Lightheaded and dizzy, with a ferocious giddiness. That’s how it made her feel, to defy her mother.
Music pumped the air with electronic beats, bodies moving on the dance floor. Girls in glittering heels and tight-laced dresses, guys in t-shirts and leather jackets bobbing to the music, all of them pressed up against each other.
Dilna was wide-eyed with fascination, barefoot in her ceremonial gown, layers and layers of deep russet fabric glimmering with embroidery under the club’s lighting and taking up the whole side of the booth she occupied. Dark brown curls hung loose from under her shawl, jewels glittering from her elegant headpiece. Her shoulders were hunched over the drink sitting untouched in front of her.
She felt chilly all over, her body overtaken with shivering as her teeth chattered, even though she was sweaty from her escape and the number of bodies all around her. So many men and women. So wrong.
Absently, she murmured apologies to the Great God on behalf of her company, and for herself, for witnessing such forbidden activities, though she was much too curious to take her eyes away.
There was a nudge from under the table against her shin, and she yelped, with a small jump, pulling her leg up.
“Easy,” Noon said, across from her. The spirit occupied the form of a strikingly beautiful woman, pale round cheeks and obsidian eyes, wild black curls tamed into a clip, a glittering white dress of laces. She glowed, unnaturally clear, as she sipped from her own drink. “Stop with the staring. Keep your head down. You’re lucky everybody’s hammered enough that a simple Glaze is keeping their focus away, but don’t tempt your luck.”
Dilna leaned over, with a nervous grin, “So we’re safe here, correct, Spirit? But for how long?”
“For as long as I say so. Drink. It’ll be good for you.”
Again, Dilna looked down at her drink, wrinkling her nose. “Mr. Silas said I shouldn’t accept open drinks from people in a place like this.”
“Mr. Silas is currently hunting you down with every other witch, warlock, and officer in the city.” Noon took a long sip of her drink. “And I’m here trying to figure out who’s side I’m supposed to be on. Soooo. Take your pick.”
Dilna grimaced, but lifted her cup to her lips. Before spluttering and setting it down with a clatter, scrubbing at her tongue and lips with her gown’s long sleeve.
“Alcohol?” She sounded distraught.
“Great for nerves.”
“What kind of Spirit of the Temple prescribes alcohol for their ward?”
Noon raised an index finger, as she downed another gulp. “Not a ‘Spirit of the Temple.’ I’ve been banished for so many years now that I’ve lost count. I don’t even know what decade we’re in, and I’m still sifting through all your memories rattling up into my skull. You’re Dilna, I take it.”
“May your blood always burn crimson,” Dilna murmured without thought, the traditional greeting of witches. Before she startled, and broke into soft laughter. “Oh, but you have no blood. You’re a Spirit.”
“We’ve got the case of the giggles, have we? Don’t run away from home often?” Noon’s response was dry and unamused.
“Never!” Dilna smiled, wide and friendly. “It’s only my second time, after last night.” Shaking her head, “Sorry— can you believe it? I defied my Spirit Bond! I never thought such a thing would be possible.” She stretched out her fingers, waving it through the air between them. “I feel our bond like it should be tangible. Noon Syla. What an odd turn of events. I don’t remember hearing your name come up over my studies at all.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Dilna snorted. She leaned over her elbows on the table. “Being chosen as my Spirit is a great honor, you know.”
Noon leaned away, setting her glass down. “Should I thank you, then, from the bottom of my heart, for resurrecting me out of my banishment and into this hellscape of the human plane?” With a sigh, she massaged her temples, blue and purple light pulsing across the angle of her cheekbones and catching on her lashes. “You don’t understand. None of the Spirits will be happy to see me here. You don’t want me. You can do little worse than having me for your Spirit, and now we’re stuck together.”
But Dilna was watching the dance floor. And then she looked at Noon with the kind of glint in her eye that Noon didn’t like.
“Spirit, you must have a spell for getting someone unconscious.”
“And what if I do?” Noon folded her arms, curious.
Dilna looked down at herself, “Well, I can’t run away in this kind of dress.”
They were locked in a handicap stall with a mostly-naked girl hanging between them, as Dilna worked the dress off.
“This is starting to feel so wrong,” Noon commented, after a minute.
“Help pull off these buttons, will you? I can’t reach them.”
With a sigh, Noon settled the undressed girl against the toilet seat and the wall before coming over and commanding Dilna to put her hands up.
“We’re the same height, this isn’t working,” Noon grunted. “Kneel.”
Dilna crouched on the bathroom floor, and they got the dress off with much huffing.
“I’m right, this feels wrong,” Noon repeated, as Dilna wiggled into a set of pants and a snazzy shirt with wide sleeves.
“Much better,” Dilna said, wrapping her hair up in her shawl again. She placed her headpiece into the unconscious girl’s hair as Noon watched. “Don’t you worry about it. She’ll look lovely.”
…
next!
shawl