Jay felt anger sweep through her at Jon's words. What did he see that she couldn't? Unbeknownst to Jay, her strong emotions had triggered some of what Jon and a few others could see. Her once dark brown eyes were changing to white.
Jon just continued to grin excitedly. It had taken less time to trigger a reaction than he thought. He stood and patted her shoulder. "You'll see for yourself soon enough what makes you special."
That didn't appease her anger as Jay just simply huffed. She was frustrated about his words because she couldn't figure out what he meant. In truth, it was more that she was angry at herself. For so long, she had only ever been told she was nothing.
Yet Jon kept referring to her as someone special. It was creating a war inside her mind. She doubted she would ever see what he saw. She had some skills, that was something she couldn't deny. But that was the only thing she could think of. There were no doubt people with far greater skills and experience than she.
Jay let out a frustrated sigh as Jon laughed. Jon patted her head and began the lesson. He guided her through the parkour course, giving her pointers on how to push her body to its limits for the best outcome.
Her already trained body found little difficulty pulling off the stunts. That was until he decided to add some difficulty to the training. When she had finished another round, he pointed up at the ceiling beams.
He had a big smile as she looked up at the beams. The tallest wall in the course wasn't high enough to reach it without tools. How did he expect her to get up there? Jay looked at him, her eyebrow arched. Did this man lose a marble?
"Surely you've had to face difficult obstacles while surviving. Use the environment to get up there. It's going to be a must in your missions," Jon said as he turned and walked back to the bench he had sat on previously.
Jay had indeed faced some difficult obstacles while out stealing and escaping. None of those situations had ever required her to climb onto a high ceiling though. She had always had to climb onto rooftops and had even set up paths throughout the city and neighborhood that she had memorized for the optimal escape.
Jay's dark brown eyes scanned the walls, looking for anything that could possibly be used as a step. Jon watched her closely. She felt his gaze on her as she quickly mapped out a trail to the ceiling. Ignoring her steadily increasing exhaustion from the training, she sprinted to a wall and jumped.
She used her momentum to run up a very short distance up the wall and grab onto a bar sticking out of the wall. It held a plain gold and green banner. Jay was glad it held her sudden weight well and hauled herself up onto it.
Next, she jumped and ran another short distance across the wall to a window. She grabbed the windowsill and noticed the upper part of the window had just enough of a ledge to hang from.
Jay jumped up and quickly clung on, resting her feet against the glass. She felt it give way just a bit. It was old and in need of repair. Somehow she felt that it had purposely been left that way for training.
Another short run covered the last of the distance and she jumped the small bit of height at the edge of the wall. She twisted and grabbed onto the edge of a beam before pulling herself up onto it.
Jay panted a bit as she kneeled on the sturdy beam. Jon applauded her from below.
"Well done. One more time and then you can go rest," he said.
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The days passed quickly. Each day after that was filled with training and learning about the brotherhood. Her body was improving from both the training and meals as each day passed. She gained weight and felt like she could do anything with her newfound strength.
Jay would try and get Kyle to tell her more about the first history lesson from before but Jon would always suddenly show up and escort her away for training or another lesson.
Before she knew it, a year passed. Today, Jay had plans to finally hear the rest of that story. She looked around, making sure Jon was nowhere near her. Kyle was in the library today.
One of the servants had said that Jon was in his office. Pleased that the coast was clear, she darted around the corner and down the hall. She slipped into the library but her excitement vanished instantly when she saw Jon waiting for her instead of Kyle.
Jon laughed at her disappointment. Jay sighed as she tried to figure out how the man always got in the way of her goal. Was he teleporting or something? For a moment, the idea actually seemed plausible. No, it made perfect sense!
Jay shook her head as she tried to rid herself of such an out of this world thought. There was no way that he actually teleported to the library. There were no servant pathways to the library behind the walls. She knew this from having studied the blueprints while investigating one night.
The servant hadn't lied to her about Jon's location. Jay had a great relationship with all of the servants. She had even learned that she could tell when someone was lying to her during one her training sessions. This odd ability had never been wrong.
Teleporting was all she could think of to explain why he had reached the library before her. Jay rested her gaze on Jon, their eyes locking. Jon had a playful expression. Jay knew he enjoyed messing with her and getting in her way.
She also knew she was the only one he did this with. It was kind of annoying but she liked that it kept her on her toes. Jay used it as a sort of training. Her goal was to avoid him finding her and if she could achieve that, then she knew she would have a better chance at completing assassination jobs stealthily. Plus maybe even finally learn the last bit of the story Kyle had yet to tell her.
Jay's mind went back to teleportation. There was no technology that she knew of that could allow such a thing. As far as she knew, it was something straight out of a novel. She wanted to ask but felt foolish at the thought of asking. It was another thing that was added to her growing list of things to investigate.
The whole estate and its inhabitants were full of secrets. Jay wanted to discover them all. If only Jon would stop getting in her way. There was a nagging feeling that she should know the secrets but it was as if Jon was waiting for a right time to reveal them. Or he was testing her to see if she could figure it out herself.
The silence grew between the two. Jon knew she was finally starting to catch on to his tricks. He was excited to see how she would go about confirming it. Jon couldn't resist the urge to ask her about her thoughts and opened his mouth to speak but then Violet opened the library door.
She had a big smile on her face as her sudden appearance startled the two. "Oh, Jay," she sang, draping an arm over her shoulder, "come help me decide what to serve for the upcoming dinner party!"
Jay looked at her, a bit unsettled about the fact that she hadn't sensed Violet coming. That was another ability Jon had taught to her. Jay had an awareness of everyone in the building. Though if she wasn't paying attention, someone could easily sneak up on her. She chided herself for letting Violet surprise her.
Even Jon was chiding himself. As Jay agreed to Violet's request, her gaze drifted back to Jon. Jon seemed a bit disappointed by his daughter's interruption. Unable to come up with a reason why, she let Violet drag her away to the kitchen.
The dinner party Violet had mentioned was being held as a celebration for some newly appointed apprentices. Five initiates had finished the first part of their training and had been given masters to train them while on actual missions.
The party was in five days. They had a menu made up but there were some changes that needed to be made due to lack of availability of a few ingredients that couldn't be replaced. Jay wondered how her own celebration would go once she had become an official apprentice as she helped Violet decide on what recipes to use.
Who would her master be? She had met several of the long time assassins as her time in the mansion increased. They all seemed to be reliable and wise. There were a few that she had struck a quick friendship with when they stayed for a short time. She hoped it would be one of them. It would make it easier on her anxiety to learn under someone she was on good terms with.