War Bird

12. After Sundown.

We enter a long, narrow room. No natural light of course, just high walls in grimy brick. Loads of small beds line each side, and each one has a little trunk at the foot of it. Some of the beds have personal touches attached to the metal frames; drawings, letters, photos, dried flowers. I can smell female bodies, perfume and sweat. I’m fit to choke.

"It's not much, but this is home," Grace says. "This is the Nightingale dormitory."

"No, no way. I have to sleep here?" I say. "With other people and that?" 

"Only our Commanders get private quarters." She leads me to a bed at the far end of the room. "This one has recently become available. You're lucky there’s space enough for you."

"Lucky?" The bed is visibly sagging and the linen is all bobbly. She must be mad. This is like the worst bed I've ever seen. I'm knackered and freaking out, and this bed won't help matters, not one little bit. I don’t even want to know how it suddenly became available neither.

"Very," Grace says calmly. "We'll round up some spare clothes from somewhere, you'll store them in this." She points at the trunk at the end of the bed and it's a scuffed, tired looking thing with a wonky lid. She then walks to the other side of the room, pushes a door and shows me a communal bathroom. A row of open showers and several toilet cubicles are on the side nearest me. The other side has a bank of sinks resting upon a chipped, tiled floor. This is beyond a joke. Shared bedroom and a shared shower? Yuck.

"The girls all take turns in cleaning the public areas," Grace is saying and I turn away. If she thinks I am going to clean up after a load of strange girls I don't even know, she can guess again. "I know what you're thinking." Grace smiles.

"Don't tell me, you're psychic as well as magical."

"No, you just aren't especially subtle," she says. "You behave as if you're somehow above all of this, like you’re going to be leaving here at any moment. But if you're here because of a Lectiones Anima, then I'm afraid you have to accept that this is home for now. You have to fit in. Do your bit."

She can't be for real, she has to be brainwashed. I feel almost sorry for her. I give her the coldest stare I can. "So you're telling me, if you were ripped out of your home just like that, and forced to be here, in this...dump, in the middle of a war, you'd be fine with it?"

"Yes. After all, it is my calling." She clears her throat. "My duty."

"Whatever." She might be nice but she’s also a total pushover if she thinks this is acceptable. Does she even have eyes? Can she even see what a dirty, stinking craphole this is?

"I don't know what you're used to where you come from, but you should know that you aren't the only girl around here that would like to go home." She flushes, then gestures at the bed. "It's getting late. I'm to find you toiletries and some clothes to sleep in and I suggest you get some rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day."

And with that she strides out, head held high. For a moment I feel kind of guilty for being so rude, but then, nah, screw it. I can act how I want. She hasn't been dragged away from everything she's ever known to fight in a war that has nothing to do with her. I'll do the minimum to stay here in the safety of the compound, but the minute I find how to break the spell, me and the boys will be out.

I slump onto the bed and close my eyes. Asher and probably Ed too, will have to at some point, go up top, where all the danger is. The Nazis and this evil Sorcerer who’s happy to murder his own people for wealth and power. Asher might have to actually kill someone. Perhaps more than one person, maybe lots. That's if he doesn't get killed first. The thought makes fear burn like acid in my tummy. How could they treat us like this? Like, the way Kull walked around Asher as if he was just a piece of meat in the butcher's shop, then announcing possession of him. Asher's not even eighteen yet. Yeah, he acts like he has it all figured out, but he's still just a kid, like me, like Ed. And Ed, a spy? When I picture a spy, I think of James Bond. Sophisticated. Intelligent. So not Ed. Maybe he'll be such a let-down they'll give him a safer job, take him out of harm's way. 

That hope at least makes me feel a little better and I settle back on the pillow, which is as uncomfortable as it looks. The mattress is bumpy and hard, bits of it poking into me. Even so, I’m drooping with exhaustion and I drift away into sleep.