Nox stood in the basement and could not move.
It was not the same basement where he and Lin had dumped the mutant's body in the slums. A different one. Beneath Sylvana's house, there turned out to be a room whose existence Nox had not even suspected. Spacious, with stone walls on which dim magical lamps burned, with a floor of dark wood, scratched and scorched in dozens of places. It smelled of old sweat, metal, and something else for which Nox had no name. Something cold and sharp, like the air before a storm.
He stood in the center of the hall. Across from him stood Sylvana. Unarmed. Without any visible artifacts. She just stood, relaxed, arms at her sides, and looked at him with that expression he had learned to recognize. Not cruelty. Not indifference. Just assessment. She looked at him like a problem that needed to be solved. Like material to be worked with. And that gaze made Nox more uncomfortable than any weapon.
«First rule,» Sylvana said. Her voice echoed hollowly through the empty hall. «You do not use Shadow. At all. Today, you work only with your body.»
Nox frowned.
«Why?»
«Because Shadow is an extension of you. If your body is weak, Shadow will be weak. If you cannot stay on your feet after three blows, no magic will help you. Do you understand?»
«I understand.»
«Good.» She shifted her weight slightly. Barely noticeably. «Then attack.»
Nox lunged forward.
He moved as he was used to in the slums. Fast, abrupt, without warning. It worked there. No one expected a skinny boy with empty eyes to suddenly start a fight with his bare hands. There, he won through surprise and desperation.
Here, it did not work.
Sylvana moved out of the line of attack in one smooth motion, not even straining. Nox flew past, stumbled over his own foot, somehow kept his balance. He turned. He lunged again. She moved aside again. This time, she swept his leg, easily, almost carelessly, and Nox crashed to the floor, his shoulder hitting the wood.
The pain was dull and familiar. He stood up.
«You move like a street brawler,» Sylvana said. «That is fine for the slums. But not enough for what awaits you.»
Nox wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at her, breathing heavily.
«Then teach me to move differently.»
«I will.» She took a step forward. «But first, I need to find your limit. Attack. Again. And do not stop until you cannot stand.»
He attacked.
Again. And again. And again.
Twenty times. Thirty. He lost count after the fortieth fall. The floor had long since ceased to be just hard. It had become an enemy. It hit his back, his shoulders, his knees every time Nox fell. And he fell. A lot. Very a lot.
Sylvana did not tire. She moved with the same smooth, almost lazy grace as at the start. She did not sweat. Her breathing did not grow heavy. She was simply everywhere Nox tried to reach her, and nowhere he could land a blow.
On the fifty third fall, he did not get up.
He just lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe. Air entered his lungs in jerks, sharp and painful, as if something inside had broken. Maybe it had. He was not sure. His entire body ached uniformly, a continuous roar in which individual impacts could no longer be distinguished.
Footsteps. Soft, almost inaudible. Sylvana walked over and stood over him.
«Get up,» she said.
«I cannot.»
«You can.»
«Nox cannot.» He closed his eyes. «Nox is dead. Leave him here.»
Silence. Then:
«Nox, look at me.»
He opened his eyes. She stood over him, blocking the light of the magical lamps, and her face was in shadow. But her eyes glowed violet, brightly, like two small fires.
«Your sister is upstairs,» she said. «She is sitting by the window, waiting for you. She is not crying. She is not complaining. She is just waiting. Because she believes you will come back. That you will get up. That you can do it.»
Nox looked at her.
«If you stay here on this floor,» Sylvana continued, «she will understand. Not today. Not tomorrow. But she will understand. That her brother gave up. That he did not get up. That he decided he could not go on.»
She leaned lower.
«Do you want her to understand that?»
Nox clenched his teeth. So hard that his jaw ached. He pressed his hands to the floor. Slowly, very slowly, he pulled his legs under him. He stood up.
The world swayed. It held.
«Good,» Sylvana said. She stepped back. «Now again.»
He attacked another twenty times. Or thirty. Or a hundred. Time ceased to matter. Only movement remained. A blow. A fall. Pain. Get up. Again.
When Sylvana finally said «enough,» Nox did not immediately understand what it meant. He stood, swaying, and looked at her with blurred eyes.
«That is all for today,» she said. «Go upstairs. Lin is waiting.»
He nodded. Slowly, as if his head weighed three times more than usual. He turned toward the stairs. He took one step. A second. On the third, his legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the steps.
Sylvana caught him before he hit his head on the stone.
«Easy,» she said. Her voice was strange. Not cold. Not assessing. Just strange. «I will carry you.»
«Nox himself,» he mumbled.
«Nox himself tomorrow. Today, it is me.»
And she carried him upstairs. Easily, as if he weighed nothing. Nox hung over her shoulder, staring at the floor, which slowly drifted downward. His head was empty and hollow, like an abandoned house.
Lin was waiting upstairs.
She stood by the stairs, small, in her dark blue shirt, with her light hair pulled into a messy ponytail. When she saw Nox on Sylvana's shoulder, her face twitched. Just a little. But Nox saw it.
«He is alive,» Sylvana said. «Just tired.»
«I see,» Lin said. Her voice was even. Too even. «Put him on the bed.»
Sylvana carried him into the room. She lowered him onto the bed, carefully, almost gently. Nox sank into the mattress as if into a cloud, and for a second, he thought he would never be able to move again.
«I will wake you for dinner in an hour,» Sylvana said. «Eat everything you are given. Tomorrow will be worse.»
She left.
Lin stayed. She sat on the edge of his bed. She looked at him. Her gray eyes were serious and somehow very adult.
«Does it hurt a lot?» she asked.
«A little.»
«You are lying.»
«A lot.»
She nodded. She reached into her pocket. She took out a small vial with something dark inside.
«Sylvana gave it to me. She said it was ointment. For bruises.» She opened the vial. She sniffed it. She grimaced. «It smells terrible.»
«Go ahead.»
Lin began to apply the ointment to his shoulders. Her fingers were cool and careful. She worked in silence, intently, as if doing something very important. Nox lay and stared at the ceiling. The pain slowly receded, replaced by a dull warmth.
«Lin,» he said.
«What?»
«Are you afraid?»
She paused. She continued rubbing in the ointment.
«Of what?»
«Everything. This house. Sylvana. What is happening to us. What will happen next.»
Lin set aside the vial. She wiped her hands on a cloth she took from her other pocket. She looked at him.
«I am afraid,» she said honestly. «But not the way I used to be.»
«How then?»
«Before, I was afraid we would die. Every day. That you would not come back. That there would be no food. That a mutant or the Fangs or someone else would come. I was afraid of everything at once, and it was…» She searched for the word. «Like drowning. All the time. Even when everything was quiet, I was still drowning, just more slowly.»
Nox looked at her.
«And now?»
«Now I am afraid that you will not make it. That I will not make it. That the Moon Goddess will come and take us. But…» She fell silent. Then: «But now we have a chance. Do you understand? Before, there was no chance. We were just waiting for it to end. And now we can do something. You can. I can. And that…» She searched for the word again. «That is a different fear. It does not drown you. It pushes you. Forward.»
Nox lay and thought about her words. A seven year old girl. No, already eight. Her birthday had gone unnoticed somewhere back there, in the slums, amid hunger and fear. An eight year old girl spoke to him about fear the way adults did not.
«You are amazing,» he said.
«I know,» she answered without a trace of a smile. «So are you. That is why we will survive.»
She stood up. She walked to her bed. She lay down. She turned to face him.
«Sleep, brother. Tomorrow you will suffer again.»
Nox closed his eyes.
Sleep came instantly. Heavy, dark, without dreams. The last thing he heard before drifting off was Lin's quiet breathing and the distant hum of a magic train somewhere outside the window.
And downstairs, in the basement, Sylvana stood in the middle of the empty hall and looked at her hands. At the venous network pulsing beneath her skin. At the blood that was her power and her curse.
«He will make it,» she said aloud. Not to herself. To someone who was not there. «He is your son. He will make it.»
Silence was her answer.
She lit a cigarette. She took a drag. She exhaled the smoke into the darkness.
Tomorrow would be the second day. It would hurt more. It would last longer. It would be more merciless.
But today, the boy got up. Today, he did not give up.