Project: New Portia was off to a fantastic start.
Old Portia was no stranger to hopping in cabs at the break of dawn, bleary-eyed and disheveled, but in the past she’d generally been hungover and making a hasty exit from her fuckboy of the night’s bed.
New Portia was stone-cold sober, as she had been for months, halfway across the world from her usual New York City stomping grounds and entirely pissed.
She pulled her hair back out of her face, slipping the scrunchie she wore around her wrist over the mass of thick, kinky curls to secure them. She glanced out of the window, taking in the gated storefronts nestled in the incongruously beautiful old buildings of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. In the back of her mind, she noted the different architectural styles and probable time periods the buildings had been built in—her master’s in art history and string of internships actually hadn’t just been a way of putting off responsibility, despite what her family thought, or hadn’t just been that—but she had more pressing problems than discerning between marble and gold leaf and Victorian or Georgian.
She checked her phone again—no new calls, no new messages, and a shitload of social media notifications. The latter was the norm, the first two were a problem.
Next, she checked the website of her destination, the ugly fonts and terribly formatted photos giving her hives as she searched for and verified the phone number. The website was at the top of her “oh honey, no” to-do list for Bodotria Armory that she’d compiled since her application for apprenticeship had been chosen. She was a walking “oh honey, no” to-do list herself, but one step at a time.
She winced at the trite cliché—too many self-help books, or maybe her therapist, Dr. Lewis, was finally rubbing off on her.
Six months in Scotland? This apprenticeship sounds like exciting wonderful opportunity. You should be proud. Can you tell me a bit more about what you hope to get out of it? Moving to Scotland is exciting, but also a huge change. You’ve talked about the urge to run away before . . .
Change was exactly what Portia wanted, and even Dr. Lewis’s annoying but necessary questions hadn’t made her rethink her decision. Standing alone at Edinburgh station and realizing her boss wasn’t showing up had her reconsidering, though.
Now she was in the back of her cab, ignoring her driver’s slightly unnerving humming and hoping she hadn’t made yet another terrible life decision.
She decided to call the place one more time. She’d called as her red-eye train from London, full of rowdy university kids returning from a night of partying, had pulled into the station. The scent of stale booze and cigarettes that had permeated the train car had both grossed her out and made her desperately nostalgic for wild nights on the town, though how one could be nostalgic for less than a year ago was a mystery. She’d called when she’d found herself the last person in the station halls, except for the dude who’d decided that the corner next to a vending machine would serve double duty as a urinal.
She’d frantically searched through the emails regarding her internship, all starred, tagged, and sorted into a special folder in her email browser—yet another aspect of Project: New Portia. The project had three main aspects really, as she’d discussed with her therapist: getting organized, being a better friend and family member, not using booze and men as an escape from reality. Instead, she was using an internship in Scotland as an escape from reality, which seemed much healthier.
A message from her twin sister, Reggie, slid into view on her phone screen.
Hey, hope you haven’t been eaten by Nessie yet (unless you’re into that type of thing). Some of the GirlsWithGlasses community members saw your InstaPhoto post about being in Scotland for the apprenticeship and asked if you would do updates on the site in the Travel section. I understand if you won’t have the time, but would love if you could. People really dig the Wonder Twins aspect of us making content together. I dig it too, I guess. Later, loser.
Portia smiled and took a deep breath. She and Reggie were still in the process of rebuilding their relationship, mostly via chatting about Reggie’s überpopular site, GirlsWithGlasses. It was Reggie who had forwarded Portia the link about the apprenticeship after one of her followers had sent it in for the weekly Cool Opportunities posting.
Of course! she replied. Another key aspect of Project: New Portia—stop avoiding things that were hard. Letting down Reggie was all too easy, but Portia wouldn’t do that ever again if she could help it.
How did your sister’s illness affect you, Portia?
“Oracle, call Bodotria Armory,” Portia bit out. She left out the “again,” not wanting to confuse the phone, which had already tried and failed to do her bidding at least ten times.
“What’s that, lass?” her driver, who had introduced himself as Kevin, asked. The guy was young, white, with gelled brown hair more fitting for a night at the bar than driving people around in his old Renault.
“Just talking to my phone,” she said brightly, her gaze automatically heading to the left of the car before readjusting and flicking to the right, where it landed on the back of his head. She’d been ignoring his attempts to meet her gaze in the rearview, and she did the same as the peculiar buzzing ring tone that had taunted her all morning sounded through her earpiece.
Hello, you’ve reached Tavish McKenzie, master in arms and proprietor of Bodotria Armory. Please leave a message.
The voice was Scottish. Like, really fucking Scottish—deep with a strong burr that had Portia frantically clicking on the “Yes, I would like to subscribe to your sexy accented newsletter” box. She hadn’t found much info when she’d performed her obligatory internet dirt search on her new boss: a grainy picture on the website, where he was clad like a cosplayer at a fantasy con. A video of him in some type of armor that covered his face, displaying the proper technique for wielding a broadsword. She’d felt the tingles of interest then and had pulled the hand brake before they started barreling toward the Bad Ydeas Towne section of the renaissance fair.
Men were definitely not a part of Project: New Portia, most especially not her boss, who seemed to have forgotten her existence before she’d even arrived. She was done with fuckboys, and fuckbosses for that matter, no matter how sexy their accents were.
“Aye, ye Americans are a strange lot, aren’t ye?” Kevin said with amusement, cutting into her thoughts. “Talking to your phones, kissing your pets, destabilizing countries around the globe.”
Here we go. One of the benefits of being a rich American was traveling the globe, and one of the downsides was getting to be the sounding board against whatever fucked-up policies your country was pushing.
“You have voice command technology here,” she said, then peered around his old car. “Though maybe not you in particular, I guess.”
She had never kissed a pet or destabilized a country—except perhaps for that small incident when her bumbling attempt at “saving” her best friend from her now fiancé had almost cost her their friendship—and nearly deprived the kingdom of Thesolo of their future queen.
“I prefer a phone that doesn’t do my bidding, or anyone else’s, if you see what I’m saying,” Kevin said earnestly. “I hope you cover that camera on the phone. You know the NSA can tap in and peer at you while you’re doing, oh, just about anything.”
Portia sighed deeply and opened her text app, tapped the conversation, International Friend Emporium.
Ledi: I saw the selfie you posted from the train station, with the guy peeing like five feet away. WTF? Where are you now.
Portia: Yes, that was a sweet moment that reminded me of home. My boss never showed at the station and I’m in a taxi with a weird, conspiracy theory-touting Scottish driver.
Ledi: Do you have the pepper spray I bought you?
Portia: Yes, mom. What are you doing up?!
Ledi: Same thing I do every night, Pinky: studying. Let me know when you get to the armory. If you don’t, Thabiso will call the embassy there and have them send out SWAT. Is there SWAT in Scotland? SCWAT? You know what I mean. ♥
Portia laughed. Her best friend Ledi was a princess, after eloping with the prince she’d been betrothed to at birth, but she still studied like a pauper and would use her pull to protect Portia if necessary. That knowledge eased the tension in her neck a bit. Someone had her back, even if only through an invisible link between their mutual phones.
“Did you get a hold of anyone?” Kevin asked. “At the armory?”
Portia’s “mind your business” hackels rose, and she dug in her purse so that her pepper spray sat atop all the other crap. He looked harmless enough, but after months of her mother warning her how rough Edinburgh could be—Have you seen Trainspotting?!—better safe than sorry.
“Yes. I’m messaging with him now.”
“Tav knows how to send a text?” Kevin caught her eye in the rearview mirror and Portia stiffened, though he was smiling. “I guess maybe he’s finally getting it together now that he’ll have you for an apprentice.”
“Am I going to have to mace you?” she asked, too tired and frustrated to execute the niceties that had been ingrained in her through years of deportment lessons and dealing with her parents’ rich family friends.
He barked out a laugh and smacked the wheel. “Aye! Definitely American!” Portia wasn’t sure if the statement was meant to be an insult. “Don’t fash yourself. I take lessons at the armory, and everyone’s been on about this American apprentice arriving this week. Cheryl checked her InstaPhoto and said she was beautiful and glamorous, and seeing as how you’re going to the armory and you’re. . . .”
Portia didn’t think psychopaths had the ability to blush as bright red as Kevin was up in the front seat, so she relaxed her hold on the pepper spray. Anyone who would call her glamorous after hours in transit deserved the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, I’m glad someone is looking forward to my arrival. Mr. McKenzie seems to have forgotten I’d be arriving this morning, and that he was supposed to be meeting me.”
“Oh, yeah. Tav is . . .” Kevin paused, and in the rearview she could see his brow crease. “Tav is a right bawbag at times. But a bawbag who grows on you, I suppose.”
Portia pulled up her browser and searched “bawbag scottish slang.”
The term bawbag is a Scots word for “scrotum,” which is also slang for an annoying or irritating person.
Considering how little contact she’d had with the man who would soon be teaching her the ins and outs of Scottish swordmaking, she couldn’t quite disagree. They’d spoken briefly on the phone, once, and he’d kept the conversation to a minimum—at the end of the call she’d realized that he’d barely spoken at all. Her other correspondence had been with someone named Jamie, who seemed pretty cool.
“Yes, leaving me stranded at the station is a bawbag move,” she said, and Kevin laughed.
“Aye, this is going to be grand,” he said, then the car slowed and stopped just in front of what looked like a blue wooden telephone box. Portia was fairly certain she’d seen Regina wearing a T-shirt with one of those things on it, with the words police box around the top.
“Here we are, Bodotria Armory,” Kevin said, hopping out.
Portia stepped out as Kevin busied himself pulling her bags from the trunk—boot—of the car. In the two pictures on the website, the building had looked charming, but in the early morning dark with mist rolling in from the sea and creeping over the cobblestone streets, it had a distinctly menacing air. It was Georgian neoclassical, if she was guessing correctly, three stories of perfect symmetry and imposing bulk. The gray sandstone was dark and grimy with age and moss grew in fissures between the stones. The windows were all dark, except for a circular Palladian window at the very top floor.
“There better not be any wives locked in the attic,” Portia muttered.
“No, Tav is single, though not for lack of ladies trying, so no worries there,” Kevin said as he handed off her rolling suitcase. “I’ll wait for ye to get in, lass.”
“Thanks,” she said, then took a deep breath.
I could use a shot or two, for fortitude.
She’d forgotten how scary trying new things was when you were sober. She shook her head and began moving for the door when a loud cry broke through the fog.
“Oh, stop it, you fucking tosser!” It was a woman, and she was mad or scared or both. “I said cut it out!”
Portia ran to the police box, but the door was locked.
“Oh, those were decommissioned ages ago,” Kevin said calmly, as if there weren’t a crime in progress.
All of the crime alerts from Bodotria her mother had flooded her inbox with popped into Portia’s head and she didn’t think. Her hand shot into her purse, her suitcase clattered to the cobblestone, and she ran off toward the sound.
“Och. Wait!” Kevin called out, but she was already turning around the side of the building and stepping through the fog into what seemed to be a courtyard. She heard the sounds of struggle, then saw movement in the fog. The courtyard was illuminated by a few dim lamps, and she could make out a smallish woman with a crown of pink hair trying to fend off an attacker. He was large, broad shouldered, and looked like he could bench-press both Portia and the woman at the same time. The woman kicked out.
“Let go!” she growled, and the man laughed.
“Make me.”
Portia was paralyzed by panic for a moment, but she had taken self-defense courses. She had played this out in her head, what to do if she saw someone being attacked.
She took a deep breath then ran up—holy shit this guy was huge—and elbowed the guy from behind, bouncing back a few feet from the force of the impact. Her hit didn’t seem to faze him, but it got his attention. He turned to face her. His skin was tanned, surprising for all the talk of cloudy days and pasty British men she’d heard about. His eyes were a beautiful shade of olive green beneath the fringe of salt-and-pepper hair that fell into his face. It was cropped shorter on the side, revealing that the hair at his temples had already completed the transition from salt and pepper to salt. His face was that of a man too young to be going gray, though rough-hewn, with gray-tinged stubble. Portia blinked, and then she saw a flash of metal and the man’s attractiveness became the most trivial of matters.
He had a knife.
Portia focused on those gorgeous green eyes, lifted her hand, and sprayed like he was a cockroach in her living room.
“What the fuck!” the man dropped to his knees, hands pressed to his eyes. He muttered a string of words Portia didn’t understand except that they were invective against her.
“She told you to let go,” Portia said, feeling a strange light-headedness that was probably an adrenaline rush. She also felt a little rush of pride—she’d only been in Scotland for about an hour and had already stopped a crime in progress. She was already composing the text message to her parents, some variation of See? I’m not a total fuck-up, when she felt a burning that had nothing to do with victory.
“Ow, ow, OW!” Her can of pepper spray clattered to the ground and she brought her hands to her eyes, too.
“Did you stand downwind?” the man said, and for a moment she thought he was crying but then realized the strange sound was his low laughter. “Oh, you bloody tosser.”
“Tav, are you okay?”
Through her tears Portia could make out the woman who’d just been attacked run to her attacker and begin to help him up. Her attacker named Tav.
Wait.
“Go get some milk, Cheryl,” he said, pulling himself to his feet.
She heard Kevin then. “Did you just mace Tav? Oh, this is brilliant, man.”
She heard the sound of a cell phone camera shutter, which in modern times was the equivalent to a death knell. She spread her hands to cover her face more fully, regretting that she’d pulled her hair back.
“Sprayed herself, too,” Tav said, and Portia somehow knew that “the bloody idiot” was implied.
She pressed her palms into her eyes, waiting for Cheryl to bring the milk, or the earth to open and swallow her. She’d been in Scotland less than an hour and had managed to assault the man who would be her boss for the next six months—and herself in the process.
Project: New Portia was off to a fantastic start.