Indigo’s insinuation that something had gone awry with Vander’s other apprentices came to mind. “Were your other apprentices not good at following rules?” I stepped out of the tub and grabbed a linen from the nearby shelf. I dried off and stepped in front of the mirror. My face was completely healed now. I glanced at the door when he didn’t answer. My stomach slowly sank. Maybe something worse had happened to one of them.
“Why would you ask that?” He finally spoke, his voice lower than before.
“Something Indigo said.”
“They followed the rules for the most part.” His voice was clipped, and I didn’t dare ask more. Which of the assassins were his former apprentices? I’d only seen him talk to Falcon and Commander Locke.
As I finished drying my hair, it hit me that I didn’t bring clean clothes to change into. I stood in front of the door with the towel wrapped around me. I was blushing just thinking about having to walk out there like this. “Um, Viper, will you pass me some clean clothes to wear? I forgot them.”
“Yeah.” His footsteps pattered lightly. I heard my trunk squeal open. “We missed supper, but I brought you back something to eat. Do you want your sleeping clothes?”
It was dark now and in summertime that meant the hour was late. “Yes, please.”
“Do you want a corset or...?”
Even if I was going to wear one, it wouldn’t be to sleep in. I didn’t know why I was smiling and said, “No.”
A moment later, a quiet tap on the door came. I reached through a small opening, and my warm fingers brushed his cool ones. The touch sent a small shock up my arm. I realized I’d reached with my scarred hand. Panicked, I pulled the bundle in and shut the door. “Thank you.” I dressed quicklyin a long purple tunic that reached mid-thigh and a pair of undergarments. I braided my hair into a single plait from the nape of my neck to the ends.
When I emerged, Vander was lying on top of his bed, tossing a small white ball and catching it over and over. “Your supper is on your bed.”
“Thank you.” I sat and lifted the tray onto my lap. The curtain between us blocked him from view, but I heard the ball hitting his hand in steady repetition. “Did you already eat?”
“I did, with Commander Locke.”
I wondered if he was reporting on how our first couple of days went. Maybe he told him I killed my first vampire. I tore into the soft round bread roll and dipped it into the butter. I wished he had something better to report than what happened. If I’d struck her right when he told me to, she wouldn’t have been able to shadow walk and slip out of her binds. I shuddered at the way she flew at me and how she’d instantly halted before hitting sunlight. She would have taken me down if the sun hadn’t behaved like an invisible wall. It still bothered me how... human she looked at first, struggling and begging me not to kill her.
“There’s a ball on your side table. Tossing it like I am will help with your hand-eye coordination. And the beanbag I want you to pulse-squeeze every night before bed to strengthen your grip.”
“Alright. When will I learn to use a weapon properly?”
“When you can climb a rope properly.” He cleared his throat. “Can you write?”
I half smiled. He was probably nervous to ask me that after our last argument about my education. “I can.”
“I will explain a lot about LOA, vampires, and Nighthaven over the next year, and I recommend you take notes in a journal at the end of the day so you don’t forget things. There is a new journal in your nightstand. At the end of your apprenticeshipyear, there will be a written exam. Most of the questions will be scenarios and what you should do in them, but others are facts about the League and the guilds, rules and laws, the vampires, and history.”
“Alright, I will do that. Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t the ducai have the humans fight with them in this war? Why not involve those in Lothleton?”
“There was a time we did, but humans aren’t as fast or strong as vampires and ducai. The vampires turned men on the battlefield too quickly. Unfortunately, they became more of a hindrance than a help. It’s for humans’ own good they hide at night.”
I didn’t like it, but I understood. I finished eating and lay staring up at the dark stone ceiling, squeezing the small bean-filled bag in my crippled hand. It ached after a few minutes, but I knew it would help me. I also worked on trying to stretch my fingers open fully, though the skin and muscles had healed in a way that made it nearly impossible. We’d both gone quiet, and when the sound of the ball stopped, I suspected he’d gone to sleep. Some small part of me wished the curtain wasn’t there so I could see him—admire him was more like it. But I doubted he wanted me to watch him and I didn’t want him to watch me.
The next weekwe spent wandering the woods to search out hiding places for vampires. We hadn’t found another one since the first day, but I became more familiar with the land and my sense of direction improved. While we wandered, he told me of the leadership hierarchy in LOA. At the top were Commanders, Ace and Locke. Commander Ace had been the head of LOAfor twelve years. She was the most lethal and cunning to come through LOA in a decade, and the only person in LOA who had killed more vampires than Vander. Her father was a high-ranking officer among the warriors, and her mother was a scholar and the lead professor at Nighthaven Academy-North for twenty-five years. I made a note to never get on her bad side.
Commander Locke was a man of his word and so loyal to LOA that he was the first to become a Commander at the age of thirty-three, the first ever before the age of thirty-five. He came from assassin parents; both had died together years before, during a raid.
Below the Commanders were Leads in charge of smaller groups and tasks. Vander was a mission Lead, but while he was training me, he wouldn’t be in charge of his usual group. If that bothered him, he didn’t say.
There were scholars assigned to LOA to aid in necessary paperwork, correspondence, testing of apprentices, and managing the library. But all the guilds played a part here, mages upheld Drakthar’s protective magic and other needs, such as healing terrible injuries. And humans cooked and cleaned and did various tasks. All were sworn to secrecy by honor, but if that failed, they had a magic ink tattoo to prevent them from being able to speak secrets of the League of Assassins to anyone who wasn’t LOA or sworn in.
“It’s the same magic ink in your LOA tattoo,” he said.
“There’s magic in my tattoo?” I knew they were serious about their secrecy by all the “never tell anyone where this is or the password” talk, but magic tattoos on top was something I hadn’t expected.
