Chapter 63

About eight minutes into assassin training, I decide that I hate it.

Anton claps his hands at me, making me jog around the room in faster and faster circles, calling it my training exercises and telling me I’d never even make it through the Candidacy at the Academy at this rate. It’s funny for about two minutes, before I get winded and decide that I’m never doing this ever again.

“Juniper!” Anton shouts, appalled as I stop and lean against the wall, conjuring up a cup of coffee. “You can’t take a break – you did like three laps!”

“I’m not the sporty sister,” I groan, tilting my head petulantly back. “I don’t want to be fit! Can’t I just…plan the assassinations from the comfort of a very nice chair? And then you go commit them?” I nod to him eagerly, as this is clearly the best plan. “I’ll conjure you up some pretty knives for the job, real sharp ones.”

“Amazing idea, June,” Anton says, glaring at me a little and holding his hands out towards me. “Except I can’t hold the knives anymore.”

“Can’t you just like…kill people with the powers of your mind?” I murmur, tapping at my temple. “That sounds better anyway. Less bloody.”

“You are so lazy,” Anton sighs, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head at me with extreme judgment.

“Just efficient!” Then I make a huge knife appear in my hand which makes Anton gasp and jump back.

“Put that down!”

“I’m gonna put it down, chill out,” I murmur, glaring at him and kneeling down on the floor, placing it in front of me. “This is for you, anyway.” When Anton just looks at me with an eyebrow raised I roll my eyes at him, comfortably folding my legs beneath me and continuing to sip my coffee. “If the problem with you doing the grunt work is that you can’t hold the knives, then we need to work on the Poltergeist Plan. Now, see if you can move it!”

Anton rolls his eyes at me in turn but sits next to me and reaches out a hand to try and nudge the knife.

Nothing happens, his fingers passing right through it.

“Try to like, smack it,” I murmur, remembering that the first time he touched something he smacked the knife out of my hand and the second time he grabbed my wrist to keep me from spilling my wine. Maybe it has to have a sense of urgency to it.

He tries. Nothing.

“Hold my hand,” he murmurs, flopping his palm out towards me.

I stare at him like he’s crazy. “I’m sorry, do you need emotional support?”

“Oh, just do it,” Anton murmurs, giving me a withering little glare that makes me grin. “It’s something we did in magic class – your sister could like…pass magic back and forth through touch. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

Shrugging, seeing his point, I to my best to take his hand in mine, though obviously it doesn’t work very well. When I feel the tingle of his palm against mine, he tries again to shove the knife.

Again, nothing.

“Well, that’s two plans down in the first five minutes,” I murmur, taking my hand back and taking a long pleasant sip of my coffee as I look at my ghost boy, a little chagrined. “What’re we gonna do now?”

“Bad assassin, bad ghost,” he murmurs, pointing at me and then himself. “Wanna just…hang out?”

“Ah, yes,” I say, grinning broadly at him. “Much more my speed. Let’s do it!”

Feeling pleasantly profligate and dissolute, I move to the couch and flop down on it as I order up the supplies for mimosas alongside my coffee. Then Anton and I really light up, throwing caution and all concepts of measured dignity hastily to the wind.

The first thing we call up is a television – a huge one. We worry for a few moments about where to put it but then slap it up in front of the bookshelves where we can see it from the couch. Then, when we realize that of course there is no television service here in the Underworld, we call up a DVD player and discs of every television show and movie that we can think of, all sloppily heaped on the floor beneath the tv.

Then, it’s snacks. Junk food – every bit of it that I can think of in preparation for a day of quietly rotting on the couch in front of the TV. Fizzy drinks and popcorn, cookies, cake, crackers and cheese, an entire pizza, curly straws, and then loads of blankets and pillows and plushy toy animals to curl up with.

“Sinclairs,” Anton says, nodding as he looks around at the consummate mess of the room as I pick out a movie and put it in the DVD player, the titles starting to scroll across the screen. “You guys…really know how to relax, don’t you?”

“You don’t?” I ask, plopping back down on the couch and nestling in amongst the blankets, grabbing a bowl of popcorn and a mimosa.

“Poverty,” he murmurs, smirking at me and settling next to me, looking quite cozy himself. “Kind of put a dampener on that.”

I turn my head and gaze at him, absently lifting the popcorn to my lips. “Were you in an orphanage?”

“Group home,” he answers, giving a little nod. “It wasn’t at all bad, so don’t get any ideas about me being some poor lorn abused child. And we weren’t underfed and wanting, we just didn’t have…this.” He casts his hands out at the elaborate expanse of comfort and luxury and junk food I just conjured up – a very Ella display, if I’m being honest. “The Home was one of the ones your mom funded, actually.”

“Oh,” I say, perking up a bit, smiling at him. “Did you tell her that? She’d have loved knowing that you grew up there, especially if you didn’t hate it.”

“Nah,” he says, his mouth turning up at the corner. “I intuited that she’d like that a little too much and it would make her fuss on me. I didn’t want any special favors.”

“See, this is how we know you’re not a true Sinclair,” I murmur, shoving more popcorn in my mouth. “Sinclairs love special favors. And attention. And mom to fuss on us. It’s like…genetic.”

“I can only aspire,” Anton says with a dramatic sigh, turning his head back to the tv as the movie starts – a cheerful one about a fish trying to find his father in the whole expanse of the sea.

“Oh – oh my goodness…”

Anton and I both turn towards the voice in surprise, and I burst out laughing and pause the movie when I see that it’s Laila, and that she has a horrified look on her face as she glances around the mess of my room.

“Hey, Lai!” Anton calls, his eyes wrinkling with his smile. “Welcome to the party!”

“Thank you, Herald, you can go,” Laila sighs, nodding to him and ignoring Anton’s greeting. The moment the Herald disappears Laila takes a sighing step towards us and then yelps, jumping away from something, her hand pressed to her heart. “Why is there a giant knife on the floor?”

“That was for him,” I say, pointing an accusing finger at Anton as I keep my face quite innocent and bland.

“Come in!” Anton says, laughing and waving to Laila. “There are drinks and, for some reason, two chocolate cakes. Come watch this, you’ll love it, it’s about the ocean.”

“Watch what,” Laila murmurs, carefully stepping over the knife and walking over to us. But then she lifts her head and spies the television, apparently for the first time, and goes perfectly still, her mouth falling open.

Grinning, I press play, and Laila stares, enthralled, at the shifting images on the screen, actually flinching when an animated sea turtle begins to speak.

“Oh no,” Anton murmurs, snapping his face to me with a grimace. “You broke her brain with TV. You should have eased her into this.”

“Shoot,” I mutter, pausing the movie again with the remote.

Laila flinches again, still staring at the screen. “How…” she whispers. “Did you stop them?”

“It’s just paused,” I say, holding up the remote. “I’ll start it again once you’re…ready.”

“Sorcery…” she whispers, staring at the remote with awe.

“It’s not sorcery,” I say, laughing and untangling myself from all the blankets as I hop up and move to her side. “It’s just television. Come on, I’ll show you how it works. It’s just…storytelling. It’s fun!”

Laila glances again at the TV but then masterfully puts her fascination to the side and looks seriously as me move together to sit on the couch. “Juniper,” she says, her voice gentle and her eyes concerned, “are you all right?”

I smile to her and nod because honestly, with all of this pleasant distraction…I really am. I mean, I’m still incredibly worried about the Game and the God of Death seizing one of my cousins as punishment for my temper tantrum, but it’s very difficult to be upset when you’ve got six fuzzy blankets over your lap and a whole table full of cake.

“Your music was wonderful,” Laila says, giving my hands a squeeze. “I figured out what happened – I’m so sorry that Orion didn’t pay attention to you –“

“Honestly, Laila, it’s okay,” I say, nodding eagerly to her. I glance over at Anton, who gives me a soft smile. “I mean, I…have regrets? But,” I shrug. “Let’s just hang out, okay? And forget about it. Dwelling isn’t going to do any good.”

“Okay,” Laila says, a little suspicious, but I plop some of my blankets onto her lap and direct her attention back to the TV, pressing play.

Laila goes still for a while, frowning at the screen, and then glances sidelong at me. “How…how did you get the turtle in that box?” she whispers. “And who taught it to speak?” I burst out laughing as I pass my bowl of popcorn to her, conjuring a new one for myself.

“Maybe it would be easier to just say it’s sorcery,” Anton murmurs, glancing at me, a delighted and mischievous light in his eyes.

“It’s just a story, Laila, with moving pictures.” I conjure her up a mimosa and press it into her hand. “Just sit back and relax – you’re going to love it.”

Laila takes a long sip of her drink and then nods to me, looking quite steeled and courageous, ready to begin.