Calla's Story

Chapter 17-2

What the hell are you doing, Calla?

I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m telling him everything.

No. That isn’t true. I do know the reason. I’m telling Chase everything because he’s the only person it’s safe to tell. I’ve had to keep quiet my whole life, but I’ve finally found someone I don’t have to be quiet around. He already knows what I can do, and he won’t tell the Guild.

“I got through my fourth junior school without any incidents, as my mother calls them. I wanted to join the Guild, but Mom said no. She suggested a healer school, so, like a good girl, I agreed. There was a boy in my class who’d heard about all the schools I’d left. He’d heard the rumors about how I was … abnormal. Even dangerous. He made sure everyone knew what a freak I was. Soon after I started there, I’d had enough of his taunting. He just wouldn’t stop. On day ten, he arrived at school on one of those winged bicycles just as I got there. He swooped right by me, knocked me over, and shouted out, ‘Score! Ben: one, Freak: zero.’ So I let the wall down and showed him exactly what I wanted him to see: He was inside a maze being chased by a harpy. She’d already eaten the wings off his bicycle so he couldn’t fly away. He had to keep riding or she’d eat him too.”

Chase snorts, then covers it with a cough. “It, uh, sounds like he got what he deserved.”

“Yes. As it happens, that’s exactly what everyone said about me when I was asked to leave.”

Chase’s smirk vanishes. “I’m sorry, Calla.”

I shrug and drop the loose thread. I’ve wound it so many times around my left forefinger that the skin is covered in fine lines. “That’s life, right?” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “Everyone has difficulties they have to deal with. My difficulty just happens to be one I’m not supposed to tell anyone about.” Chase nods slowly, not looking at me. “So then Mom suggested I become a chef,” I tell him. “I wasn’t too excited about that idea, but the Guild still wasn’t an option, so I said okay. I was there for two months, and then …”

And then …

No. Don’t think of it. Just keep pretending that one didn’t happen.

“Wait, why did we take this tunnel?” I ask. I vaguely remember turning left at a fork just now, and I’ve suddenly noticed how low the ceiling has become.

“No particular reason,” Chase says. “It doesn’t matter which way we go. I thought we were just walking because you can’t sit still.”

“I can sit still. Just not … here. Let’s go back and take the other tunnel.”

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“It, um, smells weird.”

Chase gives me a bemused look, but says nothing.

“Uh, so then I decided I wasn’t interested in cooking or baking. Mom still wouldn’t let me anywhere near the Guild, and the only other thing I could think of was art. So I joined Ellinhart Academy of the Arts. Visual, literary and performing arts. I picked visual.”

Chase stops walking. “You’re an artist too?”

“Yes. Well, sort of. Not in the same league as you.”

“So when you broke into my house, you actually were admiring my art?”

“Yes.” Then I add, “Along with looking for something to steal for a stupid initiation thing.”

An amused smile turns his lips up. “Of all the villains I thought might find a way into my home one day, an art-appreciating, guardian trainee thief is the one I least expected.”

I tuck my hair behind my ears and smile at him. “Glad I could keep your life interesting.”

We begin walking again, and he asks, “Did you enjoy Ellinhart?”

“It was … okay. Just like with the healer school and the chef school, I didn’t entirely want to be there. But I enjoyed drawing and painting, so I decided if I couldn’t have my first choice, then I’d have to make the art thing work. The rumors followed me there, of course, but I managed to make a few friends. They said they weren’t the kind to pay any attention to rumors. In the end, though, everyone listens to rumors. How can they not when they’ve all seen things around me that can’t be explained.”

And with that, the story of all my schools and incidents comes to an end. In the silence that follows, our footsteps sound overly loud. I swing my arms at my sides, suddenly feeling insanely awkward that I’ve spilled all this information to someone I barely know. “Anyway,” I continue, “that’s me. What’s your story?”

Instead of answering me, Chase says, “I’m amazed the Guild didn’t hear about any of your … what did you call them? Incidents?”

I nod. The tunnel makes a hairpin bend to the left, and we continue following it. “My parents always explained things away somehow. Or, as I’ve recently discovered, they bribed people to keep quiet.”

“Bribes? That’s always an interesting conversation to have with one’s parents.”

“Oh, they don’t know that I know. It’s something I overheard my dad saying during one of my time traveling trips. I’m not sure my mom even knows. He might have kept it from her too.”

“Well, everyone has their secrets.”

I nod slowly, chewing on my lip as I consider Dad and his secrets. I wonder if he has others. Maybe he doesn’t simply take care of the business side of the private security company he works for. Maybe he’s actually one of their bodyguards.

“Can you hear that?” Chase says, stopping suddenly.

I halt my steps and listen. “Trickling water?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Maybe we should turn back. I would normally assume that a trickle of water is harmless, but that’s probably not the case down here.”

“Probably not.”

We turn around and walk in the opposite direction. I push my hands into my jacket pockets to keep from swinging them around or plucking more threads from my clothing. “So,” I say, “now that I’ve spilled all my childhood dramas, why don’t you spill yours?”

“My childhood didn’t have any drama.”

“Come on. Everyone’s childhood has some kind of drama in it, even if it’s just your parents refusing to buy you that toy everyone else has or that kid who calls you unicorn poop.”

He looks at me. “Someone called you unicorn poop?”

“The Destruction!” I say. “If that doesn’t qualify as drama, I don’t know what does. Where were you when that happened?”

He looks away. “At home. At least, it wasn’t exactly my home but it’s where I lived back then.”

“Wait. Listen.” Instead of getting quieter the further we move away from it, the sound of trickling water is getting louder.

“How strange,” Chase says after a pause. He starts walking again, and I hurry to catch up to him. We reach the hairpin bend and keep going. Around the other side, we find the source of the noise.

Water, sparkling as if every drop contains a different colored gem, runs in tiny streams from the center of the tunnel ceiling, down both sides, and meets in the center of the tunnel floor, where I assume it seeps into the ground.

“This definitely wasn’t here a minute ago,” Chase says.

“I’m aware of that. I was walking right next to you.” It’s beautiful, though, this rainbow colored water. I move a step or two closer to examine it. Perhaps if I splashed every color paint I have onto a canvas and left it in the rain, I’d achieve a similar effect. And for the twinkling sparkles where the water catches the light, I’d capture sunlight and sprinkle droplets of it onto the canvas. I’d need a charm to keep the paint and sunlight moving, to mimic the effect of—

“Are you kidding me?” Chase grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Don’t they teach you at guardian school not to go around touching random stuff? You could get yourself killed.”

I pull my arm out of his grasp. “I wasn’t going to touch it.” But I realize that my hand was raised, and it seems I was standing far closer to the water than I thought.

“Oh really?” he asks. “Is that what you told yourself before you picked up a stranger’s enchanted jewelry and put it on?”

I cross my arms, keeping my hands pinned beneath them so they can’t betray me again. “Yes, that was my mistake. But this …” I nod toward the water. “This is something else. Let’s keep going the other way.”

We turn back—and the hairpin bend is gone. Instead, the tunnel stretches straight ahead and the ground appears to be covered in moss.

“Now I’m freaked out,” I whisper.

Chase says nothing. He looks over his shoulder, then forward again. “Someone or something is messing with us.” He slips a hand inside his coat and produces a knife with a curved blade. “Whoever it is, they’d better hope we don’t run into them.”

Fear tingles at my fingertips. “I thought you said these tunnels were abandoned.”

“I did. It would appear I was wrong, though. This labyrinth is definitely in use again.”

“Fabulous.” I wrap my hand around the air and think of my dagger. It appears in my grasp a moment later. “Well, my friendly mentor keeps telling me to practice, and there’s no time like the present, right? So. Shall we brave the water or the moss?”

“Neither.” Chase raises his free hand, squeezes it into a fist, then opens it. A single flame burns above his palm. He leans forward and blows the flame toward the mossy side of the tunnel. Fire streaks through the air and lands on the moss. It ignites immediately, growing quickly into a blaze of light and heat. As the roaring of flames rises to a level that threatens to deafen us, Chase raises his arm as if to shield his face. The temperature drops immediately, as does the noise, and I know he’s placed a shield between us and the fire.

The inferno explodes, sending flames rolling toward us with alarming speed. I jump back with a yelp, but the flames slam against Chase’s invisible shield and go no further. Then, as if the explosion is happening in reverse, the flames are sucked backward in one quick rush. A moment later, they’re gone, leaving no evidence of moss, flames or smoke. The tunnel is completely bare.

Chase lowers his arm. “Okay. The way’s clear. Let’s go.”

I hurry after him, never letting go of my dagger or the strand of concentration that keeps my ball of light glowing above us. “That was an impressive fire.”

“Thank you. I’ve acquired a number of useful pyro spells over the years.”

“I see. Tattoo art must be a dangerous business.”

His eyes remain trained ahead, but I see the hint of a smile on his lips. I shake my head and smile to myself. I wonder if I’ll ever find out what he really does. Probably not, since I doubt I’ll see him again after we get out of here. Well, unless I get a tattoo. Or several. Mom would hate that. She wouldn’t be too keen on me spending time with someone like Chase, either. The thought makes me pleased. Or perhaps it’s the thought of not saying goodbye to Chase just yet.

“You’re doing it again,” he says without breaking his stride.

I raise my eyes and see the image that just played through my mind: the moment Chase shook my hand in his tattoo studio. That moment before I opened the door and found Saber there.

“Dammit,” I mutter as the image vanishes. The tunnel curves sharply to the left. We keep walking, and I smack my fist against my forehead a few times, as if that could help keep the projections inside. “Sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I did. I’m supposed to have this perfectly under control, and now I’m slipping up. That can’t ever happen at the Guild, which means I need to make sure it doesn’t happen in private either. I—” A vibration shudders through the ground and up into my feet. My first thought is that I’m about to be whisked into the past, but then the ground trembles again, and again, like the heavy footfalls of a giant. “What now?” I murmur.

“Now,” Chase says, turning to face the sound, “it’s time to play.”

The shuddering footsteps grow louder and closer. Part of me wants to run, but the rest of me feels the shot of anticipatory excitement that always brings life to my veins in the moments before I’m about to face a foe. I let go of my dagger and feel for my bow and arrow instead. Arrows first, then throwing stars, then blades. That’s my plan.

The footsteps reach the curve in the tunnel, my hands tense around my weapon, and into my line of vision steps an enormous beast. A ferocious bull-like head sits atop an upright muscled body. Its legs end in large hooves, and in one clawed hand it holds a double headed battle axe.

“Minotaur,” I whisper, half in horror and half in awe.

The minotaur opens his mouth to reveal sharpened teeth. He lets out a deep, gravelly laugh I swear I can feel vibrating in my own chest. His glowing eyes settle on Chase and, in earthy, rumbling tones, he says, “So. We meet again.”