Ione rushed to take her forearms and help her back up – and frowned, a pang shooting through her to feel the rough, puckered skin of burn scars marring the woman’s wrists.
Noticing her attention, the woman lurched back and lowered her head.“Sorry, they’re…” She crossed her arms, hiding her wrists.“new enough.”
Ione’s own skin prickled with fresh shame.Another person, another failure.“What is your name?”
Her shoulders relaxed.“Lina.Lina, er, Morrow.”
Ione smiled.She so rarely met new people.“Acolyte?”
“Not even.”Lina laughed, and although her voice was husky from smoke inhalation, there was something bell-like about it that made Ione’s pulse jump.“I’d only been at Caelos for six months.They had me cleaning and looking after children – a handmaid.”
“Living the dream.”
Lina lowered her face again, smiling shyly.“You’ve no idea.”
Ione fought the urge to crane her neck, to tilt until she could see Lina properly.As though Lina read her thoughts, she glanced back up, caramel eyes catching Ione’s, and something like adrenaline speared Ione’s lungs.She touched her fingertips to her pulse: was this Menon, stirred finally by something?
Ione squinted, studying her.ACaelosihandmaid, a surname Ione had never heard of.A nobody.
What is it, Menon?,she wondered, stepping closer.What is it about this person?
Lina’s brows knitted.“You all right?You’re flushed.”
She felt River and Cynthia watching them.Felt her own heart swelling, blood rushing.Lina, a stranger, a puzzle, stared right back.Lifted one hand, touched the backs of her fingers against Ione’s forehead.
“You’ve a fever,” she said, mesmerised.“Is it the heat?Will – ” She cast around as though she had a healer in her pocket.“Will I get – someone – ?”
“I’m fine,” Ione said quickly, batting her hand away and, at the same time, wanting to grab it, press it again to her forehead.“I’m great.I’m amazing.”
“You don’t seem amazing.”Lina emitted a harried laugh.“I can’t have you collapsing after speaking with me.It won’t look good.”
Why now, Menon?Why this?Her hands shook.Ione wrung them together, at once exhilarated and terrified.She envisioned tidal waves, ice spears taller than mountains, violence beyond measure somehow, somehow resulting in peace.
Soon, Menon will manifest.Soon, Menon will awaken.Ione glimpsed her own trembling hands.After nineteen years of failure, she had never come close enough to wonder what that all might mean.
Would Menon possess her forever?
Would Ione ever regain control of herself?
She wasn’t ready for this.Gods, she wasn’t ready – she hadn’t even said goodbye to her seleneschals.Hadn’t thanked them.Hadn’t –
“Whoa.”Lina lurched back as the grass beneath them froze, ice crystals jutting out from beneath Ione’s feet in swirling, feathered spirals.They curled and branched, spreading further and further until something grabbed both of Ione’s hands.Squeezed, steady and warm.
“Hey – hey!”Lina, just before her.“Breathe.”
The ice stopped, shimmering and crackling as it melted in the summer heat.
Ione gazed at the gleaming facets.Heard Lina telling her not to worry, this happened sometimes, she knew a girl in Caelos whose magic always ran amok when her emotions got the better of her – but all Ione could think, an endless, hypnotising chant, wasFinally.
As expected, her seleneschals materialised, breathless.“What the hell was that?”River demanded.
Cynthia was far more supportive.“That was amazing!”
“And no harm done.”Lina, still holding her hands, a reassuring heat.“Right?”
Again Lina smiled, sunlight like gold in her eyes.And once more Menon coiled white-hot in the depths of Ione’s ribcage, a quickening, as fast and sure as her own heartbeat.
Ione rounded on her.What was it about this woman that was setting Menon off?She yearned to take it apart, study it under glass.She edged closer, inspected her, not quite hearing River’s warning tone.Smooth oval face dotted with freckles like stars; round cheeks, full lips.A pale scar on her neck, slightly curved, a crescent moon.A sign.Ione’s fingers itched to trace it, like touching it would tell her everything there was to know.
