Hallowed Circle

In the painting, Ariadne reclined, sleeping, with jaguars at her feet, and in the distant harbor, a boat was sailing away. Though subdued by candlelight, I knew the red of her dress matched my room perfectly. The frame was almost decadent: thick ebony wood with gilded and elaborately carved corners. My poster frames had gold paint on the corners. Menessos's wealth assured the gold on this frame was 24-karat gold leaf.

I thought of the tale… how Ariadne's father, King Minos, demanded as tribute from the Athenian king, Aegeus, seven young men and seven maidens who would be devoured by the monstrous half-man, half-bull Minotaur. Ariadne fell in love with Theseus, the son of Aegeus who had volunteered to be among the sacrificial youth in order to slay the monster. She gave Theseus a spool of thread to help him find his way out of the maze of the Labyrinth where the Minotaur lived. Theseus slew the Minotaur and escaped, taking Ariadne with him to the island of Naxos. There, the gods shrouded his mind and made him forget her. He left while she slept.

I suddenly remembered something: Nana had done a Tarot reading for Joh

For Joh

Realizing that Menessos had sent me a painting with a woman who loved Theseus on it, a woman who gave up everything to be with him only to be abandoned, made a chill crawl up my spine.

"Thanks for the ride, man," I heard Joh

"No problem."

They stopped at the front door. "Sure you won't stay for a beer?" Joh

Erik laughed. "Nah. Gotta get home while Celia's still awake or there'll be no sex." I smiled in spite of myself; I was glad my friend was loved.

"Ah," Joh

"Yeah," I said. "I hear it's just like self-pleasure only it's sweatier and it's supposed to take longer, but that's not always the case."

They both cracked up, but I hushed them with a reminder that Beverley and Nana were trying to sleep upstairs.

Erik said, "Good night. I'll see you at Feral's tomorrow for rehearsal." Phil «Feral» Jones was the bassist for Lycanthropia.

"Right. See ya tomorrow." Joh

Joh

If only Nana hadn't outed me.

The stain I still carried—"a filthy vampire's mark" as Celia had once called it—made me feel repugnant in his sight. That's why I didn't want him to know. I'd wanted him to see me, not the stain.

When I first met Joh

"Red?"

"Yeah?"

"Demeter has a point."

I hadn't expected the Eximium to still be the subject at hand. "I know." I yawned, then stretched. "I just wish she didn't have to make her points the way she does."

He eased into the living room to share the darkened space with me, but my serene room suddenly felt like a jail cell. He might ease into it, but we were going to talk about my stain. It was unavoidable now.

His hands slipped into his pockets. "I want to start sparring with you."

"You fight a lot?" I asked. Bands, bars, beer, and waerewolves. It wouldn't take much to start an all-out brawl.

"With the exception of that vamp, not lately."

That vamp.

"That wasn't a good example," he said quietly. Joh

"Master vampire-wizard. No, not exactly an everyday sort of guy."

His shoulders slumped. Joh

Despite my longing for his touch and knowing how sparring would give us an excuse to be close, I had to admit, "I'm sure there's not going to be hand-to-hand combat in the competition for high priestess."

"I understand that, but the martial arts gives you a mental edge. That couldn't hurt."

"Well, yes, but—"

"When is your Eximium?"

"Starts at dawn this Saturday."

He calculated. "Three days isn't enough time," he whispered as he pulled his hands from his pockets.

"Why do I have to be ready 'as the Lustrata'?"

He came and sat next to me with safe inches between us, hands on his thighs, fingers galloping. "I thought if you knock this other woman out in the early ru

My shoulders tensed even tighter. "No. I'm not going to a

He acquiesced with a grin. "You mean I'm not?"

The glow from the candle warmed the colors of his face and gleamed on the curls of his dark hair. The Wedjat tattoos became less like art and more like shadow.

"You'll have to a

"Why? Why can't I just do this incognito? WEC will probably have some test for me to take as verification or to use as a means to denounce me. Or, worse, they'll examine me like a bug under a microscope. I don't want that, Joh

He considered it. "How about we plan to evaluate tomorrow morning, form a plan, and just hit it? With only a few days to consider your strengths and weaknesses, what to do about them, how to approach them, our options are minimal timewise."

I nodded in agreement. Trying to keep the subject off me, I asked, "How do you know so much?"

Joh

He saw me, and the glistening light of the Lustrata wasn't dimmed knowing I had a stain. Hoping my eyes shone with as much sincerity as his voice held, I said very seriously, "I hope I can appreciate that as much as you deserve."

A boyishly lopsided smile sprang to his face. "I know how you can start."

"Yeah?"

He reached to caress my cheek. "Yeah."

He guided me closer as if I were floating like Aquula—

I jerked away. "Shit!"

Exasperated, Joh

"I forgot to tell you! In the grove, a water-fairy came to me. She warned me. Said three other fairies were plotting against Menessos and might strike at me to get at him. That's who might have been out there in the field tonight." I started to get up. "I'll need to ask Nana tomorrow if anything in the Codex could help and I have to warn Menessos."