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The Monsters
We Defy
Excerpt from Chapter Thirteen
“What was that?”
Leon asks this before he even finishes shutting the door behind Ada, his usually light gaze heavy on her back.
Jules sits down hard on the floor in front of the ragged-edged trunk at the foot of the bed, chest heaving with a tired sigh and ankle just starting to bob when he cocks his knee up.
Bea’s gaze lingers on him for a moment before she lets out a slow breath. She looks up at Leon for permission, hand twitching to catch the hat she’d long since lost in the rush, before crossing to sit on the trunk.
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Then, all three of them look to Ada.
She stands just a pace from the door, halfway between it and the window, arms crossed, mouth twisted.
“We were lucky,” Bea says, with a touch of levity and a nudging smile in Leon’s direction, “to get out – relatively unharmed.”
Jules butts her knee with his head, play-woeful, but Leon just frowns.
“I don’t mean the bombing,” he says, then nods to Ada. “After she hauled me up on stage, but before the bombing, she said –”
“There are no non-wix.”
Ada says it sharply, but Bea half-echoes it, cocking her head at the woman. They match gazes for a long moment before Bea looks down to flick a lock from Jules’ eyes.
“That, yes,” Leon says and steps away to lean on the table pressed into the corner near the entry. “What does that mean?”
“No more or less than I say,” Ada hedges, gritting her teeth. “It’s a… theory that I’ve been working on.”
“There’s usually a few more steps between having a theory,” Bea points out, “and demonstrating on stage in front of thousands.”
“Or testing it on me,” Leon finally snaps.
Bea and Jules look at him sharply.
“Test?” Jules asks.
“Yes,” Leon says, and crosses his arms now too, wrinkling the off-white cuffed shirt beneath his suspenders. “She was going to cast something on me – ‘Abrocire,’ if it rings any bells.”
“Cast?” Bea asks, at the same time as Jules bristles with a biting, “Abrocire?!”
“I told him how to use sairs first,” she returns, shoulders hunching. “To use it like a shield.”
“That’s not how you teach magic,” Bea says, voice cool. “It isn’t a ‘deep end’ sort of schooling.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Ada says, scowling, and her gaze jumps from Bea to the floor, then to the window and back to Leon. “Besides, it would’ve worked, and then everyone in Euphinity, the world, would –”
“How do you know?” Leon barks, spreading out his hands for want of proof.
“Research. History. There’s records,” Ada says, and now she starts to pace in the empty half of the house. “People have loose lips when they think they’re talking in the privacy of their own wards, and not one of those Mythics,” she spits, “thinks to guard their libraries more than their jewels.”
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