10-2

A bear sat on a hill just high enough to overlook the town. The name of it was already fading from her mind. The smoke of the Spire billowed strong as ever as the very last traces of magic in the center fizzled out. The bear looked at the bone on the ground and pushed it with her nose. It was her mother’s thigh, but whittled down even shorter than her own. The turbulent memories inside the wand, of a death in battle, were no less fearsome, but she was used to them now. She pawed at the bone and took it softly in her mouth. To any human looking from the outside, the bear was perfectly calm and contented.

Day faded to night. The top of the hill was claimed again by the weasels and owls.

The way to Littleburo was being patrolled. Faculty, laymen, and eager student volunteers paced just outside of the town.

Clover walked up to a gate casually, poking around with her eyes. Just past the iron bars, guards stood at either end. She gave them a well-placed cautious look, acted like her interest was turning to the leaves on the overhanging trees, and then bolted, arms braced before her and whipping out on impact—the gate flew open.

“Hey!” a guard cried, and two streaks of white magic were thrown, but they didn’t reach, and in the end, the guards had a greater interest in keeping others out than Clover in.

She paid no mind to the sound of her footfalls as boots squelched through mud and thudded through dust. “Carmina!” she screamed, in every direction. “Carmina!”

She tramped through a shallow river and began to follow it. Now and then she heard the cries and footsteps of others from town, but they all lost interest fast. Forest creatures seemed to have other interests too.

“Carmi—” She came to a shuddering stop. There, looking down at her from the crest that marked the final rise of the river, was a bear.

She kept her arms at her sides. Her eyes moved from the pits of almost invisible blackness that were the bear’s eyes to her forehead.

In a blink, she was Carmina, holding the bone wand in an ungloved hand, as if she’d known this would happen as soon as she saw Clover.

Carmina stepped down from the ridge and looked steadily at her.

The other girl came forward in a march. Her eyes betrayed nothing, but the finer movements of her arm said she was about to make for the wand. Carmina’s grip tightened, and so did her throat, dreading the thought of hurting her again. But Clover slowed down, and her arm lost its tension.

They stood a short distance from each other, studying each other.

Clover’s cutting gaze, so poised to strike, was suddenly marred by tears. Her face twitched, against her will. Carmina knew she was trying not to break the facade and had failed. Clover reached for her slowly, hands tracing delicate paths from her forearms to her shoulders. She set her arms there and stood like that. Carmina examined her.

Clover snapped forward for a kiss. Her mouth and tongue devoured Carmina’s as tears hit her like rain, before Carmina pushed away and stepped back, her brows furrowed and angry. She felt…used.

Clover launched into a question. “Why did you do it?”

Carmina just stared at her for a moment. Whatever, she had no secrets now. “It was my mother’s.”

“No, why did you let yourself get involved with me?”

That question caught her off guard. It shouldn’t have surprised her, given how much Clover liked to learn. All of a sudden it seemed to Carmina that she didn’t want to learn about her, she wanted to own her, devour her, be one with her because it would reaffirm something about herself. Carmina was terrified, and she didn’t want to be going through this with the bone wand stuck in her hand. But if she dropped it, she would feel weak.

Carmina didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of hearing that she let herself get involved with Clover because she liked having someone else in her life. Nor did she want to admit that she liked owning a sliver of her time. It felt wrong to want to dominate one’s thoughts.

She said, “I don’t know.”

Clover sniffled and wiped her face. “Why don’t you stay?”

Carmina shook her head. “I don’t really care about people. I just care about this.” She held up the bone.

Clover winced. “Now you have it. Keep it and come back.”

“No. I told you, I don’t care.”

Clover paused, then said, “Listen. I thought I didn’t care about people either—but then I found this”—she touched the amulet over her heart—“and the goddess told me I can love anyone if I just try. If I didn’t decide to go out and fall in love, I wouldn’t give a shit. And now I think…the responsibilities my circumstances have brought about suggest that we should stay together.”

She sounded determined, and methodical enough with her words that it became clumsy. She had borne her heart, maybe hoping that this would endear Carmina further.

But it made her want to inch away. “So you are…loving me like a god?”

For a moment, Clover just opened her mouth. “You could say that,” she said.

Carmina shook her head again. This she really wouldn’t understand: that to her, this wasn’t some fun fact, but an admission that she could only be to Clover as a servant was to a god or a pet was to the owner.

But let her believe that she was just a stupid bear who didn’t know what was best for her. “I want to be alone,” she said.

Immediately Clover started a new thread. “You can stay here—in these woods. I’ll stop the program they’re running so the manticores won’t kill more of you.”

A pang hit Carmina, as if Clover had seen the same memory—though she knew it couldn’t be true. Tears shimmered in her eyes. She’s tricking me, she thought, but she knew Clover only said what she meant.

“I will take down the whole damn Spire if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t care about the Spire!” Carmina yelled, surprising herself. “I don’t care about the Vault. I would’ve been there if I did. If you want to do something—” She pointed deeper into the woods. Towards the wall that a thousand bears’ bodies couldn’t breach, but the spell of a human might.

Clover drew back ever so slightly. Her voice didn’t flinch, though, hardly rose or fell. “Ah, I see. You really do want your freedom.” She rose her arms, the gesture itself a question. “Why can’t I come with you?”

“Because. It’s that simple.”

“What do I have to do to prove I love you, Carmina? I’d knock the Spire—the walls down for you. I’d be your personal squire, firing so they never touch you. I would lie, cheat and steal in a heartbeat if—”

Where did she get all of this from, a novel? And all the time, her eyes were narrow and glinting, as if she’d just as soon throw her to the dirt.

“—and I’d never let you be hunted. I’ll—”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll just run.” Carmina added something she thought she might like. “And I’ll think of you always.”

“…You know, I only ever smile for other people. I told myself that would end today, because I wanted to be real in front of you.” Clover moved slightly closer; Carmina didn’t move. “But what you just said was funny. I liked it.”

A new uncomfortable feeling wavered in Carmina. On another day, these words would be a moment of clarity, a key that explained things and brought them closer. She only ever smiled for other people too.

But this was too much, and it was making her regret what she’d decided.

“Alright,” Clover said. “It’ll take me a few days. It needs to be a breach that’s big enough and open long enough that animals can stream through…” She was looking into the river as if at battle plans.

“Goodbye, Clover.”

The taller girl looked up again. “So soon?”

Carmina didn’t say anything. She let the leaves speak for her as she dashed on all fours, a brownish silhouette. Clover soon ran off her own way. Then the land by the trickling stream was still.

***

Even though Carmina went on believing that the matter was between her, her mother’s bone, and the person who had it, she knew there was a broader picture she had little stake in. As time passed, the storm of emotions she’d felt that day was washed away like the river itself, and without them the thoughts remaining cooled and crystallized. She knew she couldn’t be with the people who would shoot her in any other situation. She couldn’t live with the species killing her.

News spread. At a military base, an unknown man claiming to have amnesia was seen communicating with bears in a mix of gestures and guttural language. Soon after, they staged a raid. Most others were simply beggars and wanderers who appeared and disappeared. It took weeks for Carmina to be so identified. By that time, she’d run far away.

Nobody knew why it was bears, and not apes, or lions, or wolves. But whatever a bear could eat, a human could eat, and the caverns where the earliest humans told stories, leaving red handprints on the rock, became the same caverns where the bears lived. Henceforth, they followed one another’s tracks.

Clover toyed with the thought of leaving the academic path entirely, chasing Carmina through the woods. Without her, life had lost its spice; the naked pursuit of her own ambitions was the game it always had been, and nobody as charming as her had yet filled the gap.

The night she and a flock of other students set themselves all along the wall to detonate at the signal was as strong as her memory as any flare in the dark. But following Carmina wouldn’t be right, and anyway where would they even be going? It was probably wrong even to be fascinated by her; she was just a bear.

Still, it was not pure fascination, or domination. She always regretted not finding a way to stay with her, because they’d had that chance to be free and open and share their bitter sides, and relax. Never would she feel open around anyone but her.

Even then, only for an instant.

***

Ms. Dolby bustled into the room, and Clover came in behind her. The penthouse was impressive, with pristine furniture and plenty of regal trim. “Look at this place!” she said, gaping. “That desk over there, perfect for studying! Ah, but I suppose we’ll have to fight over it. And these bookshelves! I prefer the one on the left, but who wouldn’t?”

Enormous windows stretched almost to the ceiling and floor, and out from below them spilled a rolling vista of fields and farms. Just a smattering of mountains stared back from the horizon.

“Let’s just put our bags over here for now. Then we can ring for room service! Bet you’ve never had that be…Clover?”

She had settled herself in the armchair closest to the window to look at the place where, between mountains and the trickle of a river, a patch of forest could be seen. She felt a sentimental ache, by choice.