“So it’s what, a trial?”
“Pretty much. I’m still doing exactly what a Keeper auxiliary would be doing, it’s just not official.”
“So how—?”
I broke my pattern, sending the sword flashing up at Luna’s face. Luna had to jump back, both hands coming up instinctively to block the blade with a smack. The book wobbled and she had to catch it with one hand as she backpedalled. I paused to examine the blade. Where Luna had touched it, there was a pale patch on the metal. “You let a bit through.”
“Oh, come on,” Luna said. “That wouldn’t even give you a nosebleed.”
The mist that swirls around Luna is the manifestation of her curse, a spell of chance magic, and the fact that Luna’s spells are applications of her curse rather than effects she produces herself is the reason that she gets classified as an adept rather than a mage. Luna’s curse is very hard to spot, invisible to normal vision and difficult to see even with magesight, and it brings good luck to her and bad luck to everything that mist touches. “Bad luck” at low concentrations of that mist means stuff like tripping or breaking a nail, but at high concentrations it can do anything from making a building fall on your head to directing a serial killer into your neighbourhood to say hi. It’s also cumulative, and the more of it you get, the worse it’ll be.
The exercise was a simple one; Luna had to avoid the sword without letting her curse touch it. The sword is a simple focus, designed to react visibly to magic. Once upon a time just having Luna touch it would have turned the whole blade white in seconds, but Luna’s put a lot of time and effort into learning to control her curse, and nowadays she can touch something for a second or so without letting any of that deadly mist stick—which is long enough to push that something away. We’d been playing this particular game for six months or so and Luna’s become very good at it, which was the reason for the conversation and for the book on her head—I’d had to keep upping the difficulty.
In this case I’d managed to shake her concentration, although not by much. “Keep talking,” I said, moving in to threaten her again. “And take your hand off the book.”
Luna rolled her eyes and obeyed, retreating to a safe distance. “So how long does the probationary thing last?”
“Caldera didn’t say.” I aimed at Luna’s eyes again, but this time she was ready for it. The blade slapped into her palm less than twelve inches from her face. “But I’m guessing it’s going to be until she makes her mind up.”
“So what, you have to not piss her off for however many weeks it takes until she decides she can trust you?”
“Let’s not expect miracles.”
We kept going for another five minutes but I didn’t manage to break Luna’s concentration again. “All right,” I said at last, lowering the sword. “Free sparring.”
Luna perked up instantly, letting the book slide off into one hand as she headed for her bag. When she came back she was holding a short sword in one hand and an ivory-coloured wand in the other. “Ready?” I asked.
Luna took a stance. “Ready.”
I attacked, slashing down at an angle, and I wasn’t using the flat of the blade this time. Luna stepped back and I followed.
This particular part of our training sessions is the reason we use an empty gym. Last year someone saw one of my bouts with Luna and thought I was trying to murder her, which led to an extremely awkward conversation with a pair of police officers. Luna found the whole thing absolutely hilarious, but it’s the reason that these days I take the trouble to schedule our training sessions in a Council-owned gym.
Right now we were alone, which was just as well. My arms are longer than Luna’s, and coupled with the longer reach of my weapon I was able to pressure her, driving her back. Luna’s face was set in concentration as she defended against my attacks, stepping away from most, occasionally parrying offhand with a clash of metal. To anyone watching, it probably looked as though Luna’s life were at stake . . . but when it comes to magic, appearances are deceptive. Luna wasn’t in any serious danger. Her curse makes her hard to hurt at the best of times, and while I was trying to get through her defences, I wasn’t trying to cut her. With my divination, it’s easy to see if an attack has a chance of landing, and the half second’s warning is more than enough to pull a blow.
The one who was really in danger was me. Luna’s curse is tied heavily to her feelings and instincts. She’s learnt to bring it under conscious control most of the time, but if she ever feels genuinely threatened, all bets are off. But by that same token, if I didn’t threaten her, force her to struggle, then she wouldn’t gain the practice she needed to keep her curse under control when she really needed it. It was a game of brinkmanship, trying to push Luna just far enough to make her work for it, but not so far as to trigger a backlash.
The only sounds in the empty gym were the clash of metal on metal and the thud of our bare feet on the mats. Usually Luna has trouble holding me off in these matches, but this time to my surprise I realised she was holding her own. She couldn’t really strike back, but as long as she kept giving ground she was managing to hold off my attacks. All the duelling she’d done had made a difference.
Of course, I wasn’t really trying to hit her. There’s a big gap between a sparring match and combat, and I didn’t want to push it too far.
But then, if I didn’t push her in training, I wasn’t really doing her any favours.
Here goes.
I went up to full speed, and for the first time I moved with real killing intent. Instead of picking out futures where I nearly got through Luna’s defences, I searched for ones where the blade landed. Luna’s eyes went wide as the first stroke hissed by, and she jumped back. The second stroke she parried, the third she dodged—and stumbled. In the instant she was off balance I reversed the swing, striking down at her neck.
In my mage’s sight, the wand at Luna’s hand flared to life. A whip of silver mist leapt out, and for just an instant, all the visions I had of the future were of that silver mist surging into my body as the sword cut through Luna’s skin.
I dropped the sword, turning the attack into a dive and roll. As I hit the mat I heard a gasp and a thud—then silence.
I came up, suddenly sick with the conviction that I’d just made a really horrible mistake. Luna had dropped her own sword and her hand was pressed to the side of her neck, and for a moment my stomach lurched . . . and then she took her hand away. The skin was reddened but unbroken.
I closed my eyes for a second, taking a breath. Too close.
“Wow,” Luna said. Her eyes were a little wide. “That was intense.”
I didn’t answer. Checking, I couldn’t see any of that lethal grey aura clinging to me; we’d both pulled our attacks at the very last instant. “We’re done for today. Meet me up on the roof.”
“This isn’t working,” I told Luna twenty minutes later.
The roof of the gym was cold but not freezing, the air carrying just enough of a chill to numb the tips of your ears and nose. The gym was set a little back from the street, meaning that while we couldn’t see any cars or roads, we did get an interesting view of the buildings around us. TV aerials and chimneys rose from the gravelled roofs like some weird kind of urban forest, and a couple of roof gardens sprouted up to our left, greenery against brick and concrete. A hundred feet away, a couple of young men in suits were talking animatedly on a balcony, and off to the other side a cat was washing itself on a balustrade. The breeze ruffled my hair, carrying with it the scent of car exhaust; over the buildings to the south the afternoon sun glanced off the skyscrapers of the inner city, and high above, wispy clouds hung in a clear blue sky. Just another London winter day.