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Thicket grinned, giving the makeshift sword one last flick before angling it towards the ground. “Have I proven myself enough to use a real sword now?”
His eyebrows shot upward. “After thirty minutes of training you really think you’re ready for one?”
Thicket gripped the makeshift sword tighter. “We are supposed to go to Sleeria at the end of the week, which means I have less than six days to practice. If I want to be able to use this in my fight against Lavender, I can’t waste all of my time on a stick.” Thicket extended her hand, gesturing for the sword he always kept at his belt.
Marcellus shrugged. “If you insist.” He drew his sword from its sheath and handed it to her hilt first. Thicket’s fingers tightened around the pommel. The leather encasing creaked beneath her grip, singing to some deep, slumbering part inside her.
Marcellus let go and the sword tip plummeted to the ground. Thicket stumbled as the weight of the blade dragged her down. Her cheeks ignited, burning away all of her arrogance. Marcellus laughed, one of his rare, true laughs that always caught her a little bit off guard—until she realized it was at her expense.
“Heavy, isn’t it?” he said, amusement mingling with his words.
Thicket hauled the sword up but only managed to lift it a few inches before the nose tumbled back into the dirt. “How on earth do you swing this thing?”
“Practice. And strength, which you apparently lack.”
Scratch learning how to use a sword in time. Would she even be able to pick it up?
“New plan,” Marcellus said. “Every morning before we train, you’ll do exercises to build up some strength. You’re in great shape since the curse retained your physique throughout the century, but these past few weeks without proper exercise have made you weaker than you should be.”
Thicket winced, imaging whatever training regime he had planned for her was bound to be brutal.
“We’ll stop here for today,” he said, retrieving his sword and sliding it back into its sheathe. “Now, you will honor contingency number one.”
Chapter Eleven
Under closer inspection, the farmhouse was even dirtier than Thicket originally thought. It took all her willpower not to jump at every dust bunny or chunk of debris that skittered beneath their feet as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Her experience with the Fate Eater was enough to last her a lifetime. As bad as the dead bugs were, she did not want to know what powers living ones possessed. She didn’t think her nervous system could handle the stress.
Frames lined the hall at the top of the stairs, memories of the family who had lived here, though the glass was too caked with dust for Thicket to make anything out. She let her imagination wander, piecing together a family grinning at whatever this world’s equivalent of a camera was. She willed them to be peaceful, happy, whole—the opposite of the photos that had decorated her house in the Dream World.
It had never truly felt like home, not even when she had believed it was real. The farmhouse, however, once cleaned, wouldn’t be a horrible place to live. It was spacious and cozy, peaceful in its isolation.
Marcellus entered the first bedroom on the left, the same one she had slept in last night. A shudder wracked her body as she took in the room once again, imagining what could have been lurking underneath her pillow.
“I still can’t believe you let me sleep in a room full of dead bugs,” she said, hugging her arms around herself in an attempt to ward off her revulsion.
Marcellus threw open the curtains, sending an explosion of dust to cloud the room. “I did my best to clean up.”
Thicket eyed the fabric that had covered the bed, suspecting his best was lurking beneath it.
“You won’t have to worry about that again tonight, though,” he grunted as he forced one of the windows open. A wave of much needed fresh air flooded the room. Beneath the mildew and dust, Thicket could detect the scent of astromeia from the vines clinging to the farmhouse’s exterior. “We will spend the rest of the day cleaning.”
Cleaning? her brain echoed, dumbfounded.
“As much as I hate the idea of sleeping on that bed again,” Thicket said, throwing her most distrustful look in the mattress’ direction, “shouldn’t we be doing something a bit more productive with our time?”
“What makes you think we won’t be productive?” Marcellus turned and gave her a smile. It wasn’t the kind that welcomed innocent dimples or sent hearts exploding with butterflies. It was the kind that made her dread his next words. “You will clean this entire house using only magic.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?”
“But I don’t know any cleaning incantations.”
Given how the Dream World had so many gadgets to make cleaning easier, she was sure there were also a mixture of spells and enchantments specifically designed for household chores. Her only opportunity to have learned them would have been by watching Lotta, however the girl was scarily good at her job and finished all of her tasks before Thicket even noticed.
“You don’t have time to practice new incantations to the level of efficiency you would need to benefit from them,” Marcellus said. “I want you to master what you know.”
“But I only know the basic spells. What could I possibly do with those?”
