Demon Forged

feet up on the low table, made herself comfortable. The novice lifted her dark head and gave Irena a tight, quick smile before returning to her book.
    Ah, so she tried to cover her unease with polite disinterest. Irena couldn’t allow that. She called in a billet of steel, and began working the metal with her fingers and her Gift.
    Alejandro moved around the room, stopped behind the facing sofa. He rested his hands on the curving back. His gaze fell to the regal stag forming between Irena’s hands, its body caught in a mighty leap.
    Becca glanced over. Then looked again, brown eyes lighting with curiosity.
    Snared as easily as a hare.
    Beneath Irena’s fingertips, her Gift molded the steel antlers into a wide forehead, a powerful jaw. A running wolf quickly took shape, its fur ruffled by the speed of its passing.
    “You are not training with the others, Becca?” Irena asked in English, smoothing away most of her accent.
    Despite that effort, the mouse almost went back into her hole. Then Becca tilted her book, showing Irena the spine. “I’m supposedly training my mind.”
    Irena worked through the Chinese characters of the book’s title. She could read symbols more easily than alphabets, but she was hardly well-read. And so when she made out the name, she was surprised to recognize Lao Tzu’s work.
    She hadn’t read it, but she’d heard it recited—in Caelum and on Earth—many times.
    She didn’t follow any part of it.
    “The Tao Te Ching ?” Alejandro said. His fingers flexed against the back of the sofa with each pulse of her Gift. Irena’s breath moved to the same deep rhythm.
    “Lilith recommended it. To help me find inner peace and balance.”
    The wolf in Irena’s hands became a razor-edged dagger. “And has it trained your mind to obey like a dog or sharpened it?”
    “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to figure out the ‘being like water’ part.” The novice hesitated, her gaze on the spear rising out of the knife. “Do you have any suggestions?”
    To be like water? “Submerge yourself in a lake with a sword, and practice with it.”
    As if finally noting his response to her Gift, Alejandro straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. “Perhaps Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. It is somewhat similar to Irena’s philosophy.”
    Her lip curled, and she said to him in French, “Sun Tzu too often ignores his gut in favor of his head. That is the best way to get a sword stabbed through it.”
    Becca looked at Alejandro, a hint of mischief in her smile. “So it’ll teach me to fight without arms and legs? Eat hearts?” She glanced back at Irena and her shoulders hunched. “Or so I’ve heard.”
    She’d never forced anyone to eat hearts. “I suppose you will find out when you specialize with me in a few decades.”
    Becca’s eyes widened. “God, I hope not.”
    There it was—that spark Irena had wanted to see. She grinned and reshaped the spear to resemble Mackenzie, the novice’s vampire lover. She tossed the statue to Becca.
    “Oh, wow. Thanks. Holy crap, it’s just like him.” Her fingers ran over the chest, the face. She jerked her hand away, sucking in a breath. Blood welled on her thumb, and the novice stuck it between her lips.
    Irena frowned. “You put blood into your mouth but balk at eating a heart?”
    Becca yanked her thumb out. “Was that a lesson? Was I supposed to learn something useful?”
    Learn something useful—from a statue of a skinny vampire? Yet Becca was in earnest. Irena closed her eyes and fought to remain silent. The sort of laughter she was prone to might destroy the small progress she’d made in drawing out the novice.
    “Yes,” she heard Alejandro say with dry amusement. “A simple lesson: Fangs are sharp.”
    “Oh. I already know that.”
    “Good,” Irena said, rocking up to her feet. She didn’t know if ten minutes had passed, but it felt as if they had. “And if you do specialize with me, bring Lao Tzu’s book with you.”
    She sensed they were both going to need it.

    Rosalia sat on the edge of a narrow bunk with her arms crossed, running her hands up and down the sleeves of a soft red sweater. She’d showered, Irena saw, and left her dark hair to dry into damp curls.
    Guardians could clean themselves by vanishing dirt into their cache, but sometimes there was no replacement for water.
    And even water couldn’t always clean deep enough.
    Hugh had pulled a chair to the bedside. He’d leaned toward Rosalia, his