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“Here,” said one of the scientists, slapping down a small leather-bound notebook on the table in front of Sheena. It was a brisk movement, the crack of the object against the metal shockingly loud even in the eternal bustle of the Elemental Research Lab. “You’ll need this.”
Sheena hesitated, reaching for the book as she looked up at the scientist. It was the slightly younger one—although it was hard to tell with half-elves—with the cloud of silver-white hair that flicked out around her face, cut probably just above it would have started to wave. The woman raised one pale eyebrow, firm mouth not moving even an inch. “Uh,” she said, staring at the woman. “What... is it?”
The woman folded her hands into her sleeves, staring down her nose at Sheena with a remarkable amount of hauteur, for a half-elf scientist who lived in a basement in Meltokio. For all Sheena knew, maybe that was why she could pull off that look off: she knew the world didn’t care, and she didn’t care either.
“It’s a dictionary,” the woman finally said. “I don’t claim to be fluent by any means, but that notebook has all of our research into the ancient Summon Spirit tongue. Given your history with the Greater Summon Spirits, I thought it might be sensible for you to have some kind of conversation guide.” There was something about the way she said it—a lack of hesitation, perhaps, when anyone else who spoke of it always did so carefully, with long, fraught pauses as they tried so hard to keep from offending Sheena. Like if they were gentle enough, or didn’t say the words aloud, only intimated them in a hesitant silence, it wouldn’t remind her of being seven and standing surrounded by death and crying her eyes out.
Even now, at fourteen, she still dreamed of it.
The woman shrugged. “Use it if you will,” she said, and walked away, back into the depths of the lab with the other workers.
Sheena reached out to run her finger over the cover of the journal and, quietly, whispered, “Thank you.”
The woman’s name was Raine Sage. Sheena had learned it from asking around, talking to a few other of the scientists in the lab. She wasn’t much older than Sheena, only a few years, but had matured young for a half-elf, coming into the firm curve of her round jaw and the breadth of her shoulders while Sheena was still awkward and lop-sided with her bust growing bigger every irritating day and her feet somehow too small for her center of gravity and her skin itchy and oily and sad.
Raine rarely had much time for Sheena. She kept herself busy, Sheena discovered—she was involved in almost every experiment, even leading several despite being so much younger than her fellow researchers—and when she wasn’t busy, she kept to herself. It was hard to learn much of anything about her. Nobody knew exactly where she had come from or what had made her arrive at the Elemental Research Lab.
Unlike some of the other half-elves, Raine had come on purpose. She had just shown up one day, said she was a half-elf and demanded a job there, and simply forced her way into seniority through sheer grit and determination.
Sheena had never in her life been so stubborn, she didn’t think. The idea of putting her neck out there like that, of making herself seen and heard and listened to, made the skin of her back crawl. To Raine, it seemed to come like breathing.
Three weeks after Sheena had learned her name and begun to ask after her, Raine finally caught her in the stairwell. Her hair had fluffed up even more with irritation, until it seemed like it was nearly floating. She was a little taller than Sheena, but standing on a lower step, Sheena had to look down her nose to talk to her.
“What,” Raine hissed, arms crossed over her chest beneath a mutinous glare, “is it that you want? You keep asking the other researchers about me. I’m busy! Not all of us can come and go as we please!”
Sheena sputtered, suddenly, a few nonsense syllables coming out of her mouth as she sought for words. “I,” she finally managed, “didn’t, I mean. I. That’s not.” Her fingers curled under her obi. “I just wanted to thank you. For the dictionary. It’s been useful already, Corrine... likes that I can understand him, when he doesn’t have to speak like a person.”
Raine blinked.
Her eyes were very pale. Sheena wondered, suddenly, what color they might have been in the sunlight. It was always dim in the Elemental Research Laboratory, and under such low light they didn’t seem to have any color at all. Clear, maybe. Like water.
“I’m glad,” Raine finally said, after her mouth worked soundlessly for a few more seconds. “If it can be useful, then it was worthwhile research.”
“I want to—is there something I can get you?” Sheena’s mouth felt like it wasn’t her mouth, like it was disconnected from her body, speaking without her input. “From outside? I want... you deserve something. Uh. It. Uh.” Her face felt like it was on fire. She wanted to sink through the stone stairs and into the dirt. She wished she could have called Corrine, but he never came here, not unless he absolutely had to. “Thanks,” she finished, lamely.
“Thanks?” Raine repeated, sounding perhaps more baffled than Sheena herself felt. “You already said that!”
Sheena wanted to die.
Flustered, her whole face burning, she mumbled, “I want to get you a gift. To thank you.”
The stairwell was very quiet.
“Oh,” Raine breathed, at last. The tension in Sheena’s shoulders eased, but only slightly. “I... yes, that. Would be fine, I suppose.” She resettled her weight on the stair and tugged on one of the longer pieces of hair around her jaw, making as if to tuck it into her mouth and only stopping at the last moment to allow it to spring back to where it belonged. “I like lemons,” she said, abruptly, and then turned and fled back down the stairs, leaving Sheena reeling and gripping the railing like it was the only thing that kept her upright.
Sheena remembered that conversation, and the lemon cake she had brought with her on her next visit, for years after. She remembered eating with Raine hidden in the woman’s little cell of a room, the both of them feeding slivers of it to Corrine, and giggling about things in the ways of children even though they were both nearly women. She remembered how happy Raine had been, how her eyes had lit up more blue than silver in the light of her single lamp, how the frosting had gotten stuck at the corners of her lips and she had spent what felt like hours feeling over them with her fingertips in a hunt for one more taste.
And then, Sheena had abruptly never gone back.
And she had never seen Raine again.
When Sheena had left her friends at Meltokio’s gates when they had first arrived in Tethe’alla, she had almost told them about the Elemental Research Lab. They would never have been able to get in, not without the approval of the Church or the King or, worst of all, Zelos, but she... hoped. Genis might have been able to pass for human on Sylvarant, but Sheena had seen him and known he was a half-elf immediately. Anyone else from Tethe’alla would, too, even if Lloyd loudly proclaimed to anyone who might listen that they were brothers. Having another half-elf, someone who understood what it meant to be a half-elf on their side, maybe could have protected him.
She hadn’t said, though. There wasn’t time. She couldn’t figure out how to say it.
Their next time into the city, though, she wasn’t going to let her opportunity pass. They were wanted now, weren’t they?
What was a little breaking and entering and maybe some semi-willing kidnapping going to do that they hadn’t already done to themselves?
When they had finally climbed out of the (really awful) sewers and were standing huddled around in the empty corner of one of Meltokio’s parks, cleaning off with the water out of a fountain, Sheena pulled Zelos aside. He sidled under her grip, looking as shifty as he ever did.
Sheena grabbed his glove tighter to make sure he didn’t try to slip away. “Listen,” she told him, staring him in the eye. “I’m going to do something really stupid when we get to the Lab, okay? And I need you to try to stop me. But not really stop me. Fake stop me. Let me get away with it.”
Zelos squinted at her. “What are you talking about?” he hissed. “Sheena, we’re already in enough trouble as it is! If you’re going to do something stupid—“
“It’s important, asshole,” she snapped. “I promise it’s important. I wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t have to, but we need her.”
“Her?” Zelos repeated. “What do you mean, her?”
“I mean a person! She’s—“ Sheena huffed an irritated noise. “Someone I used to know, when Corrine was still there. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, and she understands how Summon Spirits talk.” Her childhood dictionary, much beloved, that she had thumbed through at length, had long since been lost in one of the many hops back and forth to Sylvarant. Sheena had memorized as much as she could, but it was vocabulary, not enough to have a conversation. No grammar, no fluency. “We need her. I can’t do this alone.”
Zelos squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “Seriously?” When he cracked one eye to check her expression and found it stoic, he whined. “Sheena!”
“I mean it, asshole. Don’t stop me. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but don’t stop me.”
“Fine!” Zelos held his hands up in submission. “Fine, if that’s what you want. Fine. I won’t stop you. Just... don’t get us all killed, okay? Please?”
It was impossible to not think of what had happened last time—the dead bodies scattered all about in the Temple of Lightning, her grandfather before her, arms outstretched, while Sheena hunched into a ball, pinned in the corner, sobbing. The air smelling of ozone and blood; that great unknowable thing floating in the air before them, snapping with electricity and things she didn’t understand.
When she thought of going back there, Sheena wanted to run away. But, when she thought of going back there with Raine beside her...
They could do this. They could do this.
“Just trust me,” she told Zelos, and hoped she trusted herself.
In the end, Sheena was able to get in with her cards. She remembered where Raine’s room was, and she slipped in directly from the outside, landing between the chair and desk.
It was a tiny room, even smaller than she remembered. Not much more than tight walls, the cot less than a handspan from the desk. There were no windows, only a lamp, and the only things of Raine’s visible a few notebooks stacked at the head of the bed, under the frame.
It was a cage, and Sheena hated it.
“Okay,” she said to herself, sitting on the chair. “Okay, you can do this. You can just—wait a bit.” She wanted to summon Corrine, but knew if she did, he would just be upset. She couldn’t. “Zelos will get the way over the bridge.” He’d agreed to take point on it at her urging, but he hadn’t been happy about it. If he could manage that, she could get Raine out. She’d gotten all of them out of the Asgard Human Ranch, after all. Getting Raine out couldn’t be any more difficult.
She had to wait a while. So long, in fact, that she’d begun to feel caged in herself, and if she could barely handle an hour or two of this at most, she couldn’t imagine—
Footsteps in the hall.
Instantly, Sheena pressed herself back against the wall so that the corner was behind her and she was out of line of sight of the door. The edges of her cards dug hard into her fingers, and she had to keep herself for itching for Corrine. He couldn’t come here—even if she wanted him beside her.
The footsteps approached and the door swung open, heavy hinges creaking. A woman stepped inside who, for a moment, Sheena almost didn’t recognize. It was Raine, it had to be Raine, but she looked so... tired. Worn. Her hair had been poorly cut and her clothes were all the wrong size; there were deeper lines about her eyes and mouth than any other half-elf Sheena had ever seen.
She wore glasses now. They were black and oval and Sheena loved them, immediately, without reservation.
Raine stepped inside, pushed the door shut, and pressed her back against it, eyes closed, as she gasped for breath. Sheena didn’t dare move, too afraid she’d startle the other woman, and waited, breathing quietly, until Raine opened her eyes.
Their eyes met.
“Don’t scream,” Sheena hissed.
For a moment, Raine seemed shaken. She took a few sharp breaths, one hand clenching erratically against the door. “Sheena,” she said at last, her voice low. “Listen. I need you to get me out of here.”
Sheena, who had been about to say I need you to come with me, drew up short, the words clicking against her teeth. “What?”
“I need you to get me out of here,” Raine repeated. She glanced around furtively, then crossed the room so quickly that, in the cramped quarters, she almost tripped over her chair. Sheena, still in the corner, soon found herself pinned there, Raine grabbing her by the elbows.
They were the exact same height.
“Sheena, the Chosen was here.” Raine glanced around, as if the walls could hear them. Belatedly, Sheena realized they might be able to. “He was here with some others, and some of them—“ She hesitated, biting her lip.
“Raine?” Sheena prompted.
“They’re from Sylvarant,” Raine said, matter-of-factly. “Their clothes are all natural, not synthetic, fibers. The dye is natural as well. Clothes like that in Tethe’alla cost a fortune, but their clothes clearly did not.” Her eyes kept darting all around the room as she spoke, like she was simultaneously trying both to not stare at Sheena and, also, not stare at something else. “This is the chance of a lifetime, Sheena. I need to find—“ Raine cut off. She wet her lips. “I need to study them.”
“Study?!” Sheena boggled at Raine, who pulled away and started gathering up some of the few objects left strewn around the room, muttering hold these as she shoved the stack of notebooks from under the bed into Sheena’s arms. “I don’t think—maybe don’t study them? But I need you. We need you.”
“For what?”
“We need—I need—to make a pact.” Sheena swallowed around the lump in her throat. “With Volt.” Raine paused, bent over a small trunk she’d pulled out from beneath the bed. “I can’t do it alone, but you... you could talk to it. Him. Whatever.”
Raine stared, still bent, over the trunk. Seeing it again made her seem to think better of it, and she gently pushed it back into its spot.
“I could,” she finally said, an edge to her voice that Sheena couldn’t identify. Pride, maybe? “And you’re going with them?” She looked at Sheena, and her eyes were that clear color again. Clear with hope. Sheena could only nod, which earned a wonderful, wide smile from the other woman.
“That’s marvelous.” Raine stepped forward, grabbing Sheena’s shoulders again. “I’ll go with you.” They were so close together, their chests touching, their breath mingling. Raine’s hands squeezed tighter, her thumbs pressing into Sheena’s collarbones. “I’ve always wanted to meet a real Summon Spirit.”
“Cool,” Sheena croaked, awkwardly pressing the journals back into Raine’s arms and wrapping one hand around the other woman’s waist. It was hard not to think too much about where all they were touching. They were touching in a lot of places. “We’ll, uh.” She cleared her throat. “We’ll be going now, then.”
Just before Sheena could pull her cards and poof them out of there, Raine darted forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth, their lips slotting together like they were meant to match.
“For luck,” she said, and Sheena was so flustered she nearly dumped them in the middle of the street.