She smiled. “We’ll be hanging around the rec room after, if you change your mind.” Her gaze turned to Genie, who never left before I finished sweeping. “That was awesome. I’ve got a feeling we’ll still be talking about that at graduation.”
“Hopefully you’ll all have gotten the better of me by then,” Marcel retorted as he, too, made his way from the dojo.
Genie had put in the work, and it had paid off. She ran for pleasure, for crying out loud. But it served as a double reminder that I needed to start making changes to my fitness regimen. I glanced out of the dojo window, where the sea frothed in the distance, stormy and carrying a chill in the air—not one I could feel, but one I could sense in the slate gray of the sky and the shiver of the waves. The tides could turn in my favor. It was all in my hands now.
Fall was on its way. It had always been my favorite season, filled with warmth and burnt colors, and I had a feeling that this one was really going to be the making of me.
Two
Persie
Ten minutes later, I sat in Victoria’s office for one of our daily half-hour sessions, which sort of made Marcel’s early finish meaningless for me. She’d cancelled this morning’s tutorial and rescheduled it for the end of the day, but I didn’t fancy stretching my evening out further than I had to. I hoped I could catch her a little early and make quick work of the dojo once I was done. Genie had gone to do some private study, with a promise to meet me back at the dojo afterward. I just had to send a text and she’d be there to keep me company, grateful not to have to pore over Gatsby’s Encyclopedia of Monster Anatomy, a book so heavy you had to wheel it on a cart to your study spot.
“You look tired. Are you eating and sleeping properly?” Victoria began, not very flatteringly. “Has there been a Purge I do not know about?”
I shook my head. “I think I’m just starting to look like a student. Twelve-hour days have a way of catching up to a person.”
“Yes, perhaps.” She gave a small sniff which I guessed was supposed to be a chuckle. “Now, how are you getting on with your Euphoria techniques? It’s been a few days since we discussed that, but I do believe it may be key to unlocking voluntary Purges.”
“I… keep trying, but nothing really happens,” I admitted.
“Even with the Astral Conduit I gave you?” Victoria furrowed her brow. Being sans-magic came with a particular set of difficulties that tended to frustrate the bejeezus out of the head huntswoman. If the key to voluntary Purges was Euphoria, then I doubted I’d ever be able to manage it. Only magicals could tap into that higher state, device or no device.
I took a flat disc that looked like it was made of hematite out of my backpack and slid it across the desk toward her. “I can’t even get it to light up the way you did last time.” I waggled my fingers. “I don’t have the right fuel. It’s like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole.”
“That just means we can strike that option off the list, but I have a whole host of alternatives for us to delve into.” Her black eyes glinted with eagerness. “This is as new to me as it is to you, but we will find a way together. I simply refuse to believe that your ability is random. Ironically, Chaos is an entity of order. There must be a system to it.”
We had gone over endless possibilities throughout the last six months, without coming up with much to show for it. I agreed with her that there had to be hidden depths to this ability, but Leviathan had been no help in suggesting what they might be. Still, my Purges had evened out of their own accord, to a certain extent. I knew they would come at least once a week, but they still spewed out of me whenever they felt like it. I couldn’t schedule them to arrive at six o’clock on a Thursday evening, regular as clockwork, but we’d both come to the conclusion that life would be much easier if I could schedule a Purge. It was the kind of control that I dreamed of, taking the unexpectedness out of this curse. But, right now, it was exactly that… a dream.
“I think we should go back to the emotion thing,” I offered. “Meditation calms me down, and that keeps a Purge at bay. My worst Purges happen when I’m at a fever pitch of anger, or sadness, or stress. Sure, they come along when I’m fine, too, but I just feel like we’re missing something by not playing on emotion.”
Victoria got up and paced behind her armchair, tapping a finger on her lower lip. “Okay, we’ll try that for today’s session.” She paused and looked at me. “How is your monster diary coming along?”
“It’s pretty detailed,” I replied. She’d suggested I keep a journal of sorts, writing down every Purge beast I created and how I’d felt when it happened. I’d turned it into more of a detailed sketchbook, with close-up diagrams and labels I could reference if I needed to.
“Any sort of pattern emerging?”
I shrugged. “Not that I can see. I’ve had Nathan take a look at it, and he can’t see any uniformity to it, either.”
“After six months, I would have thought there would be some regularity to the kinds of beasts you Purge.” She sighed, evidently exasperated that my ability continued to baffle and bemuse. “Perhaps, if we can uncover a way for you to choose when you Purge, you will also be able to choose the size and type of beast that you create.”
“Sure, let’s add that to the abstract theory list.” I flashed her a resigned smile. We kept bandying theories between us, but so far none of them had actually formed into something real. I was beginning to wonder if they ever would. Maybe, if I was a true magical, these things could’ve been possible. But there was every chance that Echidna and Leviathan had bet on the wrong horse when they’d “gifted” me with this ability. They might’ve thought what everyone else thought, that being a Merlin immediately meant magic up the wazoo. Ergo, by not having said Chaos up the wazoo, there would always be peaks of this ability that I would never be able to climb to.
Victoria waved a hand through the air. “I only have you for half an hour. Why don’t we begin with the emotion theory, and combine that with your meditation practices? Focus on a moment in which you have felt overwhelmed with emotion, and try to relive it as I have taught you—retracing the footsteps of a memory—and use that to see if you can urge a monster to come out.”
“I’ll give it a whirl.” Shifting until I felt more comfortable in the armchair, which was so large that it swamped me, I closed my eyes and tried to do what she’d instructed. I knew precisely which part of my memory I needed to claw my way into, though it wasn’t so much an actual memory as the recollection of a dream.
I took a few deep breaths, sinking deeper into my subconscious with each lungful, the way Victoria had taught me over the last six months. The feel of the smooth armchair underneath my fingertips disappeared and the sound of Victoria’s breathing faded to nothing, my awareness of her office melting away until there was nothing but blank darkness in my mind. A clean slate with which I’d start building the image I needed.
Think of glass. It’s smooth and cold to the touch, with a bluish tint and a breath of frost across it. It’s all around me—a pane on each side, one on the floor, and one forming the roof of the box. Like a construction worker, I brought the pieces into that dark space in my head, putting myself in the center of it. Well, a projection of myself. The glass panes slotted into position, trapping me. Already, a flicker of claustrophobia made my lungs clench slightly, though I tried to carry on breathing deeply for the sake of the meditative state.