The noise of Penelope moving through the library was soothing somehow, of papers and scrolls being tidied and placed in their proper racks. It definitely helped that I was resting on the chair near one of the windows, allowing the sunlight to warm me up slightly.

My eyes were closed, and I tried my best to just focus on my breathing and the sounds going on. Nothing else. I didn’t want to remember about what happened yesterday, nor did I want to look at the various records—or at least not right now. Just let my mind relax, like what Penelope told me I should do the moment she saw my face this morning.

It was pathetic to immediately come to her after everything, but I knew keeping myself alone and in the barn wouldn’t be any good for my mental health anyway.

Trusting Penelope was easy, especially at how much she showed how right my confidence within her was.

I didn’t know how long I was like this, my only sense of time merely came from a growing, steady warmth trickling into my body from the sun’s light. From how many times I heard Penelope moving across the room, even as she occasionally came near me, hands touching my skin with a gentle murmur that caressed myself before going right into my mind. She never stayed long, merely enough to smoothen any frown, or any worries that might have formed.

“Let your thoughts go, Stella.” Her whispers easily settled deep within me, even as I wondered why I was listening instead of doing anything else. “I’ll hold onto them for you… you need to let all the tension go.”

Her fingers brushed across my cheeks, going down toward my neck—but not anywhere more intimate. I still wore my jacket, even though Penelope had asked me whether I wanted to take it off or not. All my weapons were there, so it was easy to say no, but I still find myself a little disappointed when Penelope’s touch didn’t touch more of my bare skin anyway.

“That’s okay. Everything’s okay.” She soothed me, any possible ripples within my mind stilling as calm settled over me. As if I was kicking back after a stressful, and yet successful day. To just let my thoughts drift… being taken by Penelope.

Something’s off about that, and I couldn’t find it in myself to say anything. Everything was so much easier when I listened to Penelope, and I found my head nodding whenever she whispered more and more words into my mind. All of them easily slipped into my head, to be forgotten until she needed me to remember.

No need to worry about what happened yesterday. Just focus on the future, on what I could do. Dwelling was always a bad idea, and I would always be thankful that Penelope’s here to gently wipe away the downward spiral I was sure would happen to me if she didn’t soothe me. Didn’t say the words that made everything buzzy, my mind so full and yet empty.

“How are you feeling right now?”

Her question was sudden, and yet I didn’t feel any sort of surprise. As if my mind had just adjusted to the fact she was there and there was nothing to worry about. She would always be there.

All I could give her was a nod, and she gently brushed my hair. Her nails digging slightly into my scalp, not sharp, but just a pressure that made me sigh and further fell down into whatever this situation was.

“You are so delectable like this, little Hunter.” Her words sounded sharper now, more dangerous—as if she just wanted to pounce on me. But my mind and my body felt like they weren’t fully merged, more like tethered against one another. Something could affect one of them, and the other would eventually get it—but they would always be less, and this was the same.

The worry and fear that flared up were easily smothered by my trust within her.

“But let’s not be hasty. This isn’t fun if I just snap you like this.” Her whispers should be worrying, should be making me stand up and think. But my mind was like molasses, weighed down by whatever else that made it harder to really rouse anything up. “So… you don’t have to remember any of this. Only what I tell you to, is that okay?”

Her hand was still cold—a contrast against the warmth that still filled me to the brim—and she easily made me nod, making me agree.

There was nothing else to do, except letting her do whatever she wanted. She had my permission, after all.

I blinked awake, mind still slow from the dreams I had. Of gentle touches and comforting whispers I never had gotten even back then in the past. It was easy to dismiss those as merely myself wishing for some sort of reassurance after that disastrous yesterday, as I slowly get up from the chair, stretching and popping a few joints while doing so.

“Did I slept long?” I asked, yawning slightly as I looked at the amused look flitting across Penelope’s face.

She shook her head. “Nah, you looked comfortable, so I didn’t wake you up.” Her smile calmed me down, and I gave her a nod of thanks.

“Yeah… think that’s what I need, thanks.” I murmured, sitting back down but feeling much, much better than this morning. When what had happened yesterday just crashed down, a reminder of how much I didn’t manage to do anything—not even much information on the vampire beyond her gender. I sighed softly, looking at Penelope in gladness that she’s just… full of patience. “Sorry that I’m being so down today, this is only our second meeting too.”

Instead of saying anything, Penelope dragged another chair and sat next to me, her eyes looking toward the outside of the building instead of myself. “That’s okay. You are… well, this is probably insulting, but you are the most interesting person I have met in ages.”

Only then did she turn her head toward me, and I almost swore that her eyes almost glowed.

“But I have heard your issue.” She said then, and my breathing nearly stopped. I squeezed the chair’s arms, worry immediately pressing back down on me—not as bad as before, but enough. “Well, I just have a little suggestion for you on what to do—you are feeling really stuck right now, right?”

I nodded, the motion easy somehow. As if agreeing with her was something I had done over and over again.

“Maybe instead of focusing so hard on the thrall—” Oh, that made sense. Even though Corina’s too alert for that possibility, but Penelope’s right. That was the only reason why Corina refused and being so hostile. “—you should focus on the vampire instead? That way the monster can’t continue to reinforce whatever conditioning she had done on Corina, right?”

Her eyes certainly gleamed this time, full of predatory delight that made me shiver. But her words swirled in my mind, sounding truer the more I rotated it. I should focus on what I could do, and since I knew I couldn’t convince Corina—better to aim against the vampire. Once she’s gone, then I could help Corina however she wanted. Maybe bring her back to Telehan with me… The church would help her, for sure. They had a program for these kinds of things, to rehabilitate people so they could integrate back into society. Nonetheless, I needed to focus on how to do Penelope’s suggestion first though.

Giving my agreement felt the rightest thing to do, and I really wanted to. But after that disastrous yesterday, my mouth stayed closed, even though her words continued to go round and round inside my mind. Acceptance would be so much easier—but I didn’t say it. My worry was strong, and even with Penelope’s touch, I still find it haunting the back of my thoughts, pressing down and reminding me that I wasn’t one of the better Hunters in the church.

“Stella.” She said, sharp and enough to make me jerk and look at her properly again—when had she gripped my hand? I didn’t know, but I looked at her, and she breathed carefully. Exaggerating them, so I ended up following and imitating her until I could feel my elevating heart rate started to slow down again. That the encroaching darkness around my sight started to thin and melted away as if they were never there. “Better?”

I nodded, not really trusting my voice just yet. She smiled, and the two of us stayed there, next to one another, with me just feeling her palm against mine. She still didn’t feel warm, no matter how long her hand was within my grip.

“Do you want to tell me why you become panicked?” Her voice was soothing, the same resonant quality as before. As when we first met and then when I just arrived… but that thought slipped out of my hand soon after, and I instead answered her properly with a shake of my head. “That’s okay, how about… you do something that usually soothe you down? Surely there’s something you tend to do to let yourself relax.”

My first instinct was to say no, that there wasn’t anything. Shame encroached me, a reminder that I shouldn’t have anything else beyond studying to be a better Hunter. But Penelope’s eyes still looked down upon me, and that single denial died in my throat.

“Yes.” I whispered in the end, my mind remembering the one thing I had that wasn’t really useful against monsters. Not a weapon, or a shield or anything. Just something I ended up buying on a whim when I was on a mission. I had some extra money, and the illustrations on each of the cards were well done. They were a little expensive, but in the end I still got them. “A tarot deck.”

A flush started to grow across my face, embarrassment churning my stomach. No self-respecting Hunter had them, and I also didn’t tell anyone in the church about it. If the higher ups knew… well, telling me to go back into training would be the least of it.

But Penelope merely smiled at me, as if what I told her wasn’t anything groundbreaking. That it was normal. “Tarot huh? What do you find soothing about it?”

Her question sounded so natural, and the way her fingers gently ran across my skin, sending goosebumps across them—I couldn’t help the way my mouth opened and gave her a proper answer.

“I have done the readings a few times and—they tended to be right.” I whispered in a rush, remembering the rare times I had time to open the deck without anyone else seeing. “I know interpretation is a spotty thing, but they tended to lean to truth, to what will happen.”

Or maybe I was just projecting, thinking and inference the analysis I wanted from the draw instead of anything else.

“Then let’s do it, shall we? What do you want to read?”

Penelope continued on, not letting me even attempt to refuse. Even though she’s the one asking me to do the reading.

“Maybe myself?” She grinned, and her smile looked a little sharper. Another shiver passed by my back again, and I shook my head.

“No, no… I don’t trust myself in reading for others.” I whispered, knowing and understanding how I was merely a dabbler in this art. But for myself? It should still work. As I decided on that, it was easy to realize that I did want to read how this vampire issue would resolve. How it was affecting me and how it would end.

I breathed, and I could feel the way my desire fell into the same road others had taken, those who also used the tarot to look into the future, to glimpse it from the tool—I caught onto that thread of magic, of ritual and the same thing repeated over and over until the flow of magic understood what shape people wanted it to become.

The deck came out of my inner pocket, my hand deft when it was in this situation. Shuffling them until there was something in the air, a vibe that told me to stop. I placed it on my lap, forgetting that there wasn’t a table near me right now. Penelope stayed close, no warmth coming off her body as she interestedly looked at what I would draw.

Even if it wasn’t proper, I couldn’t stop right now anyway. My hands moved, a mixture of will and ritual and puppetry—for the past. My breath caught as I saw what it was.

Reversed Wheel of Fortune.

The golden color stared at me accusingly, and yet I found myself unable to stop. I had started this, and I had to do it until the end. I placed it down near me, on my thigh where there was free space. The second card was drawn easily as well.

Death.

The white of the skull looked at me, and my heart pounded. I didn’t have to worry, this wasn’t a tower—that was the one people always murmured about, worrying completely of what it would mean if they drew it. This one’s meaning should be better. I tried to convince myself of that as I placed it down, too, next to the first card. Now it was time for the last card, for the future.

Star.

All three drawn, according to my wishes—and the feeling of the ritual started to leave me, not fully but receding. Even the magic that had enclosed around my hands drained away. I slumped back on the chair, head feeling especially light after… everything. It wasn’t even any sort of heavy or huge ritual, but I could feel the tiredness that settled in my bones.

In the end, even in the form of a ritual, it still took more magic than I wished it to. So I stayed there, looking at the cards and trying to understand what they really mean. Just letting my brain buzz and try to work despite the fatigue that hit me, one I knew happening because I overexerted myself. Just a few moments of rest and everything would be fine…

“Are you okay?” Penelope’s voice was sudden, and I nearly jumped, hand almost going into my pockets to grab one of my weapon—before I remembered that I was here, in the temple and library. With the only person in this village who thought of myself as a friend instead of an enemy. Slowly, I gave her a nod, and the few concerns swimming in her eyes receded away. “Alright, then. Was it too much?”

I shook my head. “No, this kind of ritual just took that much energy to perform.”

While I still wished it took less, there’s nothing to hope for in rituals—they always asked the same, and I probably just felt it more deeply in my bones this time because I was still out of it from yesterday. Despite not doing a lot of magic, a contest of will wasn’t conducive with not using my magic.

“Right, let’s just read this first.” I said, cutting off whatever else Penelope might want to say, and she settled back, letting me have the space needed to spread the cards a little further. One on my left thigh, the other in between the two, while the last one on the right. They didn’t glow beneath the sun, but I stared and, remembering that I needed to be polite, finally asked. “I… will mostly just rattle off the possibilities here, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not. Go on, tell me what these meant and how do they affect your chances with the vampire.” Penelope had leaned close to whisper that, her voice making me shudder a little. I shook my head, ignoring the pleasant sensation, and focused on the possibility.

“Wheel of fortune… I will usually lean toward the fact I need to be adaptable. Although it’s not like I wasn’t doing that already.” The sleep powder burned in my jacket, even if I knew it was just staying there inertly. That was something I wouldn’t have accepted in my arsenal if I only wanted to do what the church wanted. “But that’s not what it meant with a reversed one, no…”

Penelope stayed silent, not cutting into what I was doing, and I found myself easily continuing, the words weirdly finding its way out of me with ease. The ritual helping me to finish, perhaps? Because the reading was a closing of it, the end result that needed to be said for it all to have some meaning.

“A turbulent past, the fact that I faced so many hardships.” I sighed, caressing the card, feeling how smooth it was against my fingers. “I… didn’t tell others before this, but I had been having issues with the church. My last mission went fine, well… as fine as it could.”

I still remembered the way that monster, some sort of were-monster, transforming between human and a new form. Not wolf, like the usual that would have roamed across Telehan. Carapace, segmented body—the desperate, almost sobbing call of how I was a dog for the church, that she just wanted to survive. I ignored it all in the face of the corpse of a man, his head missing. That was all the evidence I needed. I killed her. A shot through the head, the blessing imbued within the bullet scorching the rest of her body until naught left but ash.

The memory was bitter, and I almost wanted to try stopping—but as I looked into my card, that desire melted away. Maybe that’s the magic pulsing, pushing me to do it no matter what I wanted, but it was hard to believe that. More likely it was all myself.

The reading continued on, the explanations aired out to be said in the air, so everyone could listen.

“The events left me shaken, uncertain and…” Did I really need to tell her about the bullets? No. I clacked my teeth together, fighting the words that still wanted to spill out, to let it ring in the air like a shameful confession.

Penelope gently clasped my wrist, and I wondered if she would have soothed, telling me I didn’t need to say the trapped speech, the one still pulsing within my throat.

“You have to let it all out.” She whispered, and my attempts frayed as I desperately shook my head, wanting to tug my wrist away. Her fingers tightened, making me unable to move unless I wished to hurt her. “You are holding it back too much, and that’s… not good. Let it go, Stella. I won’t leave you.”

Her eyes looked as if they were burning, a fire within herself that pressed down upon me—convincing me to finally let go what I was holding back.

“I murdered her. I didn’t think much, just believing what the church told me, and even if it’s true, and she deserves death—” I choked here slightly, a hiccup that made my stomach twist and nauseous. “—I still didn’t think, and that… that made me lose my belief.”

It’s not only that, of course. The taste of blood in the air. The empty village I saw as I passed through. The smile of Hunters stronger than me, saying how they had done their duty, ensuring no monsters stay alive no matter what. People I believed to be good and trying their best to protect other humans.

I shuddered, disgust and nausea both sticking within me. “Without that, well… I don’t have much. I still have the few things that have been blessed, but nothing new would take.”

I let my eyes close, rocking slightly against the chair with a groan. The people in the church had looked at me suspiciously when I asked another blessing for the bullets—and I ended up having to say that there wasn’t any need, withdrawing my request before anyone could have interrogated me. After that, I was sent here.

None of that came out, the compulsion that came from a reading was done for now. It would come back in a moment, for the next card, but I took the rest when I could. Penelope was still touching me, her thumbs gently doing circles against my skin. I held onto that as an anchor, the reading surprisingly taking so much out of myself this time. Likely because the recent things were heavy, the weight still on myself despite the time that had passed.

Slowly I shook her touch away, breathing shallowly as Penelope let me go, just like I wanted. I wanted her back again at the same moment, her solidity being what make me able to keep moving… but I didn’t voice that out and settled back to look at the cards. Just so I could focus and continue. The next one. The card that meant my current present, and how it was Death. The words came out of me easily this time, smooth without much issue as I let myself sink and focus, remembering what this card would mean to myself.

“Death… isn’t bad. In some ways, it just meant that after the problems of the past, I have something to look forward to. Profound changes are coming, and I have to adapt to the future instead of clinging to the past. That what might serve me before wouldn’t. Or at least that’s how I’ll look at it.”

I let my words died in the air, the truth of what this meant pressing down on me. Because I was slowly getting it, the cards weaving a picture I was no longer wanted to see to the end. Because what was I, except for what the past crafted to make present me? And yet, the call for how troubling my past was there, and the present telling me of the upheaval that should be coming soon—albeit not in a ruinous manner. It wasn’t the tower, after all.

Death was more for the period of renewal, of great change…

“That sounds like you won’t have much issue with the fight, then?” Penelope asked, gently guiding me back to the present and why I was even asking for it.

I nodded, as her understanding seemed right… especially considering the Star I got for the future. The more I thought about it, the calmer I found myself.

“Yeah, especially when you consider what Star means when it’s the representation of my future.” I whispered, the hope started to build in my chest. “Because it meant I’ll gain what I want—well, I suppose more of what’s best for me in the future. That the course is now set no matter what.”

I rubbed the card, feeling the smoothness of it beneath my fingers again. In some ways, it’s relieving to know that there wouldn’t be an issue later on, especially down the line. The more I looked at them, the more certain I was that this reading was the right choice—the Star looked at me, as if it could flay me open.

“I’ll believe in you.” I whispered at it, and the magic that had been pressing down on me melted away, and I finally turned to Penelope. She was smiling. Not wide and crazy, but full of satisfaction. Her gray eyes continued to watch me pleasantly, and the tranquil feeling easily spread within my body.

Then she blinked, and that momentary connection broke, the fuzziness in my mind suddenly gone as if I had just shaken off the cobweb that had formed inside my brain. I shook that off, not sure why that even happened momentarily. But with the bright time ahead…

I grinned and put the tarot cards back first, caressing them before placing them back in their appropriate spaces, before all of them were back in my inner pocket. “And now it’s time for me to think how I can defeat that vampire…” I whispered, mind immediately working and dismissing a few of the original plans forming in my mind.

To just attack her in the castle was suicide, no matter what the tarot said. So she had to find a way. Penelope leaned close, listening to me as I continued to mutter and working things out—the act of talking them out loud helped me to consider which one would be the best way to go. She also helped me occasionally, her words cutting in when I thought of a plan. Penelope understood that I wanted to catch the vampire, to grab her so she would stop attacking the village.

When my thoughts eventually turn to the dilapidated barn I stayed in—that’s when I stood, the realization that the place would be perfect striking me like a lightning bolt. The building was far enough from the village, and yet close to the forest—and Tristan didn’t live there any longer. I was sure I could convince him that Flo, his female goat, needed to stay elsewhere for a while.

“Right—” I whispered, about to turn and walk out when I felt Penelope’s hand catching my wrist. She’s looking at me, the glow within her eyes almost piercing through myself. “What is it?” My words sounded hoarse, and yet I didn’t pull away, and just keep looking right into those stormy greys.

“Are you sure you are reading it right?” She asked again, worried because she probably didn’t understand what I had said, about those magics and bait. “You finished the last one really fast, barely dwelling on them like the first one.”

So I smiled at her, full of earnestness, so I could reassure Penelope.

“No need to worry, it’s a success.” I said, the certainty I had when I was reading it still there, warm and nestled deep inside my chest. The ritual had approved, agreed on what I read out of it. “I’ll come back to you once everything’s done.”

We looked into each other, with my head staying high and confident, and her trying to dig and find out what I actually feel. But all I projected was my own belief, and sooner than later—she finally let me go, giving me a nod.

“Thank you for the trust.” I whispered, and Penelope smiled kindly at me.

“Of course, Stella.” Her voice seemed to gain a different timbre for a moment after, the words making me shudder. “That plan will surely work, you don’t have to worry about it.”

The last few niggling misgivings I had—albeit so little, I didn’t really focus on them—melted away as it they were never there. My shoulder relaxed as I gave her a nod, before finally turning around and started walking away.

It’s time to fight and show that vampire you could defeat her.