When he spoke, the tremors were gone from his voice. He breathed in deep, exhaled, met her gaze. “I’ll live. No other choice but to live, seems to me. I’ll do my best to pay back the ways in which you’ve been kind to me.” He shrugged despondently and pressed both hands to his eyes. “I don’t know about the rest. Wait it out?”


    I hardly recall us being kind to him, Christina snickered. Do you reckon Tummy’s hit him too hard? Or is he plotting revenge?


    “Can you help me learn more? I can’t pay back what you spent on me but I can make myself useful. I want to be useful.”


    Tallah chuckled. Vergil’s swing on his mood was something to behold. Desperate one moment, rallied the next. Tummy had seen it before her and made the call. “And what makes you so certain that I’m able to train you, bucket-head?”


    Anger made way to a kind of wounded dignity.


    “I’m not stupid. You were Storm Guard. You fought against them and came out on top. I’d need to be brain-dead not to figure out you’re not just a snotty rich girl.” Streaks of tears dried on his cheeks into white lines. He held out his hand and she passed him the sword back. “I don’t know what you can do but I expect it’s powerful. But if you or Sil get hurt wherever we go, I’ll become a liability if I can’t use the helmet. Going to Tummy every other day doesn’t seem like nearly enough. Can you help me?”


    Another annotation got made to the boy’s schematic. It was his first request he’d made of her directly. And one that was attainable.


    He’s got a bit of a spark in him, Christina observed. I like how he got up on his own.


    He works things out, Bianca followed up. He is a simpleton, right enough, but maybe not a useless one. We should consider if we can’t make better use of him.


    “Go bring me a sword from the trunk in the hallway. Let me see your basics first,” Tallah said as she stretched. The ghosts kept chattering on in her head. Some exercise would shut them up and shake the stiffness out of her. Tummy was right. She had been neglecting herself.


    She considered getting dressed in something more than just small clothes but decided it wasn’t worth the trip to her room. She won’t allow him to even nick her.


    Not the best place for a bit of sparring. Even if she could move the heavy desks without spilling all of her papers and Sil’s alchemical compounds, it’d still be too narrow a space for two people swinging blades. Right, that wasn’t thought through.


    “Bianca?”


    Furniture lifted and moved aside gently without so much as a tremor. Bianca’s power coursed through her and it burned. She gritted her teeth against its tide. Slowly getting better; achingly, terrifyingly slowly getting better. Never again.


    “This one?”


    She turned to Vergil as he brought a thin, ebony-black scabbard. She pulled out the sword and inspected the blade. Not really a sword at all but a long knife that fit her build better than the broader blade Tummy had gifted the boy.


    “I probably should have these honed,” she muttered as she took a few experimental slashes against the air. Even dulled from months of heavy use, the blade sang in her hand, eager for blood. Of the three she owned, this one was definitely her favourite.


    Her good gloves were ruined from the Anna clash so she opened a small Rend and rummaged about for a spare. She put on only the right-hand one and flexed her fingers. A small flame danced over and around them as she limbered up.


    “You’re left-handed?” Vergil asked, eyeing her sword.


    “No.”


    “But…”


    “When you see someone like me with a weapon, worry about the empty hand.” Flame erupted over her glove, encasing it in white-hot brilliance. Maybe not so much power for a bit of exercise but regulating her output proved difficult after weeks of meekly waiting to heal. Her limiters warmed up as she adjusted.


    Use my ability, Bianca said in her ear. Less chance of stupidity ensuing. And you need the practice.


    She swept the sword about and Vergil took a step back, giving her the room she needed to warm up. Jerkily, she started a sword dance. Well-practised stances came easily to her even if she felt her muscles protesting.


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    He followed in mirror movement next to her. Tummy had showed him the dance but once would not have been enough for the exercise to stick. May as well work on it together.


    “Learn the dance like you learn to breathe your fire,” Tummy had taught her. “Do it daily, like your meditations and your breathing exercises. It needs to be a part of you.” Her cheeks flushed thinking of how easily Tummy had seen her lapse of discipline.


    She slowed her movement so Vergil could observe her better.


    Watching him watching her was interesting. He didn’t so much copy, as he adapted. With each repeat of the dance, he made minute adjustments to his pose until he reached the correct one. There was a method to his learning and that showed her that he had the patience for it.


    “A spar, then?” She pointed the tip of her sword at his feet and invited him to a duel. “I’ll hurt you. If you cry, I’ll throw you out on your ear.”


    It wasn’t an empty threat.


    Vergil readied himself in an amateurish defence stance.


    A familiar flame lit in the pit of her stomach and she breathed out an exhalation of heat. She drew in more illum and infused herself near to full capacity. The dance had loosened her up and that pleasant warmth smothered some of the pain of channelling. Bianca’s strength overlaid hers and she felt more like herself than she had in weeks.


    “How do I fight someone left-handed?” Vergil asked.


    “Stick them with the pointy end. Try and not get stuck back.”


    Cow. Bianca snickered


    They circled each other, step by careful step. There were too many openings in his defence and he watched the wrong things.


    With a swift move of her right hand she reached out a kinetic lash and yanked him straight to her across the width of the room, and hit him square in the cheekbone with the pommel of her sword. He dropped on his arse.


    “In battle, I would’ve had my sword through your throat. Diagonal cut so a healer would have little chance to get to you before you bled out.”


    That looming bruise Tummy had gifted him would turn black now.


    He blinked away the hit, rose and picked the sword back up.


    “How do I defend?” he asked.


    Tallah’s impression of him grew another measure.


    “Expect it. React. Stick them with the pointy bit.”


    He gave her a level glare and immediately attacked. A quaint thrust that seemed to wholly rely on her being unprepared for it. Silly.


    Well, play silly games…


    She parried his sword, too easily and readied to smack him down. The back of his empty fist came for her face even as he stumbled from the parry. Were he slightly better trained and better with his timing, the blow would have caught her neatly across the eyes.


    A quick step back and lean away had his stumble send him to his knees. A kinetic push blasted him straight into the wall with a crash. That should put the wind out of the cheeky bugger.


    “Second death in as many heartbeats. Isadora would enjoy a full feast on your expense today. Don’t use gambits. They’ll get you killed.” She was aware of the irony even as Christina got ready to call her out on it.


    Vergil groaned and picked himself back up.


    “Why are you so strong?” he asked breathlessly, voice hoarse and cracked.


    Tallah shrugged.


    “I’m enchanted. Why are you weak?” she asked back, without the hint of a smile.


    “I’ve been sick,” he replied and grinned at her.


    Back in his stance, his eyes flickering between hers, her sword, and her open hand.


    The next bell was an education. She spared him no pain. She cut, blasted and burned him mercilessly. Without Sil’s treatment, his face and nose would probably swell up something fierce by morning. He bled all over the carpet and the clothes on him wouldn’t be fit for use as dust rags.


    Tallah’s bare feet squelched on the blood cooling on the carpet. The iron stink of it filled the room enough that she had to crack open a window. As far as she remembered, Tummy had not been as kind to her as she had been to the boy. Vergil got to catch his breath between executions. She hadn’t been allowed that.


    The memory brought a smile to her face while Vergil lay on the floor, panting and bleeding.


    “And there’s your final death, by bleeding out,” she said, standing over him and wiping the tip of her sword on the tatters of his shirt. “Pick one death and I’ll teach you how to avoid it.” She picked up the already uncorked vial and handed it to him. “Drink this. It’ll stop the bleeding.”


    The light amber liquid sloshed in the crystal vial and Vergil downed it greedily. He winced as the cuts healed. He’d be plastered with angry red scars for some time to come but that didn’t seem to phase him. He was back on his feet immediately, though swaying. She picked through Sil’s supplies and handed him something to offset the blood loss and dizzy spell.


    “Thank you,” he said as she helped him stay upright. “For the lesson, I mean.” Both the carpet and his clothes were beyond salvation, but he looked happy for the first time in weeks. Tallah nodded curtly.


    “Rest up, eat, and we’ll start again,” she instructed him and set her sheathed sword against her worktable. “Change and run down to the kitchens and order us something for lunch.” She looked out the window and thought better of it. “Or whatever time of day it is. Get something sugar-rich for those two.” She thumbed in the general area of the bedrooms.


    She avoided imagining how Sil could have ignored the noise of the last bell’s strike.