8. Octavia

Vinyl arched her neck, white hot bolts of agony ripping up and down her legs like some unseen force was tearing off her muscles and sewing them back on in the wrong order. She gritted her teeth, but still cried out as the ring of magic spiralled around her and then dissipated. Her legs trembled. Her stomach roiled. Every inhalation was eclipsed in pain only by the necessity of letting each breath out again.

Don’tpassoutdon’tpassoutdon’tpassout –

“What’s taking so long?” Vellum pantomimed a yawn. “Are you even trying?”

“This … isn’t … some … parlour trick,” Vinyl wheezed. She had performed three castings so far and she was exhausted. She wasn’t even sure if she was using the right spell to undo the curse, but it was all she had. The book claimed it was a catch-all spell to undo other spells, but she had no idea whether it would even work on a curse, much less a lattice of them.

“Whatever.” Vellum picked up a set of headphones and slipped them over her ears. She mimicked using an invisible turntable, shaking her hindquarters in a way Vinyl would never do. “Hey look, I’m DJ Pon3! Boosh, chu-chu, boosh, boosh – reeeeee!”

“Vellum.” Voron interrupted her terrible impression of Vinyl’s music. “Be quiet.”

Vellum’s expression became mutinous. Evidently the conversation from the attic was still weighing on her mind, since she flopped into a vacant chair and muttered to herself: “Why should we even take her back? We’re just fine without her. Better than fine.”

“Vellum,” Voron said very quietly. “Mind your tongue. We need Vanelda because we are family, and family is everything.”

“We managed for ten years without her.”

“If you are not prepared to speak out loud, do not speak at all. Muttering to oneself is unladylike. You should be more like Octy here.” He hugged Octavia closer. “She knows when to keep her tongue silent. Her mother raised her well. She taught her manners and decorum.”

Vinyl looked up. Octavia reacted like a ragdoll, allowing Voron to move her about without protest or any indication of fear. Her eyes were dull, her expression flat, as if she had reached her limit for traumatic experiences and her brain had simply switched off rather than process any more of the nightmare she was trapped in.

Tavi, I’m so sorry.

“Quod factum est , iam pedum solvere. Ut hunc nodum posse dissolvi , hoc dimittit avem , hoc ostium apertum eaque omittere.” Vinyl was getting so used to this incantation now that she didn’t need to keep her eyes on the page to read it all – which was just as well, as her stomach rebelled when the spiral of glittering magic enveloped her once more. “Ego placerat magiae meae vires, mea vita spectabat eaque abrogare.”

Fire raced through her veins. Her eyeballs felt like they were exploding in her skull. Her legs refused to hold her up this time and she collapsed onto her side before the spell was done, kicking uselessly. The scream in her throat became a guttural moan, and then a wet eviction of what was left in her stomach. When the magic dispersed, she lay heaving on the floor, head resting in her own vomit, trying to bring up food she hadn’t eaten.

“How many more times, Vanelda?” Voron asked. “How many more times do you have to cast this spell?”

“As many … as it … takes …”

She felt awful – far worse than when she had cast the curse on herself. Well, apart from the first time. She could feel it still, blocking her vampiric powers. When she had first cursed herself, it had been to render herself mortal. She had not known that the curse would not rid her of her vampire nature, only bury it deep inside her. She was mortal, but she wasn’t like other mortals: a fact she had carried with her every hour or every day for ten years.

And yet she would not do anything differently. Those ten years had been with Octavia, and even if it had all been built on deception, the happiness they had experienced together was worth ten thousand curses and even more counter-spells. Everything she did now, she did for Octavia. She didn’t know how, but she would save her. Even if it meant sacrificing herself, she would make sure Octavia lived to see the morning.

Still on her side, Vinyl began to chant: “Quod factum est, iam pedum solvere. Ut hunc nodum posse dissolvi, hoc dimittit avem …”

It was jazz band rehearsal tonight. Octavia Philharmonica should not have been at the theatre. Vanelda studiously copied up her class notes, adding to them from her own knowledge and the textbook in front of her. Jazz band was more discordant than orchestra. She liked it more. Something about the freedom and inventiveness appealed to her. Where orchestra was all about practising every detail until the whole sympathy was perfect, jazz intentionally broke the rules, creating new patterns of sound that may sound sweet, may sound dissonant, but were always, always passionate.

Somepony cleared their throat behind her.

Her pen stopped. She knew that voice.

“Hello,” Octavia said quietly.

Vanelda turned. She was surprised to see the familiar braids were gone. Instead, Octavia’s mane was loose and brushed forward to cover part of her face. It made her look older, though judging from the corner of white gauze poking out, the change was mainly to cover her injury.

Vanelda mumbled something that might have been a greeting.

“You vanished on Saturday.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was … I had to get home. I didn’t realise how late it had gotten.” A lie. It tripped easily off her tongue. “My father is … very strict. He likes it when we’re home by the time he sets.” Not a lie. Or not a whole lie, at least. When Voron said to be back, you were back with time to spare.

“Oh.” Octavia’s chin drew towards her chest, as if this was not the answer she had been expecting and she was reassessing what she had planned to say next. “I was worried. Professor Orchid was too when she couldn’t find you.”

“I was safe. It was you who were hurt.”

“Yes. Yes, I was.” Octavia drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “I wanted to say thank you. For what you did, I mean.”

“It’s fine.” Vanelda dropped her gaze, taking in the variety of garbage left behind by the rest of the evening class students. “But you’re welcome, I guess.”

Octavia gently patted the side of her head. “I had to have stitches. And the doctor said I had a concussion. Campus security wanted to speak to you about it.”

For a moment Vanelda panicked, but everypony had accepted the story that renowned partygoer Bass Note had once again gotten drunk, gone out looking for his rival and tried to hide in a tree after beating her up, with disastrous consequences. If he remembered anything about what had truly happened, he had not told anyone. If he had, Vanelda would have had to leave and start hunting in the suburbs, away from the university. She hated hunting in suburbs. Families lived in suburbs.

Children lived in suburbs.

“I didn’t do much. I just punched him to get him off you.” And kicked him. And rammed a hoof in his groin. And more. “I … if my dad found out I was fighting, he wouldn’t let me come here anymore.”

“Come here? To the university?”

She nodded. “Like I said, he’s real strict. If it got out that I got into a fight, he’d find out and …” She searched for an acceptable phrase. “Um … ground me.” Yes, that sounded banal enough. She hoped she sounded convincing.

Octavia gave her a sidelong look. Without warning, she slid into the seat beside Vanelda and leaned in close. “You’re not actually a student here, are you?”

Was everypony around here a detective or something? Or was she just that idiotic about covering her tracks these days? She never used to be so careless. Damn it.

Octavia’s gaze flicked to Vanelda’s pen, which had snapped in her hoof. She blinked in surprise.

“Gosh. Don’t worry! I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Professor Orchid lets me stay.”

“I’d gathered as much. You and she seem rather close.”

Close? They were barely acquaintances, weren’t they? Then again, Professor Orchid had gone out of her way to accommodate Vanelda’s desire to learn magic when she really didn’t have to. Did that make them more than acquaintances? For some reason that made Vanelda’s heart lurch. She couldn’t tell if it was in shock, revulsion or fear.

“Not really,” she said, feigning nonchalance.

“University professors don’t give up their Saturdays to give students lessons – especially students who aren’t paying university fees,” Octavia pointed out.

“Oh. Well. I guess …?”

“I’m certainly grateful for it. I’d be in a proper mess now if you hadn’t been on campus when you were.”

“Um, you’re welcome?”

“I didn’t tell campus security your name. Professor Orchid didn’t either. I followed her lead and afterwards she told me I did the right thing, even though technically it was the wrong thing. She was right. I wouldn’t want you hauled in and punished by campus security for hitting Bass Note when you were just defending me.”

Vanelda let out a mirthless chuckle. “Campus security couldn’t punish me.”

“Huh?”

“Not in any way that counts.” She realised what she was saying and faltered. “Um, I mean –”

“Can I take you out for coffee?”

Her train of thought jumped the tracks. “What?”

“And maybe a pastry? To say thank you. It’s the least I can do. I know a great bakery that stays open late and does the most amazing lattes.” Octavia smiled. Her teeth were small and white and blunt.

Vanelda shook her head to stop herself staring at that horribly genuine smile. “Caffeine doesn’t have much effect on me.”

“I-I’m a tea drinker myself.” Octavia stumbled, clearly thinking the head shake was a no. She got to her hooves, absently pulling her hair forward. “It’s fine. I just thought-”

“I’d like to go for tea with you.”

Vanelda couldn’t believe she had said the words. She wanted to snatch them out of the air and ram them back down her throat. The bottom half of her pen crunched to fragments in her grip.

Octavia smiled once more. “All right then. That is, if you’re done with your work?”

“I’m done.” Vanelda scooped everything into a saddlebag she had appropriated during one of her night-time bookstore jaunts. It had a picture of someone called ‘Barry Trotter’ on the side. She allowed the broken pen to tumble into the bag too, hiding it under her notebook.

“Excellent! My treat then.” Octavia winked. “For my knight in shining armour.”

The corner of Vanelda’s mouth tugged upwards of its own will. “You’re very strange.”

“In a good way, I hope.”

She was smiling. She was actually smiling. And not the smile of a hunter enticing prey into a dark alley, either. She couldn’t stop her lips from curving upwards.

“Yes,” she said, and meant it. “In a good way.”