Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund Read Free Book Online Page A

wearing a camouflage
habit.”
    “But a cute one,” Phil pointed out.
    All up and down the dorm hallway, I could hear the other hunters groaning as they tried on our new hunting uniforms. The outfit consisted of thick, polyester, camouflage-patterned split skirts that fell all the way to our ankles, a long camo headscarf, and matching long-sleeved, high-necked jackets.
    Cory stomped into the room, the hem of her skirts dragging several inches in her wake. “I’m melting,” she whined. “Literally and figuratively.” She gathered up some of the extra material. “Who did they make these things for, Amazons?”
    Valerija followed her, wearing the split skirt and a grubby, V-neck white undershirt.
    “Amazons are pagan,” I reminded Cory, and scratched at my neck, where the stiff material of my jacket irritated my skin.
    Phil folded her feet up beneath her on my bed. “Certain religious sisterhoods are required to wear particular clothes at all times—even during day-to-day activities. These uniforms have been adapted from those nuns’ hunting outfits.”
    “But I thought we didn’t have to become nuns,” I said.
    “And you aren’t,” Phil replied. “But the Church would prefer that we aren’t gallivanting around Rome in tank tops and shorts, that’s all. Think of it like going to Catholic school: you don’t have to be Catholic but you still have to wear the uniform.”
    Cory groaned and fell back on her bed, dislodging her headscarf.
    “I like it,” said Valerija, doing a few practice squat-thrusts on the shag carpet between Cory’s bed and mine. She stroked her recently healed jaw and hiked up the waistband of her skirts. “It is roomy.”
    Zelda appeared in the doorway. “They aren’t so bad. Not high fashion, but sturdy. I’ve torn holes in the knees of most of my trousers. These will hold up better.”
    “You should see what I have to wear,” Phil said. “I don’t even get a split skirt.”
    “Is yours camo, too?” I tried running in place. The split skirts were much heavier than the microfiber cargo pants my mom had packed with me to come to Rome. Still, in the thrall of hunter magic, sprinting after my prey, would I even notice them flapping against my thighs?
    Phil brushed her bangs off her face. “Why would I need camo? I’m not a hunter.”
    “Why would
we
need camo?” I asked her. “We’re not hiding from unicorns when we hunt them. We can’t.” The monsters had the same magnetic sense of our position as we did of theirs. This was why untrained unicorn hunters were a danger to themselves and others. For some reason, unicorns were attracted to hunters—we drew them in like sirens drew hapless sailors.
    Oops, there I went with the pagan references again.
    Cory sat up abruptly, her headscarf askew and her corkscrew curls sticking out from her head like wacky antennae. “I’m going to talk to Neil. There has to be another option.”
    But the conversation proved fruitless. “I’m sorry, Cory,” Neil said to her later, when it was just the four of us. “But the Vatican has been quite explicit about their expectations for our behavior if we want their financial support. The habits are just the beginning.”
    “What?” I said. “What else is coming?”
    Phil sucked air in through her teeth. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing that Giovanni went back to New York.”
    “No boys?” I asked. “So we’re back to that, then.” And I’d be back to sneaking Giovanni around when he came to visit over Christmas.
    Neil cleared his throat. “You have to understand their position. We moved into their sacred space and turned it into a summer camp.”
    “They were using it for storage!” Cory smacked her hand against the upholstered arm of her chair. “It was a ruin. Some sacred space. The art was crumbling, the catacombs were filled with rubbish, the scriptorium was burned to a crisp. We paid them their going rental rates, and we restored some of its former