Page 11 of Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Joanna pushed down her disappointment, unfolded her limbs, and went down among the animals.

This was the very first book her father had let her read aloud on her own, when she was ten years old, and even now she felt the same overwhelming wonder and awe she’d felt as a child. The book had been meant, Abe explained, as a hunting spell, a way to quickly and easily cut down meat before the animals drifted back to wherever they’d been, but the family would never use it that way.

The bear twitched her ear as she stroked a hand down her face and chest, the fur so thick and soft it was almost sticky. She peeled back one lipand ran her fingers over the exposed yellow teeth, smelling musk and sour apples. The bear looked at her with small, shining black eyes, not without curiosity but with a total absence of either distress or intent. She cupped the knobby bone on the top of the bear’s skull, sank her fingers deep into the tacky fur. She put both her hands in the ruff around her neck.

Being this close to such an animal was electrifying in a whole-body sense: her fingertips fizzing, her heart surging, her head staticky with joy. The deer let her put her arms around their necks and press her cheek into their warm fur. The moose didn’t move away as she stood on her tiptoes to touch his antlers, just sighed a hot blast of gamey breath onto her face. A tiny rabbit sat in her palms, nose twitching, whole body vibrating with the beat of the heart.

In the house, surrounded by the remnants of her father’s life, books buzzing beneath her feet, she sometimes felt so alone she worried she might vanish like the ink in an overused book. But here, with wildlife all around her and magic sweet in the air like good cider, she felt her lines and colors returning, her edges darkening, her core filled in.

She cupped her hands around the coyote’s beautiful face and stared into those beautiful eyes, which stared right back, the pale green of the last changing leaf. How many other people could say they’d done such a thing? How many people had wielded this kind of power?

How dare she ever long for a different life?

4

Despite outward appearances, Esther was a creature of routine. In this way, if no other, she was very much her father’s daughter, and she’d learned over the years that adaptability was in and of itself a routine that could be learned. Establishing habits was something she did automatically, and here at the station she lived by a regimentation that would have surprised her friends and colleagues had they made note of it. Every morning she took herself through the same paces: she woke at the same exact time, put on her clothes in the same exact order, and used the same exact stall in the shared bathroom, even lingering by the sinks pretending to fuss with her hair if her preferred stall was occupied. She had oatmeal every morning for breakfast, and every morning, as she measured out her tablespoon of brown sugar, she compared it unfavorably to the oatmeal of her childhood, swimming in thick pools of maple syrup.

This morning was the same as all the others, except anxiety made her oatmeal taste like glue and looking into the blood-marked mirrors above the sinks felt like staring into the eye of fucking Sauron. Plus, she was hungover. All around her, colleagues new and old were chatting to one another or staring with frustration into open laptops, trying in vain to get a connection good enough to call their families or send an email.

It had been two years since Esther had heard any of her family members’ voices. When Esther hadn’t come home after her father died, Joanna had sworn not to speak to her again, and though she knew her stepmother, Cecily, would have loved to hear from her, she found it was easier to think of her family as out of reach.

All that mattered was that Joanna was safe behind the wards.

The man who’d flirted with Esther the night before, the Coloradancarpenter, slid into a seat across from her, his plate piled so high she would’ve teased him about it had she been in any mood for teasing. He grinned at her through a mouthful of reconstituted eggs.

“Hey,” he said. “Esther, right?”

“Hi,” she said. “And you’re—Trevor.”

“Trev,” he corrected. “So, what’s on the docket for you today?”

Well, Trev, I’m going to spend the morning in a nausea-inducing hungover panic until my sense of steely resolve takes over and I can start figuring out who the hell brought a book to the base and whether they want to kill me or not.

“Not sure yet,” she said, letting her spoon fall into her barely touched oatmeal. “About to head to the shop to get my assignment. In fact, I should get going.”

“Oh,” he said, looking disappointed before rallying a smile. “Yeah. Cool. See you around?”

She managed what she hoped was a friendly smile. As she loaded her plates onto the conveyer belt into the kitchen, she caught sight of the exuberant blond of Pearl’s hair in line for food, and what had been a falsely pleasant expression on her face instantly was real. Pearl saw her, too, and made a beeline for her.

“There you are!” she said. “I was worried, where’d you go last night?”

“I overdid it,” Esther said, guilty for the lie. “Got the spins, took myself to bed.”

“Oh,” Pearl said. “You should’ve told me. I would’ve taken care of you.”

“It wasn’t a cute look,” Esther said.

“And this is?” Pearl said, gesturing to their matching coveralls.

“On you?” Esther said. “One hundred percent yes.”

Pearl shook her head. “Anyway, are you feeling better?”

“Much. May I recommend water? Gallons of it.”

“Noted.” Pearl leaned forward to kiss her, and Esther—too aware of the clink of forks on plates, the chatter, the watching eyes—jerked awaybefore she could stop herself. Even as she pulled her head back, she knew it was a mistake, hurt spreading like a bruise across Pearl’s face.

“Sorry,” Esther said, “sorry, I—I still feel gross from last night.”

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