Page 65 of Truthfinder’s Promise

This again. It wasn’t that Meredith didn’t want to. Maybe she’d even looked up a few self-defense basics on YouTube before realizing it was hard to practice them without a partner. But with Val it always came down to one thing. “Are you going to let me keep my shoes on?”

“No. Heels compromise your balance.”

“I’m perfectly balanced. I’ve spent a lifetime in heels. Besides, if I find myself in a situation where I need to defend myself, I am going to be in heels, so shouldn’t I train in them?”

“It’s just going to make you more likely to injure yourself while you’re learning. Take them off, we’ll upgrade to heels later.”

Just suck it up and spit it out. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I mean I can’t. You remember a few months ago when I took that spur-of-the-moment trip to Rome?”

“Of course I remember. You bailed on movie night for a random vacation.”

“I didn’t go to Rome. I hobbled around on crutches for two weeks because I’d decided I was finally going to take up jogging.”

“I don’t follow.”

“When I was growing up, I was allowed to take my heels off in two situations: when I was asleep or in the shower. Adults who wear heels a lot can have their muscles and tendons shorten. I started wearing heels when I was twelve. I don’t think I even developed normally.

“I’ve been working on stretching everything out. Anyway, that week I got tired of it all and decided fuck it, I didn’t care if it hurt, I was going to put on some tennis shoes and go for a run.”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t get very far before it felt like every part of me from the knee down snapped and contracted. So if you want to teach me self-defense, fine, but I’m keeping my heels on.”

“Why didn’t you just have Siren fix it? I’m sure she could.”

“Because I wanted to do something on my own. I wanted one thing in my life to not be another sob story about my mother. By the time I would have asked for help, Siren was being all weird, and now that that’s sorted out, she’s probably not going to be doing significant Aspect work until that kid comes out. I’ll ask her later.”

Valkyrie nodded. “Okay, keep the heels on and show me to your gym.”

Meredith groaned. “Another time, Val? We both know if I get in a fight, an Aspect Shield will always be my better line of self-defense.”

“I’m just trying to help you work through your issues. Physical activity will get you out of your head.”

“I appreciate the intention. But I don’t think physical aggression is the method that’s going to best help me through my issues.”

“Then what will?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have so many problems. Speaking of issues, can I assume you’ve noted the giant security vulnerability glaring us in the face?”

Valkyrie got a pinched expression, looked up to the second floor, and snapped a silencing spell around them.

“You mean the fact that Serenity, Dom, and Hel apparently walked right through your wards?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even know they came through.” Wards could be set to different levels of alertness. Almost without fail, people set them up to let them know if anyone not allowed access attempted to force entry. Others, like Meredith, also set them up to alert them any time an allowed individual passed through—no point in being surprised by a visit if your wards could give you a heads up. The exception being that, since wards allowed animals to come and go freely so as not to screw with the environment, most people did not opt to be alerted every time a bird or fox or mouse crossed their property line.

Animals. That was it. “They were all shifted when we came in. I’d wager anything they were shifted when they crossed the property line. The ward didn’t react because it thought they were animals.” And that presented a host of new problems. “Do you have any idea how many Aspect spells are built specifically around a human component?”

It wasn’t something the average Aspecter would have cause to think about. Most people cared that spells worked and, once they passed their Academy Intro to Aspect Theory class, didn’t give too much thought afterwards to how they worked. However, if you had dated Jace when he was working on his Academy thesis you had, by nature of his intense enthusiasm on the subject, absorbed a great deal of that information practically by osmosis.

“How many?” Valkyrie asked.

“Every single spell designed to work on the physical body as a generic concept, as opposed to a specific target. So every widespread combat, protective, or mind-based spell.”

“Shit.” Meredith could practically see the gears turning in Valkyrie’s security-obsessed brain. “How long would it take to design new spells that include a Shifter physique?”