Page 42 of Wanted: A Roommate Who Isn't Evil

The girl thought about it. Barnabus had only ever called her ‘Siren’, but she wasn’t a siren.

So, after some thought, she said, “Mycra Sentorious.”

A sunken ship would never return to reclaim its name. And even though it was unlikely at this point, the girl wanted to give Dranian a way to track her down if he ever chose to. If the one name he knew was the name of the ship she’d left on, perhaps someday he would follow the name to her.

The secret training base was hidden away in an abandoned castle off the cusp of a great cliff, surrounded by thick trees and hardly visible to anyone on the outside. The Sisterhood of Assassins swung weapons at each other in various chambers, supplies lined rickety shelves, and sunlight glided in through gaping holes in the ceiling. The girl passed several small knitting groups on her way in.

“It’s good for the mind,” she was told when she was caught staring. “And there are tricks in yarn, you see. Ways to weave enchantments into your clothing.”

The girl entered the training at a disadvantage. She had assumed she would be joining the secret Sisterhood as the only new recruit, but that was not the case. Thirty other young females, all of whom were bigger and stronger than her, began training on the same day, some clothed in expensive-looking armour. For that reason alone, the girl should have been eliminated in the first test of strength. She should have backed out willingly before she began taking hits and losing blood. But the girl had survived many masters, and for that, she decided to turn her fears into a will of iron and forge it into a blade.

She worked twice as hard as the other assassin recruits. One by one, she beat out other females in the fighting boundaries, growing her speed and especially her strength. Rosa gave her particular attention, working with her through the nights to sharpen her dreamslipping talents. Before two and a half years had passed, the Sisterhood had crafted the girl with a new name into the most dangerous, effective weapon they had. The girl was trained in body and mind. She was washed of fear and emotion. She was, in every respect, unstoppable.

She was Mycra Sentorious, the dreamslipper of the secret Sisterhood of Assassins of the North. She was the one thing the Sisterhood believed would bring down the Queene.

17

Luc Zelsor and the Myth of the Mountain God

The stars were particularly shiny on the eve before the final Yule ceremony. Luc’s bed was strung with walnut lights, and sugar plums rested in a bowl beside his bed, waiting for morning. Their scent was delicious and sweet—when he sniffed, he could already taste the purple fruit with the hard sugar shell on his tongue.

He gazed up at the stars, considering it a Yuletide miracle that he could see them at all, that the ever-clouds had taken a rest from their toiling for a night. Perhaps it was a gift from the sky deities who had taken pity upon a young, poorly behaved fox who sat alone most days, watching the other childlings play from afar.

A squeaking sound lifted through his room, and when he looked back, he saw his mother getting comfortable on the braid-wood chair. Her hair was tangled and messy like she’d been trying to sleep up until now and was unsuccessful.

“You can’t sleep, either?” Luc asked. He scrambled to the edge of his bed to be closer to her. “Is it because you’re excited for the Great Yule Morning, too?”

“Actually, I thought I might whisper a Yuletide story to you, dear Luc.” She smiled and pulled a thick book out from where she’d been hiding it in her nightdress. Sounds of gently flipped pages and a deep, cracking tome spine filled Luc’s room as she found her spot. “This story is precious. It means something to me,” she added.

Luc plopped onto his stomach, propping his cheeks up with his palms to listen. His mother’s fingers were stained black with ink from painting flowers for wreaths. She was a renowned wreathweaver; the best in the Dark Corner, some had said. She’d been working extra hard these last weeks to make wreaths worthy of being placed in the throne room. The Dark Queene herself had requested she cover the thrones in the fragrance of the most prestigious blossoms of the Dark Corner.

“There once lived a young fox who faced every obstacle with cunning and determination,” his mother began to read.

Luc smiled and snuggled into his bedsheets a little deeper, pleased it was a story about creatures like him.

“The fox grew to the capable age of twenty-five years and found he had reached the greatest measure of strength he ever would.” His mother flipped a page, and Lucraised a brow. It seemed early to be flipping a page when the story had only just begun. “And so, on a cold Wynter’s day, he began a great trek up a mountain to face the greatest obstacle of all—another fox. One twice his age, and equal in power.”

“Why would he do that?” Luc asked.

“Because, in his mind, only one fox could live and rule over ordinary fairies. And twenty-five is the magical age when one must decide these sorts of things,” she said.

Luc smirked. “There’s no such thing as ordinary fairies,” he objected. “Every fairy has power in their own way.”

“Oh dear.” His mother smiled. “You think like I do, Luc.” Luc beamed as his mother dragged a finger down the page like she was looking for where she’d left off. She cleared her throat. “When the fox reached the top of the mountain, he entered the battle of his life. But even though he was a cunning fox, he was unprepared because he assumed himself to be greater than he was. And sometimes just because we wish to be the greatest, doesn’t mean we are.” Her mouth tipped down at the corners.

She continued on, explaining how the foxes fought a long and deadly battle. Only one of them survived—the fox who had climbed the mountain in the first place.

It took Luc three minutes of her flipping pages off-beat for him to realize she was not reading the story out of the book at all. She was reciting a tale she had memorized. Luc didn’t know his mother had stories memorized.

“So, he won,” Luc concluded. “The fox the tale is about. Heclimbed a mountain and faced a foe that was more difficult than he expected, but he survived.” It was a simple story, but Luc enjoyed it.

His mother nodded. “It wasn’t an easy victory though. It cost him everything he had to come back down that mountain alive.”

Luc thought about that. “What do you mean byeverything?” His fingers grazed over the nine fox tails hidden beneath his nightclothes. “How many of his fox lives did it take to win?” His mother closed the book and rested it on her lap.

“All of them but one,” she said, and Luc’s hand tightened over his nine tails. “You should never turn your back to a fox, Luc. Even if you’re a fox yourself,” she said. “Remember this story so you don’t forget that even foxes can turn against each other.”

Luc sighed and rolled onto his back to look up at the stars again. “I don’t know any other foxes, apart from Father.”

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