Chapter 66. Bet Your Ass
I held her hand. Clickens wandered over and bumped its head on my shin.
“Keep talking,” she said.
“Do I have to?” I asked.
She gave my hand a squeeze and let go of it, held it out toward Clickens. It wandered over to her and peered at the hand for a while, but finally pushed its bony head against it, rubbing his temples on her palm. She caressed its head, scratching the underside of its jawbone with her finger.
“I wish I was that brave,” I muttered. “Didn’t I tell you how hard it bit Fek?”
“It’s less frightening than you were when you came here,” she said, smiling at the skeleton cat.
I harrumphed. “I was pretty angry, I guess. I still am about a lot of things. But not about coming here, I think.”
“Want me to let Falar know that?”
I thought about telling Clickens to bite her as a joke, but last time it had actually obeyed me. I didn’t want that, so I chuckled instead. “If you want. He’d only sneer at you, anyway. Not freezing my ass off in some ditch is nice, the food is even better.”
“How about the company?”
“I’m getting used to it,” I said. “I really am.”
“I’m glad.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Clickens rolled up into a ball between us. Its bones poked through the gaps of its other bones, so it resembled more a pile than a ball, but it looked comfy enough lying there.
“Is it your turn now?” I asked.
“Not for a long while still,” Minnelil said.
“Damnit.”
We sat for a while longer.
I ran my fingers over Clickens’ skull, feeling its hard ridges and smooth shapes. “I’d like to ask what you want from me, but I know that’s dumb. I want to hold you and run away from you, but I can’t. There’s nowhere to run and I wouldn’t. I don’t run from things, even when I should.”
She put her hand on top of mine again, holding it there. “You’ve had to run from some things for a long while, Lina,” she said. “You haven’t told me why, and you don’t need to, not right away. We’ve known for less than two months. We have time.”
“Do we?”
“If you want.”
I sighed. Her lips were slightly parted, and after a moment, I leaned toward her. This time she did lean in as well. I kissed her and leaned my forehead on hers. Compared to her, I was a goblin. Something that had crawled up from the dark, pawing at something beautiful and delicate, not understanding how much trouble it would get me into.
“There, there,” she said, wiping the corner of my eye with her thumb. “I have a skeleton to finish. You can stay and watch if you want? I’d like that.”
“Thanks,” I said, sniffling. I couldn’t have taken a moment longer, and of course she had known. “Another first?”
She smiled and kissed me again. I had forgotten a long time ago what it felt like to be held. Her hand rested on the back of my neck and I placed my left hand on hers, pushing down to squeeze us tighter together.
“I really have to finish that skeleton,” she said quietly.
“Goddamn skeletons,” I muttered.
“I’ll wake you if you fall asleep. We can head to the dorm together once I’m done.”
“You can bet your ass of that,” I said, my right hand looking for the hem of her robe.
“Shoo, you feral girl!” she said, laughing and pulling away.
I leaned after and toppled on top of Mr. Clickens. It screeched, scratching deep grooves into the floor.
I watched as she worked. Feeling the tingle of magic was easier than it had ever been. When she moved her fingers over the skeleton, mouth moving like she was reminding herself of what she was doing, I felt the magic warble in the still air of the room. The place was otherwise inert. Probably intentionally, so nothing would disturb or affect the work being done inside.
The magic didn’t feel anymore like an annoying buzz, a distracting tickle. I could almost make out what she was doing, the sudden twists and smooth curves of the runes she carved into the bones with mana. She had almost no curves, from what I could tell from below the robe.
I tapped my cheeks lightly, blinking to focus and to keep my mind from wandering.
“Tired? I’m just putting on the final pinky, and then I’m done,” she said, holding the wrist of the skeleton, the bony hand hanging down limply.
I yawned and stretched. I had leaned on my elbow for too long, and my neck and shoulder were sore. “It’s really impressive how you’re just doing that. Everyone in the class was really struggling, and they had Ferne to help them. I got the cat already assembled. I still had to draw the runes, but at least it didn’t keep falling apart constantly.”
“That would have been nice,” she said, crouching and positioning the small bone to where it was supposed to go.
“Yeah. Only needed to get it moving afterwards. Wait, how are you going to handle that? You said earlier that you can’t channel the Null?”
Her hand holding the bone stopped. “No, I can’t. I only need to assemble the skeleton. Someone will come to inspect the work and apply the final reanimating spark of nothing.”
“That’s what they call it? Whoa.”
Minnelil held still for a moment longer, then snapped the bone into its place. She stepped away and looked at the skeleton, holding her elbow in her palm, other hand tapping on her nose. She nodded.
“All done? Congrats.”
She walked to sit next to me. Clickens meandered around her feet, weaving between them and pushing against her shins. “Thank you,” she said, not smiling.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Did you reanimate this thing yourself? she asked, scratching the bony head of the cat.
“Yeah. Ferne went to hide behind her desk as I did.” I grinned at the memory, but I was also getting worried. “Why?”
“Reanimation is a highly specialized skill. Much like physical enhancement is. Everyone is taught it eventually, but not everyone learns to do it well enough to do it independently.”
“Oh,” I said. So that’s what the trouble was. I should have realized, but I had been so impressed by the way she built the skeleton that I hadn’t thought about it. “Reading Coratorus’ weird book helped. It was almost like doing it to myself, but instead of me and being alive, the runes were the other thing working with the Null.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“Look, it’s hard to explain. It felt a bit dangerous, to be honest,” I said, shivering as I remembered it, the Null flowing through me like nothing I could describe. “If I’d known, I might not have tried it. But it worked out, so I guess I’m glad I did?”
“It feels completely irresponsible how they let you keep doing this,” she said, groaning. “If you keep this up, you’re going to end up killing yourself sooner or later, Lina.”
I swallowed. It hadn’t been that bad. Maybe it had. How would I know? She gnawed on her lower lip, keeping her gaze off me. “And what?” I asked.
“What what? Nothing,” she said, picking up Clickens. It screeched, but the sound was a happy one. She placed it on her lap, making a bowl for the cat with her hands and her crossed legs.
“You’re thinking of something else, though. What is it?” I asked. I didn’t want to continue, but it was obvious something bothered her. In the past, I would have gladly let it be her problem, maybe file it away as something to be careful about in case she would try to make it my problem.
“You’ve been here two months and you reanimated an undead. You’ve grasped two necromantic specializations before being able to cast a single spell.”
“Minnelil,” I said. “You’re so much better than me at all of this. I’m only fumbling my way through this stuff.”
“And doing pretty well at it.” She leaned the back of her head against the wall, sighing. “Look, I know I’m being petty. There are always people in the world who are more talented or more powerful than you, but it’s pretty rare that one of them ends up in your dorm. Not to mention two.”
“Don’t worry about Fek. He’ll blow himself up soon enough.”
She grinned at that and it made my heart unclenched.
“Not if I can help it,” she said. “I told you we have to take care of him.”
I reached for her hand. She stiffened as I took it, but I squeezed it and her shoulders lowered again. “Besides, you can do that thing with your voice. You never finished telling me what that was all about.”
She smiled. “And whose fault was that?”
I started to grin, but it turned into a yawn instead.
“It’s late. We can still get some sleep if we hurry,” Minnelil said. “Even I’m going to need it. You’re going to look like a zombie unless we get you to bed soon.”
“You can get me to—“
“Don’t even try it. I need the sleep,” she said, yawning and stretching her arms above her head and arching her back.
“Do that again,” I said.
“No! Go to sleep, Lina.”