Chapter 13: An Eye for a Bullet

Note: Speech in italics is being translated from American sign language to spoken language with no other notation.  

The next morning Tatiana dressed in her white robes, tying the red sash around her waist.  She brushed her hair, gazing at herself in the bathroom mirror.  She felt she should somehow look different, but she looked exactly the same as before the curse.  

Mina appeared at her door a little before 9, a mug of coffee in her hand, “A drone will take you to Alister as soon as you're ready.  His Holy Place is in central Citadel, city of Browlee.”

Tatiana cringed, “When you say ‘drone’ . . .”

“It has a closed cabin.  Sorry about yesterday,” Mina took a sip of coffee, “They said you were dangerous.”  Mina giggled for a moment.

“Yeah, you should see the other guy,” Tatiana sarcastically waved her pink cast.

“You mean the Devil whose eyes you tried to gouge out?” Mina’s face turned serious, “Thank the Holy Circle that you had no idea what you were doing.  He has nothing more than a black eye.”

For a moment Tatiana had the urge to track that man down and kill him.  She rubbed her bad arm and shivered, “Glad it was nothing serious, you know, like getting shot in the head.”

Mina looked at her thoughtfully, “You weren't defending yourself, were you?  You were defending your patron.”

“Sure,” Tatiana rolled her eyes, “I’m ready to go and seek my vengeance.  Just let me know when.”

“You can go right now,” Mina didn't bat an eye at her comment.  “The drone is parked out front.”  She passed Tatiana a folded piece of paper, “Just hand this to Alister when you arrive.”

Tatiana tucked the paper into her sash. It took her a few minutes to find her way out of the building.  It was an odd shaped building with corridors that doubled back on themselves or just randomly ended at a blank wall.  “Damn thing’s probably in the shape of an ellipse,” she grumbled, finding herself standing in front of the room she had just left.  Imagining an ellipse shaped building from above, Taitiana wound her way through the corridors again.  This time she found herself in front of the door that exited into the parking lot.  

Sighing with relief, she exited the building and walked over to the drone parked in the first slot.   As promised, it had a passenger cabin up top, its lower deck taken up with munitions.  Tatiana pushed a button on the side of the drone.  There was a pause then the button lit up green, a recessed door sliding open.  An aluminum staircase folded down with a whir, and she climbed aboard.  After she had belted herself in, she gazed around the cockpit, looking for the controls.  Seeing nothing, she sighed.  She was still a prisoner and they were taking no chances.  The weapons under her feet were probably unloaded.  The door of the drone slid shut and the propellers started to whirl.  With a twinge of defiance, she slid the paper out of her sash.  The drone lurched upwards causing her to almost drop the sheet of paper.  Unfolding it, she read:

Hey Alister,

I need you to do me a favor.  I’m sending you a brand new priest named Tatiana . . .

Can you keep her out of trouble, please?

:)Mina . . .

Tatiana tucked the note back in her sash.  Mina’s note was pretty basic.  She could have just as easily called or emailed Alister.  She sighed and leaned back in her seat, bored.  The buzz of the drone was lulling, and she found herself dozing as it coasted down the air highway.  The change in the sound of the motor as it descended woke her up, and she watched the drone park itself in front of a large building.  The door opened and the steps lowered into place.  Tatiana exited, examining the building.  The lot was empty except for her, the large number of spaces suggesting that the Holy Place overflowed with the faithful on weekends.  Tatiana approached the front door and tried the handle.  It opened easily and she stepped inside a generous lobby with two double doors directly in front of her.  With no idea of where she was supposed to go, she opened the doors and found herself inside a vast Sacred Chamber.

 

At the far end of the room sat a priest in a throne.  “Uh, hello,” Tatiana called out.  To her embarrassment, her voice echoed across the room.  “Uh, I’m a new priest.  I was sent by Mina?”  The priest didn’t register her presence at all.  From the distance she stood at, it was hard to tell if he was even awake.  She moved closer to him, feeling the back of her neck heat up with discomfiture.  She observed him as she drew nearer.  He was bald, his head shaved clean of all hair.  He had an interesting face, with a roundness to it that made him appear gentle.  His eyes were closed, his head resting on one of hands.  Tatiana tried again, “Excuse me?  Sorry to wake you, but I think you might be the person I’m to see.”  Tatiana was now directly in front of him.  She took the piece of paper out of her sash and carefully placed it on one of the arms of the chair.  While her hand was still extended, he grabbed her wrist, his eyes suddenly open, wild with blue fire.

“Who are you?” he slurred.

Tatiana looked at him baffled.  It took a moment for her brain to process his garbled speech.  “Oh!  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to startle you.  I’m a new priest.  Mina sent me.”

He shook his head at her, then took the piece of paper from her hand.  He read it, then pushed a button on the side of his throne.  

“Um,” Tatiana tried again, “Mina thought you might want to go to Egregia with me.”

He pointed at her with his fingers and then covered his mouth, “Shut up.”

Annoyed, Tatiana turned away from him and stared at the double doors.  One opened, a servant with blue hair and deeply bronzed skin walking into the room.  “He looks Edenian,” she thought.  The servant gestured at the priest in what Tatiana figured was sign language.  

“He says that you talk too fast and mumble,” said the servant, flipping his hair out of his eyes.

“Well excuse me!” Tatiana responded.

“Look at him when you talk.  I’m just an interpreter.”

“I don’t want to look at him.  He’s mean,” Tatiana rubbed her cast.  Her arm was starting to hurt again.

“He says you don’t have to like him.  But, you are assigned to him and he can make your life hell.”

Tatiana swore.  “Don’t translate that part,” she glanced at the priest grudgingly, “I suppose you must be Alister then.”

“Yes, I am Alister,” he looked her up and down, his gaze penetrating, “I can’t believe Mina sent me someone who hasn’t even found their Holy Relic.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t believe she’d send me to someone who . . . who . . . doesn’t have any hair,” Tatiana ended lamely.

Alister’s mouth twitched, “Okay, I get it.  You’re Mina’s way of getting revenge on me.  I gave her a really hard time when I first arrived.”

“I would really rather be assigned to Egregia,” Tatiana bit her bottom lip, “You could just send me to someone who would take me there.”

“You would go back to serve the cursed?” his eyes searched her face.  He signed to his servant.

Tatiana turned back to the servant, annoyed, “How come you’re not translating?”

“He’s talking directly to me,” the servant signed something to Alister, then turned to Tatiana.  “I’m to take you to a guest room.  Alister is going to commune and consider your request.  My name is Kadeem.  I don’t think I caught your name, Holiness.”

“Tatiana,” she followed Kadeem out of the room.

“I’ll put you by his Holiness Van.  He’s probably more your type of person.”

“Ooooo-kay,” Tatiana tried to keep track of the different turns they were making; right, left, up the stairs . . .

“No offense, but it takes a particular personality to get along with Alister,” Kadeem paused in front of a room, “Like mine.”

Tatiana blinked at Kadeem.  This conversation reminded her of friends haggling over a highschool crush.  “I’m sure you two are perfect for each other,” she gazed into the room.  It was lovely.  King sized bed, walnut desk, plush rainbow carpeting.

“We really are,” Kadeem gestured at the room, “Make yourself at home.  I’ll have someone bring you some lunch in a little while.  Anything else you need?”

“Ibuprofen?” Tatiana rubbed her arm again, “The pain’s starting to come back.”

Kadeem nodded and left her in the room.  Tatiana pulled out her notepad and wrote, “Must find Holy Relic.”  Thinking about the promises she made to Tate, she added, “Fiddle, and Amber.”  She looked back through her writing, changing a word here, correcting the punctuation there.  It was still something that the people of Citadel needed to see.  She opened the top drawer of the desk.  Inside was a tablet and a list of phone extensions.  With tongue-in-cheek humor, she drew a heart around Alister’s extension.  Dropping the list back in the drawer, she picked up the tablet and powered it on.  So what if he was attractive, or beautiful even?  The screen lit with a logo, then changed to a background of tropical islands.  So what if she kind of already liked him?  She sighed and clicked on the camera button.  She was being silly.  She snapped pictures of her writing, then ran them through a text-recognition software.  The results were reasonably bad, and she spent the better part of the afternoon reformatting her writing.  By the time Kadeem tapped on her door, she was three quarters of the way through and eager to finish.

“His Holiness Alister will see you now.”

Tatiana sighed and clicked the save button.  She followed Kadeem back down to the Sacred Chamber.  For the first time, she realized that Kadeem didn’t bow and avert his eyes when he entered.  Maybe he really did have a special relationship with Alister.

“I have thought about your request and communed with my patron,” Alister signed, “I feel that I am being called by the Holy Circle through you to return to Egregia.”

Kadeem gasped and signed back frantically.

Tatiana watched them sign back and forth for a few moments.  “Can I interrupt?” she could feel her heart racing in her chest, “I just want to tell you that I really appreciate it.  I don’t really want to go, but I feel like I have to go.”

Kadeem glared at her.  Alister signed at him, a frown on his face.  Kadeem grudgingly translated her words.

“Forgive my servant, his only aim is to protect me,” Alister’s eyes were so intense that she felt as if he were physically touching her, “But I have waited too long to return to Egregia.  It is time to pass through the gates.”

Tatiana bowed to him, unable to think of a better way to communicate her gratitude.

“Don’t do that, I can’t see your face.  You’re hard enough to understand when you’re standing right in front of me.”

Realizing she was being a little over-the-top, Tatiana stood back up.  “When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow.  I have to make some arrangements with Van.  We’ll take a drone to the border, rendezvous with the Devils.”

“I may have not exactly made a good impression on them,” Tatiana sucked in her bottom lip.

“That's too bad.  I’m not walking all the way to the market.  My feet have gone soft living in Citadel.”

“I know what you mean,” Tatiana could still feel the blisters she had earned on Egregian soil, still hear Tate scoff at her weakness.

Kadeem walked her back to her room, a sullen look on his face.

“Hey Kadeem,” Tatiana was curious, “What curse did Alister have?”

“He was born into it,” Kadeem’s tone was defensive, “The most civilized of the cursed, anyway, he was a Devil.”

“Oh crap, I probably tried to gouge out the eyes of his uncle.”

Kadeem laughed, his whole body relaxing.  “What was your curse?”

“Ice Princess,” Tatiana smiled back at him, “And I earned it.”

“I can imagine,” Kadeem grinned at her, showing his teeth.  “Let's just get something straight between you and I,” he stopped in front of her door, his face suddenly serious, “I see the way you look at Alister.  Back off Princess, he’s mine.”

“I’ll take that as a challenge,” Tatiana gave him her best fake smile and swept into the room, slamming the door behind her.  “That was fun,” she said to herself, “Now get back to work.”  She sat at the desk, powering the tablet back on.  Reopening her document, she worked on it until dinner time.  

As she ate, she composed an email to her parents explaining the attached document and asking them to consider sending it to media sources.  “I leave for Egregia tomorrow, so you may not hear from me for awhile,” she typed, “I will come visit when I am back, I promise.”  She felt a twinge of guilt as she typed.  Her parents would worry the whole time she was in Egregia, especially after reading her narrative on how horrible it was.  

Chapter 12: Sorrow, Inside-out

This chapter contains non-consensual sexual touching.

When Bianca was 16, she prone to flights of romantic fantasy.  She would sit with her finger marking her spot in a book, and imagine meeting her soul mate.  It would be love at first sight, she would meet him and she would know that he was The One.

One hot summer day as she sat reading a library book, she heard music.  Curious, she looked out different windows until she saw a shadowy figure on the screened porch next door.  The music was hypnotic, and instead of going back to her book, she sat by the window entranced.

Library books went unread, and she would push them into the return slot, puzzled.  She didn't even like Tate Harper.  Yet everyday she wasted her time listening to him play, unable to do anything but move closer to him.  She would doze from the heat and the repeated string of notes, drifting into an unconsciousness so deep that she was dreaming.

Her fugue continued until the day she woke up on the Harper’s porch with Tate’s hands up her blouse.  She was so startled, that she slapped him without thinking and ran into her house.  Her anger didn't surprise her, nor did her tears.  What surprised her was her sense of disappointment.  It nagged at her the same way as the empty and silent porch, and it made her question everything.  

Maybe she had feelings for Tate Harper.  Was that even possible?  And if she had, he had ruined it, breaking the rules of consent for a cheap feel.  If he had gone about it the right way and asked her for a date, she was pretty sure she would have said no.  She wasn't attracted to him.  His skin always looked greasy and his body was overly slim.  Bianca’s heart raced as she tried to imagine him in front of her.  She picked the most obscene word she knew and said it slowly, dragging the vowels out with a sigh.  She was attracted to him, but she had no idea what to do about it.  

The next day she waited for him to appear on his porch with a mixture of fear and anticipation.  When the day passed without sight of him, she cried herself to sleep.  With each passing day, her sorrow hardened into bitterness until she suddenly knew what had happened: he had taken advantage of her, not because he liked her, not because he was attracted to her, but merely because she was there.  Anger welling inside of her, she looked out her window at the house next door.  “You’re a wolf, Tate Harper,” she said spitefully.

She didn't think twice of what she had said until several days later.  It was early evening, and Bianca and her mother sat out on the porch, a book across the lap of each woman, a picture of lemonade sweating on the wicker sideboard.  Ms. Harper walked up on the porch to join them, her eyes sunken from a lack of sleep.  Her mom poured the other woman a glass of lemonade, spiking it with anisette.  

“Tate has been missing since last Wednesday,” Ms. Harper’s hands shook as she accepted the drink, spots of yellow sprinkling her white skirt.  

Bianca choked on her lemonade and it burned her throat until her eyes watered.  Missing?  Did he hate her so much that he ran away?

“Don't be ridiculous,” she told herself, “You’re not that important.”  He could have run away for other reasons, or maybe he had turned into a wolf.  The guilt of the thought gnawed at her.  She had spoke the curse not in anger, but in an inside-out form of sorrow.

From then on, she put him out of her mind.  The unexpected mention of his name still jarred her, the mere sight of a bag of tater tots filling her with anxiety.  If she thought about it too long, her mind filled with little Tates and her skin crawled.

Tate.  He was the first taste she had of real romance.  None of her books had ever told her what she herself learned over the past ten years: that romance would devour anything that was soft enough to chew.  So she vowed to make herself hard enough, not just to survive, but to break the teeth of anyone foolish enough to taste her.

Chapter 11: Ollie Ollie Oxen

The feeling of leaving her body ended too soon, and Bianca came back to her senses painfully.  The jolting of the wagon and the throbbing in her right arm made each hour nearly unbearable.  With no way to measure the time or distance, Bianca spent much of her time writing, trying to reconstruct the contents of her lost notebook on a pad Smithy used to track her services and payments.  For the first time ever, she was thankful to be left handed.

They arrived at the border towards the end of the third day, the electric lights on the gate marking the entry to Citadel.  Carl drew the wagon up to the gate, and pushed a button mounted on a pole.

“State your business,” said a voice through the intercom.

“We have a woman who is no longer cursed,” Carl shot a glance over his shoulder at Bianca.  She scooted forward, her attention on the speaker grill.

“And who are you?” the disembodied voice asked.

“Carl Marshall of the Devils.”

“And is that the woman next to you?”

Bianca almost fell over.  It hadn’t occurred to her that they could see her.

“Yes,” Carl gave her a sharp look, “She’s injured as well.”

“Candidate, state your name,” the voice demanded.

Bianca looked at Carl.  “Is he talking to me?” she whispered.

“Yes, I am talking to you,” the irritation in the voice was obvious.

“Uh, I’m Bianca Abatangelo of . . . nothing I guess,” Bianca looked at the pole, searching for the camera.

“A droid will come out to process you.  Please exit the wagon and stand facing forwards with your hands on your head and your legs apart.”

“I, uh, I can’t move my right arm,” Bianca waited for a response, but the speaker was silent.  She swung her legs over the side of the wagon and jumped off the edge, pushing her body away from it with her good arm.  She faced the gate, assuming some semblance of the stance requested by the voice.  

The gate slowly slid to the side, a silver quadropod droid walking out to meet her.  It held out its “hand,” a tablet with a cuff and syringe fitted to its surface.  “Place your hand. On the biometric.  Screening device,” it intoned haltingly. Bianca placed her left hand on the screen and waited while the droid took a blood sample and fingerprints.  The front of the droid lit up yellow, meaning it had confirmed her identity and status as cursed.  A few minutes later, it lit up red.

A drone flew over the gate and hovered over them.  The horses panicked at the noise, and started pulling at their stays and whinnying.  Carl struggled to get control of them, then gave into their pulling and turned the wagon back down the Egregian road.  Bianca looked up at the flying bot in fear.  “So this is it,” she thought, “this is how I die.”  As the drone swooped down towards her, she raised her good arm to protect herself, knowing it was futile.  The drone’s carbon fiber talons wrapped around her torso, and suddenly, she was airborne.

“Well, that’s good,” she said to herself shakily, “It’s a transport drone, not a weaponized drone.  They could have warned me.”  She could barely hear herself over the wind rushing by them and the noise of the drone’s propellers.  The drone ascended to about 12,000 feet, and entered Citadel’s air highway system.  Emboldened by the fact that no one could hear her, Bianca continued her rant, “And why bother to pick me up in a closed cabin vehicle, when you can make this journey as cold and uncomfortable as possible.  Maybe they’re hoping I’ll die along the way.  Maybe they’re taking me to a prison like Tate mentioned.”    She was quiet for a minute thinking about Tate.  “Please don’t tell me you plan to drop me like the drone that took me to Egregia.  For all I know, you are the drone that took me to Egregia,” Bianca’s arm began to hurt from clinging to one of the drone’s talon.  There was no logical reason to hang on to it, but she was in terror, flying thousands of feet off the ground suspended from a bot with blades whirling above her head.  

The drone exited the highway at the first exit, slowing as it entered a mixed-use area with small businesses and houses.  It finally descended into a parking spot marked with a green circle.  Bianca held onto the drone even tighter.  If it dropped her on the pavement . . . well, she didn’t even want to think about that.  It hovered in place, holding her several feet off the ground.  Bianca squirmed, wanting out of its talons, but worried about landing on her broken arm.  

“Can’t you release my feet, and I can put them down?  But don’t completely drop me!” Bianca wiggled her legs, trying to communicate with the drone.

“It might be better if I just roll this underneath you,” said a voice.

Bianca craned her neck.  A servant of the Order wheeled a stretcher underneath her, adjusting the height until she was flush against it.  He ducked under the propellers of the drone, his robes whipping around him.  “Ready?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The servant pushed a button on the side of the droid.  It released her and buzzed back up into the sky.  Bianca lay on the stretcher, weak with relief.  The servant pushed the stretcher up the access ramp, “It’s been awhile since we got a new priest.  I’m glad you came in on my shift.  Nice to have something actually happen around here, you know?  And a new priest is a pretty big deal.”

“Uh-huh,” Bianca watched the servant tap a button next to the door of the Holy Place.  She wondered if she would catch a glimpse of the new priest while she was here.  The door opened and the servant wheeled her inside.  He zig-zagged her stretcher into an exam room.

“There will be a doctor in to see you in a little bit,” the servant dug a cloth gown out of a drawer, “Here.  Change into this.”

The servant left and Bianca winced as she removed her shirt, staring at the dirt stains made obvious by the tube lighting overhead.  Her skin didn't appear much cleaner, grime and dead skin flaking off her when she rubbed her arm.  She kicked off her shoes, then undid her pants, struggling to pull them over her ankle chain.  She fussed with her manacle, rotating it and trying to slip it off from different angles.  Her concentration was so deep that she jumped when there was a knock at the door.

“One moment!” she hurriedly threw on the gown, sitting on the exam table to hide the open back.  “You can come in now.”

The door opened and the doctor entered the room with tablet.  “Bianca?” the doctor looked over the top of her glasses to confirm.

Bianca nodded at her.

“I’m Dr. Nguyen,” she held out her right hand.

Bianca shook with her left, a maneuver that felt more like holding hands, “My right arm is broken or something.”

“Looks like I have my work cut out for me,” Dr. Nguyen stuck a thermometer in Bianca's mouth.

Several hours later Bianca sported a neon pink cast and the red robes of a servant.  She was freshly showered, her wet hair pulled into a ponytail, her chains removed carefully with a saw.  They had fed her a meal typical for the order; roasted eggplant over a bed of black rice risotto with an acai blackberry smoothie.  That meant tomorrow was red day, and everyone would be eating beef and . . . tomatoes?  She had no idea.

Bianca started to drift in her seat.  The doctor had given her pain killers, and she was comfortable for the first time in days.  She had almost completed dropped off when a voice called her name.  She glanced up, catching the eye of a servant standing over her.

“Please come into the Sacred Chamber,” the servant requested.

Bianca stood and followed the servant to a set of double doors.  They opened to a dimly lit, vast chamber.  In the rear of the room was a priest dressed in white robes, seated on a raised golden chair.  Bianca entered the room, approaching the throne with her eyes on the ground.  Once she reached it, she knelt.

“Bianca Abatangelo has died and is twice buried.  You will be known by a new name,” the priest had a breathy voice that made her sound uncertain.  “Who removed your curse?  Who is your patron?”

“I don't know, your Holiness.”

“You may call me Mina,” there was a creak as Mina shifted in her throne, “and you don't need to avert your eyes.”

Bianca looked up at Mina.  She was a small woman with brown hair hanging in her eyes.  She was dressed in the customary white robes, a rainbow sash knotted around her waist.  

Mina nodded at her, then continued, “There are three criteria for removing a curse, well, four really.  One: The candidate must be virginal.  Two: The patron must die a death of self-sacrifice.”  Mina blew her bangs out of her eyes, “Three: The patron must speak an invocation to the curse of the candidate.  And four: The patron must take the candidate’s curse across to the other world.”

Bianca shook her head.  Yes, she was a virgin, not that it was Mina’s business.   She supposed Tate's death could be seen as self-sacrificial, but his sacrifice was more for the sake of Amber than Bianca.  And the third criteria just seemed like nonsense.  “An invocation?” she sat back on her haunches skeptically.

“Likely the last thing your patron said to you.”

Bianca shook her head again, “There must be some sort of mistake.  He betrayed me.”

“Did his betrayal lead to his death?”

Bianca nodded, heat rising into her face, “He tied me up and threw me in a cart.  Took me to the Devils as trade for his girlfriend.”

“What was the last thing he said to you?” Mina’s face was inscrutable.

“He said, ‘Ollie ollie oxen home free,’” she burst into laughter, her hysteria verging on tears.

Mina scratched her head, “Like hide-and-seek.  That's what you say when the game is over and suddenly you're on the same side again.”  Mina wound a strand of hair around her finger thoughtfully, “Your patron didn't betray you.  He died for you and he called out for your curse to be with him.”  She leaned forward in her chair, “Tell me his name.”

Bianca bit her bottom lip and shook her head vigorously.  She didn't want to say his name.  Even if Mina was convinced, Bianca still didn’t believe that Tate would take her curse away, at least not on purpose.  “Couldn’t it just be an accident?” Bianca looked at Mina beseechingly.

“You remind me of a candidate I had two years ago.  It took him a week to name his patron,” Mina eyed her sternly, “Don’t be like him.  I know some candidates have suffered at the hands of their patrons.  You don’t have to forgive your patron to accept the gift he’s given you.”  Mina got out of her throne and put a hand on Bianca’s shoulder, “Stalling won’t change anything.  Denying your patron won’t change anything.  As far as I can tell, it will just make you suffer more.  Just say his name.  Right now you’re holding it inside you.  Do you want to hold onto your patron?  Or do you want to get him the hell out of your life?”

“Tate Harper,” Bianca felt a shiver pass through her that seemed to start at the back of her tongue and ripple down her arms.

“Good girl,” Mina patted her shoulder, “Your new name will be Priest Tatiana Ellipse.”

“Wha . . .” Tatiana gaped at Mina.

“Okay, so maybe I tricked you a little bit.  Every priest is named after their patron.  You can’t really have expected your case to be any different.”

“Who-what . . . priest!?” Tatiana gawped openly as if Mina had just pronounced her a new type of fruit.

“Didn't anyone tell you?” Mina untied her hair.  It fell down her back in a cascade, the tips licking at the floor, “Devils these days, I swear.  They know how this system works.  They get paid for every new priest they bring in.”

Tatiana watched Mina pull her hair back up, winding it into a tight ball.  “I’m sorry, but you have really long hair and I have no idea what you just said.”

Mina sighed, “Nothing important. Let’s talk about your assignment, then I'll let you get some rest.”  Mina walked back to her throne, pushing a button on the arm, “So here’s Citadel.”  A map appeared on the opposite wall.  “All the red areas need another priest.”  The red was mostly clustered around the border of Citadel, with additional patches scattered across the map.

“What about Egregia?” Tatiana pointed below the border line.

“Oh, no you don't,” Mina shook a finger disapprovingly, “Next you’ll start in about how the wall is really there to keep us in, not keep the cursed out.”

“Wait, what?  Say that again.”

“I should just send you to Alister.  It would serve him right,” Mina pushed another button on her throne.

“The wall is there to keep us in,” Tatiana pulled Smithy’s notepad out of her robe and jotted the sentence down.

“Alister is here,” Mina tapped a white area in the center of the map, “He was put there to keep him out of trouble, but he's been surprisingly content.  Some rebel he turned out to be.”  Mina looked up as the door opened.  

A servant entered, eyes on the floor, “Your Holiness?”

“Please take the new priest to a room to rest,” Mina turned to Tatiana, “Do you need anything?”

“Could I . . . call my parents?” Tatiana sucked in her lower lip.

“Make sure she has access to a phone,” commanded Mina.  

“As you say, your Holiness,” the servant walked backwards out of the door.

Tatiana headed for the door, stepping on the hem of her robe as she shuffled backwards.

Mina giggled, “You can walk normally.  We're peers now.”

Tatiana turned around, her robe twisting around her legs.  Hopelessly entangled, she tried shaking one of her feet loose.  Mina’s giggles turned into outright laughter as Tatiana sank to the ground in dismay.  Once she was seated, the robes swirled back into their proper position, leaving not even a wrinkle.  Tatiana sighed as she stood up.  Being a priest was going to take a bit of getting used to.

The servant was waiting for her outside the door, his face a mask of deference.  He showed her to room with vaulted ceilings and a private bath, pointing out the location of the phone.  Tatiana wasted no time in picking it up, perching in the ladder-back chair next to it.

“Hello?”  It was her father’s voice.

“Daddy!  It's me, it's Bianca!”

“Bee?  How did you-where are you?  It’s so good to hear your voice!”

“I’m not cursed anymore, Daddy,” Tatiana wrapped the phone cord around her index finger, “I’m a priest.”

“That's incredible news.”

“Oh, can you or Mom tell Ms. Harper that I saw Tate?  Tell her he didn't run away.  He was cursed too.”

“Tate's alive?” there was a rustling on the other end of the line.

Tatiana stared at base of the phone.

“Bee?  Bianca?” her dad’s voice suddenly sounded far away, “Are you there?”

Tatiana set the phone back into its cradle, silent tears streaking her face.  “Pins and string, I take it back,” she whispered, “It’s okay.  I’ll be cold forever.  Just bring him back.”  She rested her head and hands on the desk, feeling the coolness of the wood against her hot face.  “I take it all back,” her sobs became ugly, her whole body jerking with the force of them.  Next to her, the phone rang.  She ignored it, unable to calm herself enough to speak coherently.  A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.  Wiping her face with her hand, she cracked the door open.

“Your robes, Holiness,” a servant handed her a neatly folded white robe.  A red sash sat on top of it.  She accepted the robes, nodding at the servant.  Closing the door, she sat in front of it, holding the robes to her chest.  For a moment she tried to imagine Tate in her situation.  He wouldn't be crying, for one thing.  He’d be plotting his next move:  Go back to Egregia.  Get his fiddle.  Find Amber.  

“Listen up, Tate, wherever you are,” she thought with the sort of intention she usually reserved for prayers.  “I will do these last few things for you, then I’m done, okay?  I’m not going to think of you anymore and I'm going to do whatever I can to tear down that wall between Citadel and Egregia.  Maybe this Alister guy will help me.”  New priests weren't allowed to do much more than a servant.  She would be beholden to whoever she was assigned to until she earned her rainbow belt.  She counted the colors on her fingers, “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  Six colors to go through.”  

Thinking ahead calmed her, and she reached for the phone.  Whether she wanted to or not, she needed to tell her parents what happened to Tate.  She dialed their number, holding her breath as it rang.

“Bianca?” it was her mom.

“Hi Mom.  There's something I need to tell you.  Something that happened a long time ago.”