Vespertine

Quinn found herself thinking about her physics homework.

It was the last homework assignment she’d been given before she dropped out of school just under two months ago, before this whole quest, before Salvatore, before meeting Caiden. Before she wasn’t mortal anymore.

She wondered how Hugo and Daniela were doing—if they thought about her, if they wondered where she had disappeared to, if they were worried. Or maybe they were used to mortals vanishing, just like Quinn was. She wondered if they’d connect her disappearance with Marissa’s.

“I can’t believe I used to think things were weird,” she muttered. “In comparison to what we’re doing now, everything used to be so normal.”

Arette smiled at her. “I don’t know about you, but these past few days have been way better than my life before.”

“We also almost died a lot more,” Caiden pointed out, and Quinn cracked a smile at that.

“Yeah,” she said, a little wistfully. “Some things were simpler back then.” Then she tilted her head and smiled warmly at them. “But I’m glad I met you guys.”

“Me too,” Caiden echoed softly. “It’s weird, but I think you guys are the first friends I’ve ever actually had.”

Arette jerked her head towards the Quinn’s bathroom, where Scarlett was showering. “I think you’re forgetting about Miss Amnesia over there.”

His expression darkened and he looked away. “She wasn’t just a friend. More like a sister. It’s different.”

“Speak of the devil,” Quinn commented, as the bathroom door opened and Scarlett stepped out, dressed in some of Quinn’s clothing. Her hair was wet and she looked tired, but refreshed.

“Who’s next?” She asked brightly, indicating the bathroom door.

“Me,” Arette said, jumping up.

They had traveled back to Aski over the course of a day, and were now in Quinn’s old house back in Aski. Caiden reasoned that Astor must be well aware that Scarlett was missing by now, and would be searching for her rather than guarding Quinn’s home. Luckily, it seemed as though he had been right; the house had been empty, with no guards nearby.

According to Arette and various news outlets, the reversal would happen in about three days.

Three days. Three days to prepare for the biggest role of her life. Quinn felt woefully unprepared, even though Arette had offered to practice channeling her magic with her.

Arette bounced into the bathroom and Scarlett sat down on the couch on the other side of the living room, playing with the remote control. “Do you mind?”

Quinn shook her head and Scarlett turned the T.V. on. Caiden leaned forward as she flipped through the channels, but Quinn was preoccupied with her thoughts.

Arette had also told them that the reversal would last about a week, and that there was even a website dedicated to the reversal, complete with information and predictions of timing, down to the minute. When it would begin, and when it would end.

The sorcerer community was encouraged to not be afraid or panic if they lost their powers—it was normal due to the nature of the reversal, and they were told to just continue their lives as usual.

But while that was true for most civilians, Quinn knew it would be different in Aski. Sorcerers here would take precautions, afraid of being outnumbered by mortals now that they didn’t have their powers. Afraid of people like the V’s, afraid that they would come looking for them. They would be armed.

“Maybe we should ask the V’s for help,” Quinn suggested out loud.

Caiden looked at her curiously. “Help with what?”

Quinn shrugged. “I mean, once we tell them about our mission, they’re bound to understand. And in case somebody is protecting the weak point, or you know, tries to stop us, they could be useful.”

“Nobody knows about our plan,” Caiden pointed out. “The weakest point is probably out in the middle of nowhere, or at least nowhere conspicuous. And also, the last time I checked, the V’s still really don’t like us.”

Quinn slumped down on the couch. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“You okay?” He asked gently. “I know you probably miss them, Quinn, but it isn’t a smart move.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Cheer up,” he said, smiling. “At least after this is all over, you can go back to the V’s. Hell, there might not even be a need for them anymore.”

She smiled softly back. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

But the smile faded quickly. There was a misery crawling around in her stomach, something composed partly of fear, partly of loss, and partly of helplessness. She hated just waiting around, doing nothing.

“I’m gonna take a nap,” she said, standing up abruptly. “Caiden, wake me up when you’re done showering?”

“Okay,” he answered, nodding. He looked concerned, but didn’t pry.

Quinn headed to her room, but stopped as she passed Salvatore’s. Hesitantly, she pushed the door open.

The blankets were tossed around from when Quinn and Caiden had scrambled onto his bed to get into the safe above it. The painting that had covered the safe still rested on the bed, against the wall. Even the safe itself was still open.

Quinn clutched the little gold key on its leather cord, dangling inside her shirt. She hadn’t taken it off since she’d gotten it from Salvatore’s body, which she knew was impractical, especially in a fight, but she couldn’t bear to leave it in some random place.

She took it off now, placed it gently in the safe before pressing the door shut. Then she replaced the painting in its original position, adjusting it so that it was nice and straight.

And then she sank down into his bed, gingerly touching his pillow. She lay down slowly, pressing her cheek against the cool fabric. A pillow that nobody had warmed in a while.

It still smelled like him, though. Quinn had never noticed before, but her brother smelled like their laundry detergent, which meant Quinn probably did, too. But he wore it a different way than she did—on Quinn, it just smelled like fresh cotton, but on Salvatore, it smelled like security.

“Why, Sal?” Quinn whispered into the pillow. “Why didn’t you tell me we were sorcerers? What were you trying to do?”

She couldn’t help it. She started crying, digging her fingers into the pillow as she clutched it tightly. “Salvatore,” she mumbled. “I miss you.”

Before long, her tears subsided as she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Caiden gently closed the door to Salvatore’s room. He didn’t feel like disturbing Quinn when she looked so peaceful, her face finally worry-free in her sleep. He hadn’t realized until just then, but Quinn’s waking expression was almost always hostile. Even thinking absentmindedly, she looked unfriendly. But in sleep, all the tense muscles melted away and she was left looking a lot younger and innocent than she usually did.

“You like her,” Scarlett said bluntly, and he jumped.

“Jesus,” he gasped. “Don’t just come up out of nowhere like that!”

Scarlett smiled apologetically as he turned downstairs, heading towards the kitchen. She followed, leaning on the counter casually as Caiden rummaged through the cabinets for something to eat. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“Wasn’t a question,” Caiden responded. “It was an assumption.”

“Am I wrong?”

He scowled. “Yes.”

She snickered. “Yeah, right. I don’t believe you. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

He glared as he pulled out a packet of chips. “Is caring about your friends so unheard of?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just kind of get a feeling you care about her a lot more than just as a friend.”

“Because I don’t have many friends,” he said. “Forgive me for wanting to keep the ones I do have.”

“Arette’s your friend,” Scarlett pointed out. “And me too, right? You don’t look at us like that.”

“Like what?” Caiden asked, annoyed.

“Like you’d do anything to save her.”

He stiffened. “That’s…you…you’re wrong.”

“Okay,” said Scarlett, easily. “If you say so. I mean, what do I know? I don’t remember a fucking thing.” The last part sounded resigned, rather than bitter, to Caiden’s relief. She snatched the chips from his hand, the way she always did, repeating movements she had become accustomed to throughout the years unconsciously, and headed back into the living room.

Caiden frowned and followed. I barely know her, he wanted to say, but he remembered that as far as Scarlett knew, they had been friends for years. Besides, he hadn’t been lying when he had said he didn’t have many friends. All things considered, Quinn was one of his closest, despite the fact that he had really only known her for half a month.

And he did save her life that one time for no apparent reason.

He snorted internally at the irony of that; after all, Scarlett had been the one attacking her. It was all rather twisted.

He sat down next to Scarlett on the couch. “You know,” he said. “Quinn used to like you.”

She smiled. “I know.”

He leaned back, surprised. “How? Did she tell you that?”

Scarlett laughed. “No. But I can tell, regardless. She’s uncomfortable around me, but not in a way that suggests that I scare her, or anything. So I guessed that she probably used to like me. What happened? Did I reject her?”

You stabbed her in the stomach with her own knife. “You could say that.”

“Pity,” commented Scarlett casually. “A girlfriend could probably loosen her up. She’s quite tense, isn’t she?” Then she grinned at him. “But good for you.”

He huffed. “I don’t like her.”

“Yeah, you’d probably just take a bullet to the gut for her,” Scarlett agreed amicably.

“I’m a healer. That’s actually not a big deal to me.”

Scarlett merely crunched on her chips in silence.

“And those are mine.” He suddenly reached over for the packet, but she twisted away from him, leaping off the couch, holding the chips away from him protectively.

Then she grinned wickedly and beckoned him forward. “Come and get them, then.”

Caiden let out an offended noise and ran forward and Scarlett met him with a kick that he blocked, and for a bit, Caiden allowed himself to forget all the bad blood and betrayals and just sparred with Scarlett the way he had a million times before, trying to get something or other from her clutches.

Then Arette came out of the guest bedroom and panicked, thinking that Scarlett was attacking Caiden, and he was reminded that no matter how much he wished it weren’t true, everything had changed.

“You should probably wake Quinn up, let her shower,” Scarlett said, after Arette had calmed down. “Although she might already be awake from all the screaming Pistol Shrimp here did.”

“What the hell is a pistol shrimp?”

“They’re really loud shrimps. Also, they’re really small.”

Arette glared. Scarlett pretended to take her offense as curiosity. “What?” She said innocently. “I watch documentaries sometimes.”

Then she frowned. “At least, I think I do.”

Caiden left them to their verbal sparring and headed up to Salvatore’s room again, knocking on the door gently before opening it. To his surprise, Quinn was already sitting up in his bed, clad in what was evidently one of his sweaters. She smiled blearily at him, still blinking away the sleep in her eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “Bathroom’s open.”

“Thanks,” she replied, and he turned to go, but her voice stopped him. “Wait.”

He looked back. “Yeah?”

She grimaced, as if she didn’t want to say what she was about to say. “Can I…talk to you about something?”

“Sure, but if it’s a girl problem, you’re probably not going to get much help from the only guy in the house,” he joked as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

She laughed lightly and scooted forward until she was sitting next to him, albeit still cross-legged. Then she looked down at her hands, holding them out as if she were looking at her nails. “Have you…ever killed anyone using your powers?”

“No,” Caiden answered truthfully. “But I’ve hurt people an awful lot.” When Quinn didn’t respond, he leaned back on his hands and looked up at the ceiling. “Sometimes, Astor would use me to break a particularly difficult prisoner. You know, if they were uncooperative during interrogations, and such. I could inflict pain without leaving external evidence. That way, he couldn’t get in trouble for the torture. I didn’t want to, but…”

“You didn’t have a choice, right?”

He nodded. “I regret that, sometimes. Maybe if I’d stood up to him, or just refused to use my power to hurt, I wouldn’t have ended up here. I wouldn’t be the person that I am, with all my…sins.”

Quinn put a consoling hand on his shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, I’m glad you are the person that you are. Even though Astor did that to you, you’re still such a pacifist. Or maybe because of it.”

Caiden laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Then he looked at her and cocked his head. “But you didn’t want to talk about me,” he prompted. “What’s wrong?”

She took a deep breath and looked at her hands, again. This time, they were clenched into fists. “I’m not a good person. Morally speaking, I’m actually a terrible person. I’ve killed, sometimes in self-defense, sometimes not. And it was all for a good reason, but still…I’m far from innocent.”

“That’s not new, though, is it?”

“No,” she said softly. “But this is.” She emitted a small shockwave from her hands that Caiden felt. She smiled wryly. “It literally took all of my self-control to make it that small. As you know, things usually blow up.”

She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “I don’t know, Caiden. Ever since I joined the V’s, I always had a goal in mind. Another day, another mission, all for a greater cause. But now everything is just happening. It’s happening so soon. And I always thought there’d be time afterwards to deal with the thing I’ve done and decide if it was worth it or not. But now it looks like I’m gonna have to face it a lot earlier than I thought.”

“I’m sorry,” Caiden said. “I think it’s good that you’re driven though, Quinn. I’ve never had a goal, nothing I believed in. I mean, I’m only here ’cause you’d kick me if I tried to leave.”

Quinn laughed at that, and suddenly Scarlett’s voice was in his head, teasing him: Why are you trying to cheer her up? Why’d you make her laugh? Do you want her approval?

She sighed. “It’s just that I never imagined that this is how I’d get there. With magic, I mean. I always said that I wouldn’t do something to someone that they couldn’t do to me. And it worked, you know? I was a mortal. There wasn’t much I could do that other people couldn’t. All I had were mortal weapons that anybody could use. But my powers…that thing that happened with Scarlett…” She shuddered. “What if I lose control, Caiden? I have all this destructive potential, and I’m afraid that I might just get pissed one day and accidentally blow my entire house.”

She looked at him. “I could do to you what I did to Scarlett, but worse. Right now. I could blow your brains out and you wouldn’t be able to heal yourself and I could do that. I could.”

Quinn looked like she was about to cry.

Caiden remembered what Scarlett had said, that he looked at her like he’d do anything to save her. He wondered briefly if it was true. And if it was, why? What was so different about her, so worth saving?

The answer lay in her eyes, Caiden realized. Deep brown but bright, they held a sort of innocence that you wouldn’t think a trained assassin would have. Despite everything, despite the death of her parents and her brother and despite Scarlett’s betrayal, despite being abandoned by the V’s, somewhere in her eyes she still believed. She still desperately clung to her most basic ideals, that she was doing this for all the right reasons. For justice. For the better.

She was looking at him with a sort of honesty he wasn’t sure he’d ever known.

It’s not that I would give my life for her. Just that I trust her with it.

Besides, Caiden hated it when people cried.

Impulsively, he leaned forward and kissed her.

She kissed him back for half a second before she made a noise of surprise and recoiled. Her face was flushed as she suddenly realized what had just happened.

For his part, Caiden had already completely disassociated himself from his actions and was watching Quinn, waiting for a reaction.

“W—Why—What—“ Quinn stammered, struggling to decide on a question to ask, and if Caiden hadn’t been so petrified, he probably would’ve laughed.

“I figured,” he managed to say, “that if you didn’t blow out my brains over that, you won’t otherwise.”

For a second, he thought she might punch him in the face.

But then she smiled, embarrassment still coloring her cheeks. And then she laughed, and a sense of relief filled Caiden, and he grinned at her.

“You,” she said, “are very lucky I just woke up.”

“You’re welcome.”

He stood up. “I think I’m gonna go down, maybe head out for some groceries. We still have some time to go before the reversal, and no offense, but everything in your fridge has been dead for years.”

Quinn nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Stay safe.”

He smiled at her again before walking out of Salvatore’s room and closing the door behind him.

Then he leaned back against it and let out a big breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He touched his lips with an absentminded hand, belatedly realizing he had just given away his first kiss.

“I don’t even like her,” he mumbled.

The next day, Quinn spent two hours outside with Arette, in the backyard, practicing. Caiden caught up on sleep and gleefully spent time in the study, reading. Then Quinn spent two hours sparring with Scarlett, who otherwise watched a lot of T.V. Caiden cooked.

The day after, Arette tried her hand at making pancakes, with surprisingly good results, even if they looked poisonous. Quinn and Scarlett sparred more. Quinn and Arette practiced magic more. Caiden read more.

Quinn and Caiden avoided talking about the kiss.

And they all avoided talking about the next day, until it was lunchtime of said day.

“So,” said Arette, biting into a burger, one of several Scarlett had gotten, “today’s the big day.”

The rest of them nodded grimly. “When exactly does the reversal start?” Quinn asked, a touch of anxiety to her tone.

“Should be around 6:30 tonight,” she replied. “How do you feel?”

Quinn shoved the rest of her burger in her mouth by way of answer.

Then she disappeared for the next couple of hours, sleeping in her room to ensure she was rested for the reversal. Caiden wanted to do the same, but found it hard to stop tossing and turning.

Finally, around 3:00, Arette gathered them all in the living room and did an equipment check.

“Weapons?”

Scarlett twirled the gun, plus another baton she’d pilfered from the Vespertine stash in the master bedroom. Caiden showed his own baton and a small pistol. Quinn just raised her eyebrows, having strapped in all her weapons already. Arette waved her off.

“Okay. And we have the shield and the armor?”

Caiden raised the shield, and Quinn hefted the leather breastplate under her arm.

“Let’s head out, then.”

The four of them piled into Salvatore’s truck, and Quinn grabbed the keys from the hook by the door. She allowed herself a moment of sorrow, and then composed herself, getting into the driver’s seat. She backed out of the driveway, and then looked at Arette, who was riding shotgun. “It’s up to you now.”

Arette nodded, and closed her eyes. “Don’t interrupt me,” she warned, and let one of her hands dangle out the window. “The field gets weaker to the north. Start there.”

Quinn obeyed her directions and drove slowly around town, turning occasionally as Arette detected a weaker part of the field. Eventually, they turned down a path that began to lead to the forest, and as they kept going, Quinn frowned.

Caiden slumped down in his seat. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Why?” Scarlett asked.

“Because I think we know where we’re going,” Quinn responded grimly. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

“No,” Caiden agreed. “But it doesn’t make sense, either. Why would Astor occupy a building on the weakest point of the flux field?”

“Maybe it is just coincidence, then,” Quinn said, but she didn’t sound like she believed it.

She stopped the car, and Arette’s eyes opened. “Why’d you stop?” She asked. “We’re not there yet. I mean, we’re close, but the field gets even weaker up ahead.” Then she peered through the front windshield. “Oh.”

Quinn and Caiden said nothing, staring at the sorcerer compound just beyond the trees.

“Am I the only one that doesn’t know what’s happening?” Scarlett asked, impatiently. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a sorcerer compound,” Caiden explained. “We can’t just walk in.”

She tilted her head. “But why would anyone care? Our employer just wants to infuse the point with magic, right? Is that bad?”

Caiden exchanged a glance with Quinn through the rearview mirror. They had withheld the specifics of the “mission” from Scarlett, and it seemed as though it was coming back to bite them in the ass.

“Not exactly,” Quinn answered. “But this isn’t just a place where sorcerers get together. It’s actually the headquarters for the police department in Aski. And the cops don’t exactly like us.”

“Oh,” Scarlett said. “So…we have to walk into a compound full of police officers, and we’re basically criminals? Is that what you’re saying?”

Caiden shrugged apologetically.

Scarlett laughed. “Alright, that’s a little bit bad.”

Arette checked her phone. “Well, regardless, we did come armed. We expected there might be complications.”

“Not a whole compound full of complications,” Caiden pointed out.

Quinn sighed. “Arette’s right. We can’t stop now—we’re too close. All we can do now is try our best. We have two hours until the reversal. We wait.”

And they waited.

At 6:25, they all got out of the car and crouched in the bushes.

Quinn buckled on the armor, but didn’t activate it yet.

A couple of minutes before 6:30, the field vanished.

“My magic’s gone,” Caiden said, astonished.

“Me too,” Scarlett echoed.

Quinn looked down at the armor. “Guess it’s time to try this.” She pressed her fingers into the sigils carved into the leather, and then traced the patterns simultaneously. Then she gasped. “I can feel it. It’s back. I don’t know how it’s doing that, but…” she smiled. “I still have my magic.”

Arette looked a little distressed. “It feels weird, not being able to feel the field. It’s always been such a natural part of me…” she trailed off. “But I’ll get used to it.”

“Yeah,” Scarlett laughed. “It’s only a week.”

The rest of them said nothing, and then they slipped down the hill towards the compound one last time.