Page 55 of Katya and the Young God

The dim forms of the cavers and the Magician lay on the ground, still sleeping.

“Hard to sleep with you two talking like that,” she says, breezily, keeping her eyes on Feketer’s hand, waiting for him to draw the weapon. “What’s up?”

Pieter doesn’t look at her, instead looking away, and his jaw is set.

Feketer glances between her casually holding her gun and the girl, then back at the Demigod, making an obvious calculation before putting his hands up in the air. “I don’t know what you think the Organization will do with something that powerful, Katya,” he says, “But I can’t see them being any more responsible than I will.”

She nods at his very formal phrasing. “Good to know,” she says lightly.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d work with her, Pieter,” Feketer says, and his voice is exactly as harsh as he wants it to be. “Your twin would be ashamed.”

Pieter’s face is a mask, before it spasms once, but he doesn’t move as Feketer takes a step back, over to his camping stuff, a clear de-escalation.

It’s only after Feketer crawls into his sleeping bag that Pieter moves. “Why are you awake?”

Before she can answer, the child props herself up on her elbows. “Your blood was going to be all over the floor if I didn’t wake her up,” she says, and there’s almost a hint of pride in her voice, like she’s showing off schoolwork. “All over.”

Pieter’s face is still a mask, a mask with some very real rage under it, but his brow furrows. “Huh.”

* * *

After not enough sleep,after a breakfast where no one speaks to each other, Pieter grabs the sharpie from the Magician and redoes the protective rune on Katya’s arm, redraws it on his own, then kneels down next to the child.

“This is just so we can walk across the next room without the rocks falling down,” he says, his voice raw and rough.

The girl cranes her neck to the doorway to the next room. “Why would they fall?”

“Well you see, people are assholes,” he says, taking her arm and pushing up her sleeve. “And they didn’t want people walking around.”

Katya watches as he sketches the rune across the child’s dark skin, but the ink immediately fades from view, feathering off her skin like dried makeup.

With a frown, Pieter brushes off the flake of marker, before attempting again. Same result.

“Do you think they knew my name?” She asks, idly looking around, craning her neck up to see the giant spires of crystals. “I think a name would be nice.” She says it with such confidence that Katya doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.

Katya glances at the complete lack of mark the rune leaves on her arm, and gets a slow, dark feeling in her gut.

Pieter sits back on his heels, staring at the girls' arm. “Can you get blood from the skulls for me?” He asks, tugging off the glove. “I’m going to try something.”

Quick and eager, the little girl swipes her finger across it, and sure enough blood drips. With a wrinkle of his nose, Pieter catches it with the tip of the marker, sketches the rune across her skin.

The marker fades, but the blood stays there.

“I’m beginning to think that all these weren’t put in place to keep us out, but keep you in,” Pieter says, which is just a great thing to say to a small child.

The little girl just examines the blood mark on her arm, as if his statement wasn’t weird and uncomfortable and foreboding. “That lady wouldn’t like her blood on me,” she says, serious. “I don’t think she liked me.”

“One day, when we’re out of this cave, you’re going to have to explain to me how you know,” Pieter says, with a quick glance up to Katya before his gaze skitters away. “It’ll be interesting.”

The Magician pushes past them, into the room with a quick clean movement, crossing without a problem, and Pieter breathes a sigh of relief, like it’s something he was worried about.

“I thought it might only work one way,” he says, not looking to Katya, but leaning towards her, like the observation is an aside. “So that’s good, at least.”

With a gloved hand, the girl tugs on Katya’s shirt, not paying a lick of attention as the cavers and Feketer cross the room. “What are some good names?” She demands. “I want a good one.”

“Uh, Michelle?” Katya says, keeping her eyes on the rocks on the roof, where the crystal spikes don’t even tremble.

“You are not naming a child god ‘Michelle’,” Pieter says, incredulous. “That’s ridiculous.”

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