemis is already calling the class to attention. It’s an interdisciplinary class, so spies are mixed in with the trackers and the assassins.

  Artemis addresses us. “You’ll remember from spring term the exercises we did pairing a tracker with an assassin. This term we will take that same exercise to the next level. Now quickly pair off so we can begin.”

  I wave to Greg where he and Cassie are standing off by themselves. Greg and I worked together last semester and while we were never top of the class, we made a pretty good team. But Greg doesn’t even seem to notice me hurrying toward him. I see him and Cassie point at each other and realize that this time the two of them are pairing up. I stop, suddenly feeling like a third wheel.

  What exactly is going on between Cassie and Greg anyway?

  An arm comes around the back of my neck and suddenly I’m pulled snugly up against Nico. “The two of us teaming up is almost unfair to everyone else,” he says with a laugh.

  I pull away. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s split up.”

  He grins at me. “Nah. Let’s show them how it’s done.”

  I swallow back the scream building inside me and turn to see who everyone else has partnered up with. Of course, my eyes go to Val first. I don’t even need to scan the crowd for him; I could feel his eyes on me as Nico pulled me close.

  Now I meet those eyes. Val said that he’s watching out for me and even though I’m an independent woman with an even more independent dragon on standby inside of me, it’s nice to know that he’s got my back.

  Except now I realize that having Val and Nico stare daggers at each other with me in the middle isn’t really doing anything to alleviate the on-campus tensions. I’ve already heard rumors that Nico’s been going around asking shifters to choose sides: us or the vamps.

  It’s common knowledge that the vamps were responsible for Maddox’s death. Merilee told me and Cassie it wasn’t too long ago that much of the warring took place on campus—between vamps and shifters. They were like rival gangs fighting, each claiming their own turf. Themis worked hard to bring both sides together, but now with these new tensions, it seems impossible that everyone will continue to get along.

  “Does everyone have a partner?” Artemis demands, thankfully before Nico and Val go for each other’s throats.

  Someone clears their throat and then I hear Tina quietly say, “I don’t.”

  She stands tall with her head high, but there’s no missing the red blush coloring her usually freakishly white complexion.

  Val steps forward, “Go with Jordan, I’ll work alone.”

  “Yeah, me and you, Tina!” Jordan happily agrees.

  “No.” Tina holds a hand out. “Go back to my brother. I’m not having a pity partner.”

  Jordan lopes back around only to stop again when Val says in a low voice, “Tina, just take him.”

  I’ve never seen tensions between the two of them before. They always seem to be in sync—even if they disagree with what the other is doing, they understand it.

  But now Tina looks ready to kill her twin. Shoving Jordan aside, she stomps toward him.

  “Hey, excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m late.” The tension is broken by the high-pitched voice of a young boy crossing the clearing to stand before Artemis. The kid is tiny, even smaller than Greg. And he seems to still be in the midst of puberty as his voice cracks on the last word. “My roommate told me class was at the woods on the west side of campus, but I discovered there are no woods on the west side of—”

  Nico growls low and soft in the back of his throat. Almost like a warning.

  The boy stiffens, obviously hearing it. He throws a glance at Nico and then turns back to Themis. “That is, oh, um—look! There’s my roommate right there.” He visibly gulps as his eyes briefly meet Nico’s. “Hey, Nico. I, ah, probably misunderstood him—”

  “Fine,” Artemis cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “You’re with Tina. Don’t be late again.” She looks down at the boy. “Small, right?”

  “Ahem, uh, Little actually. Chester Little.”

  “Chicken little,” Nico snickers.

  The tips of Chester’s ears go red. “Rooster. I’m a rooster shifter.”

  Eesh. I want to send the poor kid a sympathetic glance. That’s a tough card to draw, but to give him credit, he seems proud of it. I went through a period of time when I first arrived at MOA dreadfully afraid that I was an ostrich shifter. Bird shifters don’t have a ton of options, but that particular one turned me right off. A rooster isn’t that bad, by comparison.

  But Nico won’t let it go. “Then why do you look like you’re about to lay an egg? You claim you’re a rooster—are you sure you’re not a weak little hen?”

  “Whoa, man.” Jordan says. “Don’t equate femininity with weakness. That’s just wrong.”

  “Yeah.” To my shock, Tina strides forward and puts a hand on Chester’s shoulder. He takes one look up at her and his Adam’s apple visibly rises and falls with a gigantic gulp. “C’mon, Rooster, let’s kick some ass.”

  Grabbing hold of his shirt, she drags him to her place in the circle of students surrounding Artemis, as Chester protests, “Actually my name is—”

  “Nico.” Artemis pins him with a look. “I don’t know whose bright idea it was to put a wolf and bird in the same dorm room, but let me make one thing clear to you. I have a fondness for winged creatures. I am, in fact, having a very hard time with having my beloved Stymphalians loaned out. I am also a woman. And as Jordan put it in a moment of uncharacteristic wisdom, do not mistake femininity for weakness. I’d have thought your mother would’ve taught you that.”

  Nico holds Artemis’s eye contact throughout this speech, but at the mention of his mother, he visibly wilts.

  “No, ma’am,” he agrees.

  “Good.” Artemis turns her attention to the rest of us. “Now that’s settled. Each of you will go to the chest”—she jerks her head in the direction of a huge wooden box filled with smaller wooden boxes—“and choose one container per team. When I give the signal, you will open it. An animal will leap free. This is not a real animal, so I don’t want to hear any moaning from any of the cruelty-free vegetarians in the crowd. This is a magically simulated animal created for the purpose of this exercise. Staying together, you will track the animal and when it is cornered, the assassin will kill it and return its body to me. Any questions?” Artemis waits half a second, and then claps her hands. “No? Good. Begin!”

  Everyone rushes toward the chest, including Nico. Snagging my hand, he drags me behind him. “C’mon, Edie. You know your bitch of a roommate is gonna want to show us both up.”

  “Actually,” I start to say, but then realize it’s probably not helpful to tell Nico that Tina and I get along pretty well now. But still, I have no intention of letting him run this show. I dig my heels into the ground, grinding us to a halt.

  “Wait, Nico.”

  “What?” He snaps, fur covering his face and teeth elongating.

  I snatch my hand back from him. “Wow. Lose it much? What’s going on with yo
u? You’re super on edge. And the way you’re picking on your new roommate. I don’t get it. He’s a shifter. You like shifters.” I pause and then add, “He doesn’t have a bird, so he’s not a Moggy. So that can’t be why you don’t like him.”

  Nico hunches his shoulders. “Yeah, my roommate is pure-blooded. He’s got a whole brood of chicken and rooster family back home. His parents write every day, these tear-soaked letters about how they miss him. And they send care packages weekly. With enough food to feed twenty little chickens.”

  Oh. I understand it now. It’s gotta feel like salt in the wound to have this new roommate accidentally flaunting his loving family while Nico is still grieving his mom.

  “I get it,” I tell him. “Sometimes when I see Cassie with Merilee, I feel so jealous and angry and sad all at once.”

  Nico scoffs. “I’m not sad. I’m pissed off and I’m gonna make the vampires pay.”

  And there’s the Nico I’m used to. “Okay, fine.” I walk toward the chest, but Nico grabs my hand again.

  “Edie, wait.” He looks around and then pulls me further away from everyone else. Speaking in a low voice, he says, “Just so you know, I don’t care about the Moggy thing. I know you’re probably one too. I don’t know how you avoided being assigned a Stymphalian bird, and I don’t care. I would never out you. I mean, if being a Moggy makes a dragon like you…well, what would happen if a werewolf and dragon mated, right?” He smiles so sweetly and hopefully, I forget for a moment how hopeful he is. Then he adds, “I still want to marry you, Edie. Once you’re done mourning your traitor sister, I think we should—”

  I shove him away, not bothering to disguise my anger. “Traitor or not, she’s still my sister, Nico. And she’s not dead yet.” Stalking over the box, I snatch up a silvery-grey smaller one and hold it out to Nico. “Let’s just get this done already.”

  Nico shakes his head and then gives me the puppy dog eyes. “Edie, I’m sorry. We’ll wait until after Mavis is de—er, after the trial—to discuss our future. Okay?”

  Remembering that I can’t afford to have Nico as an enemy, I force myself to nod. “Okay.”

  He jerks his chin at the box. “You open it.”

  The box shakes and trembles in my hands; whatever’s inside is rearing and ready to go. I flip the latch, the top pops open, and a little face with a pointed nose stares back at me.

  “Oh my gods,” I say.

  It is quite possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. A tiny fox with the same silvery gray fur as the box that held it. Opening its mouth, the fox emits a tiny little yelp and then leans forward and—

  “Ouch!” I slap a hand over my face. “It bit my nose.”

  With that opening volley the fox jumps out of the box and disappears beneath a bush and into the forest.

  Already shifted, Nico is on its heels. “Edie, let’s go!” He yips over his shoulder.

  Unable to keep up in human form, I shift and rise above the treetops. It’s hard to stay with Nico as the forest covering is dense. But he’s good at finding clearings so I can stay nearby or howling when I lose him for too long.

  In the thrill of the chase, I lose sense of time. And I forget how awful Nico is. Right now we are a team with a common purpose.

  Finally, Nico herds the fox into a clearing he’d already passed through several times. The fox is running low on speed, and Nico has expertly taken it through this spot before—one with an opening in the foliage that a dragon can easily dive through to snatch its prey. The fox passes directly below me and in a moment, I’m upon it, snatching the tiny bit of fluff up in my one of my talons.

  It immediately goes limp, playing dead. But I’m not fooled. One squeeze and the hunt will be over. Our assignment finished.

  Instead, I shift back into my human form. With the fox in a hand instead of a talon, I can feel its little heart beating furiously. I look down into its small face, trying to remind myself it’s not real. But it feels real. It looks real. The fox lets out a pitiful cry. It sounds real too.

  “Edie,” Nico says. He’s also shifted back and waits at my elbow.

  “Just give me a minute,” I say.

  He comes around so he’s standing in front of me, also looking down at the fox in my hand. “I know you didn’t kill the baby monster,” he says.

  I’m so shocked I almost drop the fox. “What?”

  Nico looks right at me. “I know. I saw Cassie run away with it.”

  “But…” I shake my head. “Why didn’t you...?”

  He turns away. “My mother…” He hesitates for a long moment before finally saying in a rough voice, “Wasn’t right about everything.” He stands with his shoulders bowed as if the concession was painful.

  “She thought the only way to win the war was to kill all monsters. But that’s crazy. There’s too many of them. What we need is for the monsters to fear us, but also to know we can be compassionate rulers when necessary.” He spins, turning back to me, the fanatical gleam I’ve come to know so well making his one eye bright. “You instinctively understood that, Edie.”

  I stare at Nico, wondering how he can see an Edie totally different from the girl who stands in front of him. Partially, I’ve misled him, but mostly, I’ve simply allowed him to believe what he wants, to imagine I’m his perfect girl, the kind he’d be proud to bring home to his mother.

  I open my hands, releasing the fox. It hesitates and then leaps to freedom.

  The tiny fox takes two leaps and then Nico’s paw comes down on its back.

  The snap of its spine is no louder than that of a twig breaking underfoot. And yet my whole body jolts as if a gun went off near my ear.

  Nico grabs the lifeless body in his mouth and drops it at my feet. He grins up at me with his friendly doggy smile. “Sorry, Edie, my fault for distracting you with all that talk. But no worries, I got it. That’s why we make a great team. Right?”

  I don’t trust myself to answer, so shifting, I gently scoop the fox’s body into a talon and lift off into the sky.

  8

  I can’t get the image of Adrianna—my mother—writing that letter to Metis out of my mind. Her hand resting over her belly, the absolute fear on her face.

  She knew she might die giving birth to the child of a god…but she took the chance and did it anyway. She chose to have me. I’ve been wrestling with that so much that I’ve zoned out. I’m so far lost in my own thoughts it takes the smell of a fresh Stymphalian turd to zap me out of it.

  “Oh my gods,” Tina moans from her own bed, pulling a pillow over her face to block the smell. “When will it end?”

  I’m thinking it won’t end until Mr. Zee steps down as the head of the Academy, and about to say so, when Cassie and Hepa burst through the door. They’re followed by Fern and Marguerite, their faces red, their gait suspiciously awkward.

  “Are you…” I hesitate to even say it, but then Cassie goes down hard, landing on her hands and knees, barely missing the bird poo. She giggles.

  “Guys…I almost ate shit. Like, literally.” Hepa thinks this is the most hilarious thing ever, and bursts out with a giant guffaw. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh before. Fern and Marguerite help Cassie to her feet, though they almost fall a few times before they get her upright.

  “Yep,” Tina mutters from under her pillow. “They’re drunk.”

  Marguerite and Fern pop onto Tina’s bed, and Marguerite—a fellow vampire, and therefore bold enough to challenge Tina’s crappy mood—pulls the pillow off her head.

  “Where’s that pretty pout I know so well?” she asks, pulling the edges of Tina’s mouth down, then back up into a forced smile. I have to laugh, as Cassie and Hepa join me on my mattress, handing over the bottle. I’d never considered the option of just manually making Tina smile.

  “What’s in it?” I ask, looking down at the bottle.

  Cassie giggles. “It’s ambrosia! We lifted it from the kitchens. It’s watered d—” She hiccups. “Down,” she finishes. “Safe for huma
n consumption.”

  Which is a good thing, because if humans drank the nectar of the gods straight, it would probably drop us to the floor in a second. Maybe even melt our brains. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’d mind too much if my brain melted right now. At least it would get Adrianna’s tears out of my mind.

  Fern puts her arm around Marguerite, and Marguerite puts her arm around Tina, pulling her into a sitting position. “Look Tina,” Marguerite says. “You’ve always been a bitch. And that’s okay. I mean, if you’re going to do something, do it right. So, you went full-on mean girl, and I respect that.”

  “Thanks,” Tina says. She actually looks amused.

  “It must be hard, not being able to be yourself. With this interspecies dating ban, we know better than anyone else.” She looks lovingly at Fern, who gives her a squeeze.

  “Let’s get this Moggy drunk,” Hepa says, taking the bottle from me and handing it over to Tina. “We thought you could use it.”

  Tina slides out from under Marguerite’s arm, and I think she’s about to kick everyone out but she surprises me by taking a swig. She gulps, then wipes her mouth. She catches me eyeing her and shrugs. “What have I got to lose?” she asks.

  She puts the bottle in front of my face. “C’mon, Edie, join us.”

  “Mavis would want you to have some fun,” Cassie tells me sincerely. “Actually, Mavis would want you to have a drink. Or like, ten. In fact, the last time I got drunk on ambrosia was after she came back from the mission where Nico was killed. Or not killed, as it turns out.” Cassie frowns. “It’s very confusing, isn’t it?”

  I grab the bottle from Tina, clutching it in my hand. The mission where Nico was supposedly killed, is also when Mavis thought I was dead. And after our mother went to the cockatrice to have her memories wiped. Yet Mavis came back to campus and immediately started whooping it up with Cassie. I am seeing red, when suddenly I remember that Mavis is now in a prison cell. All my anger drains out of me.

  I look down at the ambrosia in the bottle and imagine Mavis doing the same thing. It’s been one Hades of a week and I don’t need a vision from Cassie to tell me it’s only gonna get worse.