Chapter Text
After my school blows up, I lose myself in the chaos on the Megalodon for a few days.
It is a relief to find all the children present and accounted for, and that their injuries are relatively minor. They amaze me by taking to life on the Megalodon in their stride. Without so much as a word from me, my staff has resumed a school timetable. Ms. Leon, my counseling enthusiast, has organized small support groups by year, and Professor Pike has allied himself with some of the sub’s engineers to teach short classes about how the Megalodon works. Nor is it just the teachers. I have seen students turning into lecturers before my very eyes, passing pages for paper telephone and inventing their own board games and practicing martial arts. I’ve even been informed that there is a waiting list for student volunteers in the kitchen. My volcano is gone, and there is a part of me that smarts at that loss, but the longer I watch my school the more I realize that we saved everything that mattered. Almost everything, I should say.
I owe all this to Otto Malpense, my only student casualty. I dread my upcoming bereavement duties for the guards who lost their lives in the battle, but the finality of Otto’s death weighs on my mind like a millstone. I have seen enough of death to know that while Otto’s sacrifice spoke to his strength of character—his willingness to do right by those he loved even at the cost of his own life—he was made truly special by taking life by the reins when he was created to die.
That isn’t bad, I think, and jot it down on my Blackbox immediately—I will need all the help I can get when I sit down to write what I will say at his funeral. Even in death, Otto Malpense leaves me speechless.
“Dr. Nero, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
I am startled from my thoughts by the colonel. The exasperation on his face suggests that our equilibrium here has been disrupted.
“What can I do for you, Colonel?” I say, fully expecting that this will be an issue with some students. The peace couldn’t last forever.
“We had some problems with Raven this morning. I felt that you should hear the report from me, sir.”
I find myself powerless but to blink. “Problems?”
“Well, not problems, per se,” Francisco says. “Raven has spent the last few days helping coordinate our security efforts, and she’s been essential in establishing a working relationship with the Megalodon staff. But I don’t think she’s had more than eight hours of sleep in the past seventy-two hours.”
“Is she still working now?” I ask, slightly alarmed.
“No,” Francisco assures me. “I enlisted the help of Dr. Scott to tap her out, shall we say. But she was extremely reluctant to leave, sir.”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “What did she do?”
“Nothing, really,” Francisco says, just a hint of guilt in his voice. “But Dr. Scott may have surprised her with a sedative. And I may have had to, erm, carry her to her quarters. As I said, she was extremely reluctant.”
It takes some mettle to get the most feared assassin in the world into bed. Raven will be cross when she wakes, if she hasn’t already. Still, I fear that Francisco and Scott would only take this type of action as a last resort. And, Raven must have been at her absolute limit to be overtaken. An anxiety I have been trying to ignore lifts its head in the pit of my stomach.
“You’ve made your case, Colonel,” I tell him. “I’ll—I’ll speak with her.”
Francisco scrutinizes me with a frown that I don’t understand. “This may be impertinent, sir, but I think I ought to ask. Is there a particular reason why she would be avoiding you?”
“Avoiding me?” I ask. “We aren’t avoiding each other. No.”
My tactical education head raises an eyebrow, and I realize that I have made a mistake.
“We’ve just been so busy,” I continue, attempting to cover, but I don’t hire fools.
“I don’t expect you to tell me,” Francisco says. “But you should know that neither of you are at your best right now, and we are going to need you both at your best if we are going to get back in the saddle.”
He is right, of course. Our fragile calm on the Megalodon is only a weigh station. There is a new school to be built and new students to enlist, new plots to scheme and new curriculums to build. And I can’t do it alone.
“You win.” I raise my hands in surrender. “I’m going.”
“Is isn’t too bad, is it?” Francisco asks, and I realize that he is, in fact, very worried.
I smile at him tiredly. “No, Colonel. As a matter of fact, it’s very good. It’s just… different.”
“It must be pretty different, then. You know Raven—she always rolls with the punches.”
Natalya’s room is adjacent to my own, joined by a sitting room and tiny kitchenette that seem luxurious in such cramped quarters. She is fast asleep on our couch, outfitted in a navy blue Megalodon t-shirt and sleep shorts. Her bare arms and legs reveal a fresh harvest of cuts, scraps, and bruises. I cannot fathom why Dr. Scott saw fit to outfit her with so many bandages, but no blanket. Just looking at her makes me feel cold—I step into her room and grab a fleece throw from the bed to cover her with. Satisfied with my work, I settle on the loveseat and pull off my shoes. It’s been a while since I’ve rested, but I look at her and I find myself wide awake.
Daughter.
Natalya is my daughter.
I have not been letting myself think about this sentence, because once I have grasped onto it my heart holds it completely and I can’t focus on anything else. Natalya is my daughter! It changes absolutely nothing about her, of course. She is no more trustworthy than she was last week, nor more talented nor more beautiful nor funnier nor stronger. She is exactly what she has always been: a marvel.
My daughter.
The words tingle—I have never used them together before. Elena staunchly refused to tell me what we were having as her pregnancy progressed, and insisted she didn’t know, either. She was always one for surprises. It seemed to me that having a child with my worst enemy was surprise enough, but I let her bewilder me. It didn’t matter, as long as we were together.
I remember, now, standing in the hospital. My daughter, they told me, and we’re so sorry for your loss. I remember holding her for the first time now. Tiny. All her fingers and all her toes. Eyes, blue, like her mother.
It strikes me that Natalya is more than ten years older than Elena was when she died. It’s a pity: the Elena-who-would-have-been is a stranger to us both. It will be some time before I am ready to tell Natalya everything—I cannot burden her with the ghost of her mother, or the child we thought we’d have together.
My daughter, and more.
I text my father our room number on my Blackbox and ask him to come. Part of me thinks I should wait for Natalya to wake, and part of me knows that I can’t wait to talk to him any longer. There is more to our story than myself.
True to fashion, Father lets himself in and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Are you just watching Raven sleep?”
“Close the door. I have something to say to you.”
It is not often that I startle my father, but I believe I have. He closes the door immediately. I pull my feet from the second cushion, making room for him to sit, which he does. His eyes dart to Natalya, and then back at me.
“What’s this about, then?” he asks.
I exhale slowly, lining up my words as precisely as I can. “Anastasia killed the Queen of Shadows.”
He frowns. “Yes, I heard that. Quite disturbing. She didn’t deserve that.”
I can’t quite agree with him there, but I press on. “She killed the Queen because it was the only way to reverse something that had been done to me—the power of the Voice. Anastasia commissioned her services to control my memories after Elena died.”
“Your memories? What does that mean? They made you forget—Elena?”
There is a note of hope in his voice that I stamp out with the shake of my head. “No, Anastasia left that part untouched. Elena died that day, exactly like I told you. She needed me to forget,” and I pause for a shaky breath, “that the baby lived.”
Father looks as though I’ve slapped him. “The baby lived?”
“The baby lived,” I confirm, and proceed to say nothing, only giving him the tiniest look of mischief that I know will arouse his suspicions. He makes me regret it when he knocks me with his cane.
“Lived!” he exclaims. “Well, what happened? Where did Anastasia take them? Did she say who they are? Living? Are they still living?”
“Of course she is,” I tell him, and point over his elbow to the sleeping figure on the couch. “She’s just a little tired, that’s all.”
The noise that comes out of my father’s throat makes me concerned that I’ve unwittingly triggered a cardiac arrest—but the violent gasp of air turns into a joyful shout of delight.
“You’re serious!”
I look him directly in the eye. “I’m serious. Her plot to have my own child kill me was exactly her brand of justice. And, in her mind, Natalya was equally as responsible for Elena’s death as I.”
Father ponders this, leaning over his knees with his hands folded and pressed against his mouth, staring at Natalya with a sparkle in his eyes. He and my mother were distant with me after Elena’s death—I didn’t want to talk, and so we didn’t. I had forgotten that Elena was not just my love story. They had looked forward to being grandparents, too.
“I hardly believed it, when Anastasia told me,” I say. “It was like finding blood on your fingers when you didn’t realize you had cut yourself. All these years I… I had no idea that something was wrong.”
Father sets a steadying hand on my forearm and squeezes. “You can’t blame yourself, Max.”
“He’s right.” Natalya flips over on the couch, facing us, more awake than either of us had realized. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for.”
“Aha, the granddaughter wakes!” Father grins, and Natalya returns a small, awkward smile. That anxiety curled in my belly rises again—it is time to have that conversation I have been dreading. She is my daughter, and this thought consumes me; I am her father, and I am not sure that is the thing she really wants from me.
“How’s your head?” I ask neutrally.
She sighs. “Still foggy. Dr. Scott thinks it will linger. I am… struggling.”
“Not many people have experienced intensive programming like you did and survived,” I say, thinking of the bodies I know that Maria Sinistre alone was responsible for. “And you’ve never been controlled by the Voice before.”
“Once,” she says distantly. “Lucy, during the animus.”
“Right,” I acknowledge. Another dead student who saved my life, I think absently, but I want to be present for this, for her. “Even so. It’s no surprise that you’re still recovering.”
Natalya slides onto her back, pulling her blanket under her chin and staring at the ceiling with an unplaceable look in her eyes. I have only been her father for a few days and the title is too fresh to be of use, but I have been her friend for sixteen years. Something is wrong.
Father looks between the two of us—I am certain he is annoyed by the pall of our conversation when he is ready to celebrate.
“Why don’t you see if there’s anything for her to eat in the fridge?” I suggest. “I don’t think she’s eaten all day.”
Normally, my father loathes the task of preparing food, but he springs up as if inspired. Hard conversations have never been his forte.
“I’m not hungry,” Natalya protests.
“I insist,” Father tells her, and begins rummaging through the fridge. I can only hope that he will make something for her that is, in fact, edible.
Which leaves the conversation to me. Natalya risks a glance at me, wary, before looking away again, as though the sight of me scalds her. I try not to let it blister.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Her silence is painfully long, but I let her have it. This is not easy for her, and it never has been.
“I’m so angry, Max, I can’t stand it,” she whispers at last. “Killing her was too good for her.”
“Anastasia?”
She sits up suddenly, pulling her legs to her chest so that her elbows rest on her kneecaps and her hands cup the upper half of her face. “I knew she lied to me. I always knew. But I was so used to accepting it, I just stopped thinking about it. I’d go mad trying to understand her otherwise. Like, like this!” She jabs a finger in the air to punctuate the thought. “The first time I ever saw her she told me she’d been looking for me for a long time, and then spent the next five years telling me that I was just an orphan, an abandoned child that nobody wanted. It didn’t make any sense! Why would she look for someone who didn’t matter? Or, or the day I ran away—I was twelve. Pietor caught me, brought me back. I don’t even remember what she was saying. Bad breeding, or poorly raised, or something. Pietor hit me when I talked back. But how could she know anything about my parents?”
Oh.
I feel foolish as I listen to Natalya’s wounded, rambling thoughts. Anastasia’s control dominated her childhood—I should have known that our relationship would not be the only one she needed to process.
“It didn’t make sense that she held a personal vendetta against a nobody,” Natalya seethes. “She always acted like it wasn’t personal—but of course it was! And I could never figure out what it was that made me special. Especially when she kept telling me that I wasn’t special.”
“She wanted to have it both ways,” I say. “She needed you to be exceptional, because her revenge against me had to be exceptional, but if she told you why you were exceptional, then she would lose one of her best tools for controlling you: hopelessness.”
Natalya’s face twists in righteous shock. “You’re right! She wanted me to think that there was nothing for me outside of the Glasshouse. I would never be loved and I would never survive on my own. It all had to come from her.”
For a second, she buries her face in the blanket, though she isn’t crying yet—I think she is just overwhelmed. She says something into the blanket that is impossible to make out.
“Sorry?”
“I did everything for her,” she repeats, lifting her face to the cool air. Her voice is as heavy and slow as rocks at the bottom of a river and I am reminded, again, that Natalya has always been a force of nature. “Everything, Max. I was perfect—all she ever wanted and more. She asked fierceness of me, so I was fierce, and she asked strength of me, so I was strong. I hit every target she set in front of me and made every kill set beneath my sword. And I thought that eventually she’d like me, that if I just tried hard enough, she would want me, for me. This whole time she made me think that I was the one who owed her something, when I was her sister’s daughter. She was supposed to love me. Bastards!”
She is on the verge of tears, but I don’t dare interrupt her.
“And then there was you! You were my target, a complete stranger I meant to kill, and you did the exact opposite. You gave me a place to belong when you didn’t even owe me kindness. I have a life now because of you. I was no one, and you gave me everything.”
“Does that make you angry, too?”
“It makes me confused,” she snaps. “I thought I didn’t need answers anymore. It’s too late to change anything anyway. But I deserved something Anastasia never gave me—she fed me scraps when I belonged in a seat at the table. I have the story now, but I don’t know what it means.”
“She betrayed you.” Father is no longer pretending to make food. “Plain as that.”
“Plain as that,” Natalya repeats, and exhales slowly. She presses her palms against her face so her eyes are hidden.
It’s beyond me to imagine the kind of woman Elena would be now if she had lived, but I can’t help but think she would be wounded by the weapon her siblings made of her daughter. I can’t even say that it would console her to know that the first time I held Natalya was not the last, knowing how much time would pass between then and our second meeting. Each and every one of her hopes for the future died that day. In the thirty years that have passed since then, I have scraped together just one conclusion: sometimes one must live without the catharsis of justice.
I stand and squeeze onto the couch next to her. She leans against me, breathing hard, and does not protest when I wrap an arm around her.
“I know,” I tell her. “It isn’t fair.”
“It really fucking isn’t,” she sobs, but her rueful smile is still a smile. “But when has that ever stopped me before?”
I pull her closer. “That’s my girl.”
Natalya requires a few more moments to recover herself, but when she does, she speaks with a clear voice. “So, what are we doing? Are we telling people?”
“We could have a party,” Father muses, and I can feel Natalya tense every muscle in her body at the very thought. I give him the glare I reserve for my first year students who are brave enough to talk in the back of the classroom. “Or, erm, we could not have a party.”
“You know how much I love being the center of attention,” she deadpans.
“Here’s a question: is it really anyone’s business?” I ask.
Father hisses. “You aren’t suggesting we keep it a secret?”
“Well, no. I want to tell Diabolus, and there are a few of the staff who’d probably like to know.”
“Tabitha,” Natalya interjects. “Francisco.”
I nod, and open my palm to my father. “And I’m sure you’d like to tell Theo.”
From the look on her face, I suspect Natalya is debating whether she ought to tell her students—her relationship with Fanchu, in particular, may matriculate into true friendship once graduation rolls around.
“We’ll play it by ear,” I conclude. “Nothing grandiose, no big announcements. Let people come to their own conclusions.”
Father nods, his excitement returning. He ambles forward and takes Natalya by the hand, pink with his happiness. “Welcome to the family, my dear. Truly.”
She smiles shyly. “No offense, Nathaniel, but this was already my family. We’re just calling it by its name, now.”
He pats her hand firmly. “That’s the spirit! No time lost—only time remaining!”
Father takes his stick in his hand and decides that, as a matter of fact, he would like to inform the professor now, but promises to be back in time for dinner. I’m not particularly surprised. There are only a handful of founding G.L.O.V.E. members still living, and our friends are few by nature. I cannot begrudge him the opportunity to share his news with his oldest and most respected friend.
“I might take tomorrow off,” Natalya says. “Just… just in case.”
“Take two days,” I tell her. “Everyone’s getting along fine, and Diabolus has already assured me that he’s prepared to house us until we get our next facility up and running.”
She scoffs. “Is he serious? That could be years.”
“You know him. Mr. Generosity.”
Natalya sighs. “Have you spoken with the sixth years at all?”
“If you mean Otto’s friends, then yes. They’re in bad shape.”
“I need to talk to Wing,” she says. “But I’ve just been so caught up with all of this Anastasia mess, I didn’t think I could be of any use to him. Have you thought about what you’ll say at the funeral?”
“I’ve thought about it. It’s odd—I’ve lost a child,” I squeeze her shoulder, “and I’ve lost students before. Losing Otto is its own experience.”
Natalya nods. “I’ll miss him.”
And then, like that, it is like a switch flips back on. We are talking plans and strategy, timetables and budgets. We have a lot on our plates already: holding a memorial service for a young man who didn’t deserve to die, reinstating classes for the world’s youngest villains, and building a secret facility to be the seat of G.L.O.V.E. I look at the determination in Natalya’s face and I have no doubt that we have already pushed off on our next great journey together.
I chuckle to myself. “My daughter.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just like to say it.”
She rolls her eyes, bright and familiar and blue. “You’d better watch that kind of talk, or I might start calling you ‘Dad.’”
“You could, you know.”
“I’ll consider it,” she says slowly. “But don’t get your hopes up. I don’t think we’re that kind of family.”
Either way, it’s just fine with me.