Page 2 of Katya and the Young God

Inside, the noise hits her like a thump in the chest, like the concussion of a far-off artillery round, but she pushes past it to sweep to her seat at the table with the other bridesmaids.

They’re a fine collection, all perfectly kind and competent, but in the way that civilians always are, with smiles and soft touches and looks of horror if they ever have a real discussion with her.

Which is why Katya treasures the bride, her friend Aimes, so much. She’s lovely, in an off-white lace dress that has a surprising amount of slink in it for a traditional wedding in Paris, but her cheeks have twin spots of a delicate pink on them as she looks at her husband.

Officially, her husband. Legally in the laws of man, after being so long in the laws of magic and of Demigods, and they both couldn’t look happier. Whatever injuries her Demigod husband had sustained in his struggle with his brothers are long gone, and his face is filled out, now that he’s not run ragged with stress.

And yet, whenever Katya looks at him too head-on, she blinks, seeing his brothers instead, remembering the harrowing few hours she spent as collateral, the looming reminder that one of them is still out there, still eluding any capture, still able to do whatever he wants.

Her Organization-mandated therapist calls those thoughts catastrophizing, focusing on what might have been instead of what probably will happen, but Katya likes to pretend her therapist doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

So instead she takes even sips from the drink in front of her, and thanks whatever gods that are still left that she doesn’t have to give a speech.

Besides her, Aimes’s maid of honor, Trixie flops into her chair, a small sheen of sweat along her blond hairline. “What’s got you so tied up?”

Katya likes Trixie, she really does, but her ability to read people and poke and needle at the deepest parts of them is less than appreciated. When Katya was in the hospital after the whole affair, Trixie was the one non-Organization person who came in to visit. She had set up a mini workstation and sat there, bugging Katya about opinions on interior decorating until Katya felt like she was going to rip both her IV and hair out.

“Just a quick work call,” Katya replies, voice even, keeping with the small sips of wine, because gulping isn’t a thing she does. “Always on duty.”

With a quick narrowing of her eyes, Trixie tilts her head. “Shouldn’t your work know where you are?”

“I’m sure it was intentional.” The dance floor is a whirl of color, of happiness, of human and non-human alike, and nothing seems less appealing at the moment.

“Well…” Trixie sniffs at it, as if the idea is an affront to her blond Californian sensibilities. “Is it...”

She trails off, but Katya knows what she’s asking. After everything that happened, after seeing her friend get drawn into this strange world, Trixie looks for the supernatural explanation within the mundane, as if there’s a reason for everything that happens.

“It’s a simple new assignment,” Katya says, pitching her voice to be soothing, because if she can’t make herself feel better than she can help someone else. “Something new they want me to investigate.”

When stated like that, it almost sounds like something good. An opportunity. Another way for her to grab and hoard connections, without any of the possible bad connotations.

One glance at Trixie shows that she buys none of it. “Yeah okay,” she says, leaning back in her chair to a point where she almost tips it over, despite being in a dress and despite being at a wedding. “Simple?”

“Everything is simple when you boil it down,” Katya responds, reciting from one of her handbooks. “Details are all that complicate it.”

Trixie blinks, slow, still obviously not buying it. “That bad?”

And Katya has choices, right here in this moment: she can be honest and deal with the pity and the fallout...or she can deflect. Return the attention to the deserving couple, not take up space, not draw from their day.

“Just might be relocating, it’s up in the air,” she says, choosing the halfway point. “That’s the biggest detail.”

Trixie’s eyebrows twitch up, but Katya doesn’t let her face change. “They called you in the middle of a wedding to tell you?” At her words, Katya wants to crumple, wants to cry, wants to have the emotional outburst that she could explain away as the emotion of the wedding and the upset at all the upheavals in her life but...

But she knows the Organization has other eyes at this wedding—in this colorful collection of people, there’s got to be one other person whose allegiance isn’t just to the couple dancing, and she won’t give Beatriz the satisfaction of knowing she made her cry.

Even though the Organization is a much more unfeeling organization than that, even though it usually doesn’t care too much about the individual, instead seeing everyone as numbers and calculations and decisions on where to relocate and allocate resources, she doesn’t want it to get back to them.

“Well,” Katya says, the one small relent into emotion she gives herself, before relaxing her iron grip on her cup, “I expect they thought I’d react.”

And if there’s anything she’s not going to do, it’s something like that.

* * *

The day after the wedding,after doing too much cleaning and organizing and seeing her friends off on a fantastical honeymoon, Katya packs her tiny little carry-on bag and takes a taxi to the airport, despite all the nerves in her body screaming that she shouldn’t go back.

She spends the entirety of the overnight flight to Denver obsessing. Researching. Finding metalworking shops within driving distance of her new place, finding pawn shops, finding lists of places that aren’t quite careful with being legal.

Out of habit, she twists her bracelet, hidden carefully beneath her suit cuff. It’s tastefully coiled, with a comfortable string covered latch, easy to grip...and easy to get through airport security.

---