Gods & Thieves

32. Wolves and Wine

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"Are students even allowed in here?" I ask, warily looking around as Loretto leads me past the pools and their steam.

My mentor has been right--no one cares, too busy splashing in the thermal water, drinking, and talking.

Besides, the flickering languid lights of the candles here and there, their reflections shining in the water...it's an ambiguously relaxed atmosphere so everyone is off their guard. We are almost halfway through the hall when a waiter, at least, notices us and brings us two glasses of wine. Thank gods, he is dressed.

Loretto accepts the wine, so I do, too. The bittersweet drink flows down my throat and dulls my anxiety a little, but I still feel like a trespasser. Like someone can glance at me--at any moment--and find some flaw of mine, say something, so something...I feel helpless and vulnerable while just one pathetic towel on my hips protects me from the world around.

And if I focus on the sensations of my body, I can even feel the breeze crawling under my towel! Hot, clammy, deceptively lulling but tickling my very core and depriving me of my last confidence! Damn the breeze, I think, gloomy. If being a shaman means showing my core to everyone, then I don't want to be one anymore.

"Technically, no one would have stopped you if you had come here by yourself, Loretto replies, casually sipping faer wine. Hardly enjoying it, though, because Tayen's eyes are intent and studying the chaos reigning around, as if looking for something.

And Loretto's confident eyes are reassuring, at least. Yes, Tayen is also naked. Yes, very close to me. Yes, if I sniff, I can even catch the familiar aroma of wild berries of Loretto's favorite shampoo.

But everything Loretto's inch has become so familiar, so comforting, so faer presence doesn't frighten me, doesn't disturb. Tayen, on the contrary, like a lighthouse in a storm of this chaos, like an amber sun in the dark, walks next to it, giving me stability, which I want to cling to with my whole soul. In which I want to hide.

"But you're right, of course," Loretto goes on. "Low-ranking shamans, including non-ranked shamans like you, usually don't come here uninvited. And mentors usually don't make friends with their students so as to invite them."

"And you come here often, Loretto?"

"The topic of gossip isn't supposed to attend, and I'm most often the topic, am I not?"

"But then we'll look suspicious."

Glancing at the crowd at the bar in the center, I suddenly realize that I see Yaling. She's gesturing fervently, telling a couple of young shamans something, and definitely enjoying the evening, unlike me. She's alone, without her mentor, but I guess her crazy book club earned her an invitation here, nevertheless.

And again I feel ashamed for a moment, because well, I don't mind the shamans I don't know, I don't mind Loretto--what haven't I seen in faer body already, right?--but...Yaling, wearing nothing but her student bracelet? My eyes involuntarily run over her thin, petite figure, over her breasts and hips, swaying to her gestures, my eyes focusing as if memorizing everything--although I asked my brain to do the exact opposite! And how am I going to look her in the eye after all this? Remembering all this?

"We won't be suspicious," Loretto says, pausing for a second, and then stepping on the warm stones that make a path somewhere toward the corner. I'm glad to turn away from Yaling, to follow. Loretto's soft-looking skin, caressed by shadows, is even calming to look at. "People might only think I'm showing off in front of my first and only student, that's all."

Loretta's voice sounds either smug or mocking, and as I walk, I can't help but ask, "And you? Showing off?"

Loretto looks over faer shoulder at me before answering. Perhaps the wine works though, because something inexplicably naughty flashes in faer dark eyes. Or am I imagining it in this darkness?