A Practical Guide to Sorcery [Fantasy/Female Protagonist/Adventure]

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 89 - Hiraeth

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 21, Thursday 12:20 a.m.​

"What do you think?" Lord Westbay asked Professor Lacer.

"I need more information. The Canelo girl's testimony is vital. Why was the Raven Queen here tonight? Why give my apprentice a blessing?" He said the last a little quieter, looking over Sebastien contemplatively. "How did she escape from the building?"

Despite the wondrous warmth he had created, Sebastien's shivers were not subsiding. With an effort of will, she lifted her head from her knees. She just had to keep going a little longer.

"Also, did she somehow trigger the boy's loss of control?" Kuchen muttered.

Thaddeus turned to Gera. "Tell me everything you know about the Raven Queen. At this point, being the only one in this room to have interacted with her directly, you seem to be our foremost expert on the woman."

Everyone else seemed equally enraptured by the promise of details on the elusive Raven Queen.

Gera shook her head. "The things I say must remain confidential. She has warned us against spreading rumors attached to her name. My brother ordered that we not speak her name to outsiders. They say she can hear when you pray to her, and she may be able to listen in when she is spoken of."

Professor Lacer scoffed. "That is nothing more than horror stories created to frighten children and adults so ignorant of the mechanics of magic they might as well be children. It is implausible in the extreme, and though I hesitate to use the word impossible, this approaches that hyperbole."

Gera shook her head. "You have not met her. But in any case, I doubt she is a woman in the sense you mean. She may take the form of one, but that means little. She presents herself as a human female, but when I met her there were anomalies, if you knew enough to notice them, and I do not dare to guess at her true form."

"Anomalies?" Professor Lacer asked impatiently.

"I believe she is a creature of night. Of dreams and shadows. My people have tales of them, passed down from many generations before. Her gaze is black and empty, a pupil without iris, and imparts an instinctive wariness when you meet it. She smelled of darkness, old blood, and the charge of a thunderstorm. Feathers grew from her scalp and wove through her hair, which shimmered with the iridescence of a raven's feather. And despite all this, everything about her screamed that she was utterly inconsequential, nothing more than a shadow in the corner of your eye, best ignored."

Sebastien was impressed with the hushed, theatrical tone of Gera's voice and the inventiveness of the description. She was more confident than ever that Oliver had sent the woman, because surely Gera had guessed who she was, even in this form, and was doing her best to differentiate Sebastien, and even Siobhan, from the identity of the Raven Queen. With Gera's help, the rumors would grow into such fantastical relief that an unassuming young sorcerer would be almost impossible to associate with the Raven Queen. '*The ward against untruth is almost certainly accompanied by a divination to suss out lies. She doesn't have my divination-diverting ward, but obviously she's got some other way to bypass both.*'

"She wields great power over the domain of dreams. I witnessed her grant a different blessing with this power, accomplishing what not even the greatest thaumaturges who I called upon for help before her could." She raised her hand to stop Professor Lacer before his mouth could even fully open to question her. "I will give no details of this boon. You may believe me or not, but I will not speak more of it." When he didn't argue, only scowling, Gera continued. "Stories say her kind may travel on the night wind or through the shadows themselves, and I witnessed this myself."

'*Yes,* definitely *lying to keep me out of trouble*.' Sebastien almost wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it, and the shivers were subsiding as the amusement distracted her. The whole thing was ridiculous, totally unbelievable. Being in a tent with a group of powerful, influential people who were taking this seriously was almost surreal. But as long as they believed it, working from such a fallacious base premise would always lead them to the incorrect conclusion.

"She was there one moment and gone the next," Gera continued. "We searched everywhere for her, but there was not even a hint of her passing. Some of the stories say her kind can disappear as soon as there is no mortal eye looking upon them. She likely disappeared in the same way tonight. As for her purpose here, who can say for sure? The Raven Queen is mischievous, vengeful to those who anger her, and benevolent to those who please her. The Morrows disrespected her and gained her ire. The boy..." She turned her head back to Sebastien, and for a moment the pressure on the anti-divination ward increased, though Gera had been avoiding placing too much scrutiny on her for most of the conversation. "Perhaps he amused her with his curiosity and bravery, to get so close to a deadly Aberrant. Or perhaps she was sending a message. Her blessing is great. So can her wrath be. I say with complete honesty that it is my great desire to never gain her ire."

Sebastien gave the shallowest nod of thanks, which went unnoticed as everyone else was staring at Gera, who let out a breath in what was a convincing show of settling anxiety. "Shall we go to see the building? Perhaps I can provide insight into the events that transpired within, or I can help question some of the other witnesses. The Morrows, perhaps, if this Canelo is refusing to speak."

Lord Westbay and Investigator Kuchen left with Gera to look over the other survivors and the crime scene.

Professor Lacer hesitated, obviously interested in going with them, but remained with Sebastien while Vernor insisted on going through her own list of questions from the top. He refused to leave Sebastien alone with her, using a free-cast spell to create himself an invisible chair in the air, upon which he lounged with ominous relaxation.

Vernor asked for details as if trying to catch Sebastien in a lie, but seemed self-conscious around Professor Lacer, whose thundercloud scowl grew darker with every question and passing minute.

To Sebastien's relief, Vernor seemed to find nothing unusual about the bracelets or Newton's Conduit, and after recording all the data she could, including capturing their likeness from every conceivable angle with an artifact, she returned everything to Sebastien, except her battle wand, for which Sebastien did not have a license and couldn't argue to keep. She doubted she would have ever been allowed even those concessions without Professor Lacer, and it was probably against their protocol. His influence was surprising, and lent more credence to the rumors that he had once been part of the Red Guard.

When the woman turned back to her notes, Sebastien tucked everything back into her pocket. '*I'll burn the bracelets. Just in case.*' She wished she was powerful enough to free-cast the spell that would destroy any bodily shedding or remains, as that would have solved the issue from the beginning.

Halfway through, Titus Westbay returned to the tent, informing Professor Lacer that they were taking the Morrows to Harrow Hill Penitentiary for further questioning, but that Tanya was being remanded to the University infirmary at the insistence of one of the healers.

'*Munchworth probably doesn't want her being forced to talk.*' She wondered briefly if Tanya was safe. '*Would they orchestrate some "accident" to keep her quiet?*' But there was nothing Sebastien could do about that. Tanya had chosen her own fate, so she put it out of her mind.

When they reached the end of the questions, Sebastien's eyes burned with fatigue and her thoughts felt foggy.

Vernor began to ask the same questions again in different ways, and Sebastien resisted the urge to sag with defeat. "Newton was my friend," she whispered, pressing hard on her burning eyes to keep tears from welling in them.

Professor Lacer stood abruptly. "That is enough, I think. *Well past* enough. My apprentice has answered all your questions, and is in need of rest. He will be returning to the care of the University healers immediately. If he remembers any other relevant information, I will contact you."

Vernor tried to protest, but Lacer ignored her, effortlessly undoing the ward around Sebastien's bed.

"Wait!" Vernor yelled. "The confidentiality vow!"

Lacer sighed, running a hand over his face. "Quickly." His short beard and the hair of his eyebrows were both tousled, lifted from his skin as if they were afraid of his ire and trying to escape his face. Or perhaps it was static electricity. But it made him look wild, and even more dangerous.

Vernor hurried out, returning a minute later with a glyph-carved human skull, which she thrust toward Sebastien. "Place your hand on this and repeat after me," she said.

Sebastien leaned back from the skull, eyeing it suspiciously. "I will not do any sort of blood vow."

"No blood is necessary. With this artifact, your word is your bond," Vernor said impatiently, pushing the skull toward Sebastien.

"How does it work, then?"

"Rare components, advanced artificery," Professor Lacer said. "It will place a strong compulsion on you to adhere to what you promise."

Sebastien wanted to question them further, but it was obvious she wouldn't be leaving this tent without making the "confidentiality vow," and she was too exhausted to continue putting up a fight. She placed her hand on the skull.

It was warm under her frozen fingers, and she felt a tingle in her chest next to her heart.

"Be sure to state your full name. The one you were given at birth," Vernor said. She had obviously memorized the vow, and recited it quickly, pausing after every sentence for Sebastien to echo her. It was surprisingly simple and straightforward.

"I, Sebastien Siverling, will not divulge any details regarding the events of this night to those who do not have prior knowledge of them. This includes any information relating to the individuals involved, the events that took place, or the operations of the Red Guard. This restriction does not apply to members of law enforcement, including any members of the Red Guard."

'*Will the vow truly restrict me, since Sebastien Siverling isn't the name my parents gave me? Even now I only use it some of the time.*'

With that, Professor Lacer allowed her to pack up her belongings in her bag and led her out of the tent. He kept a hand around her shoulders, as if to support her.

It was well past midnight by then, and after such a long, difficult day Sebastien was embarrassed to admit that, without him to lean on, she might have stumbled under the weight of her exhaustion.

Despite the late hour, the street was bustling with coppers and more than a few members of the Red Guard. She couldn't see the building that had been the setting for Newton's last moments, but could tell where it was from the bright light diffusing through the fog and up into the sky about a block away.

Professor Lacer led them past the edge of the cordon, flashing his University token at the nervous copper guarding it.

Apparently, he'd paid his carriage to wait for him all that time. He helped her inside, sat across from her, and they were off immediately, bouncing briskly along the cobbled street.

Her eyes wanted to drift closed, but his steady gaze on her kept her from relaxing.

Suddenly Sebastien felt the searching tendrils of a divination sliding off her ward.

There was no overt indication of the spell Professor Lacer had just cast, except for his piercing gaze. "When was our first meeting?" he asked suddenly.

She wanted to ask, "What?" but she knew from experience in his classroom that he hated "inane" responses that vaguely requested a repetition of the initial question without imparting any information about the source of confusion, and which were most often used to stall for time. Instead, she was silent for a few seconds, then said, "We met on the last day to apply for the entrance examination. I don't know if you remember. We didn't speak. I had been arguing with Damien. Our first official meeting was during the oral portion of my entrance exam."

"What theoretical research am I helping you with?"

She was quicker this time. "Decreasing or even eliminating the need to sleep."

"What caused you to experience Will-strain earlier this year?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it and narrowed her eyes. "Why the questions?"

He gave her a small smile. "Good. I needed to be sure it was you. They say the Raven Queen is a shapeshifter, after all. I will admit I am slightly disappointed. Since you are indeed Sebastien, that means my apprentice is an incurable reckless idiot, and I am not about to have the opportunity to speak discreetly with the Raven Queen."

Sebastien's eyes widened. "You..." She trailed off, so many questions in her mind that she didn't know which one to choose. Perversely, she was reassured that he did indeed have a way to free-cast a divination that would suss out deception. It didn't seem to work on her, but she would know when he was trying to cast it.

"Do you have any messages for me, now that we are alone? I assure you, it is safe to communicate freely."

She shook her head silently, still in shock.

He pursed his lips in disappointment. "Any urges that seem illogical or out of character?"

"No."

"Think carefully."

'*He took Gera's testimony much too seriously.*' She was quite sure that the Raven Queen hadn't placed any strange geas or compulsions on her, since she *was* the Raven Queen. "I'm sure."

He settled back, one finger tapping against his large Conduit absentmindedly. "Do you have any idea why she gave you her blessing tonight? Specifically, a protection against divination?"

Sebastien suppressed a shiver of unease. "The prognos woman suggested that the Raven Queen was just being impulsive, or sending a message about her power? The coppers haven't been able to find her all this time. It could be a jab at them," she deflected.

"She most likely *was* sending a message," he agreed, "but not to the coppers, I think. What were Mr. Moore and Ms. Canelo really doing tonight?"

"You'll have to ask Tanya." Sebastien hesitated, wondering if Professor Lacer knew about Tanya's connection to the University faculty.

He noticed the moment of indecision. "You know something. Speak."

There was no magic spell behind the word to compel her, but the force of his command needed none. "She was sending paper bird messages to someone, after the gang battle. That spell is limited in range and needs a beacon of some sort to find its target, which I gather is usually the University token. So it seems likely that whoever she was communicating with was on campus."

Professor Lacer didn't react to the revelation, so she couldn't tell if he was surprised or if he already knew about whatever Professor Munchworth was involved in. It was even possible that Professor Lacer was involved with that same faction, but she had no way to know. "Did anyone else know about what was going to happen tonight?"

She shook her head. "The decision to leave seemed very last-minute. I didn't tell anyone, but I'm not sure if Newton or Tanya might have."

Professor Lacer seemed to lose interest in interrogating her. She wriggled her toes, which were again growing numb with cold and the restrictive press of her secret Conduit digging into her calf. In a small voice, she asked, "What are they going to do with Newton---the Aberrant, I mean? And the building? The other people? How are they going to handle something like this?"

"Everyone involved will be questioned, arrested for any illegal activities, and made to take a similar vow as yourself, though likely rather more restrictive. If it is deemed that there are no ongoing harmful or infectious side effects from exposure to the Aberrant, they will be allowed to resume their lives. The Aberrant will be dealt with by the Red Guard. If they deem the cleared building to be safe to occupy, it will be allowed to remain, and the family within it. With an Aberrant created from such a mediocre, low-level University student, I doubt there will be any issue with ongoing contamination. However, if I am wrong, the site will either be razed to cleanse the contamination or placed under a permanent quarantine barrier."

"And if there *are* ongoing side effects? In the people, specifically? What happens to them? To me?" She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling that if she didn't, she might crack apart, and her insides would spill out. Or burst into string.

She shuddered violently.

"The effects will be studied and neutralized if possible. The Red Guard has no lack of resources, Mr. Siverling, and I have no intention of allowing something like this to deprive me of my apprentice. You are only just becoming truly interesting." He gave her another small smile, but she couldn't tell if he was joking.

To her horror and shame, rather than shooting back a witty quip or even a more boring, ordinary response, her burning eyes filled with tears. They spilled almost instantly down her cheeks. She blinked, scrubbing frantically at her face. "I'm sorry. Everything that happened tonight...it just feels so *wrong*."

Newton wouldn't be there in the morning, wouldn't be there ever again, and yet somehow it seemed like she would be continuing with her ruse, unsuspected.

Lacer's smile slipped away. "You are overtired, and likely approaching Will-strain. I am taking you to the infirmary."

'*No, I need to talk to Damien as soon as he arrives, to keep him from doing or saying anything foolish.*' She tried to protest, but instead of calming, her tears came only faster, and began to draw out great, heaving sobs. She pulled her knees to her chest again, trying to pull her emotions back together in the same way.

She longed for her home. A home that maybe had never existed, though she once thought it had.

Professor Lacer gave her a solemn, inscrutable look, then gestured toward her with his Conduit. There was a brief moment of utter silence, and then the fatigue rolled over her, too heavy to resist.

'*I don't want to sleep,*' was her last thought, but it was too late.



The story continues in A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book III: A Sacrifice of Light.

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[AzaleaEllis]

Prologue 0.1 - Transfer Paperwork​

Beneath hundreds of meters of white stone, in a small room carved into the most secret of places and illuminated only by light crystals, stood four people. To the left side of the doorway, a human woman sidled closer to her male companion. On the right, their boots still muddy, waited two men, one with ginger-orange hair and another with a pair of furry tails. All four wore the red shield symbol of their order and held a clipboard, the paperwork already filled out and reviewed.

Atop a wheeled dolly in front of the quartet sat two large rectangular iron cases. They were coffin-like, the source of an unnamed dread.

The woman cleared her throat. "These are the ones you're here for," she said unnecessarily, breaking the ominous silence.

The ginger-haired man looked the cases over, humming thoughtfully. "Two in such a short period. It must have been quite an eventful time for you, Agent Fike."

The woman sighed. "Well, you know how it is in a big city, Selby."

Her companion placed his fists on his hips and thrust his chest out. "Some sorceress calling herself the Raven Queen has been going around making trouble. I still think we need to do something about her." His voice was loud, echoing off the smooth walls of the small room. He didn't seem to notice his mistake until the others winced and turned toward one of the iron cases. Face paling, he took a large step back and eyed it warily.

When nothing happened, the twin-tailed man asked, "Blood magic?" His soft voice carried a faint accent that hinted at faraway lands.

The loud man nodded, then shook his head. "Well, yes, but nothing egregious. No slaughter rituals. No murders at all, actually. It's the strangeness of it, the rumors, the whispers."

"Nightmare-type?" the red-headed Agent Selby asked.

Agent Fike raised a hand to stop the loud one's response, giving him a long-suffering look. "No. Agent Berg here is just a little too susceptible to rumors. She's a flashy free-casting sorcerer who likes to play games of cat-and-mouse, and a fantastical, romantic figure to the commoners. The stories have been getting wild." Fike turned to Agent Berg, crossing her arms. "Not every frightening incident in the night is caused by an Aberrant."

Agent Berg frowned down at her. "Letting a potential threat go unchecked because of negligence could lead to unnecessary deaths, or even more Aberrants. We should be investigating and suppressing every danger to the future world, as we vowed."

Agent Selby let out a single sharp laugh, raising an eyebrow as he shared a look with his fluffy-tailed companion. "A bit of a fresh-oathed newbie, huh?"

Agent Berg's frown grew darker, but Selby waved a hand before he could retort. "Look, kid, that's a noble idea, but there aren't enough of us to go patrolling around every dark alley and responding to every peasant's report of evil creatures curdling their cow's milk in the teat. We have processes in place to catch the actual threats. Even if you only focus on those, they will be more than sufficient to keep you busy. And with that said, let's make this quick. Agent Marcurio and I have to get back to our base and then to a little village outside Paneth in less than a week."

"You can't tell me she didn't have something to do with that one," Agent Berg muttered, gesturing to the iron case they'd been so wary of earlier.

Fike rolled her eyes but didn't deign to respond aloud.

Agent Selby stepped up to the more benign case, flipping through the paperwork on his clipboard. "Scourge-type with a Nightmare-type sub effect?" He shook his head, muttering, "I don't know why we bother with that old classification system. It's too vague to be useful." Louder, he added, "I heard there were multiple requests for it."

Agent Berg shuddered. "To be honest, it disturbs me. Unnatural, for one of them to act like that. I'm looking forward to having it gone."

Agent Marcurio's lips twisted in a wry smile, his tails undulating in the air like fluffy snakes. "Its strangeness makes it all the more interesting, I'm sure."

Berg shuffled and looked away.

Selby reached out to touch the second case, then snatched his hand back, rubbing his fingertips together with morbid fascination. "This is the new one, the Blight-type?"

Safely tucked into the corner of the room, Agent Berg grinned, forgetting his earlier attempt at volume control as he boasted, "I handled the aftercare myself."

Agent Fike raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "His first time."

The other three snickered, but quickly sobered. "I heard your Captain---Goldfisch, was it?---applied to keep the Blight-type despite it being against policy," Selby said. "Too risky to keep them locally. Your base can requisition something similar and less likely to be recognized from elsewhere." He took the handle of the dolly and maneuvered it out of the room. As he pushed the two heavy iron cases down the hallway, the other three followed behind.

Agent Marcurio's eyebrows slowly rose higher until, after a couple of seconds, he could no longer restrain himself. "Captain Goldfisch? Is that really his name?" he asked, his tone thick with amusement.

"Don't joke about that in his presence if you want to live," Agent Fike warned.

"And don't mention anything about us being lucky to have Thaddeus Lacer stationed in the city, either," Agent Berg piped up, his voice echoing down the hallway with obvious resentment.

"Thaddeus Lacer?" Marcurio asked. "Is he here? Could I meet him?"

Agent Fike lifted a hand to curb the man's sudden enthusiasm. "He's not here. He's assigned to the Thaumaturgic University...and not particularly happy with our team at the moment. I wouldn't advise trying to get an autograph or anything during your visit. Even at the best of times, he can be disagreeable."

Berg let out a besotted sigh. "I know, he's brilliant."

Still pushing the dolly, Agent Selby sent Berg an incredulous look over his shoulder. "Is there enmity between Goldfisch and Lacer?" he asked, looking to Fike.

Marcurio also focused on her with avid interest, his fluffy tails swishing back and forth eagerly.

She shrugged. "They have a history, I guess. I'm not sure of the details, but the captain openly dislikes him. He's mentioned Lacer caring more about amassing knowledge than the methods he takes to obtain it. Then he likes to segue into a long denunciation of former Red Guard members who forgot or misinterpreted their oaths, and the disasters they caused in their pursuit of secrets and power better left alone."

Agent Berg's mouth drooped. "He goes on and *on*. One time I pretended to have diarrhea just so I could hide out in the bathroom to get away from him."

Agent Marcurio's tails wilted. "Ah. Goldfisch is one of *those*, huh?" He shared a commiserating glance with Selby.

Berg clapped Marcurio on the shoulder hard enough to make the man wince. "He is. But that's not the reason Special Agent Lacer is upset with our team at the moment. No, that's all Agent *Vernor's* fault. You see, Thaddeus Lacer has finally taken an apprentice."

"Really? But I heard he refused even the High Crown's heir a few years back! Who did he choose?"

Berg sighed wistfully, then began to rhapsodize. "I heard the boy has silver hair and looks like a little lordling. Supposedly, he's not even a noble, but..." Berg basked in the rapt attention of the visiting agents as he ran through his limited knowledge about the apprentice and moved on to the various fantastical stories he'd collected about Thaddeus Lacer's time at the University. Notably, how the irritable professor had almost stolen the powerful familiar of a visiting witch. Obviously, the creature found Lacer more appealing than its contracted master.

The agents lost their initial unease as they listened, the two iron cases all but forgotten as they loaded them into reinforced wagons to be transported away.

Confined within the first, which was as bright as daylight on the inside, huddled a twisted, ugly form. Its whimpers and hoarse, broken sobs were inaudible through the thick metal.

The being within the other case had been pruned like an overgrown bush or tenacious weed so that it would fit inside the container. Its iron coffin had been meticulously crafted and enchanted for better containment, so that not even a hair-thin seam remained. The thing inside still needed to breathe, so they had given it an air refreshing artifact, but that was all. The iron hummed softly, almost imperceptibly.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 90 - On the Nature of Shadows

Thaddeus

Month 1, Day 21, Thursday 7:30 a.m.​

Thaddeus made his way through Harrow Hill Penitentiary's cafeteria, a squat, dark room that carried over the feeling of confinement from its cells. He took a small breakfast plate and coffee, adding a few drops of his own specially formulated wakefulness tincture into the liquid. He drank it black. Any added cream would curdle, and nothing could mask the taste.

Thaddeus grimaced as he gulped down the eye-watering liquid. He hated the combination of sludge in his mouth and the deep, dark smell that would rise from his stomach afterward, so that he could still half-taste it. His tincture was not as long-term a solution as Siverling's sleep offloading spell, but Thaddeus had no desire to give up his rest forever, even in exchange for gaining more productive hours. Studies had been done; powerful thaumaturges who structured rest into their lifestyle and indulged their mortal desires were much more likely to maintain their sanity. Work-life balance and hobbies, so to speak. Thaddeus's work was his life, and he had few hobbies that did not involve magic in some way. Thus, sleep remained one of his few indulgences. Besides, he had spent too many years going without it for long stretches at a time.

The thought of his provisional apprentice brought to mind the boy's foolishness. Young Siverling had tried to be secretive, but Thaddeus suspected the boy had been snooping into dangerous secrets...and perhaps hiding a few embarrassing ones of his own.

The clothes Siverling had been wearing the night of the latest Aberrant incident, in addition to those stuffed hastily into his bag, were evidence enough. The boy may indeed have been at the Silk Door, but he had been in a liaison with someone wearing men's clothing, while Siverling had worn a dress.

The boy must have needed to leave in quite a hurry when Newton Moore set off the alarm on that clever little linked bracelet, and ended up borrowing his paramour's clothing to do so. Siverling's normal clothes were of much higher quality than what he'd been wearing, and there was no other reason for a dress to be stuffed so thoughtlessly in his bag. If his paramour had been wearing the dress, he would have left it for her. It made the boy's obliviousness to---or perhaps thorough disinterest in---the girls who flirted with him around the University take on new meaning.

Thaddeus remained deeply disinterested in his apprentice's sex life or specific proclivities, but if the boy wanted to keep his activities a secret, he would really need to learn to be more discreet. Siverling was brazen in many ways, but not yet bold enough to do as he wished without fear of the whispers.

Not like the Raven Queen.

Both Morrows had refused to speak of her at first, not with complete silence like Canelo, but with a strange combination of belligerence toward the coppers and fear of the Raven Queen. However, their reticence eventually crumbled under pressure. As soon as they were cleared to move on from the quarantine zone, they had gone into separate interrogation cells at Harrow Hill. When the standard intimidation tactics and attempts to sow distrust failed, they resorted to mild torture---nothing that would leave them looking too pitiful in front of a potential audience---and that did the trick. Unfortunately, Harrow Hill employed no professional information extractors, so it took longer than Thaddeus would have liked for the coppers to break the two, and he had to wonder about the quality of the resulting statements. Pain was one of the less effective ways of extracting coherent, truthful information, after all.

The mysterious woman had made enough of an impact for them to endure through the pain where many would have broken. The young one had even started blubbering aloud, praying for her to save him, and then, when he could hold out no longer, for her to forgive him.

It was fascinating.

Investigator Kuchen stepped into the cafeteria, making a beeline for Thaddeus. If Kuchen and Titus were back from the temporary quarantine zone, which would take days or even weeks for the Red Guard to clear, it likely meant that Tanya Canelo would be arriving soon for questioning.

Kuchen confirmed as much, and Thaddeus rose from the table to follow.

Once in the relative privacy of the hallway, Kuchen announced, "I have been thinking about the Raven Queen's shadow companion."

Thaddeus remained silent, but Kuchen required no prompting to continue. "Could it be possible that she is a witch, and it is her familiar? She has been seen to cast without a normal Conduit on several occasions."

"I am unconvinced," Thaddeus replied dismissively. "She has used a celerium Conduit at other times. To support your theory, all instances when she supposedly did not would need a connecting theme---her familiar's particular aptitude. But it is possible, I suppose. What would the familiar be, then? A shade might cover nightmares, but not the blood magic or the healing. I believe there is a rare Eastern beast called an enenra that might match her companion's physical description, but they are said to be born from bonfires and only appear before those who are pure of heart and mind. That theme seems poorly matched to her."

"What if it is a devil from the Plane of Darkness?"

Thaddeus stopped walking to stare at Kuchen, who turned back when he realized. "Are you aware that the Plane of Darkness is entirely hypothetical?" Thaddeus asked.

"There has to be some counterpart to balance the Plane of Radiance, though. A devil would match the abilities she's displayed perfectly!"

"I have always found a pentagram to be quite balanced. Five elemental and one mundane plane do not *require* another. But even if the Plane of Darkness indeed exists, somehow defying all of our attempts to access it, you cannot know what characteristics an elemental would carry."

"Well, the opposite of radiance, naturally. Just like water is the opposite of fire and air is the opposite of earth. And what if Myrddin discovered the way to access it, and that was in the book she stole? Her shadow companion didn't make an appearance until after she got away with the book."

Thaddeus wanted to smack Kuchen in the skull with a blast of power, but knew from experience that this would knock no sense into him, nor shake loose any of the idiocy. He settled for glaring, allowing his contempt to shine through. "This devil would not be her first familiar. A neophyte in the craft would never have the strength or the Will to bind a sapient, humanoid familiar. So where is the evidence of any other familiar?"

"Maybe the devil ate them all as a requirement of the contract? You know the powerful ones don't like to share."

"And yet, before making this contract, she escaped from the University with wit and a few simple tricks---cast with a Conduit, might I remind you---and even at that point without evidence of a familiar? So, in addition to being a free-caster who goes to great lengths to display her spell arrays on the air, the Raven Queen has somehow contracted with a powerful familiar from a previously undiscovered Elemental Plane. Do you also believe that she is a creature from an ancient species of shapeshifters? Or that she can hear when her name is spoken, even from across the city?"

Kuchen seemed to realize Thaddeus's point. "It is just a theory," he muttered, turning to walk again.

"That is precisely my point. You are creating explanations for the unknown in the same way ancient peoples created stories about the sun and earth and moon to explain what they did not understand. Rather than hypothesize first and then try to mold all of your evidence to fit your narrative, simply admit that you do not understand and remain open to new evidence that will make things clear. We do not know what the shadow companion is, and there is certainly not enough evidence to support such an outlandish claim, especially when some of your supposed evidence contradicts the remainder."

Kuchen did not reply, though he walked faster so that his face was not visible, his grip white-knuckled around his clipboard.

Thaddeus supposed it was possible that the so-called Raven Queen really was a shapeshifter with an affinity for shadows and dreams...but it seemed more likely that someone had been deliberately working to exaggerate her reputation. The shadow-creature that appeared when she was threatened might be a construct, a rare familiar, or even an Aberrant that she had managed to control. But what was *important* was that she was a powerful free-caster and fully in control of her formidable faculties.

The Morrows had both told the same story, which lined up with the reports from the victims and young Siverling. Canelo's flare beacon had attracted them, but rather than follow her request to help detain an unremarkable and unassuming young woman, they grew greedy and hoped to extort all three---Canelo, Moore, and the Raven Queen. It was almost as if the woman had been luring them into a trap. How had two young students caught her in the first place?

Both men agreed that, when they realized her identity and panicked, the Raven Queen had stopped a fireball spell mid-air with her bare, empty hands, then deflected it to the side and into the wall behind her. Although extremely intriguing, Thaddeus knew that witness reports were notoriously unreliable, especially in times of stress.

After that, the Raven Queen had released the shadow-creature, which absorbed the battle spells from their contraband wands without seeming to take any damage. Thaddeus suspected it was only selectively corporeal, letting the spells pass right through its body. That it could absorb the energy from battle spells was not impossible, he supposed, but it was the kind of ability that could easily backfire if the caster became distracted or overwhelmed. His theory was reinforced, though not proved, by the state of the crime scene; if the Morrows had actually been hitting something, there should have been some evidence. Instead, the walls and furniture on the side of the room opposite the Aberrant were burnt, cut through, and blown apart, as if the men had been fighting an apparition. It might even have been an illusion.

When Moore's Will broke, the magical feedback put both Canelo and the Raven Queen on the floor. Surely, no matter how reckless the Raven Queen was, she would not put herself in such danger. There were better, safer ways to cause a break event.

Most confusing were the events that followed. The Raven Queen protected Canelo, healed one of the Morrows with blood magic---again seemingly declining to use a Conduit---and then perfectly copied the spell Moore had been using, having deduced on the spot that it would protect them from the Aberrant's effects. This was almost certainly evidence that she had prior experience with Aberrants and the theories behind their creation, or at least an interest in the topic.

Why had the Raven Queen been there at all? What had been her goal? He would have thought she had some interest in the Aberrant, but she could not have known that young Newton Moore would lose control and become one. Even if she had facilitated his break on purpose, there was no way to tell what exactly would happen. He could have died, wiped out the entire building with the magical backlash, or become an Aberrant with an entirely different anomalous effect.

No, the Aberrant had not been in her plans. The Morrows believed she had been there as part of a trap for them, and that Moore and Canelo had been working with her to lure them. But then why had she saved two gang members, her supposed enemies? If her original plan had been ruined by the Aberrant, it was possible she let them go free to serve as a warning to any other Morrows still acting from hiding, but something about that theory simply did not fit. For one, there were no *credible* reports of her being involved in the gang battle a few days prior, and that seemed incongruous if she were truly so interested in the Morrows.

But the real source of the niggling sensation of wrongness currently plaguing Thaddeus stemmed from the "blessing" she had given Siverling---an automatic, if weak, defense against divination, accompanied by some protection against being noticed by those nearby. With what Thaddeus had deduced of her, there was no way it was anything but a message. Before that night, Sebastien's only connection to the Raven Queen, as far as Thaddeus could deduce, was actually through Thaddeus himself, as he had consulted on her investigation on multiple occasions now. Did she know that? Was the message for *him*?

Thaddeus tried to avoid jumping to conclusions, but there was something about the idea that felt appropriate. She seemed to be playing a game with the University and the Crowns, leaving little hints for someone like him along the way, deliberately stimulating his intrigue. But if that was the case, what did she want from him? Simply someone with the intellect to match her in her maneuvers and machinations? Or might she be more interested in his particular skill set? Did she know about his research?

Thaddeus was, after all, rather famous---both to the masses and among those who mattered, though for different reasons. Or perhaps she was interested in the most recent Gilbrathan Aberrant, the one they had named Moonsable. Its anomalous effect was weak, but Moonsable was one of the rare mutations to retain some small measure of sapience and lucidity after the break event. If that was what had led the Raven Queen to him, perhaps she did have an interest in his research after all.

Thaddeus shook himself from these thoughts as they arrived at the dim viewing room, where a few coppers and a representative from the Red Guard were already waiting. Without any real facts to find purchase on, he was spiraling. That way led to unconscious biases that would later skew his deductive abilities toward the ideas he wanted to be true rather than bare reality. Like Kuchen. Thaddeus shuddered at the idea. He hoped to gain the missing pieces of information from Canelo's interview but had his suspicions it might not be that easy.

As soon as they learned which of their students were involved in the incident, a couple of University faculty members had rushed down to the quarantine zone with a healer. Rather than show concern for Siverling, a colleague's apprentice who had manifested an anomalous effect and been attacked by the Red Guard, their interest had focused entirely on the girl. The healer had insisted that Canelo's refusal to speak stemmed from trauma and that further mental or emotional strain could lead to long-term damage or even another Aberrant. They had demanded the girl be given a calming potion to allow her to sleep, and that she return to the University for a full wellness examination before being forced to answer questions.

The Red Guard had allowed it, ostensibly because, unlike his own apprentice, she gave off no anomalous readings, and the University held a lot of power in Gilbratha. Thaddeus wondered if there were not more to it, like bribes or blackmail. Despite their oaths, members of the Red Guard were not incorruptible.

Kuchen flipped through his sheaf of loose papers, murmuring to Titus. "You asked for someone to double-check that prognos woman's assessment of the crime scene. Preliminary reports haven't found any discrepancies, though there is some argument over the method and sequence of events during the fighting that caused Mr. Moore's break."

At least Titus wasn't an idiot, which was a large reason the man was one of the few Thaddeus might consider a friend. It had escaped neither of them that the prognos had interacted with a friendly Raven Queen, meaning her testimony could be compromised.

A copper and prognos pair led Canelo into the interrogation room, while a few University faculty members joined Thaddeus and the others. The viewing room had a large example of the newly developed half-silvered mirror, also known as a one-way window. It would allow them to watch the interrogation without being seen. As long as the interrogation room remained bright, while their viewing room remained dark, anyone in the interrogation room would think it was a simple mirror. Spell arrays embedded into the stone wall would send the sound from the interrogation room through to them while keeping their own conversation secure.

The questioning started off normally, with the girl answering baseline questions about her identity and background for the prognos to better divine the truth of her words. But as soon as the first real question about the night before came up, Canelo said, "I cannot speak of it."

Everyone in the viewing room shared confused looks with each other, except the newly joined University faculty members.

Thaddeus's eyes narrowed.

Further questions were met with the same exact answer. The girl was frustrated, rocking back and forth and biting her lip, but that seemed to be the only response she could give. The interrogating copper sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "Miss Canelo, I understand that the events of last night were traumatizing, but we must have your testimony."

"I *cannot* speak of it."

The prognos focused intently. "She believes that."

Thaddeus turned to the only people in the room who seemed fully aware of what was going on. "Do you care to explain?" he asked.

The other professor, someone from the divination department, coughed self-importantly. "Miss Canelo regained her ability to speak when the sun rose, but any attempts to question her about the events of yesterday evening yield only this one answer. It's the same for any questions involving the Raven Queen. We believe the Raven Queen placed some sort of curse or geas on her. We were able to uncover Miss Canelo's diary from her room, and there are hints that she and Moore were interested in the bounty offered for information on the Raven Queen." The man pulled a small book from his satchel and handed it to Investigator Kuchen. "Perhaps you will find it useful. I can only hope so, as I doubt our unfortunate student will be much help to you at this point."

"A cursebreaker, perhaps," Kuchen suggested.

The man nodded quickly. "We have already sent word to a faculty member who teaches the subject to upper term students. If there is any solution to the problem, we will find it, I promise you."

Thaddeus almost snorted aloud. It was a shame that the ward against untruth did not extend into the viewing room. It might at least make the man hesitate before spouting such obvious drivel. He turned to Titus. "May we speak privately?"

Titus and Kuchen followed him into the hallway while the useless interview continued, the copper trying to find *any* relevant question that Canelo could answer.

Titus rubbed his face with one hand, his other clenching and unclenching at his side. "I want our own cursebreaker working on her," he said to Kuchen. "No University affiliation."

Kuchen nodded quickly, making a note of it in his small notebook.

Thaddeus remained more amused than frustrated. "I doubt that journal belongs to Canelo, or that the contents are legitimate. The girl knows something they would rather keep silent. If they did not place that curse themselves, then at the least they did not try very hard to save her from it. It has had time to settle in, now. Very *convenient*, that the only other living being able to testify about what happened last night is the Raven Queen herself. Canelo was involved in their faction's attempt to find the Raven Queen without the coppers or Crowns knowing, I suspect. If I remember correctly, she was also on the scene when the Eagle Tower divination array was destroyed? During the false rogue magic alarm?"

Kuchen's eyes widened. "Oh, well, yes, the name does sound familiar."

Thaddeus relayed his apprentice's suspicions about Canelo's collusion with someone at the University.

Titus was unsurprised. "I didn't know the details, but I did suspect. The blood sample we were using was conveniently corrupted. If we hadn't kept some of it behind in the Harrow Hill evidence vaults, we would have been out of luck. There's not much left, but our diviners are powerful and skilled enough to work with very little. It will simply make things more difficult---and more expensive."

"How long until Eagle Tower's repairs are completed?" Thaddeus asked.

"Six to eight weeks." Titus smiled wryly. "They aren't in as much of a hurry to repair it as one might hope."

Kuchen snorted.

"Is there no other divination array you can use in the meantime?"

"None that make the expense worth it, especially when they have so little chance of success."

Thaddeus doubted they would ever find her using divination if they had not succeeded yet, but he had no incentive to offer better options. "This Crown-opposing faction is being reactionary, rather than proactive. It is more evidence against them. The person who set off the false rogue magic alarms last time knew what was going on and what copper procedure is. Either it was someone at the University, or it was one of us---one of the coppers," he clarified, motioning to the three of them despite considering himself an outside party. "The last option is that one of our organizations has a leak that the Raven Queen is taking advantage of. While I certainly would not rule that out, the evidence makes it increasingly likely that someone at the University sabotaged the previous efforts. If they have a chance, they might act against us again."

"If so, the High Crown may feel even less favorable to them," Titus said. "They are playing a dangerous game."

"What was in the book, the one she stole?" Thaddeus asked. For the University to go to such lengths---thinly veiled treason---it had to have been more valuable than Thaddeus suspected.

Titus looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. "Something valuable enough that we *must* find Siobhan Naught first."

Kuchen opened his mouth to ask further questions, perhaps an attempt to confirm his ridiculous theory, but wisely closed it without speaking.

Titus continued. "I had considered requesting the Red Guard's assistance, despite my lord father's feelings on their involvement. Perhaps, if I could convince them she is the kind of threat that requires their intervention, their particular brand of resources would allow us to find and detain her. But Father has threatened to disinherit me if I disgrace the Westbays through such a failure. Beyond the embarrassment to the coppers, ceding authority to the Red Guard could affect our future funding." He gave a wry, bitter smile.

"You would think we should all be on the same side," Kuchen commiserated.

Thaddeus nodded absently, his mind elsewhere. The book must have been valuable indeed, if some faction of the University thought it was worth making an enemy of the Crowns over. They would rather allow the Raven Queen to go free than let the Crowns have it. He wondered how many of the administrators and professors were aware of what was happening under the surface.

Whichever side ended up with the book, it did not bode well for the ongoing stability of Gilbratha, or Lenore as a whole. As long as the upheaval did not impede his research, Thaddeus did not particularly care which side won, but he *was* becoming more interested in whatever that archaeological expedition had uncovered. Knowledge was power, and if he was any judge, this knowledge seemed capable of shifting the balance of power significantly in favor of whichever faction got hold of it.

And at that very moment, the Raven Queen had it. The Raven Queen who was, maybe, trying to get Thaddeus's attention. "I want to see Ennis Naught," he said.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 91 - The Sun is also a Star

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 21, Thursday 11:30 a.m.​

Siobhan was struggling, desperate to escape but trapped in a body that wouldn't listen to her commands.

A bracing sting on her cheek provided a way out. She woke with a gluttonous gasp of air, bolting upright in a bed she didn't recognize---a room she didn't recognize---with someone holding her arms to her sides, restraining her!

She panicked for a good few seconds. Fighting against the shackling grip, she let out a low, panicked moan as she grasped around for her Conduit, which *wasn't there*---until Damien's familiar, if tired, face resolved into coherence in front of her.

He was forcibly keeping her from flailing her way off of a University infirmary bed. "Help! We need help over here!" he yelled, turning his head. "Sebastien, you're okay. You're safe," he said in a lower, soothing tone that did nothing to disguise the worry underneath.

The sound of her other name helped ground her, and she stopped struggling to escape, blinking rapidly at his reassuring grey eyes.

The healer bustled up. "Panic attack?"

"He was having a nightmare," Damien said. "I tried to wake him, but he wouldn't, so I tapped him---maybe a little too hard---on the cheek, and he woke up fighting and making these noises like he was hurt."

"'M fine," Sebastien mumbled, still panting, the crashing thump of her heart against her sternum slowing. She looked around, unable to help her paranoia, or the niggling sensation that she was seeing things that shouldn't exist out of the corner of her vision. In a way, the clear signs of panic were a relief. Her body was reliably responding to the stimuli sent by her mind, which had plenty of cause for hysteria.

"We gave him a strong calming potion along with the sedative---I'm surprised he still managed to have nightmares---but sedatives can make it harder to transition from sleeping to waking. Sometimes they cause sleepwalking and the like." The woman turned to Sebastien, pulling a vial out of the pocket of her apron "Mr. Siverling, everything is alright. You are safe in the University's infirmary. You've had a big shock, but nothing can harm you here. You need your rest to recover, so why don't I give you another calming potion, and once you're feeling better we can help you get back to sleep?"

"No!" Sebastien snapped. "No calming potions. No sedatives. Not now, not ever. Never again! I---I have a bad reaction." Professor Lacer must have transferred her to the infirmary after free-casting that sleep spell on her. With the sedatives keeping her from waking herself up, she'd been trapped inside her own mind. With her nightmares.

The woman seemed taken aback. "Oh, I'm very sorry, Mr. Siverling. It wasn't in your file. Are you allergic to any particular ingredient? The laughing poppy, perhaps? We do have alternate brews available---"

"*No*," Sebastien said again, more insistently. "Calming potions only with my permission, but *never* sedatives. *Nothing* that will force me to sleep."

There was an awkward pause before Damien spoke, his voice small, the tone almost childish in its hesitance. "Is that what the Aberrant did to you? Force you to sleep?"

The healer's eyes opened wide, a hand flying up to cover her mouth. "*Oh*. Oh, I'm very sorry, Mr. Siverling. It was just standard procedure---"

Sebastien ignored the woman, climbing off the bed and searching for her things. Someone had stripped her to her underclothes and dressed her in worn cotton pajamas---the standard garb for everyone admitted to the infirmary overnight, apparently, as she saw others wearing the same on their own beds.

All the bruises she had accumulated the night before were gone, and someone had cleaned her with a spell. She had the dry, irritated skin to prove it, and her fingernails were clean of the blood that had been crusting their edges. Agent Vernor had noticed and taken a swab, but Sebastien had explained that she must have accidentally touched some of the blood on the floor. It wasn't nearly enough evidence to suspect her of being the one who'd healed Chief, or whatever the maimed Morrow man's name was.

Thaddeus Lacer being Sebastien's Master probably had a lot to do with how accommodating the Red Guard had been. Perhaps, without him, she would have found herself locked in a windowless cell in Harrow Hill for the investigation process, and overall much less likely to fool them.

Sebastien's belongings were tucked under the bed, and a quick perusal showed that nothing seemed to be missing. Her right boot still had the black star sapphire Conduit in it, though it had fallen into the toe. She didn't mention it, and could only hope that no one had noticed it when they were undressing her. "Leave," she ordered.

The healer, who had still been babbling about something, quieted, staring at her.

"I want to get dressed," Sebastien explained.

"You need to stay at least another twenty-four hours for observation," the woman argued. "Professor Lacer indicated you might be in danger of Will-strain from your...ordeal."

"I'm fine. Staying in *this place* certainly won't improve my mental health. I just want to leave."

The healer still hesitated, so Sebastien turned to Damien. "Please." As manipulations went, it was clumsy at best, but it had the desired effect.

Damien turned toward the healer and crossed his arms. "I'll handle any paperwork."

"But Professor Lacer---"

"Can talk to me if he has any complaints. Feel free to tell him I said so, if he asks. As Mr. Siverling here is an adult, you cannot by Crown law keep him against his will even under the *suggestion* of a professor, unless he is deemed likely to be a danger to others. I will ensure Sebastien gets the rest he needs in a place where he will be more comfortable. Really, sleeping in the open with only a curtain for privacy? And can you even call this slab a bed? Unacceptable."

As they left to handle the paperwork, Damien's complaints continuing on, Sebastien drew the curtains around her, using the privacy to do a more thorough check of her belongings as she got dressed. Even the thin, broken bracelets she had taken off Newton were still in her pocket. '*Thank the stars above no one decided to do a little snooping while I was insensate. I'll need to have a conversation with Professor Lacer about respecting my boundaries, no matter what he holds over my head. This* cannot *happen again.*'

Damien returned, standing outside the curtain while Sebastien struggled to fasten her many buttons with fingers that were slow and clumsy from the lingering sedative. "Professor Lacer got you a pass from class and homework that is good until this coming Wednesday, so you can take your time to recuperate."

A surprising wave of relief ran through Sebastien. "Okay. Good. I'm leaving." She stepped out, settling the strap of her satchel on her shoulder. Its weight made her want to give up and lie down again. The black sapphire Conduit was hidden again in her boot, and her borrowed celerium Conduit in an easily accessible pocket. Professor Lacer's jacket was folded on the bedside table, and after a moment of hesitation, she left it there.

"Leaving? From the infirmary?"

"From the University."

"For good?" Damien asked, aghast.

"No, of course not. Until Wednesday. You can give my pass to the professors, right?" A mere week seemed inadequate.

Damien's fingers flexed, as if he were trying to hold onto control of the situation. "Um, I'm not sure if you're allowed to just leave? Students are required to live in the dorms."

"I'm leaving," she repeated. "I will be back on Wednesday. The faculty will simply have to accept it, and if they feel like punishing me somehow upon my return, so be it." She couldn't stand the thought of being stuck in the dormitories, listening to the gossip, trying to rest in a tiny little room without a proper door or ceiling, surrounded by curious imbeciles.

Damien's bloodshot eyes tracked over her face. "If you want, you can stay at my house. The Westbay estate has plenty of servants to look after you, and an impressive library. I'm sure my brother won't mind, and my father is away, so you wouldn't have to worry about him."

Sebastien realized suddenly that Damien had either been up all night or had been crying sometime before she awoke. The puffy eyebags would indicate tears, but then again, he always looked like that, even after a full night's sleep. His nose wasn't red, and he wasn't sniffling or hoarse, but that only meant he'd stopped long enough ago for the symptoms to clear, or that he'd used a spell to hasten the process. Either way, she forced herself to relax a bit, unclenching her jaw and nodding at him. He was worried and only wanted to help her. There was no need to be rude. "Thank you, but no. I have a place to go."

Damien looked like he wanted to question her further, but he restrained himself. "If you're sure... You really would be very comfortable at Westbay Manor. You could be alone as much as you want. No idiots to irritate you, and you can even order the servants around."

One side of her mouth quirked up in a small smile, but she shook her head silently, striding toward the door.

Damien followed.

As they exited the infirmary, the cold hit Sebastien like a blow, and she hunched into herself, holding in an exhausted moan.

"When the rogue magic sirens went off, I asked for a carriage back to the University right away," Damien said. "Then my bracelet, the one you made for Newton to warn us, it got so cold. I kept waiting for the one linked to you to get cold, too, but it didn't. And I thought maybe that was a good sign, but when I got back, you were gone. I checked the dorms, the library, even the Menagerie. Tanya and Newton were both gone, too, so I knew something had happened. I didn't tell anyone to send help, because I didn't know if that would just make things worse. I went to the gates to watch for you, or for some sign of something wrong in the city, like the gang battle last time. They tried to send me back to bed, but I wouldn't listen. I actually got a demerit!"

Damien laughed wryly, then continued, speaking even faster. "I overheard a professor say a student had been involved with the Aberrant's break, and I tried to ask them for details, but they wouldn't tell me anything. Then Professor Lacer arrived, and he was floating your unconscious body in the air beside himself. I thought maybe you were dead."

Damien shuddered as he stared off into the distance. "You looked so pale. But he took you to the infirmary. You were just asleep, and he was worried about possible Will-strain..." Damien swallowed, looking at her. "He said you'd experienced a traumatizing event. But he still wouldn't tell me any details, even though he knows we're friends."

The dorms were thankfully empty, all the students away in class. Sebastien had left her own wool jacket at the Silk Door, along with the male outfit she'd been wearing, but she would have to retrieve that later. She began to bundle up in the warmest clothes she had remaining.

Damien watched her for a while, then continued updating her on what had happened in her absence. "They brought Tanya Canelo back, but they didn't keep her in the main infirmary room, so I didn't get a chance to talk with her. She looked...horrible. Worse than you, even. The coppers came and escorted her away this morning. And Newton didn't come back at all. Is he..."

Sebastien stilled, her scarf halfway wrapped around her neck. "Newton is dead," she said softly.

Damien rocked back on his heels, his eyes fluttering closed as if she had struck him. "What happened? Did Canelo..."

Sebastien shook her head, her throat tightening. Her shadow-familiar had been meant to draw away attention, but it had instead drawn *too much* attention. Too much *fear*. Perhaps, if not for her, Newton wouldn't have lost control and broken. There would have been no strings, no people dead...except for herself, fallen to the Morrows. Sebastien swallowed heavily past the lump in her throat, feeling dizzy. She lifted a hand to her forehead, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

When she opened her eyes, Damien had stepped closer, his hand raised halfway, ready to support her. "I am...*restricted* from speaking of the details." She gave him a significant look, hoping he would get the hint.

"You had to make a magical vow. To the Red Guard?"

Hesitantly, she nodded. Nothing stopped her from doing so, though she felt some resistance.

"Did the Aberrant kill Newton?"

She rubbed her dry lips together. "Not...exactly."

Damien let out a harsh, ragged breath. "Newton was the Aberrant?"

She nodded again, more shallowly because she could feel the magic of the vow restricting her. In the eyes of the spell, Damien must not know enough for her to communicate with him freely. And whatever that skull had done, this vow was based around compulsion, not the threat of punishment. '*I wonder how strong the compulsion is, how far I can push it?*' She hesitated before attempting to tell Damien everything, however. Partially because she worried the Red Guard might somehow learn of her unfaithfulness---she had no idea how that artifact worked, after all---and partially because she was simply too fatigued to make the effort. "I'm sorry. I'm really unable to talk about it. If you want details, Professor Lacer knows most of it, though not about the order of no name or our longer-running surveillance of Tanya. You might be able to get more information if you pester him."

"Are you...are *we* safe?"

"As far as I know, yes. But you'll want to avoid acting suspiciously. And give me the bracelet---the one Newton triggered." The one *she* had triggered while removing evidence from Newton's metamorphosed body.

Damien did as she asked, and she tucked it into her pocket with the others, trying to remember if there was anything else waiting to cause problems. She could think of nothing, though in her current state she wasn't entirely reassured by that.

"Did Newton die because of us?" Damien asked, visibly bracing himself for the answer. "Because we brought him in to watch Tanya?"

Sebastien hesitated. "We never lied to him," she said instead of answering. "If a copper dies on the job, is it the fault of the person who hired him? Even if he took the more dangerous mission voluntarily, when he didn't have to?"

Damien didn't look away from her gaze. "Maybe. If that person should never have been hired. If they weren't cut out for the job, and then didn't get proper training."

She nodded. "Then maybe." She turned to leave, but Damien stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"What do we do now?" he asked.

She hesitated. "You can get out---of the pact we made, of the secret group---if you want. Your oath of secrecy for anything that's passed would remain, but you wouldn't be involved in anything further." This could be a dangerous tipping point for him. If he withdrew, it might solve some of her problems, but she felt ambivalent about the idea. Without him, she would be even more alone in all this. She hadn't realized it, but his alliance---his friendship---had become a pillar of support, despite the potential trouble he represented.

Damien frowned at her. "No, I---that's not what I meant." He shook his head. "I'm not quitting the thirteen-pointed star. This is...horrible, but I'm not giving up or running away. I just want to know what our next step is, now that something like this has happened. Are we going to be sanctioned by the higher-ups? Do we keep watching Tanya? Do we get transferred to another mission? What is happening?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I don't think we'll be disciplined." After all, aside perhaps from Oliver, their little organization didn't actually have any higher-ups to reprimand them. "I don't know if we'll keep watching Tanya or not. Whatever we do, it will be with more precautions now that everything's gone to shit. As for the rest, the generalities? We keep going." She pressed her fingers to her mouth, resisting the sudden and irrational urge to claw at her lips. She didn't want to be saying any of this, not the lies, and especially not any plans to keep going down the path that got Newton killed. "We get stronger, and smarter. More powerful. If you don't know what you need to solve your problems, Damien, seize power. True power can be converted into almost anything else." Her grandfather had told her that, long ago. She occasionally remembered the advice, usually when everything was going wrong. As always, it seemed truer than ever. If she'd been more powerful, perhaps she would've had other options last night.

"That's it? Just..." Damien trailed off, shaking his head. He looked like a lost child.

Sebastien softened. Gracelessly, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around him in what was probably the most awkward hug either of them had ever experienced. She didn't normally like to touch people, and he obviously hadn't been expecting it. "Sometimes we fail. That doesn't mean we were wrong to try." She fumbled for words, but pressed on. "Do you remember observing the night sky during the acceptance ritual? Sometimes it's too clouded to see the stars, but the sun is also a star, and its light reaches us through even the heaviest storm. We take responsibility for the things within our grasp, and we keep going. Otherwise what was it worth? What was it all for?"

She didn't know if what she was saying made any sense. She didn't even know if she believed it. But she pulled back and kept her gaze locked on Damien's, trying to imbue it with the sense of stability that she felt so little of.

He was trembling slightly, but he steeled himself, straightening. "Okay."

She hesitated, then said, "We can do something for Newton even if he's not here. He had a family. He cared about them a lot."

Damien pressed his lips together, his eyes growing glassy as he nodded quickly. "Yes."

She felt awkward about leaving Damien when he was so obviously emotionally compromised, but she wanted to stay in the dorms even less. She had to get away. "Maybe *you* should go home to Westbay Manor for a couple of days," she said.

Damien gave her a one-shouldered shrug.

With another uncomfortable squeeze of his shoulder, Sebastien walked away, leaving Damien standing alone in the dorms behind her. Her words of comfort to Damien rang hollow in her ears, and she hugged herself, pressing her fingers into her arms until her joints ached and the dull pain of a future bruise bloomed beneath her skin.

She took the tubes down the side of the white cliffs and hailed a carriage, heedless of the cost. "Take me to Dryden Manor," she told the driver.

----------
Question: What do you think about how Sebastien recognizes the friendship between her and Damien? Compared to their initial encounter in Book 1, this is quite the contrast.

 

[TylerMalad]

It's nice that Sebastien has Damien as a friend that she can rely on, especially after the Abberant incident with Newton. It's also understandable though that she needs time to herself to process everything that happened as well. Regardless, at least she knows that she isn't completely alone, even if she didn't expect to be making friends when she first arrived to the University

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 92 – She Who Brings the Night

Thaddeus

Month 1, Day 21, Thursday 8:15 a.m.​

Titus's eyebrows rose at Thaddeus's sudden request for access to the Raven Queen's father, but he waved his hand magnanimously. "Of course. We have gone through every method possible to find the holes in his story but have been unsuccessful thus far. Have you been inspired with a new angle we might try?"

"I need to see all the records on his questioning and the examination reports, from the beginning," Thaddeus said instead of answering.

"I am to report to the High Crown later today. Please let me know if you find anything of interest, Thaddeus. I would like to be able to give him at least *some* positive news."

Thaddeus agreed, and Titus assigned Kuchen to accompany him to the records room. Two hours later, Thaddeus had pored through every report in the Raven Queen's investigation file, which held little that he did not already know, or at least suspect. Ennis Naught was telling the truth, even if they didn't want to accept that.

The coppers had made no obvious mistakes or oversights, but some piece of the puzzle had to be missing. If Ennis Naught was telling the truth about his daughter, then she could not be the Raven Queen. They had searched for signs that the man's memory had been tampered with and found none, though that sort of thing could be subtle. Naught believed, and it seemed to be true, that he had a daughter, and that daughter was the same person who came to Gilbratha with him. He *believed* he had stolen the book on a whim, out of anger.

And yet, they had first-hand reports of the Raven Queen's exploits. Multiple acquaintances they had tracked down from her childhood confirmed that she matched Siobhan Naught's appearance. Except, of course, for the new reports of her growing red and black feathers and the Nightmare Pack's resident prognos insistence that she was an inhuman being.

From that, Thaddeus would normally assume that Siobhan Naught's identity had been stolen, and the real girl's bones were being picked bare by insects somewhere. To test this, the coppers had gotten permission to do a lineage test using some of Ennis Naught's hair, attempting to see if he had any living descendants. The divination spell, which took weeks to produce results, had shown several, though the results could be quite unreliable. Apparently, the man had impregnated multiple women across the country during his lifetime, though Siobhan was the only legitimate offspring, and the only one the elder Naught was aware of. The spell only suggested the existence of others bearing his bloodline; it did not allow the coppers to track down any of his children without clearer knowledge of who they were. A separate spell had been used on the drop of recovered blood to confirm that the Raven Queen was one of them.

While that would normally have been conclusive evidence, in this case Thaddeus still withheld judgment. Something felt off about the whole thing. Some pieces of evidence fit together using some theories, but with no theory did *all* the pieces fit together.

That the Raven Queen had contacted Ennis Naught *twice* since the theft and his subsequent incarceration only increased the ambiguity. Though the reasons Naught had reported for the visits were suspect, they hinted that the Raven Queen, whether or not she had ever truly been Siobhan Naught, felt some sort of connection to him. Thaddeus considered the possibility that her attempts to contact the man were more purposefully laid clues---or red herrings meant to send the investigators chasing their own tails---but was also conscious of the ever-present risk of over-attributing canniness and purpose to the Raven Queen, a bias too many had already proven susceptible to.

No, there was something they were missing. Thaddeus read the investigation note about Ennis Naught apparently having given an heirloom celerium ring to one of the Gervin Family's branch lines, as a bond for his daughter's...*marriage* into the Family---as long as she brought the stolen book along with her, of course.

Thaddeus almost laughed aloud at the Gervin Family's audacity. The Gervins had acted quickly, before the full extent of what they were dealing with had become clear, and, luckily for them, had not had a chance to follow through on the agreement. Even if the Raven Queen herself did not cow them, the High Crown might not look kindly upon what could be seen as subversion of a criminal investigation, or even a direct attempt to weaken his authority.

Still, Thaddeus made a note to tell Titus to keep an eye on them. Even if they were not planning to reach above their station, they might be a future target for the Raven Queen if she truly had an interest in that Conduit. Hells, she could have already stolen it without them realizing, if the rumors about her skills were even partially true.

He noted that the coppers who had been attacked by her shadow-creature companion were showing no lingering side effects except for the occasional nightmare, which could just as well have been caused by stress. The warehouse workers who had given her drops of their blood seemed healthy as of the last time they had been called to Harrow Hill for a follow-up.

Thaddeus also noted her amicable connections to both the Verdant Stag and the Nightmare Pack. The leader of the Verdant Stag was a metaphorical ghost, only ever appearing in a mask and leaving most of the operations to his underlings, but Lynwood of the Nightmare Pack was accessible. However, the reports stated that he simply refused to testify to the coppers, even when they brought him in to stay the night in a cell. The Nightmare Pack prognos had mentioned that the Raven Queen gave them a boon. What had she given, and what had she gotten in return? Was this the same method by which the Verdant Stag had become allied with her?

Having gleaned all he could from the reports, Thaddeus retrieved Kuchen, who was to give him access to Ennis Naught's cell. Thaddeus would rather have spoken to the prisoner alone, but he did not have the clearance, and records had to be kept.

Thaddeus wrinkled his nose as he stepped into the cell. Naught's chamber pot had not been emptied, and the cell smelled of acrid urine, feces, and a rancid buildup of sweat and grime from the unwashed man himself.

Naught huddled in a corner atop the thin cot, wrapped in his blanket. He looked nothing like his daughter. She was supposedly ochre-skinned with long dark hair, evidence of her heritage from the People, northern nomads who still practiced some of their old, esoteric magics. That was to say nothing of sprouting feathers or missing irises.

Thaddeus's eyes narrowed as they trailed over the man's pale skin, red hair and unkempt beard. Pale, watery eyes gave away the soft mind behind them. Thaddeus felt an idea stirring in the back of his mind, too immature to grasp yet.

"I'm not talking any more without food," Naught announced with hoarse petulance. "And none o' that porridge. I want meat, fresh bread, and cheese."

Thaddeus debated the effort it would require to threaten the man into compliance, but another waft of the unwashed stench coming off him made Thaddeus decide on the easier route. He turned to Kuchen, who was holding his handkerchief over his face, but not coughing into it for once.

Kuchen nodded to one of the guards, who headed off toward the cafeteria.

"And an apple!" Naught called after him excitedly.

Thaddeus eyed the room's only chair with distaste. Pulling out his Conduit and one of the beast cores he always kept on his person, he cast a quick scouring spell on it. The wood splintered a little under the force, but the magic left it clean enough to sit on. He gestured toward the ceiling, and a small, bright ball of light appeared there, illuminating the room.

Naught squinted against the sudden brightness. "I suppose you're 'ere to ask more questions about that ungrateful girl?"

"Siobhan. Your daughter," Thaddeus corrected immediately, with an unexpected surge of irritation.

Naught merely squinted at him silently.

"She had some training as a sorcerer, yes? From her grandfather?" Thaddeus asked.

"The girl was apprenticed to 'im when she turned eleven. Taught 'er a few useful tricks before 'e died a couple years later. I came back for 'er---took me a while to find her---and then she lived with me for six years, on the road, making 'erself useful with 'er thaumaturgy before I brought 'er to Gilbratha so she could attend the University and become a real sorcerer like she always wanted. I've told you all this so many times. She wasn't acting strange, she was just excited, nervous. She didn't make me take that book, though I dearly wish she 'ad so you would just *let me go*. I don't know anything about this Raven Queen, but more'n likely the girl's just playing tricks on you, smoke and mirrors and the like. Maybe she made some powerful friends. She was on the road with me and picked up the bad with the good, you see."

"Her grandfather, did he have any connections to anyone suspicious?"

"Who knows? The man kept to 'imself, out in the woods near a small village. Didn't talk about 'is past. I didn't spend much time with 'im. We didn't get on, truth be told. Old Kal didn't much like me marrying 'is daughter---thought I wasn't good enough, not being a sorcerer. Made me take Miakoda's last name, marry into the People instead of 'er marrying out."

"Miakoda---your wife. What was this Kal's full name?" Thaddeus asked quickly.

"Raz Kalvidasan. Mean old piece o' jerky."

Thaddeus frowned, the name sparking a connection that he couldn't quite remember. He repeated it aloud. "Raz Kalvidasan," then again, with a slight accent. "Raaz Kalvidasan. He was a foreigner? Not one of the People?"

Ennis's eyebrows rose. "Yeah. 'e adopted my wife when she was young. 'ow did you know?"

Thaddeus turned to Kuchen. "The grandfather's name literally means 'secretive learned one,' or something like that. I was never fluent, and it has been years. You will want someone to look into him." It was interesting that a foreigner had held the bloodline of the People in such high regard. He turned back to Naught. "Tell me about the circumstances of this Raaz Kalvidasan's death."

"Oh, it was *bad*. Everyone in the village died. The Red Guard came in, I 'eard. Of course, I wasn't there at the time. I only got word of it later, and that's when I came back for Siobhan. The village was gone. Couldn't find the girl for weeks, maybe months."

Well, that was rather interesting.

Kuchen flipped through the papers on his clipboard. "You didn't tell us this! We have it that a plague wiped out the village where she lived as a child."

"I didna' say it was a plague. I said everyone died, and your interrogator didna' seem so interested," the man said, his brogue growing stronger with spite.

"You should have realized we would be interested in this! It could be valuable information." Kuchen's voice broke under the strain of his outrage, and he was reduced to yet another fit of wet coughing.

Did the coppers not pay the man enough to see a healer? Thaddeus dropped the light spell long enough to cast a cleansing spell through the air. He did not want to catch whatever the investigator had, being confined in a small area with all his germs.

Naught seemed temporarily cowed by the flicker of the light and the feel of sterilization magic rushing past him, but recovered quickly. "I've told you plenty I didn't 'ave to, and look where all that *cooperation's* gotten me." Naught turned his head and spat on the floor.

*Disgusting*.

Kuchen was coughing too hard to retort, but he sent his best glare over the top of his handkerchief.

"Continue with what you were saying," Thaddeus said, motioning impatiently at Naught.

"Hmph. Well, I finally picked Siobhan up in a village a couple days over. She was in the local gaol for stealing and beating the baker's son. Almost tied a knot in my tongue talking 'er out of that little fix. She was...different, for a long while. A real burden, truth be told, but she was too young to marry off, and who would 'ave a girl like that, even if she was pretty? Wouldna' talk, wouldna' practice magic, couldna' sleep."

Thaddeus leaned forward with interest.

Naught continued, his gaze going soft and vacant with memory. "I'm no monster, to just abandon my own daughter, so I took 'er around, looking for someone who could fix 'er. Took maybe two years. Drove me to poverty. She didn't start acting normal again until she learned there was a spell that could ward off nightmares. And just like that, she was back talking and running around, practicing all those little magic tricks until I had to beg 'er to stop. After that, though, she made 'erself useful wherever we went. Saved my bacon a couple times, truth be told. The girl never talks about those times, and I kinda got in the 'abit of avoiding those memories, too. But I'll tell you right now, the Raven Queen didna' replace my daughter when she was thirteen. I lived with the girl for six years after that. I watched 'er grow up. I would've noticed."

Thaddeus leaned forward with fascination. "Do you know any more about the reason the Red Guard was called in at that time? Was it an Aberrant?"

"No idea. The whole thing was cleared by the time I arrived. Village was empty. Only 'eard rumors from the surrounding villages, and of course the Red Guard was no 'elp. Told me my daughter was probably dead and burned. But I wouldna' believe them. And I was right. Took me a while, but I found 'er. Little scrapper, she was," Naught said with sudden fondness.

"We will request their records," Kuchen assured Thaddeus.

Thaddeus nodded absently, still staring at Naught. "What about the girl's mother? Your wife?"

Naught's face went slack with nostalgia. "Miakoda was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Tall, shapely"---his hands drew an hourglass shape in the air---"and a tongue like a barbed whip. She was a witch with a demon familiar."

"A demon? A humanoid, sapient being from the Plane of Fire?" Thaddeus clarified. People often used the word incorrectly to refer to any creature from the Plane of Fire, and sometimes even the other Elemental Planes.

Naught nodded. "Yes. Named Paimon. Just a little guy, most of the time." He held his hand about a foot above the ground. "Powerful, though, and the funniest little tyke you ever saw. The creature was always getting into trouble or offending someone by making rude gestures or blowing smoke in their face. Liked to eat his food raw---cooked it in 'is mouth. 'E slept in the fireplace."

"Miakoda sounds like a powerful witch. She died when Siobhan was young, you said?"

Naught deflated, the humor fading from his face. "Yes. That's when Kal took little Siobhan in."

"How did it happen?"

"We were with a caravan, traveling down to Paneth for a show, and to pick up some supplies for Kal. There was a storm, a bad one, and we were looking for shelter." Naught swallowed heavily, going silent.

Kuchen looked up from his notes. "It was a roc, correct?"

Naught blew out a slow, rancid breath and nodded. "Blown our way by the storm. An angry, mean bastard, so big its wings blocked out the sky when it swooped down on us, like the sails of a death-ship. It picked up one of the wagons first, then flew up and dropped it on us. Killed a couple people and spooked the horses something 'orrible. That's when Miakoda and Paimon went to fight it. I tried to stop 'em. They couldn't stand up to the roc and the storm both. She was flinging the flames about, with Paimon as big as a giant. Little guy died protecting Miakoda and the rest of us...and she went crazy."

Naught's voice was low, haunted and compelling. "She screamed so loud, 'er voice all filled with magic, it blew the roc into the ground. Then she struck it with lightning. The light of it blinded me. When I could see again, she was walking away calm as you please, and the roc was smoking on the ground behind her, dead. She told me we 'ad to go back right away, that the trip was off. I thought she was just distraught at the loss of little Paimon, but something was wrong." Naught tapped his temple. "Wrong in here. She broke something. We got back to the village, and she went straight to Kal, but even 'e couldn't save 'er."

"Will-strain leading to death," Kuchen said, nodding. "Most likely an aneurism."

"No," Naught shook his head. "It was the magic. She killed herself with casting magic."

"That is how Will-strain occurs," Kuchen said slowly, as if talking to a child.

Thaddeus stood, tingles of electric excitement flushing through his fingertips. "Explain."

"It's why Kal didn't want her marrying me, isn't it?" Naught said with a shrug. "The pure Naught bloodline was too good for me, supposedly. But all it did was keep 'er alive a little longer after she lost Paimon. It couldn't save her from the sickness in her head. She just kept casting, even when she didn't need to, even when she knew what it would do to her, just for the *pleasure* of it. She didn't care about me or little Siobhan anymore, only the magic. I didn't see 'er when she died. Kal said it was a mercy. I wouldna' recognize 'er corpse, and..." Naught shuddered and fell silent. "Well. I left Siobhan with Kal, after that. But my girl knows better than to cast without her Conduit. I---I shouldn't 'ave given the ring to those Gervin Family people. She needs it, now, and what if something happens to 'er, like with Miakoda, because she doesn't 'ave it?" Naught buried his face in his knees, pulling the ratty blanket tighter around his shoulders.

Thaddeus was too busy with his own elation to pay attention to the man. Siobhan Naught. *Naught*. Perhaps a variant on "Null?" He had heard rumors, of course, about those who were born with the traits of a Null, yet still able to cast magic. How they could resist the madness that came with casting through their own flesh and blood. It was clear enough that they were more than children's tales, but he had thought all those with that particular mutation gone hundreds, if not thousands, of years before. Resistance was not complete negation, after all, and they were a powerful potential threat to enemy and ally alike.

Perhaps the Naughts had managed to slip through the cracks, the secrecy of the People keeping them out of modern records, maintaining their abilities through careful breeding, or even inbreeding.

Or, perhaps the Blood Emperor's experiments had not been so fruitless, after all.

This changed everything.


----------
Can't wait to read more?

Book 3 is already available!

Get it now:
A Sacrifice of Light (A Practical Guide to Sorcery Book 3)

 

[Winged One]

Oof. Wasn't expecting the Abberration to have once been her mother.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 93 - In the Still of the Morning

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 21, Thursday 1:15 p.m.​

When Sebastien arrived at Dryden Manor, Sharon took one look at her and bustled out of the kitchen to grab her arm as if afraid she was about to fall over. "Mr. Siverling! Oh, you look absolutely wretched! Thomas!" Sharon called to the servant who had opened the door for Sebastien, her voice loud despite them all standing within a few feet of each other. "Take Mr. Siverling's things up to his room," she commanded. "And you come into the kitchen, dear," she said to Sebastien more quietly. "I'll get you fed with something warm."

"No need. I was just going to have a nap. I've been granted leave from the University for a few days."

"Nonsense! How long has it been since you ate? And something good, not that University cafeteria slop." Before Sebastien could answer, Sharon was divesting her of her jacket and bags and dragging her into the kitchen by her arm.

Sebastien sat at the kitchen table, nursing the steaming cup of tea that had been thrust into her hands while Sharon bustled about, chattering. She set a loaded plate of food in front of Sebastien and sat across from her, suddenly silent. She sipped her own cup of tea and shot Sebastien subtle, inviting looks.

Sebastien ignored the encouragement toward conversation. She didn't want to talk. However, despite being sure she wasn't hungry, she ended up clearing the whole plate, and felt better afterward. The weight in her belly acted as a stabilizing anchor. Her fingers felt warm for the first time since...before.

With the feeling of weight and substance causing her to move even slower, Sebastien trudged up the stairs to her room, which was pleasantly toasty from the roaring fireplace. Her magical plants were in the window, a light crystal shining on the sempervivum apricus to give it more brightness, but neither looked healthy.

With a sigh drawn up from deep inside her like the last gasp of a dying man, Sebastien watered the wilting mandrake root, humming a half-remembered lullaby from her childhood to it while she tickled the leaves. Mandrakes appreciated music and being petted, according to the *Comprehensive Compendium of Components*. The sempervivum apricus, she took out of the window and set on a chair, settling light crystals pilfered from the various light fixtures in her room and the hallway atop the dirt. '*That is a ridiculous amount of secondhand sunlight. Hopefully enough to rejuvenate it.*' The pot was too bright to look at without squinting, so she covered the whole chair with a thick winter blanket, draping it over and around the pot to contain the light.

Having done what she could to keep her magical components alive, Sebastien finally took off her shoes and outer clothing. She touched a finger to the skin of her chest, wincing. There was a distinctly medallion-shaped freeze burn there, from when her grandfather's artifact had sucked up warmth to deflect the fireball the Morrow man had shot at her.

One of the infirmary healers had put a salve on it while she was unconscious, which made her frown with a renewed feeling of violation. It was their job, of course, and better they be too thorough than miss a dangerous wound for privacy's sake, but she didn't like the idea of someone manhandling and casting magic on her while she slept.

Sebastien dug through her school satchel for the basic supplies she always kept on hand, using some burn paste and a dab of thick juice squeezed from one of the sempervivum apricus's leaves on the skin. She would like to avoid a medallion-shaped scar.

With the strongest dreamless sleep spell she could manage and an alarm on her pocket watch to wake her up in a few hours, she crawled into bed.

Huddling underneath the blankets, she clasped her Conduit between her hands, fingers laced together. "I'm in control," she murmured to herself. "I'm in control." She repeated it until her eyelids grew heavy and her tongue clumsy.

She slept, woke, and slept again.

When the fire had long died out and the faint rays of dawn were painting the rolling fog outside her window in pastel hues, the mattress shifted under her. She blinked crusty eyes open, her hand gripping the Conduit, which had slipped under her pillow, in confusion and alarm.

Oliver looked down at her from where he had perched on the edge of her mattress, a glass of liquid in his hands. He looked almost as tired as she felt. "Hey," he said softly. "You've been sleeping for a while. I brought you something to stave off dehydration."

She pushed herself up, taking the glass from him. Honeyed water. She downed the whole thing, gasping for air as she handed it back to him, and then wiped the back of her arm against her mouth. "Thank you," she croaked.

"You're alright?"

"Fine. Just...tired."

"When you set off the alarm, Katerin and I happened to be in a meeting with Lynwood and his sister, Gera. It was very lucky. Gera used Katerin's bracelet to track you. I couldn't check for myself that you were okay without raising suspicion. I told Gera to let you know that if the coppers arrested you, as long as you could remain as Sebastien, I would find a way to get you free."

Sebastien shook her head. "Gera didn't get a chance to tell me. We weren't alone. But she did help deflect suspicion off me---with the Raven Queen as a scapegoat." She smiled wryly at the irony. "They now believe the Raven Queen can give blessings, one of which is some sort of anti-divination effect."

"Clever."

Sebastien let out a sputtering laugh. "Gera pulled so much stuff out of her ass, I almost couldn't believe what I was listening to. It was great. I mean, at this point even if someone met Siobhan Naught dancing naked in the street, they would think she's a little too *normal* to possibly be the Raven Queen."

Oliver didn't return her mirth, his voice remaining careful and soft. "She told me your friend died. Newton Moore? I recognized the name---you'd mentioned him to me before."

Sebastien's throat stiffened, her smile disintegrating. "I am restricted from talking about the details."

"I assumed. The Red Guard likes to keep their work out of the ears of the public. But I know what happened, broadly, and you can talk about how it affected you."

She stared at him silently for a while. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"Whatever you want. There's a reason you've been sleeping for the last sixteen hours, and as far as I know it's not because of lingering anomalous effects."

She closed her eyes. "I hate sleeping more than anything, Oliver. I'm just...too tired to do anything else. I have been trying so hard, for what feels like a really long time, and then this happened and... I just cannot keep going. I feel like I've been frantically juggling balls, and before I really got the hang of it another would drop out of the sky and I would have to add it to the rotation, throwing the balls higher and higher and moving faster and faster. But now I've dropped them all, and they've scattered everywhere. It seems like an impossible effort to find them and get them back up in the air again."

She opened her eyes to see him nodding slowly in the pre-dawn light. "That makes sense. What else?" he asked.

She hesitated again, but finally said, "This isn't the first time I've seen someone die, you know that. But this... When an Aberrant is created, it's the loosed magic itself that turns against you, that kills you and uses your body as fuel to create something else in your place. Magic...it is not our friend. It is a rabid beast that we leash to our wills, and it uses every mistake as a chance to kill its master and break free again."

"And you're a sorcerer. It could happen to you," he deduced.

"Or to one of my classmates, or to you, or to some random person walking down the street. And when it does, it could kill everyone around it in passing." She needed magic, she even loved it, but this was a visceral reminder that she feared it, too, and for good reason.

She had gotten lucky with Newton. He wasn't particularly strong before losing control, she had been intimately familiar with the spell he was casting, and the Aberrant happened to manifest in a way that didn't kill them all immediately *and* that could be defended against. It had been a confluence of fortunate coincidences. That wasn't always the case. "I just wonder how the world hasn't already fallen into ruin. It seems like we as a society are perpetually on the brink of a cataclysmic event. And if something worse happened, it's likely I wouldn't be able to do anything about it, or even save myself."

Oliver's hand moved, like he wanted to take hers, but in the end he only said, "Magic is dangerous. You don't have to worry about me losing control, but it is, in general, a valid fear. That's why we have the Red Guard, and they are very good at their job. The world was around for a long time before you were born, and yet somehow we survived until now." One side of his mouth twitched up in a tentative smile. "For the remainder of your concerns, I suppose you must do what you can to decrease your risk---like sleeping when you need it---and then ask yourself if the remaining danger of being a thaumaturge is worth it."

"It is," she said immediately. It had never been in question, really, but saying it aloud settled something inside her.

His smile grew larger. "Well then. Come down to breakfast."

Sebastien still wasn't hungry, but she didn't protest. After eating, which sapped what little energy she had gathered, she slept again for a few hours.

When she awoke, the streets below were busy, and the sun had burned off the fog of the early morning. For the first time in a while, she took out her grimoire, lightly running her fingers over its leather cover and slightly ragged pages. Her grandfather had helped her create it when she turned thirteen. It held a deceptive number of pages, was encrypted to allow access to only her, and held her accumulated knowledge of magic and sketches of the interesting places she'd been and things she'd seen.

She flipped through the pages from the beginning, chuckling at her younger self's awkward handwriting, occasional misspelling, and excitement at the basic fundamentals of sorcery. She had been so cute and innocent. She'd actually learned quite a lot over the years, despite lacking a formal teacher after her grandfather, but much of it was the type of thing that would be useful to small rural villages or while traveling. She knew many minor healing concoctions, spells to keep a chicken laying eggs, and how to ward off erlkings and bogles.

Sebastien had stopped updating her grimoire frequently just a few days into her stay at the University, as she got too busy to keep up with the rest of her work. Now, she took out her fountain pen, filled the internal cartridge with ink, and began to write. Her thoughts and many, many questions spilled out onto the page, along with some of the more interesting lessons she'd learned at the University. She didn't push this process, allowing herself breaks whenever her hand hurt or she grew bored.

It took days.

Her appetite returned, and as she sat at the window, watching the rhythms of the city in between bouts of writing in her grimoire, she slowly lost the overwhelming desire to sleep. The occasional spark of irrepressible excitement filled her as she explained the magic she'd learned to the grimoire, and she realized just how much she'd improved in the last few months.

Oliver was so busy she only saw him in passing a few times, but she didn't try to ask if he needed help. She hadn't replenished enough to spare even a fraction of herself.

She woke early Thursday morning, for the first time in the last week not feeling like she wanted to go directly back to sleep, and slipped down to the kitchen as the sun rose. When breakfast was ready, she imbued two cups of Oliver's expensive coffee with wakefulness intent and took a tray filled with food up to his office, where he was already working.

Oliver cleared a spot on his overflowing desk before grasping the cup of coffee from her like a man stranded in the desert might take a canteen of water. His clothes were rumpled, his hair slightly greasy, and his eyes ringed by dark circles. He still smiled in greeting, and it seemed genuine, though that might have been more for the *coffee* than for her.

"I'm going back to the University today. I wanted to talk with you a little before I left," Sebastien said.

Oliver nodded silently, his mouth busy with gulping down dark, steaming liquid.

"Did the...*incident* cause problems?"

He let out a deep sigh as he set down the empty mug. "The Aberrant was in Nightmare Pack territory, so despite the appearance of the Raven Queen, the coppers haven't had much to go on when questioning my people. There is increased scrutiny, however, and there have been attempts to insert an undercover agent into our operations. Nothing we cannot handle. I did have to make some concessions to Lynwood, both for the Pack's help obfuscating the issue and for causing such a significant disturbance in their territory."

Sebastien cringed. "What concessions?"

Oliver waved a hand indifferently, speaking around a bite of the omelet Sharon had cooked him. "Nothing critical. I don't hold you responsible. Sometimes things just go wrong... And sometimes things blow up and cause a shit tornado. It could have been worse. You kept some of the residents from dying, at least, and this whole incident has done more than a little to reduce resistance among those who weren't so pleased with our presence in the new territory. No one wants an angry visit from the Raven Queen."

Sebastien grimaced, then let out a resigned sigh. "That's something, I suppose. I'm not going to be able to keep track of Tanya like I did before. I screwed up. She knows the Raven Queen was following her. She and anyone she might meet with will be wary, and without Newton..." She stared unhappily into the steam rising from her coffee, unable to stop the faint trembles that sent ripples across its surface.

Oliver scratched at the stubble on his jaw, stuffing another bite into his mouth. "I wouldn't say it's the best outcome, since this is sure to put the University on their guard against us, but Tanya Canelo is no longer our only source of information on what's been happening. We have many captured former Morrows who know quite a lot. Long-term, we'll simply need to work with what we have. It's not worth putting you in further danger."

"The captured Morrows are actually part of what I wanted to discuss. Have there been any attempts to break those prisoners free?"

"No. Why?"

"Tanya was asking about their location and the Verdant Stag's security measures during the secret meeting. They must have been planning something, and this little incident probably won't deter them indefinitely."

"We'll increase our precautions. Thank you for the warning." It was Oliver's turn to sigh, and he hunched over his desk as if an invisible weight were trying to crush him into the mounds of paperwork. "Perhaps we can upgrade the alarm wards. All our enforcers have already been pulling double shifts for the last week, and it will take some time to increase our numbers with trustworthy people."

"The battle didn't go as smoothly as planned," she stated.

"That's true, unfortunately."

"Has the takeover of the new territory encountered much difficulty?"

"The Morrows may have managed their territory in a way I wouldn't, but they weren't completely foolish. They were more heavily armed and prepared than we had hoped or expected. It is difficult to conceal all signs of an operation with so many people and moving pieces. Nevertheless, it did not go as horribly as it could have. A few of our people died, more were severely injured. We managed to capture a large percentage of the Morrows. We mitigated the collateral damage as well as we could and are making basic aid available to those who need it---food, minor healing, and a place to sleep.

"It will take us some time to consolidate all our gains, but we immediately secured a large sum of coin, consumable resources like artifacts and components, and income producing businesses, both legal and illegal. Some of those businesses might not be as profitable under our control---I am unwilling to force anyone into prostitution or a fighting arena, for instance---but it should still help with our liquidity. I expect there to be a fairly long period of upheaval as we bring the new territory in line with the standards of the Verdant Stag. I'm hoping to turn several of the buildings into textile factories, but I'm waiting on Lord Gervin to officially accept my request for a textile sub-commission, since their Family legally has domain over the industry. Once I have that, I will be able to very quickly create jobs. And we already have a few new thaumaturges to help, including a whole alchemical workshop and the brewers, so there should be less pressure on you and the handful of others we were relying on."

"But I can still brew for the Verdant Stag, right?"

"Of course. We will always have some sort of work for a thaumaturge. There aren't nearly enough of you. Also..." he said, raising a finger and leaning to rummage in one of his desk drawers. "Here is a small bonus for your performance during the battle. The report I received stated that you fought and captured a handful of Morrows who were threatening the healing station, which was not part of your job description. It's a bounty, plus your fee for doing the Verdant Stag's purchasing at the previous underground meeting. I would have given it to you before, but..." He shrugged pointedly.

"Oh. Thank you." The small purse held fourteen gold. Four for the meeting, ten for the bounty.

Sebastien decided not to put the extra coin toward her debt. It would instead help her maintain a reasonable emergency fund. Taking a bracing breath, she said, "I'd like to give you my report on what happened that night now."

"Are you sure? You don't need to talk about it if you're not ready."

"I'm sure." She'd done her best to remember the glyphs carved into the skull artifact the Red Guard had used to bind her vow. She'd noted nothing that seemed like it would alert them if she broke her word, and she'd given them nothing of herself. Even so, she pressed her hand against her chest, where the black stone amulet hung under her shirt, and focused the barest wisp of Will on it.

That was all it took to return her to her original form. She shrank down a bit in her seat, her clothes growing suddenly baggy on her.

Oliver watched with interest. "That is as fascinating as ever."

"Speaking as Siobhan might help push past the Red Guard's compulsion," she explained. She took a moment to shift about, moving her face and limbs to settle into her transformed body. After reminding herself of her name in this form, the one that she had not given the vow under, she began to speak.

The vow still guided her away from sharing too many details, causing a growing tightness in her throat the longer she spoke. Still, she found that she didn't mind this terribly, as she had no desire to dredge up the irrelevant minutiae.

When she was finished, she returned to Sebastien's body and left Oliver to his huge pile of work. In the cheek-tingling cold outside, she turned north, to the University settled atop the white cliffs, as bright and proud as ever. She was out of time.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 94 - Tea and Cookies

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 28, Thursday 9:00 a.m.​

Sebastien arrived at the University with barely enough time to make it to History of Magic. Although this class was with a different dormitory group than her others, and none of these students really knew her, Sebastien's entrance was greeted by a sudden hush followed by a resurgence of murmuring.

As Sebastien took her seat, the gazes that followed her made it obvious that her involvement in a rogue magic incident was widely known. She hoped that was all that was known.

To Sebastien's relief, Professor Ilma made no public display of concern for her, teaching as she would normally. "Your mid-terms have been graded," the woman announced without preamble, handing a stack of papers to her student aide to pass out. "Results and rankings have been posted on the announcement board in the library. We will not be discussing your test results during class time. There is too much content to get through. If you have questions, you may stay after class or come to my office hours."

Sebastien looked with slight pleasure at the grade atop her test paper. Ilma was a harsh taskmistress, but Sebastien had still managed to answer most of the questions to her satisfaction and received close to full marks. Some of the students near her peeked blatantly at her test, so she covered it with a glare that had them turning away, red-faced. '*The rudeness is already getting on my nerves. If the day continues like this, I might very well snap.*'

Ilma had only been lecturing for a few minutes when the door opened again.

Another student aide stepped in and murmured something to Professor Ilma, and then they both turned to look at her.

"Mr. Siverling, your presence is required elsewhere," Ilma said. "Feel free to see me later if you feel this undue interruption might negatively impact your studies."

The aide shuffled uncomfortably, but apparently whoever had called for Sebastien had enough clout to risk Ilma's dissatisfaction.

Sebastien followed the aide out into the hall. "Do you know what this is about?" she asked, adjusting the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she tried to keep the apprehension out of her voice.

The aide shook her head, walking quickly and not looking at Sebastien. "I do not."

"Who wants to see me?"

"The History Chair, Grandmaster Kiernan," the woman said succinctly.

Sebastien had never met the Chair of the History department before. '*Is Grandmaster Kiernan part of Munchworth and Tanya's faction? Munchworth is in the History department, too... Could they have suspicions about my presence at the scene?*' Possibilities ran rampant through her head, and she found herself reaching for her Conduit before she noticed and stopped herself. All too soon, before she had any kind of plan in place, they arrived at Kiernan's door.

The student aide opened it and waved her through with a shallow bow.

Swallowing, Sebastien lifted her chin and stepped into the room.

Grandmaster Kiernan, who was sitting behind an expensive desk, looked up with a smile when she entered. He did not remind her of Munchworth in the least. Kiernan had a polished, bald head and a short grey beard. His office was warm and filled with historical artifacts and relics. They sat on warded stands and display cases, filling the spaces between books on the shelves that lined the walls.

"Mr. Siverling! Thank you for coming. Take a seat, please," he offered, motioning to the plush couch next to a window instead of the chairs in front of his desk.

Slowly, she complied.

The low table in front of the couch already had a tea service tray atop it, and Kiernan sat on the cushion next to her and prepared a steaming cup for each of them. "I am Grandmaster Kiernan," he said, "but I prefer students just call me Professor Kiernan. Is it alright if I call you Sebastien?" he asked, his tone making it clear that he expected her to agree eagerly.

She nodded silently.

"One of my former students sent me this tea all the way from the Dragon Well area of Longjing, which is a small province in the East known for its tea." He motioned to the cream and sugar, but Sebastien shook her head, accepting a plain cup. "Cookie?" he offered. "I know you young people burn through calories as quickly as they hit your stomachs, and I hear the cafeteria food leaves something to be desired."

"No, thank you." She was always in need of caffeine, so she drank the tea, but only after he drank first. '*I doubt he would try to drug Thaddeus Lacer's apprentice, but one never knows.*'

"I understand you are in Ilma's class section. An interesting woman. How are you enjoying it?"

"She's a good teacher," Sebastien said cautiously. "She tries to make us think, not just regurgitate information."

Kiernan nodded. "So I hear. And your other classes? How are you finding the University so far?"

"I enjoy my classes," Sebastien said. She wasn't going to start complaining about Pecanty here.

"I'm not surprised. I hear you are a rather impressive student, despite your...unfortunate background. Your current guardian is Lord Dryden? It must be hard, without parents alive to guide you," Kiernan said searchingly.

Sebastien tried not to stiffen visibly. "Mr. Dryden has been very kind to me," she said noncommittally, though Oliver wasn't legally, or even informally, her guardian. '*What is Kiernan getting at? Why bring up my parents? Is he trying to hint that he knows my background doesn't stand up to scrutiny?*' The stress of the conversation was getting to her. She downed her tea and decided to cut through the inscrutable small talk. "Professor Kiernan, why am I here?"

He laughed, smacking a hand on her shoulder and did not seem to notice her flinch. "Oh, I like to chat with the students when I get a chance, keep abreast of how things are going in the 'real world,' as they say. But I did call you here for a specific reason."

Kiernan stood and grabbed a card-sized piece of paper from his desk. "We at the University wanted to thank you for what you did." He handed her the card. "At great risk to yourself, you acted to save those in danger during a rogue magic incident. Without you, several innocent civilians and one of our other University students might no longer be alive. Mr. Siverling, I hear that you successfully stunned the Aberrant, which may have bought time for the Red Guard and greatly affected the outcome of that night."

Sebastien Siverling had indeed stunned the Aberrant when she, supposedly crawled in the window to search for an unconscious Newton. She looked down at the card filled out with one hundred University contribution points. An exorbitant amount for a first term student. If converted to the equivalent in coin, this was worth about ten gold if she redeemed items for resale.

"You can upgrade your meal plan with that," Kiernan said jovially, slapping his knee and laughing.

"I don't understand," Sebastien said. '*Is what I supposedly did actually worth contribution points? Is this...a bribe? Carrot before the stick? Is he about to threaten me?*'

"You're a hero, Sebastien! A credit to our school. We wanted to make sure you understood you are appreciated, and also ensure that the stress and pressure from your experiences will not adversely affect you going forward. I know Professor Lacer was worried you would be in danger of Will-strain from the trauma."

"I'm fine."

Kiernan shook his head sympathetically, once again clapping her on the shoulder. "There's no need to put on a brave face, Sebastien. What you experienced would leave anyone with some mental or emotional strain. Sometimes it's best to talk about these things. Recounting your experiences with someone trustworthy can help to lessen any hold they might have on you, and if it turns out that you need any further help, a little leeway, I do have some pull with the other members of the University board..."

She blinked down at her empty cup.

Kiernan hurriedly poured more tea for her with a grandfatherly smile.

"You want me to tell you about what happened that night?"

"I think it would be best. Take your time, feel free to explore the details and how everything made you feel."

'*So the contribution points* are *a bribe. An excuse to question me in person.*' She sipped her tea and shook her head sadly. "I made a vow to the Red Guard. I'm unable to talk about anything that happened."

Kiernan froze for a second, then nodded. "Of course they would do that..." he murmured, but then perked up. "But surely they left leeway for you to speak with a mental health professional?"

She shrugged. "If that mental health professional works for the Red Guard, then yes."

Kiernan's eyebrows and mouth both collapsed downward, his grandfatherly kindness replaced by pointed frustration, as if he suspected she was being purposefully difficult. "How did the three of you, normally all good students, end up in such a situation?"

Sebastien sighed mournfully. "I'm not sure what happened before I got there. And obviously, by the time I arrived, Newton was already..." She trailed off with a small, pained sound like a wounded animal, and brought a hand to her tightening throat with an expression of distress. "I'm sorry. I'm really unable to talk about it. The vow makes my throat close up."

Kiernan patted her shoulder but continued his questions. "But you did encounter the Raven Queen. She was also there by the time you arrived, I'm told."

Sebastien grimaced. "I didn't know it was her at the time."

"I've heard that she gave you a blessing."

"There aren't any ongoing dangers, if that's what you're worried about," Sebastien assured him with an expression that was as sincere as she could make it. "The other students are safe to be around me. The Red Guard cleared me for release, and Professor Lacer was there, so you can ask him if you want confirmation."

"Oh, I believe you, my boy. I'm sure you wouldn't place your fellow students in danger. But I am curious, did the Raven Queen do anything...special? Anything to indicate why she was there, or what she's been up to, where she's been hiding?"

Sebastien shook her head silently, taking another sip of tea while she held Kiernan's gaze over the rim. He wasn't even being subtle with pumping her for information. The apprehension she'd felt upon being summoned was quickly turning into irritation.

"But she gave you a boon. You cannot tell me you didn't interact. How did it happen?"

"Seemingly by..." Sebastien lifted her hand to her throat again, frowning, and squeezed out, "coincidence." She took another sip of the tea as if to soothe her throat, making a mournful expression at her inability to expound further.

Kiernan scoffed angrily. "Apparently this entire situation, from the beginning, was by seeming 'coincidence.' Forgive me if I don't believe it."

Sebastien leaned over and patted Kiernan on the shoulder, like he had so presumptuously been doing to her. "I know the Raven Queen stole something from your department, but I'm sorry I can't be of more help. Grandmaster Thaddeus Lacer has taken me as his apprentice, which you probably know. He heard my report in full. If you'd like more information, you should talk to him, or perhaps the coppers. I'd rather not continue attempting to speak of it. Due to the restrictions the Red Guard placed on me, it's both difficult and stressful, which is counterproductive to any beneficial effects a counseling session with you might have. So, if there's nothing else... I'm very thankful for the contribution points, but I'm worried about falling behind in my classes, after having already been out for a week."

The man gritted his teeth for a moment, but then resumed his jovial pretense. "Oh, yes, yes, I don't want to disrupt your studies. Make sure to let one of the faculty know if you feel you need medical attention, either physical or mental." As she stood to leave, he said, "Are you sure you won't have some cookies? I don't need them myself. Don't want to pack on any extra winter padding around the middle!"

Sebastien smiled at him. "Oh, well in that case, perhaps I will share them with my friends. Thank you, that's very generous of you." She picked up the entire plate, and, without waiting for him to protest, walked out of the room with it. '*A little vindictive,*' she admitted to herself, '*but unlikely to have any consequences.*' She still didn't want to eat them herself, but perhaps she could give them to the members of Damien's little cohort---and keep watch for signs of lowered inhibitions or loosened tongues afterward.


----------
Question: What are your thoughts about Kiernan pressing Sebastien for information? While the "Raven Queen" is in possession of the book he lost, what could that book supposedly contain that would be so valuable?

 

[Winged One]

Question: What are your thoughts about Kiernan pressing Sebastien for information?

Click to shrink...

Well, he's obviously part of the faction the old Morrows worked for. Maybe even the leader.

While the "Raven Queen" is in possession of the book he lost, what could that book supposedly contain that would be so valuable?

Click to shrink...

Some secret magic knowledge Merlin supposedly had. Something they think would make the planned rebellion a certain victory.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 95 - Prose and Points

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 28, Thursday 9:40 a.m.​

Professor Ilma didn't make a fuss when Sebastien slipped back into the room halfway through her lecture, despite the distraction she caused to the gossip-hungry students.

After the period was over, Sebastien hurried through the halls to Pecanty's Sympathetic Science classroom, not because she was eager for his class, but because she wanted to speak with both Damien and Ana.

Sebastien had apparently hurried too quickly, because neither was there when she arrived.

Some of the other students began working up the gumption to approach her as soon as she entered the room. She was unguarded, like a baby lamb separated from the flock.

Waverly Ascott, quiet as ever, moved her bag out of the seat next to her and waved Sebastien over with barely a glance.

Sebastien placed the plate of cookies pillaged from Kiernan on her desk.

Ascott kept her eyes trained on a thick book about witchcraft, but took one of the cookies and started nibbling.

Brinn Setterlund came up on Sebastien's other side, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms. He sent a weak glare out at nothing in particular, which Sebastien found supremely unthreatening, but was apparently enough to keep the other students from approaching.

'*They're protecting me,*' she realized with an uncomfortable moment of inner warmth.

Rhett Moncrieffe took a seat behind her with a cool nod. "Welcome back."

Alec Gervin also took a guard position, though he had to kick another student out of their place to do so, which reduced Sebastien's warm feelings.

Damien and Ana arrived shortly after and took the seats in front of her before immediately turning to face her. "Stars above, Sebastien, I'm so glad you're back. Things have been rather unpleasant here," Damien said.

She leaned forward. "I wanted to ask you two about that. What's happened while I was gone? What rumors have been circulating? Everyone seems to know I was involved." Damien might have information from his brother, since they seemed to communicate frequently and the elder Westbay wasn't particularly circumspect with what he revealed to his little brother. And Ana always seemed to know the latest gossip.

"It's been all anyone's talking about," Ana said. "What actually happened is still rather vague, but, as always, there are rumors that range from plausible to outrageous."

Damien nodded. "The coppers haven't come out with a statement, but everyone knows Newton is dead, and there was an Aberrant that got the Red Guard called in."

Ana, like Waverly, took one of the cookies from Sebastien's desk without even bothering to ask. "Delicious. Where did you get these, Sebastien?"

"Grandmaster Kiernan from the History department gave them to me when he called me to his office this morning," she said pointedly.

Damien's eyes widened before he controlled his expression, but the tension leaked through in his voice. "He's the department Chair, right? What could he want with you? Why did he give you cookies?"

Sebastien grimaced. "Kiernan gave me contribution points, but they were just an excuse to question me about what happened."

Ana nodded sagely. "He's probably worried about the University's reputation and what rumors you might spread. Canelo has been stripped of her student liaison position, you know. She was absent for a few days, perhaps being questioned by the coppers, but she's back now. It's bad press to have two of your student aides implicated in an incident like this. Especially when one turns up an Aberrant." Ana plucked at her clothes, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. "And on that note...what *actually* happened?"

Sebastien could feel the weight of attention from every remotely close-by student straining to hear her answer. She shook her head. "I had to make a vow with the Red Guard. I can't talk about it." She had a feeling she would be repeating that a lot in the near future.

Damien groaned in frustration, sending Ana a glare. "I told you guys not to bother him about that!"

Ana shrugged. "No harm in asking. I'm not ashamed to admit that I am quite curious. Perhaps I could relate some of the rumors to you, Sebastien, and you could simply tell me how close to the truth they are, on a scale of one to ten?"

Sebastien shrank down in her chair to get away from Ana's gleaming eyes. "No, thank you."

"Leave him alone, Ana," Alec said, scowling down at his desk. "Someone died."

Ana passed Alec a cookie and a sympathetic look, patting him on the hand. "Here. Eat something before you get any grumpier." She turned to Sebastien. "Newton Moore was his tutor, you know. It's a little frightening to think about."

Alec scowled but, with a surreptitious look at Sebastien, shoved the entire cookie into his mouth with an angry grunt.

Damien tossed his hair back. "I sympathize, Sebastien. Everyone keeps asking me for details since my Family runs the coppers. But I couldn't tell them anything even if I wanted to, because I don't know much. I sent a letter to Titus, but he's too busy with the investigation." Damien coughed awkwardly. "Also, it is confidential since the investigation is still ongoing, even if Titus isn't bound by the secrets of the Red Guard like someone in a lesser position might be."

Damien probably knew, or had extrapolated, more than he was letting on. Sebastien was grateful that he wasn't sharing with the others, as he likely would have before being inducted into their fake secret organization.

"What else has been happening?" she asked.

The others shared looks. "The coppers and some of the Red Guard came around to interview some people, but they didn't stay for long," Damien offered.

Ascott piped up. "There have been a lot of lectures about spell safety. There are sign-up sheets for counseling in the dorms. I'm not sure why they're making such a big deal of this, specifically. Didn't they give that lecture at the beginning of term about how one in fifteen of us would die or go insane before reaching Master level?"

"A lot less than one in fifteen people break and become an Aberrant," Alec muttered, accepting another cookie from Ana. The plate was rapidly emptying.

"Quite a few people are in the infirmary for Will-strain," Brinn added.

Moncrieffe nodded. "And Fekten has been more brutal than usual. He keeps going on about how we're all incompetent and will die at the first sign of danger. Tuesday we had to run five miles while he chased us and threw around stinging jinxes. I think he's trying to train our Wills through hardship."

"Oh!" Ana said. "All of us took turns making notes of what you missed during the lectures. I know how you obsess over being the best, Sebastien, so we thought you would want to avoid falling behind as much as possible." She pulled out a three-ring binder with clearly marked, color-coded sections. "Rhett did the organization. He loves that stuff."

Moncrieffe coughed awkwardly and looked away. "It was no big deal. I just copied what I do for my own notes."

Sebastien took the binder, suppressing the urge to argue that she did not obsess over being the best. She simply expected herself to perform at a level that wouldn't embarrass Professor Lacer. "Thank you," she said instead. Some notes were much clearer and more complete than others. Damien had even drawn little explanatory doodles in the margins of the lectures he covered, like he must have seen Sebastien doing on several occasions.

The group finished off the rest of the cookies, leaving Sebastien with a crumb-covered plate that she didn't know what to do with. They didn't exhibit any strange reactions, which meant that Kiernan probably hadn't been trying to drug her, just disarm her with gifts---and the unconscious desire to reciprocate his generosity. She didn't truly suspect they would be laced with anything, since that was the kind of crime that could get him in huge trouble. But people did stupid things all the time. She was a perfect example of that.

Professor Pecanty arrived shortly before the bell rang. He walked with an elaborately carved cane that looked as if he had chosen it specifically for the way it---combined with his vintage tweed jacket with the elbow patches---made him look like a wise old intellectual. He certainly didn't need it to help him walk.

Pecanty had their graded mid-term tests, but unlike Professor Ilma, he had apparently decided that their class time was best spent going over the test in detail. "We will start with some of the particularly bad answers and contrast them against much better examples," he announced, pulling out a few tests that had sections marked with clips. "Perhaps you will find some examples from your peers edifying."

Sebastien shrank down in her seat, holding back a groan. '*He's going to publicly shame me, I know it.*'

However, Pecanty didn't mention any of the students by name, only picking a question or two from each section to review while he wrote notes on the blackboard. "Here, you were asked to give synonyms and associated words for the keyword '*rain*,' and then use them in a sentence. One student provided three links. '*Storm*,' '*cloud*,' and '*water*.' Uninspired, to say the least, as each of those words can quite literally be *combined* with '*rain'*: rainstorm, raincloud, and rainwater. The sentence provided was, 'The dark clouds broke with a rainstorm, filling the streets with water.'" He recited it quickly, with an unusual lack of lilting inflection, then looked up again, slapping the test down on his desk. "Boring and plain. I cannot imagine myself there, nor feel anything from that sentence."

He picked up a different test, flipping to the same section and reading aloud, this time with his usual cadence, as if reciting a piece of poetry. "'The dreary drizzle that had filled the morning turned, by evening, to a drenching squall, sheets of water crashing down from an oppressive, bruise-purple sky.' Keywords were '*drizzle*,' '*squall*,' '*crashing*,' and '*oppressive*.' I hope the difference is obvious, but if not, let me point out that none of these words can be directly joined to '*rain*' to form their own word. This example used both alliteration and metaphor, as well as evocative imagery."

He moved to yet another test, flipping to a new section. "You were asked to list the connotations associated with a certain component, and then relate those associations in a memory or scene highlighting the component. In this particular case, the component was daisy petals. This test-taker correctly enumerated daisy petals' connection to the ideas of new beginnings, hope, innocence, fun, affection, and purity. Most of you got that right, which shows that at least University students can memorize information from their textbooks." Pecanty paused for a scathing moment that *almost* reminded Sebastien of Professor Lacer. "The problem is here: 'The girl picks daisies in a field, plucking petals as she attempts to divine, "He loves me," or "He loves me not."' I am forced to wonder if the point of this assignment was clear, seeing as many of the answers were like this. Let me read you a proper response."

He cleared his throat. "'The daisy pushes through the earth, all green, wet with spring's morning dew. It reaches for the sun, drinking in the light and warmth, and unfurling a flower that opens itself to the embrace of the sky, allowing the buzzing honey-makers to drink from its cup. My mother plucks the daisy and tucks it behind my ear. I am not much taller than the swaying grasses, which smell of sweet earth and buckwheat, and the hem of my cloak is wet and itchy against my legs, but I laugh and pluck one for her in return. She kneels to allow me to tuck it clumsily into her hair.'"

Sebastien had frozen as soon as he began to speak. That was *her* answer. She had been following the advice of the upper-term student, going over the top with poetic description, mention of the senses, and had even made up a connection to her own past. In addition to writing with unnecessarily pretty handwriting.

"Notice the expression of new beginnings, innocence, and affection symbolized by the anthropomorphization of the daisy itself, and then the innocent exuberance of the child, who is fully grounded in the sensations of that moment," Pecanty said. "It's practically *bursting* with connections to all the meanings a daisy petal might hold. If time allowed, we could examine this answer alone for most of the class period."

'*That is...utter bullshit.*' Sebastien had to wonder if all the themes, subtext, and meaning Pecanty found in the books, poems, and plays they studied in class were as similarly nonexistent as this, unintentional on the author's part and attributed with layers of significance that the work did not, in fact, possess.

After a few more examples, Pecanty moved on to the theoretical spell section of the test. "You were asked to create a spell array and casting method for a spell that would help someone process their sorrow or grief, explaining your choices along the way. Some of you chose to use a pentagram, a safe but uninspired choice." He turned to copy out two spell arrays on the board. "This one, using a hexagram for the main symbol, for its connection to spiritual balance, guidance, and mental or emotional aid, is ideal. Especially with the inclusion of the tetragram, or four-pointed star, which in this case was added to turn the focus toward stability and the past. This will help anchor someone who might be more emotionally fragile."

He turned back to the tests. "Now, one student included mermaid tears as one of their primary components. I can only imagine this was because tears usually stem from sadness, and mermaids are known for their beautiful, mournful singing. However, this student seems to have been under a misconception." He spoke loudly, emphasizing his point. "Mermaids are a magical cephalopod. They lure prey by sticking tentacles above water and making them look like a human woman, and this false form lets out a haunting song and asks for help. When the victim gets too close, the 'mermaid' suddenly comes apart into a mass of tentacles that grab them and drag them into the water to be eaten. Mermaid tears do not exist, as mermaids do not have tear ducts and cannot cry."

A student gave themself away by groaning aloud.

Pecanty nodded at them. "Painful indeed. Blue poppy for its melancholy and sedative properties makes sense, but as this spell array is created, it seems like it might actually *induce* grief. That is, if it produced any effect at all, since the glyph used for *'feel'* is one for physical touch rather than emotion."

He gestured next to the hexagram spell array on the board, ignoring the students' snickers. "This student had a much better idea. Golden apples sprinkled with cinnamon for nostalgia, balanced against shade dust for a connection to the past, and condensed granules of etherwood smoke for calm contemplation. That last choice might be a bit too potent for certain types of trauma, and shade dust assumes that the grief cannot have a present-day, ongoing cause, but the addition of lotus bulbs for their connection to self-regeneration, cleansing, and enlightenment was a genius combination. In conjunction with the tetragram, it would add a fortifying element to support the target of the spell *through* their grief, to be reborn afresh on the other side."

Pecanty went on in this vein for most of the class period, finally stopping to give their graded papers back to them. "Sympathetic Science is all about connections," he said as he walked among the desks, placing each test paper in the students' hands personally. "Those connections must be rich and varied, a spiderweb filled with points that cause dozens of lightning-fast responses to bloom when there is a tug on any single node."

When he placed Sebastien's paper on her desk, he stopped to murmur, "Exemplary work, an admirable improvement over your past efforts. I knew you would come around, once you gave up your stubborn way of thinking."

Sebastien flipped over her test to see that Pecanty had attached a slip with five contribution points. She wasn't sure whether to be happy or outraged that the nonsense she had written was rewarded like this.

After class, Alec stopped Sebastien in the hallway with a hand on her arm.

She turned to him, already brewing a scowl, but his expression was uncomfortably earnest, throwing her off.

"So, I put together a care package for the Moore family. Damien and I wrote letters to them about what it was like being friends with Newton, and gathered up some of his stuff that was left in his room, plus some coin to help them get by. I heard their house was burnt down. Anyway, um, do you want to write a letter for them, too? I can put it in with the rest of the package."

Sebastien was taken aback, and remained silent for a long few seconds. She had not expected this, and especially not from Alec.

Alec shuffled, his eyebrows drawing down. "I know I'm not good with people like Ana, but care packages are something you do when a family goes through a traumatic event. It's too simple to mess up. Do you want to write a letter or not?" he asked, growing belligerent.

"I have Newton's Conduit. I'll send that along with a letter of my own."

He harrumphed. "Well, finish it by Monday. I'm not waiting on you if you don't."

They walked on to the cafeteria, where she stopped and scanned the large room from the entrance. Stopping Alec, she handed him the empty cookie plate. "Give this to the kitchen workers."

"Why can't you do it?" he asked.

She didn't reply, already leaving. To her surprise, Damien caught up with her a few moments later. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"To find Tanya Canelo. We were both *there*. I want to see what she has to say." Really, she wanted to know what Tanya had told the coppers and the Red Guard, to see if she could glean any clues about what their next move might be.

"I'll come, too," Damien offered immediately, adding in a murmur, "It might be dangerous to meet with her alone."

Tanya's personal room had been taken away and she now roomed in the fourth-term student dorms, but she wasn't there. Sebastien finally found her in a less-trafficked corner of the library. The blonde, square-jawed girl looked almost as exhausted as Sebastien felt.

Her mouth tightened when she saw Sebastien, but she nodded a sharp greeting. "Siverling. If you're here to talk about the rogue magic incident, I'm unable to speak of it."

Sebastien sat down across from her. "The Red Guard made me take a vow too, but I can talk with those who already know the details. I was there shortly before the Red Guard arrived. I saw you going upstairs with the others, from outside the window."

Tanya looked between the two of them, not relaxing. "So?"

"So... Does anyone know why the Raven Queen was there?"

Damien sucked in a breath.

"I cannot speak of it," Tanya repeated.

"Do you need Damien to leave?" Sebastien asked.

Damien scowled immediately. "I'm not leaving you alone with her, Sebastien." He glared at Tanya, making no secret of his distrust.

Tanya glared back at Damien, looking as if she might snap and attack him, but instead, her eyes welled up with tears.

They rolled down her cheeks like big fat diamonds, one after the other.

Damien stepped back, alarmed.

"I cannot speak of it!" Tanya squeezed out in a choked voice.

It was so far out of character, so different from what Sebastien had been expecting, that she stared at the crying young woman for a long few moments. '*Was this what that skull was supposed to do to me? If so, vowing under the incorrect name made a huge difference. Or maybe she gave a different vow, and I got preferential treatment.*'

When Tanya hunched over, sobbing, Sebastien regained her wits, laying an awkward hand across Tanya's shaking shoulder. "I know you didn't mean for this to happen. What happened to Newton...wasn't your fault."

Tanya let out a watery snort. "If only that were true." With an obvious effort of will, she got herself under control, straightening and looking at Sebastien with a gaze that reminded her of a suffocating fish, wide-eyed and desperate. "But I would take it back, if I could. Newton was my friend, too."

Damien shuffled awkwardly, but Sebastien said, "I know. I didn't realize the restrictions they placed on you were so harsh. We don't have to talk about it."

Tanya nodded, looking as if her head might fall and never rise again. "Could you leave me be? I have a lot of studying to do. My mid-term results weren't as good as someone in my position needs."

They complied, though Damien seemed unsatisfied as they walked away. "Why aren't you angry with her? Did she really have nothing to do with how Newton ended up?"

Sebastien sighed. '*If I were going to be angry with* her, *what would I need to feel for* myself*?*' Aloud, she said, "I sympathize, I suppose. Who knows how she got into this, but at this point, she's trapped. She's in too deep to escape, even if she wants to."

The feeling was familiar.


----------
Questions:
-Thoughts about how Sebastien's friends protect her and offer their notes on the classes she missed?
-For fun, how would you have answered Pecanty's exam question? "Give synonyms and associated words for the keyword 'rain,' and then use them in a sentence."

 

[Winged One]

-Thoughts about how Sebastien's friends protect her and offer their notes on the classes she missed?
-For fun, how would you have answered Pecanty's exam question? "Give synonyms and associated words for the keyword 'rain,' and then use them in a sentence."

Click to shrink...

I'd kind of sweet how Sebastien has actual friends. Sad that it's only in the made-up identity, though. (A debt-holder is never your friend, nor is anyone who would side with them over you.)
I'd have gotten the synonyms correct, probably bombed the 'associated words' due to my total lack of mind-reading capabilities, and then fucked myself over by writing something smartassed like "if only a deluge would wash away this endless drizzle of busywork."

 

[TylerMalad]

I'd have gotten the synonyms correct, probably bombed the 'associated words' due to my total lack of mind-reading capabilities, and then fucked myself over by writing something smartassed like "if only a deluge would wash away this endless drizzle of busywork."

Click to shrink...

There have been a decent amount of times where I was tempted to write such a retort on busywork school assignments 😂

About what you said about Sebastien's made-up identity, that's something I haven't considered lately despite it being obvious. You're right, I wonder how Damien and Ana would react if they learn Sebastien's true identity. Oh that will be SO interesting to see play out!

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 96 – Bini Frogs & Existential Crisis

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 28, Thursday 1:45 p.m.​

After the unsatisfactory conversation with Tanya, Sebastien went to see the overall mid-term results openly posted on the library notifications board. She was accompanied by Damien, Ana, and the other Crown Family group members, who she didn't exactly want to call friends but seemed to be spending more and more time with.

As they entered, she noticed a group of upper-term students blocking off a lounge alcove near the entrance, their eyes darting around in obvious, nervous glee, occasionally using their hands to cover immature giggles.

Sebastien ignored whatever mischief they were up to, moving on to the notifications board. She was closer to the front of the rankings than she had feared, having gotten about ninety percent of the available points across her six classes. She had done quite well in Practical Casting, Natural Science, History, and Modern Magics, modestly well in Sympathetic Science, and about average in Defense. Out of the three thousand students who had started the term, they had already lost about a hundred. Sebastien was ranked in the low three hundreds, which Professor Lacer wouldn't find particularly impressive, but should satisfy his minimum requirements.

At the very least, it was a stronger performance than her entrance exams. As opposed to facing a comprehensive test of anything and everything the professors felt appropriate, the mid-terms had only covered what they'd already learned. Additionally, she'd been better prepared for how they would be graded, which had paid off especially well in Pecanty's class.

Sebastien threaded her way back out of the crowd teeming like minnows around the board, and the others joined her after a few minutes.

"I still beat your score, Sebastien!" Damien announced, preening like a little rooster. "I got rank one hundred twelve."

"Congratulations," she said, making sure not to seem frustrated. She *didn't* always have to be the very best. And besides, she'd had many other projects taking up time she might have otherwise spent on studying. Sure, Damien was taking one more class than her and had still managed, but surely she was busier than him?

"We are all in the top five hundred," Ana announced.

"Except for me," Alec said, giving the girl a look of mixed anger and shame, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. "But I still did pretty good, compared to normal. My father won't have any reason to be angry. He doesn't expect much at this point, as long as I don't embarrass him. I guess all that tutoring with Newton actually did help." He rocked back and forth on his feet during the couple of awkward seconds that followed, looking at the floor.

"Sorry," Ana said with a reconciliatory smile.

Alec shrugged. "No harm done."

Ana slipped her arm through his, giving a little tug. "You worked hard. Cheer up, Alec. We're now all one-eighteenth done with our higher schooling."

Alec snorted. "So encouraging. One-eighteenth already?" He tightened his voice to give a high-pitched imitation of Ana. "Guys, that's basically nearing the end already!" He gave his nonexistent long hair a dramatic flip and fluttered his eyelashes.

Ana punched him in the arm, and he stumbled away from her, but both were grinning.

Sebastien was too aware of the people whispering about her to get drawn into the banter. At first, she thought the whispers were because of the incident with Newton, but when she scowled at a group of particularly obvious women, one returned Sebastien a bold, flirtatious smile.

Thrown off, Sebastien looked away. '*Either the attention has nothing to do with the rogue magic incident at all, or these women are somehow attracted to men who've recently had a close brush with death. How foolish can you get, that something like this could make me seem like a* more *viable partner.*' She wasn't sure if it was better than being a pariah, which at least would have been a more rational response from the other students.

"They're drawn to the idea of danger," Rhett said, as if reading Sebastien's mind. He clapped Sebastien on the shoulder and leaned in to murmur in her ear. "Apparently there are some extra benefits to being associated with you." With a wink, he turned toward the girls with a sad look on his face. "My friend Sebastien is so brave... Have you heard what happened?"

The women cooed and simpered, drawing Rhett into their midst.

A quick flash of irritation that he would take advantage of her situation to flirt with vapid women bloomed inside Sebastien, but instead of slicing him to ribbons with her tongue, she turned to leave. '*It's not a big deal. I'm just on edge. I'll consider this his repayment for organizing my notes.*'

Brinn hurried to catch up with her. "Sorry about Rhett. He doesn't mean anything bad by it, that's just how he is. I can say something to him if it's bothering you."

Sebastien gave the taller boy a small, strained smile. "No, it's okay. I'm just feeling a little...off."

Brinn nodded easily. "Anyone would be. You can't expect to go right back to normal after such a traumatic event. Be kind to yourself."

Sebastien's smile relaxed and grew a little bigger. "Be kind to myself, huh?"

"Well, you can't count on anyone else to be."

She eyed Brinn for a moment, until he ducked his head shyly, a quick blush rising to his cheeks. '*He's the most likable of the entire group,*' she decided, '*except maybe for Ana. But Ana is likable to everyone, like a bright light. Brinn is like the last cookie in the jar, a little stale but still sweet---a surprise.*'

She wasn't stupid enough to say this out loud, because she'd learned that people didn't appreciate mixed compliments, but the whole thought was wiped from her mind when an unfamiliar alarm cut through the building, followed shortly by screaming.

Sebastien's blood chilled as she stumbled through the panicking crowd, looking for the source of danger, her fist tight around her Conduit.

Her mind went blank when she saw it, stuttering as she struggled to comprehend.

A sky kraken, so huge that even one of its eyeballs matched her in height, had descended upon the library building and was looking in through a window, its glistening, chameleon-like flesh rippling with every twitch of the giant eye. A tentacle pressed against the window, seeming to tap on it inquisitively.

Near the window, the upper-term students she'd seen earlier were standing frozen, staring up at the creature in awe and fear.

Sebastien's eyes narrowed. No. Not awe and fear. Excitement and poorly-suppressed glee? She had seen similar expressions on people playing cards with her father when they got a particularly good hand. '*Did they summon that creature?*'

Outrage flushed her with heat so suddenly she grew faint, the sensations of her body falling away. But then the kraken tapped again, its eye twitching. The image blurred just a bit with its movement. "An illusion," she said aloud. Then even louder, "It's an illusion!"

Some of the students near her caught her words and calmed, inspecting the window more closely.

"There isn't even a window on that part of the wall," she said louder.

The whole prank dissolved at that point, with library and administration workers descending on the group of upper-term students who had cast the illusion like the hammer of judgment. The wall went back to normal, the pranksters were told off and assigned punishments, and Sebastien left; she had better things to do than stand around gawking.

She flexed her fingers, shook out her arms, and rubbed the back of her neck to release some of the painful tension her body had accumulated in those few initial moments of panic.

"That was amazing!" Damien yelled, running up behind her.

"It could have gotten someone trampled to death," she bit back.

His smile lost its exuberance. "But it was impressive, right? Even better than some of the illusion plays I've seen when the big troupes are in town. Very convincing."

Sebastien had to admit he was right, though she'd never seen a professional illusion play. "Even so," she grumbled, leaving Damien to roll his eyes.

The next day, Sebastien struggled to rise from her bed, feeling as if a great weight were pressing her down under the safety of her warm blankets, until Damien brought her some coffee from his morning study group. The concern on his face alone was enough to get her out into the harsh reality of morning without delay. '*The last thing I want is more questions about if I'm okay.*'

In Modern Magics, Sebastien's first of only two classes on Fridays, Professor Burberry followed up on their project of the week, a scouring bath alchemical concoction. Sebastien had missed most of the lessons on theory, as well as their preliminary introduction to brewing, but she would make the actual concoction today.

While Modern Magics was not the most difficult class, it gave students a good grounding in many of the basic thaumaturgic crafts, which was the point of a practical class. Still, at times Sebastien wished it were a bit more challenging.

This was not one of those times.

Sebastien stared blearily up at the board while Professor Burberry spoke.

"We have a special opportunity today," Burberry said. "We are going to be brewing this scouring bath with a more potent component than you might normally have access to. The University's Zoology section is providing us with a few dozen bini frogs in their male form, which have a corrosive skin. You will be killing them, dissecting them into their useful parts, and then using a couple of strips of their skin in your concoction. If you feel queasy or lightheaded at the thought of killing and dissecting a frog, I have some anti-anxiety potions at my desk. See me for a dose."

As the student aides for the class passed out jars with the large, bubble-skinned frogs inside, Burberry introduced them. "The bini frog is a magical creature commonly found in northern peat bogs. What makes them interesting is that they are both mother *and* father to their offspring, not through asexual reproduction, but through a hormone change that allows them to lay eggs as a female and then fertilize them as a male. They're a good example of how hormones can affect and regulate gene expression, as only their male forms have the caustic skin. The same frog not only looks different, but also behaves differently, and has different magical properties."

Ana leaned over to Sebastien, murmuring, "Bini frogs are being used in some interesting research to allow same-sex couples to have children." She sighed. "I would love to invest in it, but it's beyond the Gervin Family's domain, and Father isn't interested."

Sebastien replied absentmindedly, a little worm of a thought wriggling distractingly in the back of her mind. "Can't you decide to invest on your own, separate from the Family? The law doesn't state that you can't, as long as the domain isn't controlled by another of the Crown Families that opposes your entrance, right? What you might consider small sums of pocket money could still be significant to the researchers."

Ana replied, but Sebastien couldn't concentrate on her answer, because the worm of a thought had crawled up and made itself known to her consciousness. '*Could the bini frog have been a component in whatever spell the amulet casts on me to create Sebastien?*' She had been researching how the brain worked for her developmental sleep-proxy spell, but for some reason, despite seeing how important hormones were over and over, she had never really applied that understanding to her own situation.

Hormones affected not just the body, but the brain.

Sebastien stood abruptly, cutting off Ana's words with a muttered, "Bathroom," before hurrying from the class.

A quick peek under the stalls showed they were all empty of feet, so she had her existential crisis in front of the mirror over the sinks, which pumped in fresh water at will, just another example of the wonders of modern invention.

'*How much of someone's personality comes from their brain, and how much from their hormones?*'

The question sent cold spider legs crawling down her back, and she stared into her own reflected eyes, trying to take comfort in the fact that those, at least, were the same in both of her bodies. '*Are my hormones the same as Sebastien and as Siobhan?*' That seemed impossible, simply because of the distinction in sex. Her brain itself might not even be the same. After all, everything else was different. '*But injuries transfer over. And my blood is traceable in either form. So what does that mean?*'

Unlike the frogs, she was not swapping between sexes---between different expressions of her own body. Which would have been mind-bending enough on its own. No, she was shifting into a different body entirely. '*How much needs to change before I'm* someone else*? Even my name is different.*'

She realized she was panting and leaned over to splash some cold water on her face. '*Have I been feeling differently,* thinking *differently?*' She hadn't noticed and wasn't sure she could tell. After all, she was not an objective, outside observer.

For a moment, the stream of water sounded like a calm, insistent humming, and she jerked her head back, staring at it in alarm. She turned the faucet off, then snapped her fingers next to her ears to disrupt the phantom memory of sound, taking comfort in the agitated pounding of her heart.

Discovering the truth of her fears would take more than just awareness and introspection. Understanding the effects of such magic would require extensive study, hundreds of subjects monitored by objective outside agents as they underwent the same transition she had. But this, of course, was impossible for more than one reason.

She had continually reassured herself that she was the same person, that a change of bodies meant nothing about who she was on the inside, and in fact had felt bizarrely comfortable in either body, after getting over the initial shock. That comfort might be a sign to the negative, however, since it could have been an effect of the spell itself, meant to mitigate the chance of a mental breakdown.

She wiped her frigid, wet hands over the back of her neck, taking a perverse thrill in the shiver that wracked her body. Water dripped from her blonde lashes. '*My consciousness is continuous between both forms. There's no interruption. My memories are the same. It's not as if I'm temporarily killing and later resurrecting either version of myself each time I switch. Even if the transformation is affecting my personality, I still consider me to be "myself" under the effects of alcohol or other substances. Why can't this be the same? My name might change, and my body, but there is something deeper than that, something that makes me* me*, which is constant.*' The words felt right, but still, she was unsure.

'*There is no evidence of a soul*,' she admitted to herself. '*And without that, what am I except for the consciousness created by my body? The consciousness which is* dependent upon *my body*.' When the Aberrant had taken control of her body, forcing her to calm, its effect had infected more than just her physical flesh. Her mind had begun to lose its grip, too. And what was *she*, if not her mind? '*If I do not run my own mind, what runs it? If I don't control my own thoughts, my own decisions, my own feelings, where is the barrier between* "me" *and* "other*?" Will I even notice if I cease to be myself?*'

Though she had been trying not to think of it, blood and fire flashed across her mind's eye. Squeezing her eyes closed, she pressed a knuckle into her temple until it hurt---until it felt like she would leave a bruise---but the pain pushed the memory away.

Her panic had grown too large to grasp entirely, and so, perversely, was settling into a dull dread instead. '*That all may be true, but does it actually matter?*' She was at school, away from the string Aberrant that was once Newton. It couldn't get her. And it was dead by now anyway, proper punishment for devouring Newton and killing those people. It couldn't control, or *consume*, anyone.

And as for her body, she couldn't be sure that she was feeling exactly the same as she would have, entertaining the exact thoughts she would be in her original form, but it *felt* authentic. If she had thought of these possibilities when she first discovered the effects of the amulet, she might have been more frightened at the implications, but she had been switching back and forth for months now and noticed no adverse effects. '*Perhaps now is not the time to have a mental breakdown. There is nothing I can do about it, after all. I won't give up the opportunities that Sebastien allows me, and I won't throw away my past as Siobhan. If some part of my mind is lost and replaced every time, which* isn't *necessarily the case---I don't know how the artifact works, after all---at least my magic seems to be constant.*'

When her fingers had stopped trembling, she wiped away the water, leaving her cheeks and nose red from the cold. She dug out a small jar of bruise balm from her bag and wiped it on her temple as a preemptive measure. Staring at her dark eyes in the mirror, she whispered, "I'm in control," and when she was sure they seemed confident in that statement, she returned to the classroom.

Burberry gave Sebastien a half-sympathetic, half-exasperated look, then offered her a dose of anti-anxiety potion. "I get a few dozen who don't have the stomach for dissection every term. It's nothing to be ashamed of," the woman said kindly.

Sebastien accepted the potion and returned to her desk, though her anxiety had nothing to do with the killing and dissecting of a magical frog.

"That was kind of her," Ana murmured with a small smile. "Very discreet."

Sebastien had no idea what Ana was talking about, too busy downing the potion in a single gulp. Its magic took effect quickly, but not before she had the sudden thought that this, too, was a mind-altering substance. Under the effects of the potion, she felt that she really had overreacted. The question of identity was a serious one with important implications, but it was not as though she was trapped in this body. If it really was affecting her mind, she should first decide if that was actually unacceptable rather than simply horrifying. If she found that it *was* unacceptable, she would eventually return to her original form for good. When she was ready.

To distract herself from her thoughts, Sebastien reached out for a topic of conversation. "Ana, with everything that's happened, I forgot to ask if your little sister was alright, after you had to leave in such a rush last week."

Ana, who was using a scalpel to remove the frog's tiny lungs, didn't reply for a few seconds. "She's okay. I got her another artifact to wear that she can use to alert me if any more situations like that arise. It was Damien's idea."

'*I wonder where he got that one,*' Sebastien thought wryly, thinking of the bracelets they both wore. "Does your Cousin Whoever do things like this often?"

"Cousin Robbie. His father encourages him. Both my uncles take every opportunity to discredit or make Nat and me seem weak---to make us seem unworthy as heirs to the Gervin Family. They encourage their children to do the same. Alec could have turned out much worse, really. He's nothing like Cousin Robbie. Uncle Malcolm and Randolph are hoping to convince my father to name one of them, or maybe their children, as heir."

"But he wouldn't actually do that, would he?"

Ana hesitated. "My father... Well, all three brothers have some antiquated views about the capabilities and 'proper place' of women."

Sebastien snorted. "Really? But you're a thaumaturge, same as the rest of them. Women might be physically weaker than men, but our---your magic is in no way inferior. Our magic is no different, nor our capability as leaders."

Ana shrugged. "The truth doesn't actually matter to a certain kind of person. 'Women---so emotional. Weak mind, weak Will,'" she said, obviously quoting someone unpleasant. She sighed. "Really, it's a remnant of our grandfather, and my mother doesn't help the situation. She married into the Family, and---" Ana cut off, shaking her head as she used small scissors to snip away the bini frog's intestines. "Well. In any case, my father has the option to choose his heir, and while he has made no actual declarations, I've seen the way things have been going over the last few years. I've tried to display my competence, but his brothers' opinions carry too much weight."

They were both silent for a few seconds, and then Sebastien asked, "Is that why you never wear skirts or dresses?"

Ana gave a short, sharp laugh. "I've been wearing pants at every opportunity since I first tried them as a child. Drove my mother spare, but eventually she gave up, except for special occasions. Perhaps it does have something to do with wanting to seem more capable, but really they're just so much more comfortable and practical. Do you know how cold skirts are in winter? And have you ever tried to run without flashing your thighs?"

Sebastien coughed into her fist. "Well, I've never worn skirts. But I believe you."

"My uncles have grown more aggressive with their campaign as I get older. I'm fine, I can handle it, but Nat... Now that I'm gone, she has no one to shield or comfort her. My mother tries, but she's afraid of conflict and stepping outside of acceptable social boundaries, so sometimes she can be almost as bad as the rest of them. I think she'd prefer it if I could just marry a nice man who would take over running the Family while I indulge in hobbies and run a charity or something." Ana got a little too violent with her frog, and its slippery kidney went shooting off onto the floor.

She hurried to retrieve the bean-sized organ before Burberry noticed, and when she returned she gave Sebastien a demure smile. "Everything's fine overall, I'm just...frustrated. I feel helpless."

Sebastien knew that smile was fake. She'd seen its overly sweet rays pointed at too many other people to believe it. Ana's real smile was slightly lopsided, edging on a smirk. "Assuming you don't want to be usurped by your uncles or one of your cousins, or to marry a man who will keep you as arm candy, you can't just let them go on like this. You're being passive, reactive. You need to be the aggressor if you want things to change."

Ana set down her dissection tools, turning to look at Sebastien more fully.

Sebastien continued, peeling the frog's skin off with careful slices of her scalpel. "You need a more permanent solution to your problem." It was something she might not normally have said, if she wasn't still shaken up---something honest.

Ana hesitated, then asked, "What kind of permanent solution?"

"Nothing that could backfire and harm you severely if it goes wrong. Nothing...illegal. Something that would cut off their source of power and influence at its roots. You know more about the situation and the people involved than me---you're the one who would know what might work best."

Ana was uncharacteristically silent for a while, before murmuring, "I would need help..."

"Mmm," Sebastien agreed absently, distracted with brewing the scouring concoction.

After turning in a single vial for grading, Sebastien carefully packaged and kept the leftover components, since no one seemed to keep track of those things, or care. Some students just threw away the remainder, not caring that they were basically throwing away coin. Sebastien had accumulated a handful of random components this way over the course of the term. As they were filing out of the classroom, Sebastien wondered if she might secretly replenish other supplies from the University's stock.

She was trying to calculate if the benefit was worth the risk when she heard someone say Newton's name in a scandalized tone. Her head pivoted toward the source as if pulled by a string.

---

Question: Any speculation about how the amulet works?

 

[Winged One]

Question: Any speculation about how the amulet works?

Click to shrink...

Isn't the form it gives Sebastian nothing like her natural form, even aside from the sex? I don't think a sequential hermaphrodite like the frog was used as a natural component as Sebastian speculates. I think it might just make the wearer look exactly like either the creator or someone the creator wanted to impersonate.

It might also give some genetic ability most people don't have. Maybe the null-state thing Siobhan's family is speculated to have, not that anyone would know since Siobhan knows exactly how much a resistance to going Abberant from using it isn't immunity.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 97 – Properties of Explosive Materials

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 29, Friday 10:30 a.m.​

Sebastien recognized one of the girls gossiping about Newton from Practical Casting. Some time ago, the young woman had tried to flirt with her, hinting that Sebastien should buy her a gift from the offerings in the Great Hall with her contribution points. Sebastien had forgotten her name.

"But Moore always seemed so nice!" one girl exclaimed in a scandalized tone, leaning further into the huddled group. They had either not realized Sebastien was standing nearby or were too oblivious to realize how rude they were being.

Another girl tittered. "Well, obviously he was involved in...*questionable* activities. The revelation might be sudden, but there's too much evidence to deny it. I mean, how else do you find yourself entangled in a battle with gang members and the *Raven Queen*, and then turn into an Aberrant?"

Sebastien's breath was coming fast. She curled her hands into white-knuckled fists, her short nails digging into her palms with a welcome sting.

"He must have corrupted his Will," said a third girl. "What kind of magic do you think he was dabbling in? And what about the other student liaison, that Canelo girl? I hear she's refusing to talk."

The girl Sebastien recognized from Practical Casting shook her head. "She was cursed to be unable to speak of it, from what I heard. As for Newton Moore, he probably did it because he needed the coin. People will degrade themselves in a lot of ways when they need coin."

The first woman sneered. "He didn't fit in here, did he? If he was going to end up so desperate to stay that he let his Will be corrupted, perhaps he shouldn't have been admitted in the first place."

Perhaps cued by some change in Sebastien's bearing or expression, Ana reached out for her arm, but it was too late. Ana's fingers slipped off as Sebastien strode toward the group. Her breath came hard, her wide-eyed gaze tracking over the women's amused, scandalized expressions, taking in every nuance as if preparing for battle.

Sebastien's voice was deep with anger, and she could feel the rumble in her chest, but couldn't quite hear it past the rush of blood in her ears. "Newton Moore was worth more than the entire lot of you."

The women spun to face her, their expressions ranging from surprise to dismay. The girl from Practical Casting blushed, then paled.

Sebastien's slow, bitingly enunciated words came faster as she continued. "It is clear you have no idea what you are talking about, yet find some kind of sick, self-titillating pleasure in spewing vile opinions and allegations about others who aren't around to defend themselves. It speaks more about *you* than it does about Newton. I feel like I'm being made dirty just standing in your presence, but putting you in your place is a service to the entire world that everyone else in your lives has obviously neglected."

There was a short, stunned silence, and conversation began to die out around them as people turned to watch the altercation. "Excuse you? We were just *talking*!" one girl retorted.

Sebastien let out a sharp laugh. "I am also 'just talking.' The difference is that I do not pretend my words are harmless. My words are meant to slap you across the face in lieu of my hand."

The girl flinched back, looking at the fists balled at Sebastien's sides.

"I'm sorry, Sebastien, we shouldn't have..." The girl from Practical Casting trailed off, biting her lip.

"Do not sully my name by letting it pass your lips," Sebastien hissed. The crowd was growing thick with onlookers.

One of the women looked around as if for help, then burst into tears.

Ana stepped up behind Sebastien, laying a hand on her shoulder and murmuring into her ear. "That's enough. I understand, but if this goes on, you could be the one getting in trouble." Louder, she called out, "I'm sorry, he's been under a lot of stress with everything that happened, and I don't think anyone would have appreciated hearing people speak ill of their dead friend." There were sympathetic murmurs among the crowd. "Please let us pass. He needs some space."

Sebastien clenched her fists even harder, gritting her teeth, but had enough sense not to protest or continue her tirade, letting Ana usher her through to freedom.

When they were clear, Ana gave her an exasperated look. "Was that really necessary?"

Sebastien remained silent, unrepentant, her jaw lifted and clenched.

Ana sighed. "You may get away with that sort of thing now, under the circumstances and with your budding reputation, but one of these days your tongue is going to get you in trouble with the wrong person."

"I know," Sebastien admitted. "It's almost surprising that it hasn't happened already. But sometimes, I just---when I heard what they were saying---" She peeled back her lips in a silent, feral snarl and shook her head. "It's not in my nature to be silent," she finished in a softer voice.

Ana sighed, wrapping one arm around Sebastien's shoulder as they walked and pulling her in to her side for a half-embrace. "Oh, Sebastien," she murmured, shaking her head. Ana kept a hold of her for a few more moments, gaze firmly forward, then relented and released her.

By lunchtime, the remnants of Sebastien's rage had left her, like a glowing ember cooled to ash. Its passing left her so fatigued she could barely muster up the energy to eat. Normally, she was ravenous from the constant effort of working her brain and her Will to learn and channel magic. After forcing down food until she started to gag with every bite, she left the others at their cafeteria table and went outside, hoping the fresh winter air would invigorate her.

She huddled into her jacket, sitting on a bench below a crisp pine tree to watch her breath fog up in little clouds. The chill sank into her slowly, but not unpleasantly, and away from the noise and press of the other students, she didn't feel so jarringly out of sync. She closed her eyes and pulled up her scarf around her nose and ears, hibernating until it was time to go to Practical Casting. Her joints felt stiff and old, and even Professor Lacer's class wasn't enough to excite her.

When she entered, the classroom felt wrong, and she realized that its size had decreased once more, to accommodate the reduced number of students remaining. At this point, it was a similar size to many of her other classrooms, down from the beginning of term when it had been by far the largest.

Professor Lacer made his dramatic last-minute entrance as he often did, immediately quieting all conversation. The man looked tired, the lines at the sides of his eyes a little deeper.

Sebastien took a perverse pleasure in the evidence that other people were struggling in the same way she was.

"Some of your number have recognized their inability to proceed in this class and decided to give up, either for this term or forever," he announced at full volume, his deep voice easily carrying to all corners of the room. "If you are questioning your ability to handle the workload or the pressure, I urge you to follow in their footsteps. I have limited time and do not wish to waste it on doomed prospects."

With that, he turned to the blackboard, casting a spell with an absent wave of his hand. A stick of chalk jumped up and began to scratch out words and glyphs. "We will continue to work on your grasp of light as a Sacrifice. For those of you who may be interested in healing, proficiency with channeling and controlling light energy can give you a significant boost with spells that use components or energy from the Plane of Radiance. Of course, healing is not the only option for Radiant energy. I once saw a woman use a pocket-sized planar portal to channel a focused beam of energy that burnt cleanly through an entire group of enemies, and a few hundred meters into the mountainside behind them."

Sebastien was momentarily distracted wondering how that would be possible, since as far as she was aware, planar portals were specifically designed to contain and shield against uncontrolled spillover from the Elemental Plane they were accessing. People passed through the portal---each wearing a specially designed protective suit---gathered and secured components, and exited. Only wild, natural planar portals were unconstrained in a way that would allow immediate use of their energy. And she was pretty sure that direct planar warfare was against some treaty all the major and most of the minor countries had agreed to. The potential consequences were on par with loosing a high-level Aberrant.

Professor Lacer first lectured on various glyphs that were directly or tangentially associated with light-based spells, then set them to practice.

Sebastien had made significant progress on her illusion spell, but still hadn't caught up to Nunchkin's level. Normally, that would have bothered her, since she was still bitter that he had bested her in the class tournament, but at the moment she simply wanted to make it through the class period without drawing Professor Lacer's ire.

A few minutes before the end of class, Professor Lacer ended their practice. "With mid-terms over, it is now time to start considering the end of term exhibitions. In many classes, particularly in the upper terms, they will display the practical portion of the final exam as part of the exhibition. While *this* class is almost entirely practical, I do not include it in the exhibitions at lower levels, since none of you are advanced enough to do anything impressive. If you wish to prepare an individual presentation for those classes that are not automatically entered, you are free to do so---at risk of great personal embarrassment. However, I urge you not to attempt to free-cast in the exhibitions. While success would certainly be an impressive feat and gain you points, I have a clear understanding of your capabilities, and let me assure you that you are more likely to cause yourself Will-strain, or worse." He looked to Sebastien for a moment, and she nodded back quickly to assure him she had no plans for such foolishness.

It was a reminder that she was supposed to earn fifty points in the exhibitions. She hadn't forgotten, exactly, but she'd put it out of her mind as something that she wouldn't need to worry about until later.

Lacer continued, "If your goal is to earn points, especially in the first three terms where most students have no particularly impressive skills, I would suggest something more flamboyant or flashy." He let slip a grimace of distaste, which Sebastien thought was ironic considering his own penchant for the dramatic. "While, nominally, the point of the exhibitions is to demonstrate skill in various areas, *in practice*, you are statistically more likely to be rewarded with points if you provide an entertaining demonstration versus showcasing your skills in a way that does not stimulate the audience. After all, the University wants to show off to all the guests who come specifically to watch. And spend coin."

When the class was released, Sebastien turned to Damien. "I thought the point of the exhibitions was to showcase our talents for potential sponsors or employers. Can they, or the judges, not discern between skill and flash?"

Damien looked incredulously to Ana, who laughed and shook her head. "Sebastien, you seem to have misunderstood."

Damien nodded. "It's true, they *say* the exhibitions are for the sake of the students, but they seem more like a multi-day magical street fair. I attended every year as a child, and they were the highlight of my spring."

"It's not optimal for students who are trying to focus during that critical time," Ana added, "but the University has some token policies in place that are supposed to be for student benefit and maintain our learning environment. But they'll never restrict entrance to only potential employers or sponsors. It's too big a revenue source, as well as a great way to build and spread their reputation."

"So...I'm supposed to put on a show for who knows how many people, who might not even have any idea about how magic works, as part of a gigantic festival. And get fifty contribution points," Sebastien said, dragging her hand down her face in the way that she'd seen Oliver do when he was overwhelmed.

"You're not shy around crowds," Damien said. "Or around anyone," he added in a low mutter. "I'm sure you'll be fine as long as you prepare."

Ana smiled encouragingly. "I believe in you. But in case you're interested, there are records, both from the internal University publication and official reports, that detail what kinds of exhibitions received rewards. That should allow you to tailor your efforts to your audience."

"Thank you." Sebastien didn't want to research prior exhibitions, or start planning and developing a magical performance. She was struggling to *care*. But she recognized that trying to "wing" something at the last minute was a bad idea. If she failed to meet his demands, Professor Lacer might not allow her to remain at the University. Even though she was too tired to feel it at the moment, she knew her lifelong dream of learning magic wasn't something she could allow to slip through her grasp. When she had recovered from this malaise, whatever it was, she would regret inaction.

Damien seemed to notice a little of what she was feeling on her face. "Are you okay, Sebastien?"

"Tired," she replied simply.

"Really? I mean, is that it? I know you can't talk about what happened with us, but maybe you should go to the infirmary? They have mind-healers who've taken confidentiality vows. You seem..."

Sebastien rubbed her eyes. "I don't need a mind-healer, Damien. I just have a few too many things on my plate at once."

Damien was silent for a moment. He looked to see that Ana was distracted with talking to someone else, and far enough away not to hear, then said quietly, "Maybe I could help take a few 'things' off your plate? I can handle more responsibility."

Sebastien wanted to snap that his nosiness, his inclusion in her secrets, was one of her many problems. Instead, she gritted her teeth and announced abruptly, "Actually, I am going to go to the infirmary. Maybe they have something stronger than coffee to help keep me awake."

She could practically feel Damien's solicitous gaze on her back as she strode away.

Instead of the infirmary, though, she veered off and made for Professor Lacer's office, where he retreated as soon as possible after his classes. She knocked sharply, then opened the door and strode inside, stopping in front of Lacer's desk.

He looked up slowly from the scattered papers and books. Some held complicated spell arrays and what might even have been a half-finished ward plan for a residence. "How can I help you, Mr. Siverling?"

Sebastien clenched and unclenched her fists, let out a slow breath, and said, "Professor Lacer, I respect and admire you."

He raised an eyebrow.

"However, I have to insist that you respect my personal boundaries. It is unacceptable for you to cast magic on me against my will, without my consent. *Especially* magic that will force me to sleep. Or in any way affect my mental state. I would never have consented to it, and will not consent to the like in the future."

Thaddeus Lacer placed down his pen and leaned back in his seat. He met her gaze for a few long, agonizing seconds. "I understand. I will not do such a thing again, and will try to remember to ask your consent before casting any other magics that affect your person, unless I judge you are in immediate and severe danger without my interference."

Sebastien's shoulders loosened, but she lifted her chin, giving him a dignified nod. "Thank you. I'll leave you to your work." With a shallow bow, she turned and left the room without another word.

---

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[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 98 – Excessive Force

Oliver

Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 3:30 p.m.​

Through the curtained window of the discreet carriage Oliver had appropriated from Lord Morrow, which allowed him to look out but did not allow others to see in, Oliver noted an unusually large number of coppers patrolling his expanded territory. A pair of coppers had stopped a man on the side of the street and were shaking him by his elbow, drawing angry looks from all around.

"It's ironic that we break fewer laws than the Morrows ever did, and yet the coppers find us so much more offensive," Oliver said.

Huntley's ever-flickering gaze remained on their surroundings. "It's because we make it so much more obvious that the coppers aren't doing their jobs. It will die down."

Oliver wasn't sure it would. The coppers were harassing Katerin and anyone else who worked for the Verdant Stag, trying to bring Lord Stag and the Raven Queen in for questioning and arrest. Oliver doubted the coppers were getting much from those they harassed, but it was still a problem.

Oliver had managed to get most of his people released, but the fines and bribes were becoming prohibitive, and the coppers weren't showing any signs of slowing down. In a way, it was similar to what he was doing with the Morrows. They were holding his people ransom. The coppers needed to be seen doing something after the widespread fighting and collateral damage had made them seem so ineffectual, and they were getting their arrest numbers up.

Of course, not all the coppers were corrupt. Some of them actually wanted to help the community, and others were at least willing to do the right thing if it didn't significantly inconvenience them. Many of them had started the job with high ideals, but it was hard to stay clean when so many others were crooked, and the system itself seemed to subtly encourage that.

Oliver needed to find more coppers who still held to their principles, or would at least *prefer* to be bribed to look the other way by an organization more like the Verdant Stag than one like the Morrows.

Perhaps more easily, he could make harassing his people unappealing. He pressed his hand over his chest, where a black leather notebook sat in the inside pocket of his jacket. Before he had found the book and its key---having meticulously rifled through Lord Morrow's properties and belongings from top to bottom and broken all the wards and safeguards the man had put in place---Oliver's best idea had been to hire a team of solicitors specifically to make arrests more hassle than they were worth.

Lord Morrow had kept a team specifically for that type of thing. Instead of just paying the fines and the bribes to get his people out, Oliver could set solicitors to argue every case. It would be as tedious for him as it was for the coppers, and it would drag out the whole process and probably cost him even more, but it would make his people seem like a less appealing target.

He would still do that, but the notebook offered another type of solution. With one to two pages for every entry---some entries with only a few lines and others packed with neat, tiny writing---the book was filled with blackmail material. Blackmail on anyone remotely important, some who the Morrows had worked with, and some who Lord Morrow simply wanted to be prepared for in case of need.

There was even a page for Lord Stag, though there was nothing truly incriminating listed, just tidbits of knowledge about illegal activities he'd been involved with, as well as speculation and notes about failed attempts to find his civilian identity.

But there was plenty of information on local law enforcement, covering people who worked on every level, in all the different departments. When Oliver had realized what it contained, he'd been grateful for the featureless mask of Lord Stag, because the wild grin splitting his face from side to side was probably disturbing.

He'd gained more than just the little black notebook, though. The Morrows had been profitable. Very much so. And a large portion of their resources and businesses were now in Oliver's hands, ready for him to do with what he would. Attached to all that came the contracts, employees, and supply chains that kept all of it running, which was as much a blessing as it was a curse.

Lord Morrow had several properties filled with everything from overpriced furniture embroidered with actual gold thread, to a library of books he'd probably never read and only displayed for the aesthetic, to an old, abandoned printing press down in the basement surrounded by other knickknacks, non-working artifacts, and even some actual junk. The man may have been a hoarder. And it was all Oliver's.

Lord Morrow's widow had signed over almost everything she had legal control over, except for some properties outside Gilbratha and enough money to provide a modest stipend for her and the younger children for the remainder of her life. Which could be years yet, as long as she didn't try to go against the terms of the magical contract she had signed.

Oliver had questioned her extensively under illegal wards against untruth. The minor torture tactics he had okayed for the rest of the Morrows weren't even necessary to get her to talk. Then he had forced her, like her children and all the other captured Morrows who hadn't deserved execution, to take rather restrictive vows against retaliation. Those vows, along with the signed-over assets, were exchanged for her life and freedom.

It wasn't a perfect method, but legally, it was safer and less problematic than simply trying to steal the assets once owned by the various Morrows. Forcing people into contracts or vows under duress was illegal, and they could sue to regain what had been unlawfully taken from them, but the vows they had made also stated their admission of certain crimes.

Most of those who agreed outwardly but planned to betray him right away should have been caught by the prognos diviner he hired, and were, of course, denied release. Those who might change their minds once they were free, despite the vow's minor compulsion, would still think twice, both because betrayal would allow him to use their blood print to have someone place a curse on them, and because he could turn their admissions of guilt over to "his" coppers.

Without the resources they once had access to, the damage they could do to him would be reduced, but he was aware that the contacts and networks they'd built up over the years still existed, and he couldn't remove them entirely. By bankrupting rather than killing, he was hoping to avoid some of the retaliatory hatred. This way, even if they had powerful contacts or could call for aid from the few Morrows who avoided capture, they would be a drain on enemy resources instead of making themselves martyrs.

If people still tried to sue or otherwise cause him problems, then some high-profile assassinations would be in order as a warning.

He wasn't prepared to kill when it wasn't necessary, so this was the best solution he could come up with.

Oliver had only taken a moderate fine from those who hadn't committed any particularly serious crimes, while hiring the best---and least offensive---for the Verdant Stags.

He had been in a position where he needed to either expand or die, and he had expanded. Now he was consolidating, tightening his grip. He had dozens of good places to put the new resources to work, such as an alchemical workshop that had been creating addictive substances for the Morrows. Under Oliver, it was going to be turned toward a new---legal---enterprise making emergency response kits, household concoctions, and even cosmetics available to the common budget.

The income that would continue to come in from illegal substances while they transitioned would go towards a rehabilitation center, complete with healers and incentives, that he hoped would help fight against the addiction endemic among some of the worst off among his people. Rather than making the substances illegal, a change that would require ponderous enforcement, Oliver suspected that rehabilitation would prove a more successful---and cost effective---method of solving the epidemic. And if nothing else, it would make him *look good*.

Oliver watched as another pair of coppers swaggered out of the doorway of a shop that bore the bright green antlers of the Verdant Stag above their doorframe, the younger of the two smirking as he dropped a handful of coins into his pocket. Too much coin to be change for a purchase. They'd just extorted the shop owner.

They were losing all sense of moderation. They thought he was an easy victim.

"Stop the carriage," Oliver ordered, rapping on the roof to alert the driver, because the man wouldn't be able to hear him past the carriage's privacy wards, and he didn't want to lower them with a pair of coppers right there. The carriage was spelled to be both unremarkable and difficult to track, but all the wards were on the same system.

Huntley's gaze flicked around, through the windows in both doors, then searched Oliver for signs of illness or injury. "You're scheduled to go straight from the alchemy workshop to the Verdant Stag. What's wrong?"

"The coppers are harassing a shop owner under our protection." Oliver's instinct was to do something about it personally, but that would have been the worst possible decision, giving them exactly what they really wanted on a silver platter. "You should get out and dissuade them."

"Absolutely not," Huntley replied.

Oliver scowled at him. "It shouldn't be that difficult. It is our job to provide some measure of security for the people in our territory, Huntley. Otherwise they will lose faith in us, and that leads to attempted coups."

Huntley crossed his arms over his chest. "No. *My* job is to keep *you* safe. Worst case scenario, I go out there and end up getting arrested, and then something happens to you."

"I'm not completely helpless without you, you know. I've handled myself against worse threats, and I'll stay hidden in the carriage the whole time."

Outside, the coppers had stopped beside a stall selling thin bowls of steaming soup run by a scowling middle-aged woman. The one who'd pocketed the coin swaggered up, saying something to the woman. Perhaps a threat, or perhaps just a request for a bowl of soup.

She sneered, crossing her arms over her chest as she retorted.

Oliver noted the subtle antlers painted clumsily on the corner of the wooden sign that hung from the stall.

The crowd outside grew thicker as people stopped to watch the commotion, scowling and muttering.

The older copper said something to his younger partner, gesturing for them to leave, but the young man ignored him, stepping around the stall to drag the woman out into the street by her arm.

"Just go out and act vaguely threatening, Huntley. They're going after a woman now. I'm worried things could go poorly." More passersby were now stopping to glare at the coppers, and the muttering was growing louder.

A thickly muscled man in a leather apron yelled out an angry remark that Oliver couldn't make out, but which roiled the crowd and drew hostile looks from both coppers. People were beginning to mill around the carriage, blocking the horses, so they couldn't leave anyway.

Huntley settled back, crossing his arms. "This isn't a negotiation. Even if I was inclined to abandon my duties, which I'm *not*, Katerin would kill me. The proprietress will be fine. At most, the coppers will mess the stall up a little and make her come in for questioning. That's half a day's earnings gone. If I go out there, all it gives us is a minor show of force against two beat coppers who don't much matter. Either I threaten them and they come back more angry, with a legitimate reason to arrest me, or I bribe them to go away and we still look weak."

"I think it could be worse for her---"

The woman spat in the copper's face.

Oliver's heart sank.

White-faced, the man shoved her to the ground, his hand going for the battle wand at his waist.

Oliver lunged for the door handle, but Huntley blocked him. "He'll kill her!" Oliver snapped.

Huntley hesitated, following Oliver's gaze out of the window.

While Huntley was distracted, Oliver slipped on his Lord Stag mask, letting its suction settle onto the skin of his face, and opened the carriage door. The angry clamor from the crowd flowed over him. He paused, because the copper hadn't used the battle wand to shoot a spell but had instead cracked the woman across the cheekbone with it.

The man raised his hand to repeat the action just as a skinny, dark-skinned young man stumbled his way out of the surrounding crowd, tripped, and went sprawling onto the cobblestones.

He was carrying a bulky device in both hands, which fell across a box of soup ingredients set next to the stall, and the sharp flash of blinding-white light from it was evidence enough of what had happened, even with the sound of the camera obscura's shutter being drowned out by the screams.

The copper stopped his second swing mid-way, turning toward the fallen young man with an expression of stunned alarm that quickly morphed into rage.

His older partner was obviously uneasy, and he stepped forward to put a restraining hand on the younger copper's arm.

Many of the crowd probably didn't know exactly what the artifact was, but they knew magic when they saw it, and the response of the coppers was enough to spread a hush through them.

Oliver heard it clearly when the young copper asked, "Did you just take a photograph of me?"

The dark-skinned young man scrambled clumsily upright, almost tripping over his own feet again as he did so, fumbling to get his wire-rimmed glasses to sit straight on his face. "No---I---it was an accident. I just need---" He cut off with a twisted, horrified expression.

A shockingly loud, stuttering grumble of flatulence tore through the crowd. The young man jerked, his hands twitching toward his backside as if he could hold the sound in---to no avail, as it ripped through him, the occasional squeak interrupting the rumble until it finally died out with a reluctant wheeze.

The silence in its absence was deafening. The boy's face was noticeably pale despite the dark tint of his skin, giving him a greenish pallor. "I'm sorry, that was an accident. I ate something bad, and I thought I was going to---at least it was only gas. Better out than in, my dad always says!" he added with a high-pitched, anxious laugh, his eyes darting around as if searching for an escape route.

The coppers were not amused.

"That's right, you tell 'em!" someone in the back of the crowd called, vibrating their tongue and lips together to create an exaggerated farting noise of their own. Someone else soon repeated the sound.

The boy paled even further, shaking his head desperately as the young copper stepped forward, swinging the baton once more, this time aimed at the young man.

The boy lifted a forearm to block the blow, and the copper punched him with his other hand, sending his glasses flying.

The boy cringed away, falling to his knees as he felt about frantically for the glasses.

The copper lunged forward as if to kick him in the side, but before he could do so, someone in the crowd threw a small stone, hitting the man in the back of the head.

The older partner spun around, lifting his wand and throwing up a shield spell. That only set off the crowd, and soon more projectiles were flying. Mud, stones, and even chunks of trash and old food.

"Don't you dare shoot at the crowd!" the older copper screamed over his shoulder at his young, foolish partner who had gotten them into this precarious situation.

Oliver's carriage driver had apparently had enough, and he tried to get them away, but the crowd was blocking the road and the horses quickly grew spooked. Oliver was worried that they might panic and trample someone.

When an angry citizen tipped a whole barrel full of coal out of the wagon a few meters in front of them, blocking the way with too little room for them to maneuver, even Huntley knew there would be no easy escape.

Both coppers were shielding now, standing back-to-back and preparing to try to ram their way through a thin section of the crowd before things escalated further. The older copper tossed out a couple of philtres of stench, the nausea-inducing clouds sending people coughing and retching to the ground.

Both the stall owner and the young artifact-toting boy had scrambled away in the confusion.

"Well, I suppose you've gotten your wish," Huntley said bitingly. "We have to get out and retreat on foot. We are *not* wading into the fray, sir. Keep your hood up and follow me." Without waiting for a response, he jumped down to the ground, his wand out with its own protective barrier springing from the tip. The man winced at that small exertion, lifting one hand to his side. The broken ribs and punctured lung he'd gotten in the fight against the Morrows were still healing.

Huntley yelled for their driver to take care of the horses, to cut them free from the carriage if necessary.

Oliver kept a firm grasp on his own wand, his cloak obscuring his mask as they wove through and among the crowd. Oliver was less worried about someone seeing Lord Stag out and about than recognizing Oliver Dryden and making an unfortunate connection. Perhaps one day he would be able to go around his territory as "Mr. Oliver" again, but at the moment the situation was too fraught, tensions too high.

Oliver and Huntley weren't the only ones escaping the fray, and other than a few jostles against elbows and shoulders, they managed without incident. As they turned the corner a block away, with Huntley angled to shield Oliver's back and side, someone coming around in the other direction slammed directly into Oliver with an audible "oof!"

The artifact-toting boy from earlier bounced off Oliver, so focused on protecting his camera obscura that he fell onto his bottom hard enough to force out a whimper of pain. He pushed up his glasses, one shattered lens obscuring a swelling black eye. He blinked up at Oliver, then immediately went wide-eyed and green with horror. Obviously, he had seen under Oliver's hood.

Oliver sighed regretfully, rubbing at the chin of his mask where the boy's forehead had clipped him, grateful for the unexpected protection it had afforded. His eyes narrowed as they caught on the camera obscura.

The boy stood up, scrambled backward, and bowed deeply to Oliver. "Sorry, so sorry!"

Huntley stepped forward, switching off the shield spell coming from his wand and pointing it threateningly at the boy, who looked to be a year or two younger than Siobhan.

"Oh, Myrddin's balls!" the boy babbled. "I'm really on a roll, first the coppers and now Lord Stag." He swallowed, smiling ingratiatingly at Oliver, his eyes flicking nervously to Huntley. "I don't suppose you'd let me go if I promise not to mention I saw you? I don't have any particular love for the coppers!" He pointed to his purpling eye.

Oliver shook his head slowly, and the boy quailed. "I mean you no harm," Oliver assured him. "However, I believe we have business to discuss." He gestured to the camera obscura. "I'm interested in purchasing that photograph you took earlier." With the little black journal, he had blackmail in the forefront of his mind, and had realized the potential uses of such a photograph. He thought back to the moment of the flash. He believed the angle of the artifact's lens was correct to have captured something interesting...if the photograph wasn't too blurred.

The boy's mouth opened and closed like a fish, and he looked down at the camera obscura, dumbfounded. "But it might not even *be* anything. The flash went off by accident. It probably wasn't pointed at anything except a couple of potatoes, and even if it was, surely everything's too blurred to make out...?"

"You will come with us," Oliver ordered. "You can find an appropriate spot at the Verdant Stag to check the photograph. Under supervision."

The boy shook his head. "That won't work. I can't just expose the photo negative to light to check it without first developing and 'fixing' the disk. It would ruin the captured image. And I don't have that processing artifact on me."

"Where is it?"

"Well, it's at home..."

Huntley nodded to Oliver. "I'll have someone escort him to fetch it."

After a painful moment where the boy looked constipated with the desire to argue, but didn't seem to know how to do so, he acquiesced, deflating.

They made their way through the city on foot for a few blocks, Huntley's eyes on a constant paranoid search for danger, though he put away his wand after a while so as not to draw extra attention to them.

The boy chattered nervously as they walked. "It's not a photograph inside, you know. This model has a magic crystal disk that captures a reverse image. It can capture three whole images before I need to replace the cartridge! Though it's not really a *reverse* image, it's just got the bright parts dark and the dark parts light. They call it a 'negative,' and it means that I can make as many photographs from the original disk as I want..."

Oliver tuned him out as they walked, vulnerable, toward the Verdant Stag. He knew this situation would never have happened if he were riding Elmira instead of inside a supposedly much safer carriage. An Erythrean wouldn't have been so spooked by the crowd or commotion, and she was sure-footed enough to have maneuvered through, over, or around almost any kind of blockage in her way. Of course, he'd also been ambushed before while riding her, since a man riding a horse---even a completely common-looking one like her---stood out in some of the poorer parts of town.

Oliver mused about getting her a saddle with the same kind of wards the carriage had. Huntley might not agree to let him ride her even then, however, since it was a lot harder to protect a man riding a horse than one inside the shielding walls of a carriage.

A few blocks away from the incident, Huntley flagged down a hackney with the Verdant Stag antlers painted discreetly on its side. The man took a bright green badge from an inside pocket and flashed it at the driver, who gave a deep bow of the head and motioned for them to hop on.

Oliver looked on in surprise. Katerin had been using the Stag funds to kit out the enforcers in more ways than just their equipment, it seemed.

The young man, sitting squeezed between Oliver and Huntley, hugged his camera obscura to his chest.

"What is your name?" Oliver said, breaking the tense silence.

"Percival Irving. Well met, Lord---um---Mr...." He threw an awkward glance toward the driver, who was studiously not paying them any attention.

Oliver's wry smile was hidden under his mask, but he nodded graciously. "Well met."

As the carriage passed by the Verdant Stag, he saw Siobhan. She stood out from the crowd. Although she was wearing a cloak with a hood that disguised most of her physical features, she carried herself with the regality of a queen. Yes, he was sure it was her.

Oliver hummed to himself, feeling ambiguous as he watched her enter the inn-cum-entertainment hall. He had grown closer to her than he planned. He was one to take on "projects," obviously, and though he'd hoped she would grow to be truly useful---which had happened even sooner than he could have guessed, though not in the way he expected---he hadn't thought it would be more than that. Yet, now he was worried for her, pleased to see her, and disappointed that he couldn't stop the carriage on the street and call for her to jump in so that they could talk.

The driver took them around to the Verdant Stag's back yard where there was a locked entrance with a route to the upper floor where Oliver kept his office.

Huntley gave the man, who was sensible enough a driver to not even peek under Oliver's hood as he got out of the carriage, a large tip, then took Percival off to the enforcer office.

While Oliver waited for someone to escort the boy back home and return, he called Siobhan up to visit him, and they had a pleasant chat that erased most of the tension from his morning, sharing troubles and ideas for solutions. She looked haggard and a little too thin, but her company was as compelling as ever. When she left, Oliver put his mask back on regretfully.

Percival entered shortly after, holding a sealed cartridge that Oliver supposed contained the negative image.

The boy cleared his throat. "The camera obscura did actually capture a good image of that copper. Very...impactful."

Oliver waved the boy forward. He opened the cartridge, pulling out the first disk and examining it. It contained a miniature black and white image, with the dark and light reversed, of the copper beating the woman shop owner in the street. The copper's arm was blurred with motion, and both of their faces were clear enough, vibrant with emotion. Oliver gave a satisfied smile. "I will purchase it from you. Seven gold. If you're interested, I can also hire you to develop an actual photograph from the negative."

Percival's fingers tightened around the cartridge. "Seven gold?" He swallowed. "That sounds good. Wait, no, I want at least nine gold."

Oliver raised an amused eyebrow, though it wasn't visible beneath the mask, "Eight gold, then. That's my final offer."

"And...I also have another negative I think you might want to purchase. One of the Raven Queen. It's impactful, too."

---

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Azalea Ellis has a deleted scene that is set before the events of this chapter.

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Preventative Measures (A Practical Guide to Sorcery 3.2)

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[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 99 – Charitable Performance

Siobhan

Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 4:30 p.m.​

People were packed into the ground floor of the Verdant Stag like pickled cucumbers stuffed into a jar. It wasn't until Siobhan got further into the room that some space cleared up and she was able to get away from the stifling crush. The heat from all the bodies made her warm clothing unnecessary, but she caught sight of a pair of uniformed coppers at one of the tables and decided not to take off her hooded cloak. Sure, she was Silvia, a civilian who, at most, helped at a healing station during the fighting, and had the identity papers to prove it, but if they took her to Harrow Hill, papers might not save her.

'*Why are they here*?' she wondered.

Everyone seemed to have come for the people on stage at the other end of the room, who she thought must be putting on some sort of play at first, but when she actually listened, it was a rather strange monologue.

"After the earlier testimony of both the accused and the accusers, which was verified through prognos divination and wards against untruth, Eric Hanna, Morrow member, has been found guilty by the Verdant Stag of the following crimes: public nudity, blackmail, three counts of mugging, twenty-two counts of extortion, and six counts of assault, one of which caused grievous and permanent injury. By order of Lord Stag, he has been relieved of the fruits of his crimes, and restitution is due to those he has harmed."

The cheers were immediate and deafening as people clapped, slammed their tankards of ale and beer on the tabletops, and stomped their feet.

When the noise died down, the second person atop the stage stepped forward. "As the executor of a trust held at Citrus Bank, and in no way associated with the Verdant Stag, or other criminal activity," he added, with a dark glare toward the two coppers, "I have been charged to publicly convey the beneficiaries of this trust and the amount they are receiving."

Siobhan noticed then the banner above the stage that introduced the "charitable performance."

The trust executor listed off names, accompanied by varying monetary amounts that ranged from a few silver to a few gold. It wasn't even close to what the coppers would have fined for those same crimes, and was certainly less than what Oliver had extorted out of the accused Morrows, but the audience didn't seem to care.

Siobhan sidled closer to a particularly enthusiastic woman. "What's going on?" she asked, her voice almost drowned out by another wave of cheers as the executor announced the next person to receive restitution.

The woman gave her a huge, slightly drunken grin that revealed a couple of missing teeth. "Something's actually being done about the injustices we all been subjec---subjd---" She stopped to hiccup, then finished, "the injustices we went through."

"And they're really paying? How do you get chosen for restitution?"

The woman nodded dramatically. "Yes, Lord Stag is really paying out. If your name is called, you go down to Citrus Bank with identification, and their people there take out the money from that trust account he was mentioning---coin straight into your hand! And it's easy to get considered for restitution, just go note what the Morrows did to you, and which've 'em did it. You've gotta give testimony under some kind of spell that keeps you from lying, and once the trial is over it's too late to submit a claim. Not everyone gets the restitution, if there's not enough proof of what was done, or who did it, or if who did it doesn't have any coin for the Verdant Stag to take back for you. Still, a damn sight better than anyone else would do for us." She looked over to the table that housed the coppers and yelled, "A damn sight better than the coppers ever did for us!"

Siobhan tugged at the corner of her hood to make sure her face was hidden, trying to do so as naturally as possible so she didn't seem suspicious. "Have you gotten any restitution?"

The woman grinned toothily again, holding up her mug in a toasting motion. "Three silver!" she announced proudly. Judging by her level of drunkenness, as well as the crumbs on the empty plate in front of her, she'd already spent at least that much, the coin going right back to the Verdant Stag.

'*Maybe Oliver isn't so crazy.*'

Siobhan watched the proceedings for a few more minutes, until someone sidled through the crowd, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Siobhan jerked away, whipping around with her hands held up defensively, which she immediately decided was rather foolish, because she had little skill as a hand-to-hand combatant.

A young man raised his own hands, empty palms facing outward to convey his harmlessness. With a glance at the coppers, he reached down to his jacket, pulling one side open far enough that she could see the bright green antlers of the Stags embossed on a badge tucked into his shirt pocket. "Apologies, ma'am. I didn't mean to startle you. Your presence has been requested upstairs."

"By whom?"

He didn't answer, instead giving her a significant look. "Mr. Huntley told me to pass the message along."

She vaguely recognized the name as belonging to one of the Stags' lead enforcers. Most likely, either Katerin or Oliver had called for her. Siobhan lowered her hands, nodding for the young man to lead the way. As they climbed the stairs at the edge of the room, the bottom of which was guarded by another enforcer, she asked, "I noticed the coppers are just sitting there. Have they been causing trouble?"

The young man laughed, as if the question was ironic. "Oh, plenty of it. But they can't stop us. They don't know where the Morrows are being held, and the two men on stage are a licensed actor and a lawyer who was hired to enforce the Citrus Bank trust independently. They're not actually involved with the Verdant Stag or the trials or anything, they were just hired to talk on stage in a clearly labeled performance for charity. I'm not totally sure how that all works, but it's not illegal. The coppers have still been arresting them, of course. This is the fourth or fifth set of performer and lawyer." He grinned as if that was hilarious. "But they just stay down at Harrow Hill for a day or two for questioning while someone else takes their place on stage. None of them actually know anything, so Harrow Hill has to release them within three days. Those two coppers down below are just there for appearances. They haven't tried anything."

Siobhan hummed. "It still seems like they could arrest people on charges of collusion or something?"

"They'll arrest people on charges of almost anything, but it's not sticking. You go in, you take a few sleepless nights and shitty food and maybe a few bruises, but as long as you don't talk, you come out again when either the laws or the bribes say so. Everyone got lessons on what to do, and we even got to practice against one of those lying wards."

That seemed...dangerous. All it would take would be for someone higher up, like Titus Westbay, to notice and care that Oliver's people were bribing their way out of charges, and suddenly an arrest might not be such a simple matter. And it would only take one person with the right information to give the coppers what they needed to make other charges stick. Oliver's people might not be as bad as the Morrows, but they'd all committed crimes in the eyes of the Thirteen Crown Families.

If they arrested Oliver, Katerin, or someone else with actual knowledge and power, things would become much more dangerous. She wasn't sure a bribe would be enough to cover them. And of course, the coppers would remember that the Raven Queen had been associated with the Verdant Stag, too.

The whole situation made her uncomfortable.

The enforcer led Siobhan to Oliver's office, which she had never been in before. It was significantly more ostentatious than Katerin's office, all dark woods and plush furniture, with a layout that suggested the chair behind Oliver's desk was instead a throne, and all who entered must supplicate before him. It would have been more impressive if his desk wasn't covered with a mess of ledgers, binders, and loose paper.

Oliver looked up from a small leather notebook, the kind with a lock, and gave her an excited smile as she entered. He quickly closed the book and set it aside, then, deciphering her expression, said, "Yes, this office is generally only used for meeting with people. I'm considering moving the administrative headquarters to another building. Somewhere more discreet. We've got quite a few former Morrow properties whose rights were signed over." He stood from the desk, moving to one of the plush chairs nearer the fire and gesturing for her to join him. Someone had left a coffee tray, and he offered her a cup of dark liquid brewed so strongly the sugar spoon almost stood up straight.

"Is there a plan to deal with the coppers, other than antagonizing them with public shows meant to undermine their authority?" she asked.

Oliver sipped his own coffee, giving her a nettled look over the rim. "Feeling prickly, are we?"

Siobhan grimaced. "Sorry, that came out slightly harsher than I intended."

"Only slightly?" Before she could respond, he said, "I do have a plan. And a rather good one. It includes a whole flock of solicitors who will make the coppers bleed for every unwarranted arrest, and a heaping dollop of blackmail on top. Those who are corrupt will soon see that my territory isn't worth it, and those who genuinely care about their jobs will realize their efforts are better spent elsewhere, in the places that need them. This whole thing, believe it or not, is a lot more reserved than I originally intended. I wanted to do public executions for the worst of the Morrows, if you remember, but Katerin and some of the others talked me out of it. I'll still make sure they get what they deserve, but it won't be directly by our hand, and thus won't make the Crowns look like they've lost control."

"How are you going to handle them instead?"

"They'll be handling it---the coppers, that is. I'm just going to make sure everyone involved has extra incentive to follow the law, no matter how influential the accused men once were." He grinned like a child with a stolen cookie. "In fact, I've got quite a few things in the works. I think you'll be impressed."

Siobhan hummed and raised one of her eyebrows, but couldn't help the corners of her lips twitching up, his enthusiasm spreading infectious energy to her.

They were both silent for a moment, drinking their coffee at the perfect almost-scalding temperature. Finally, Oliver said, "You seem tired."

"I'm sleeping more than I have been for the past five or six years," she said wryly.

"And hating every second, no doubt."

She let out a short, surprised laugh. "Well, yes." That was the main reason she was here, but since she had Oliver at her disposal, she brought up another issue. "I don't want to take up too much of your time since you're so busy, but I wonder if I might get some of your particular brand of insight on a possible problem?"

He tensed a little but nodded. "Titan's balls, let it be a problem I can actually fix."

"Damien Westbay is going to become a problem, and perhaps even more so now that it's not safe to spy on Tanya Canelo anymore. He's too curious, too eager for action. I've been trying to shut him down, but he doesn't stay down for long. You're the one who's good with the social things, getting people to do what you want."

Oliver settled back in his chair with his booted feet closer to the fire. "Tell me more. And give details. I need to understand how his mind works."

Siobhan spoke while Oliver asked probing questions, almost all of which she answered in detail. She knew Damien well, even better than she'd realized.

Finally, Oliver seemed satisfied, steepling his fingers together in front of his chest like some kind of stereotypical evil genius. "You need a little more carrot to go along with your stick. Don't keep trying to shut him down. When Westbay wants more, give him more, but dangle that carrot in the direction that's most convenient to have him run. Ideally, *away* from anything you're hoping to keep secret. Once he's busy enough, even he won't have time to indulge his curiosity."

"So I need to come up with some project for him to throw himself into? Ideally something that won't require me to put in even more work."

"Yes. You can take some time to consider what you might like him pointed toward, or you can even see if he has any ideas for a 'mission' that you wouldn't mind allowing. That might be dangerous, if he's the type to become fixated on ideas once he has them, but it would give you an idea where the danger lies."

"I understand. I'll think about it. Thanks."

"When you get time, feel free to stop by the manor and do some more brewing for the Verdant Stag. With all the new territory, we're running through concoctions faster than we can stock them. Particularly healing concoctions, and some little fireplace-in-a-bottle things that one of our other alchemists has been supplying."

"You have a lot of homeless and injured people, then?" she guessed.

"Too many. But let's not talk about that."

"How about the people downstairs?" She laughed as another set of cheers and stomping rattled the entire building, only mostly muffled by the two floors between them. "They *love* the free coin, especially when it's paired with 'justice.' How much are you earning off all this?"

Oliver's grin looked more than a little evil. "Oh, a *lot*."

They chatted for a while longer, until a check of her pocket watch revealed that it would get dark soon. She didn't want to be trudging around the city in the frigid night, so took her leave.

Oliver sounded disappointed to have to get back to work, and his dramatic sigh followed her out the door as she left.

With her cloak back up, Siobhan's peripheral vision was impaired, and she bumped into someone at the edge of the narrow back stairway that led to Oliver's office.

She'd knocked a small cartridge out of his grip, and as he fumbled to catch it, he tilted precariously backward. Just as he regained control of the cartridge, his foot slipped off the top step, and if not for her grabbing him by the waistcoat and yanking with all her strength, he would have tumbled down the stairs.

He fell to one knee beside her, but seemed rather unscathed by the whole thing, laughing awkwardly. "Oh, thank you. Bit clumsy of me, are you alright?"

"I should be asking you that," Siobhan said. "I apologize, I didn't see you."

"To be honest, it's probably not your fault. My luck has been atrocious today!" the boy said, laughing as if at some inside joke as he rose to his feet. He was about her height, with skin much darker than hers, but the deep purple bruise around his swollen eye, shielded by the shattered lens of his glasses, was still conspicuous.

"If you need a bruise salve, they sell them here," she said, grimacing. "There's a little apothecary on the other side of the building, to the left of the main staircase. They're quite a bit cheaper than what you can find elsewhere, and good quality."

"Can just anyone buy from them? I don't work for---well, I'm trying to sell something to Lord Stag, but I don't work for them, and I'm pretty sure I live outside the gang's territory."

Siobhan shrugged. "It shouldn't be a problem, but I can't be sure. Are you going up to see, er, Lord Stag? You could ask him."

The boy's grip tightened noticeably. "Oh, umm, do you really think I should? He's so... Isn't there someone else I could ask?"

Siobhan let out a quiet laugh. "I know the mask can be intimidating, but Lord Stag really isn't that frightening. He's quite friendly, and he actually enjoys helping people."

"Is that so?" the boy asked, looking extremely skeptical.

"It is," Siobhan asserted.

"Well...thank you." The boy reached out to shake her hand. "Percival, but you can call me Percy. Do you work around here?"

"Well met, Percy." She hesitated only a moment before introducing herself as Silvia. "I do some contract work when it's necessary."

"Do you have any advice for me? I'm trying to sell him something a little...sensitive. I'm pretty nervous about it." Percy shuffled his feet, seeming not to notice how close to the edge of the stairs he still was.

Siobhan raised an eyebrow, reaching out to nudge him away from danger. "Well...don't take his first offer, I suppose. And don't be too nervous. The worst he can do is say no."

Percy looked down at the cartridge, muttering, "I don't think that's the worst he can do," but then gave her a bright smile, wincing as the expression squished the swollen flesh around his black eye. "I'd better get in there. Thanks, Silvia!" With a wave of his hand, he stepped past her, taking a fortifying breath before knocking on the door to Oliver's office.

Siobhan shook her head, a little bemused, then made for the apothecary tucked away on the other side of the building, the hallway guarded by yet another Verdant Stag enforcer.

Within, she found the main purpose of her trip, and the reason she had risked coming to the Verdant Stag---a triangular vial of what looked rather like slug poop. The substance within was a grey-brown, porous sludge, nothing like some of the more interesting-looking potions that came in bright colors, glowed, or roiled within their containers. Still, Siobhan had to suppress a huge grin as she picked it up, despite the three-gold price tag.

Katerin's assistant, Alice, was running the shop, and fixed Siobhan with a gimlet eye when she tried to buy it. "I need a prescription from a healer to sell this to you," she said.

Siobhan suppressed a frustrated groan. "I don't have a healer's note, but I'm an alchemist, and well aware of the tincture's usage and requirements."

"Beamshell tincture is addictive, and leaves an energy debt. People who abuse it will keep pushing until they collapse, malnourished and dehydrated, and for thaumaturges, with a significantly increased chance of Will-strain. If you have narcolepsy, or insomnia, or some other legitimate reason to need this, I'm happy to sell it to you once you bring me proof."

Briefly, Siobhan considered asking Oliver or Katerin to come down and vouch for her, or even coming back the next day with a forged healer's prescription---but no, that was ridiculous. She leaned forward and said in a low voice, "I encountered an Aberrant that caused a severe sedative effect. You probably heard about the incident." Aberrants were the kind of thing that was hard to argue against and likely to engender an emotional response. In this case, hopefully sympathy, and a hesitance to ask too many questions. "I don't have narcolepsy, I just need a little help staying sharp when I'm awake. I assure you, I have no plans to abuse the concoction. I brew a good number of the potions you stock here," she added.

What Siobhan said was more or less true, except for her fatigue being caused directly by lingering anomalous effects of the Aberrant. She just needed something a little stronger than coffee to give her energy while she was awake. She couldn't continue to drag her way through her days, barely scraping by. She wasn't stupid enough to abuse the beamshell tincture until she got herself addicted.

Alice still hesitated, drawing a weary sigh from Siobhan. "I can get Katerin to vouch for me, if she's here." Bringing in Oliver would be a little too much, probably.

Alice finally conceded. "If you need a second vial, I'll require that healer's note." She rattled off a series of dosage and use instructions that Siobhan had already memorized, and Siobhan walked out three gold lighter, with a vial of bottled energy burning a hole in one of her inner jacket pockets.

The excitement of potential relief got her all the way to the Silk Door without feeling the nip of the cold.

Within her closet-sized backroom, she changed into her male form, then picked up Sebastien's clothes, which she'd left there the night of the incident before everything went so wrong.

She'd also brought back the Raven Queen's dress, which she would stash there until she had a chance to take it to a used clothing shop for sale. There was a small chance the outfit might be recognized or otherwise used to connect her to the scene of the crime.

She picked up the pile of red and black fabric, intending to cast the shedding-destroyer spell on it, but her finger brushed up against what felt like a metal wire.

She jerked back, tossing the clothes to the floor as if she'd been burned. Her skin rippled with goosebumps as her hindbrain seemed to realize what she'd touched before her conscious mind made the connection. "Oh..." she whispered.

Siobhan stepped forward cautiously, pinching one corner of the fabric and lifting until the wire revealed itself.

Only it wasn't a wire. It was a piece of the flesh-and-bone string that Newton's Aberrant had been formed from, and which had infected and subsumed anyone it touched, woven through the fabric. The sharp edge suggested that a slicing spell had severed it at some point.

It didn't move, even when she clicked her tongue experimentally to see if it reacted to the noise.

There was also no smell or evidence of decay. '*It might not actually be made out of flesh, come to think of it. Just because it's the same color means nothing. This is a piece of an Aberrant. How did the Red Guard not notice this?*'

That they hadn't perversely reassured her. '*If the string was dangerous, surely they would have found it with one of their scanning artifacts?*'

Horrified and fascinated, Siobhan used the edge of her cloak to protect her skin as she pulled the string out from where it had woven itself into the hem, almost invisibly. It was a couple of inches long, as thin as a hair, and rigid. She stared at it for a long time, watching for any signs of life.

When she finally got back to the dorms, any excitement regarding the beamshell tincture was long forgotten.

She closed the curtains around her cubicle, then pulled a glass vial from her pocket, checking on the single Aberrant string she'd placed within. She assured herself that it was still unmoving, definitely dead, and safe. Even so, she melted some wax around the thread-screw top of the vial, put the whole thing in a leather pouch, and hid it safe at the bottom of her school trunk.

Sebastien rifled through her encrypted grimoire until she found the notes she'd made about the blood-print vow, then reviewed the information about the warding aspect that would incinerate the blood if someone tried to access it or use it for sympathetic magic. The principle could be repurposed to secure other things that she would rather destroy than lose or have used against her.

Using the paper spell array for stone disintegration---one of the spells she had learned in Practical Casting---Sebastien carved the lines of the warding spell deep into the stone floor where the trunk at the foot of her bed usually sat. She blew gently to clear out the lines and collected the dust in a small pile, then cast the ward spell, pouring power into what was technically a simple artifact with only two parameters. It would store the energy until it needed to be used against an attack, or when the trickle of natural loss ran it dry.

Then, she used another paper spell array to cast the stone-forming spell on the saved dust, but slightly modified the output to create a flat section of stone rather than a sphere. She formed a thin façade of stone over the warding spell, which was still active but now almost undetectable.

Finally, she moved the school trunk, with the Aberrant string at the bottom, back into its normal spot over the ward.

She lay down on the thin bed, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Imagining the thread secretly growing in the dark, she shuddered, wondering if she'd just made a mistake. She could have given it to the Red Guard, or Professor Lacer, or even simply tried to burn it up with a fire.

But she wanted it. Perhaps it was irrational, but she wanted to keep it, this last piece of Newton. The Red Guard had taken the rest of him, along with the others who had died, and probably destroyed it all. Since she certainly wasn't going to place the vial on her bedside table or the windowsill, like some kind of paperweight bauble, this was the compromise.

The string would stay hidden, and she would check on it periodically, to make sure it wasn't growing.

---

Question: Any speculation on how the Aberrant string could come into play in the future?

 

[Winged One]

Finally, Oliver seemed satisfied, steepling his fingers together in front of his chest like some kind of stereotypical evil genius

Click to shrink...

My sister in the arcane arts, he is a straight-up supervillain.

Question: Any speculation on how the Aberrant string could come into play in the future?

Click to shrink...

My guess? She'll learn something about the nature of Abberrants from her observations. Using an Abberrant piece as a spell component seems moronic no matter how desperate you are for calm, so she probably won't do that.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 100 – The Press

Oliver

Month 1, Day 30, Saturday 5:30 p.m.​

Oliver froze, deliberately keeping himself from visibly reacting to Percival's revelation. "You have a photograph of the Raven Queen," he repeated.

Percival nodded, clutching at his left wrist as he stepped closer. "I got it that night a few months ago, when she fought against the Morrows from that old bell tower. That time was an accident, too, actually. My camera confused the lightning for a flash and triggered on its own."

"What exactly does the photograph show?"

Percival grimaced. "It's the view from a building a few blocks away, looking up at the Raven Queen across the street. She's free-casting, with the spell array glowing above her hand, her cloak whipping around in the wind, and the afterimage of a lightning bolt behind her. My camera obscura has the latest cutting-edge technology. It only takes about a second to capture the image, so it's feasible to take photographs of more than just still objects. She's barely blurred!"

Oliver's voice remained tightly controlled. "Is her face identifiable?"

"Well...no. It's from quite far away, the lighting conditions are sub-optimal, and the spell array is between her face and the camera. But it's her!"

Some of Oliver's tension departed. "I will need to examine the image. Have you shown it to anyone else?"

Percival fiddled with his glasses, shaking his head. "I was too afraid. I thought she, or you, might retaliate against me if I talked. They say the Raven Queen holds grudges, and the rumors about what she does to those she doesn't like..." He shuddered visibly. "I do not want to anger her. Or you. This isn't some insane threat that I'll sell the photograph to the coppers or the newspaper. But since I have it...I thought you might be interested in buying the negative as a package deal with the one I took today."

Oliver leaned back in his chair despite his desire to get up and snatch the cartridge from the boy's hand. "How is it you find yourself in these situations, Percival Irving? Are you searching them out? Were you following the Raven Queen? Or actively trying to make contact with me today?"

Some of Oliver's emotion leaked into his tone, and Percival was at least smart enough to recognize the danger, flinching and waving his hands frantically in denial. "No, no! It was all a coincidence," he insisted, then hesitated. "Well, perhaps not totally a coincidence, because I have...peculiar luck. Things tend to go wrong for me, all at once, in cascading, *interesting* ways." The word "interesting" had the tone of a particularly vile curse word, and Percival's lip drew up in a grimace of loathing. "I periodically find myself in the middle of events that I never intended to be involved in and am not prepared to handle."

Oliver was silent, staring at him through the shadow-black eye holes of his mask.

"I'm not just saying that!" Percival assured him. "I had a run-in with a hag, and there seems to be some luck magic involved."

"*Luck* magic?"

"Whatever you want to call it---luck, probability manipulation, or just some force influencing my decisions or the events around me in seemingly random ways that are actually calculated and deliberate---I don't know. Call it what you will, strange things happen around me. I'm really, really not searching out danger."

Oliver steepled his fingers together, watching the frustrated boy return his gaze. "And these coincidences lead to you taking photographs of important people and events?"

"Among other things, but yes. I've witnessed or been involved in six incidents that could have gotten me injured or even killed in the last few months alone, and which made me witness to multiple serious crimes. Seven events if you count today, I suppose. When interesting things happen, it's like a magnet draws me in against my will."

Oliver might have brushed the claim off as ridiculous, but he'd spent years traveling the settled areas of the world, and had experienced enough to hesitate before discounting a tale such as Percival's. "Tell me more."

The boy did, in a rambling, passionate account that lasted almost twenty minutes and proved to be quite entertaining. Several times Oliver nearly burst into riotous guffaws at the ridiculous situations Percival got himself into, only holding back so that he didn't seem too eager. The boy even rolled up his sleeve to show Oliver the mysterious tattoo that had started it all.

Finally, Oliver admitted, "If what you tell me is true, it does seem that you've experienced a strange number of coincidences. Even more surprising were the ways you managed to get through them." Anecdotal evidence was useless, of course, and the boy could be either misguided or an excellent liar, but Oliver was intrigued nonetheless. Although the truth wasn't verifiable, he made a note to keep Percival as far from Siobhan as possible. The last thing he needed was the boy dragging her into his orbit of misfortune. She got into enough "interesting" situations without extra help. "I will buy both originals. Did you bring the other with you?"

Percival reached into his pants pocket, pulling out some lint, a couple of coins, and a wad of thick, dark paper, which Percival had used to cover the negative disk in lieu of a cartridge.

After verifying that it was safe to do so, Oliver unwrapped and inspected it. The image had been captured from quite far away, and was indistinct but still dramatic. He could make out his own form beside Siobhan, his mask a white spot against the darkness, battle wand outstretched, with the blurred streak of a glowing spell shooting toward the silhouetted forms on the street below. "Sixteen gold for both, then?" he asked, already putting the negative back in its protective wrapping and moving both it and the cartridge into one of his desk drawers.

"Umm, that works, but I actually need the cartridge from today back? It's got two other negatives in it that I took earlier today. Nothing you'd be interested in. I saved up for the camera for a long time, but I didn't realize how expensive negative disks and development would be. I've been trying to cover the cost by taking portraits of people. That's what I was originally doing in the market today."

Oliver pulled out the cartridge, then carefully examined the other two disks to ensure they were really as innocuous as stated.

"I guess this camera really is paying for itself!" Percival babbled nervously as he accepted the disks from Oliver's outstretched hand. "I sent a couple of my photographs---normal ones, nothing like this---to the newspaper, but they weren't interested in purchasing them without a story to go along with the photo. The only stories I have are the kind I can't sell for fear of retaliation, or that the newspaper wouldn't *buy* for fear of retaliation!" He laughed at his own joke.

The mention of the newspaper brought to mind the old printing press Oliver had found in Lord Morrow's basement, covered in junk, dust and cobwebs. He stilled, making connections and sparking upon an idea that had been half-formed until that moment.

With some soap, lubricating oil, and maybe a bit of magic, he was sure they could repair the press and get it working again---certainly for much less than it would cost to buy a similar artifact. In fact, it might be possible to drive such an old model with manpower alone, without the need for a thaumaturge on staff. "Are you a decent writer, Percival?"

"I can read and write as well as anyone! My mom taught all us kids," the boy said proudly.

"I don't mean just technically. Are you engaging? Can you tell a decent story in text form, the same way you just told me all those stories about your misfortunes?"

"I haven't written them down or tried to get them published, if that's what this is about?" Percival said, tilting his head to the side with a frown, looking like a one-eyed owl.

Oliver leaned forward. "How would you like a job as the main investigative journalist of a brand-new publication, dedicated to the needs of the people and telling the truth? That artifact of yours will come in handy. And I can give you your first interview right now."

---

Percival Irving,


The Accidental Vigilante.

This side character in PGTS has his own book series!

Get Book 1 Now:

Larva: A Practical Guide to Sorcery Series (The Catastrophe Collector Book 1)

Get it now:

geni.us

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 101 – Game Plan

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 31, Sunday 9:00 a.m.​

Sebastien took her first dose of the beamshell tincture immediately after her morning meal on Sunday. She had eaten every bit of her food even though she wasn't hungry and had even started to gag. This ongoing lack of hunger was foreign to her, since, despite the cafeteria food's lack of flavor, her normal appetite usually left her feeling only semi-full.

Sebastien went into the bathroom, then, and following the usage instructions very carefully, she used a toothpick to measure out approximately one tenth of a gram and mixed the crumb-sized piece of paste into a cup of warm water, which she chugged. A decigram wasn't even a full dose, but she was being cautious.

She clamped her mouth shut around the renewed desire to vomit. As her stomach settled, it began to tingle, as if the tincture inside her were crackling with lightning. This electric energy quickly spread outward, rushing up to her head and down to her toes, filling her with a flush of warmth and vibrancy.

Sebastien suppressed a giddy laugh.

With the new energy fizzing inside her, she headed to the library to fix her life.

One unoccupied table caught some spillover light from the shimmering spelled glass that made up the library's domed ceiling. She sat down and paused, basking in the brightness for a moment. The tincture had left her feeling buzzy and flighty, but she forced herself to stillness, considering her goal.

'*It's time to take control and figure out my problem. I need a real plan, and a schedule to implement the plan.*' When she felt composed and calm, she opened her eyes and pulled out some note-taking supplies.

'*I will list all of the problems first before trying to come up with solutions to them*.' She scribbled a list of bullet points.

'*The coppers can still use my blood to scry for me, unless it was destroyed in the explosion.*'

'*I still owe the Verdant Stag almost eight hundred gold crowns of the original one thousand debt. Interest is a devil.*'

'*I'm feeling awake at the moment, but this will do nothing to stop the nightmares, which are the real problem.*'

'*Damien needs a sense of purpose, focused on something that has less chance of getting me caught.*'

'*I've got to maintain good academic standing in general, while also completing Professor Lacer's auxiliary exercises, and to prepare something that will earn at least fifty contribution points in the end of term exhibitions.*'

She paused, staring at the list, then continued.

'*It's also possible that there could be incoming repercussions from Tanya's University faction, or from the coppers, for my involvement in the Aberrant incident, even in my Sebastien Siverling identity.*'

She hesitated, wondering if she'd covered everything. '*If I solved these problems, would my life be fixed?*' She considered Ennis for a moment, but decided that she did not, in fact, care to do anything about his imprisonment, and would be fine even if he was sentenced to work in the celerium mines for the rest of his life.

Finally, she added one last bullet point.

'*Do something about the Raven Queen's reputation, and/or clear Siobhan Naught's name?*'

That would be ideal, but how she might go about doing that remained nebulous.

She mulled over the problems, trying to find issues she hadn't dredged up, but finally decided that if she could deal with the whole list, it would be enough. Be that as it may, neither the list's size nor severity were trifling.

'*First, the danger of repercussions from the University or the coppers.*' She wasn't sure what she could do to mitigate such an indefinite threat. She would keep her eyes open and gather any relevant information, but her power here was limited. Oliver had plenty of contacts in law enforcement, and she had Damien, so there was a non-trivial chance that she would learn of danger to either identity before it became critical. Beyond that, she had to hope that the important people believed what she had told them about her---Sebastien's---involvement and thought her harmless. The coppers' investigation was still ongoing, but if they found something to implicate her, she would have to deal with that when it happened.

Sebastien could, however, anticipate that the things that could go wrong, *would* go wrong, and attempt to prepare for that eventuality. She might need to run, hide, or even fight. She needed contingencies in place for the worst possible outcome. If she had done this before, *actually* taking the safety of herself and those around her with deadly seriousness, and planned accordingly, maybe Newton would still be alive.

Her grandfather had told her once that it was hard for people to imagine experiencing the kind of catastrophe that had never affected them before. People in flood or storm zones only wanted to pay for wards strong enough to protect them from the strongest disaster in their own memory, not the strongest that could realistically affect them. People read about accidents, illnesses, and crimes in the newspapers, but didn't believe those things would touch *them* or those they cared for. If they did, every house that could afford it would have anti-fire wards, and people would carry defensive artifacts when they left their homes, and would go to the healer at the first worrying sign of illness. Children thought they were immortal, because they'd never experienced death firsthand.

But she... *She* should have known better. Her life with Ennis might have been relatively safe and mundane compared to her current circumstances. She might have gotten used to not being *able* to prepare for everything due to lack of knowledge, funds, or most often both. But *she* knew how dangerous, how horrific, how absolutely devastating life could really be. She should have tried harder to be ready for it, taken the danger of what they were doing more seriously, rather than assuming things would somehow just work out.

Sebastien had known better, intellectually, but she could see now that she hadn't *believed* things could really go so wrong. If she had, she would have been much more cautious. And maybe, even now, even if she did everything right, there was something she couldn't see waiting to destroy this new, precarious life she had built. There was not even an ounce of fairness in the world, she knew that well enough. Catastrophe could and would fall on those that did not deserve it, and it could come with all the power and shock of a meteor fallen from the heavens. It was up to her to decrease the chances of such an event as much as possible, and that meant preparation of the kind that didn't come naturally to a human brain. Preparation for the things that *could* go wrong, not just things that had already gone wrong.

She added more bullet points to the list.

'*Make preparations for if I am caught.*'

'*Imagine various doomsday events and ways that I might avoid or navigate them. Run drills?*'

'*Train myself to be less foolish.*'

The thought spurred a horrible realization, one that might have been hiding in the back of her mind for some time now, waiting for her to acknowledge it. '*I shouldn't have gone back downstairs for my bag. There is nothing in it so valuable that I should have willingly faced the Aberrant.*'

Her grip on her pen tightened at the thought. '*If I had left the bag, the worst possible thing that could have happened was them realizing that Siobhan Naught and Sebastien Siverling are the same person. Perhaps, if things escalated, I would have had to escape Gilbratha. But the worst-case scenario leading from my decision to go back and retrieve it is that I could have died---or become a second Aberrant.*'

She let the pen drop to the table as a full-body shudder rolled through her. She understood the concept behind calculating worthwhile risks. It was based on a simple formula of desirability vs. likelihood.

Dying or becoming an Aberrant were the worst possible outcomes, with a value of negative ninety-nine and negative one hundred, respectively. Getting caught and giving up her schooling would be horrible, but if she were alive, she at least had a chance to overcome somehow, so that outcome had a value of negative seventy. At the time, getting kicked out of school had seemed totally *unacceptable*, but when compared to the threat of dying, it was immediately obvious that school wasn't nearly as important as her life.

Then, to pick which option she should have gone with, she only needed to multiply the likelihood of each event with its desirability value. If the coppers had found her bag and the bracelets on Newton's arms, she guessed that Sebastien Siverling had a seventy percent chance to get caught, making the overall utility value of that choice negative forty-nine. It would have been smartest to just give the whole ruse up as a lost cause and escape preemptively, but there was still a chance she could have continued on if she played everything right.

Going down there to confront the Aberrant face-to-face had *almost* killed her. If not for the flash of a waking nightmare, it would have. In truth, she was ridiculously lucky to be alive to have this realization right now. And the decision had *still* almost gotten her caught. If she'd been just a little slower, instead of finding Sebastien escaping, the Red Guard would have found the Raven Queen, insensate and basically captured for them.

With a ninety-five percent chance of a break event or death, with an additional chance of capture even if she avoided the first two, the value of that choice was negative ninety-five, at least.

Her calculated utility values could be off, because factors in the real world didn't come in discrete, whole numbers, and there were many variables and potential outcomes that she couldn't anticipate. But there was almost *no way* that facing down the Aberrant had been the correct choice.

"Why am I so stupid?" she whispered to herself as tears pooled in her eyes, burning like acid. Before they could fall, she tilted her head back, opening her eyes wide and staring at the ceiling until they subsided. Perhaps the Aberrant's hums really had been affecting her judgment, as she had claimed to Professor Lacer and the Red Guard. She almost hoped that was the case, because the alternative was that something was deeply wrong with her judgment. Though she didn't believe she was suicidal, her actions suggested differently.

Sebastien took a few deep breaths and swallowed her shame. "I just have to do better. I can do better," she said to the ceiling.

When her fingers could hold the pen again, she made a list of sub-points with all the things she needed to do to prepare for the possibility of a fight or flight situation. This list was even longer than her original list of problems, but at least each point was something she could accomplish. Tentatively, she marked which items were the most critical, knowing there would be more to come and that no matter how much she might wish it, she couldn't do everything at once.

Next, she considered the blood sample the coppers had. Eagle Tower was in the process of being repaired, and unless the coppers had lost her blood, or it was damaged in the explosion, which she couldn't count on, they would be trying again. The next time, Tanya's little trick wouldn't work.

She'd considered the problem before and had a few different ideas about how she could get rid of the blood. Most of them were unfeasible, requiring either a very powerful thaumaturge, or a group of them, to channel enough power. The coppers weren't entirely incompetent. Evidence was well-protected. '*Liza offered to solve the problem for eight hundred gold crowns. Is there any way I could afford to hire her?*' Looking at the next point on her list of problems, which was her overwhelming debt, Sebastien set that idea aside.

Her best bet was still working out how to combine the reverse-scry spell with a curse, which meant she would need to research and practice sympathetic curses.

This extracurricular project was one she wouldn't be requesting Professor Lacer's help on. He might be willing to overlook something like the sleep-proxy spell, and maybe even research into curses, but he was too sharp for Sebastien to give him any hints about her identity. That could end up going very badly for her.

However, maybe Liza would be willing to *consult* for a much-reduced price, with some wheedling or extra incentive. Of Sebastien's contacts, Liza was the most knowledgeable about divination, and maybe could suggest some better ideas about how to handle the situation. If Sebastien could afford it.

Which brought Sebastien to her next issue. Funds.

Beyond her debt to the Verdant Stag, it seemed like all other types of problems were easiest to solve when one had coin to throw at them. It reminded her of a joke she'd heard once: "If a fireball spell can't solve your problem, you need a bigger fireball." With enough gold, Sebastien could make other problems into money problems. She could hire competent help or bribe important people to do what she wanted. Of course, that level of wealth was well beyond her reach. Sebastien was now at the point that an entire weekend spent brewing for the Stags until she reached exhaustion would cover about two weeks of interest, plus a little left over. That was huge, compared to where she'd started.

She thought back to the concoctions she'd seen in the Verdant Stag's little apothecary. She had taken no particular note of the prices, but her mind was a steel trap. She closed her eyes, trying to recreate her experience as she walked through the shelves. Even after a couple of minutes of effort, however, the details wouldn't come to the clarity she was used to. '*Perhaps my memory was impaired by how fatigued I was at the time.*'

Still, she had the initial list Katerin had given her of what concoctions they were willing to buy, and a good idea of what the shop's new offerings cost. Many of those she had no experience with. She chose a couple for their usefulness to her, some for the practice they would give with a particular type of magic, and some for their effect. All-purpose battle magic, like potions of night vision, feather-fall, and fleetfoot, would pay well, and she wanted at least one or two of each to keep for herself anyway. If she could conceal herself, see where the coppers couldn't, and move where they could not follow, she would have a significant advantage.

With more estimation than she would have liked, she calculated what other items would get her the best return on investment for her time and effort. Impotence relief potions, for instance, were very lucrative, but she discarded that option because they were best brewed by a man---a man in a full state of arousal. She technically might have been able to meet that requirement, but she wasn't interested in doing so in Oliver's office, not for any amount of coin.

If she were to work as an alchemist for the Verdant Stag full time, producing a reasonable amount every weekday instead of pushing herself to exhaustion, she could earn about one thousand seven hundred gold a year, significantly more than the average Apprentice's wages, and more than enough to pay off her debt. With their expanded client base, they could probably move sufficient product to make it possible.

Sebastien stared at that number on the paper before her, reconsidering her conception of the Stags' generosity. They could have, fairly, offered her much less. Of course, it helped that they didn't pay the thirty percent magic tax, they had no Master thaumaturge trying to get rich off the backs of their lessers, and they didn't spend extra money on a fancy storefront, decoration, or any marketing besides word-of-mouth referrals. Even their potion vials were the cheapest versions.

Still. A low-wage laborer might earn about five silver per day, or one hundred thirty gold per year, skewing slightly higher for men and lower for women. In many common families, everyone contributed what they could, even the elderly and children. A huge chunk of a low-income family's wages would go toward basic food and lodging, with the rest going toward clothing and healthcare. Taxes took what little might be leftover. One emergency could leave the poorest families homeless, or someone dead for lack of healthcare, because so many lived forever on the knife-edge of poverty.

In contrast, an Apprentice-certified thaumaturge, even though they could only legally practice magic under the supervision of a Master or for their own personal use, not sell items or services directly to others, could make up to forty gold a month. Almost four times as much as a low-wage laborer. It was enough to support a family, frugally, and if they budgeted well, they *might* even have enough left over to save for emergencies.

But despite the generous sum Sebastien made from alchemy, she only had ten weeks before the next term started, when she would need to pay for more classes. She had slightly over fifty gold to her name, if she didn't count the dozen coins sewn into her clothing, which she wouldn't, because that was hidden away for exactly the kind of emergency she was trying to be better prepared for.

'*If I spent every weekend until next term brewing, and then the whole of Sowing Break, and didn't put any of the earnings toward the loan, I could maybe eke out three hundred extra gold. Altogether, I could barely afford the fee for six classes. Realistically, with my other expenses, that's five classes, not six.*' The thought pained her, but dropping a class wasn't the worst thing that could happen to her. She could learn a lot through self-study in the library, after all. And at the moment, the extra free time sounded heavenly.

Still, unless she dropped a class, she would have zero coin left over for any other endeavors, including her new preparations. It also left her no time for taking a break. Alchemy alone wouldn't be enough.

Even if Sebastien had cared only about coin, dropping out of the University to spend all her time brewing wasn't an option. The Verdant Stag had given her that loan as an investment, and they were expecting greater things from her than low-level alchemy. Beyond the knowledge and skill the University could impart to her, the access to higher-level magic would become invaluable.

A thaumaturge needed variety and new magic to grow. Simply increasing the power channeled through the spells they were already familiar with was insufficient. Even if she could brew a batch of twenty, fifty, or even a hundred regeneration potions, eventually the homogeny would lead to stagnation of her Will's growth. Thaumaturges who became Archmages moved on from simple spells to complex ones that bent the world in new and interesting ways, their skills constantly building upon the foundation they created until they reached heights of understanding and skill that the average professional thaumaturge couldn't even imagine. There were no Archmages who were *only* alchemists, or *only* diviners, or *only* skilled with any single craft of magic.

Sebastien was willing to take requests from the Stag for other favors, as long as they were lucrative and relatively safe, but she couldn't control if or when they would have work for her, or what kind of work it would be.

Tutoring was another option, but it was high-effort and low-reward, unless she could somehow fill up an entire classroom with people willing to pay multiple silvers each for a single lecture. Sebastien simply didn't know anything people would pay that much to learn. Nothing legal, anyway. And imagining a gaggle of gossiping, intrusive classmates showing up with the idea that they could ask personal questions of her made her shudder.

Prostitution, while it could be lucrative, was also not an option she was willing to consider.

With great caution, she could make coin from the underground thaumaturge meetings. The University knew the Raven Queen either attended personally or had a contact who did so, but despite that, the meetings were too useful a resource to give up.

Sebastien created a list of sub-points to make attending safer. Many of these tasks were duplicates from the fight-or-flight preparation, but some were new. The first step would be reporting the issue to the group's administration so they could increase security.

And maybe, now that she didn't have to trail Tanya, Sebastien could convince Liza that they should travel to the meeting together, which would make at least half of the trip significantly safer. Anyone foolish enough to accost Liza would regret it the same way they would regret slipping their foot into a boot that a brown recluse spider had commandeered. Siobhan could just hide behind Liza while the woman dealt with any threats.

The final option to earn coin was accepting requests as the Raven Queen, as she had done with Lord Lynwood. Even if she couldn't answer people's questions or solve their problems, they would have to give something of value just for the chance to meet with her. It seemed likely to backfire, with as high of a downside as the potential upside, but she could consider it if she got desperate.

Contribution points could also be exchanged for items of value or used to offset tuition directly, but at about one silver each, even a couple hundred would barely make a dent.

Sebastien continued noting down useful preparations and solutions until her mind ran dry, then ranked them by priority. Many of her problems would require more thought, and perhaps some discussion with Oliver, and quite a few of her possible solutions were temporarily beyond her reach, either because she couldn't afford them or wasn't strong enough to implement them.

When she finished, she stared at the ink-heavy pages in front of her to memorize them, then took them into the nearest bathroom, which wasn't warded to set off an alarm from simple magic use like the library was, and burnt all the evidence to ash. She poured the ash into one of the self-cleaning chamber pots and watched as it disappeared.

Then she found the back catalogue of newspapers and began her research on the exhibitions. Professor Lacer had been right. Lower term students had earned the most contribution points for things like a water molding spell that took the shape of a magical creature; a pair of shoes that let the wearer walk about a foot above the ground; and there had even been a witch with a phoenix familiar that did some sort of *fire* *dance* that, as far as Sebastien could tell, didn't require any magical skill, but showed "impressive control of her bound companion."

'*I should do something with light,*' she mused. That alone would be moderately impressive for a first term student, because light was a more difficult energy source to use, and a delicate spell output to control. It was also flashy by nature.

Sebastien scribbled down ideas of things that might seem more impressive than they actually were to a layman, modeled off of what would be popular in a traveling circus. '*Ideally, whatever I come up with will use the same principles from the Practical Casting exercises. I need over a hundred more hours of practice on those by the end of term, anyway.*' Combining the two was clearly prudent.

Hopefully, by the end of term her Will would have continued to grow at the recent explosive rate. With all the practice she was getting with new, difficult magic, it seemed an inevitability. It had been a big disappointment to learn that, while her sleep-proxy spell might be viable, it wasn't within her grasp as a thaumaturge, and she was looking forward to rectifying that.

Sebastien straightened. '*I know someone who could easily cast that spell. Liza might be expensive to hire...but what if I could obtain her help* without *pay*?' The idea felt shocking, almost subversive, but Liza had proved she was interested in new, useful magic. Enough to pay *Sebastien* for it, if it was fascinating enough.

Sebastien stood. She still had problems to solve and potential disasters that she didn't know how to evade, but she would need more time to think them over. In the meantime, she'd recognized an opportunity to work on the one project that would lighten the constant, bone-crushing weight of all her other obligations.

---

Question: Thoughts about Sebastien's preparation process? What have you done in her situation to rectify the lack of coin?

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 102 – First Moves

Sebastien

Month 1, Day 31, Sunday 12:00 p.m.​

As the first step in implementing solutions to her problems, Sebastien returned to the unused second floor classroom where she'd practiced her divination.

While she set up the spell array and components for the mapping spell, Sebastien kept thinking. '*If I could get the coppers off my back entirely, I might not even need to worry about them having my blood. Perhaps I could make it more costly to keep pursuing me than what they would gain by catching me, or give them something they want even more than the Raven Queen...*' She sighed, shaking her head. Even if she could keep them from charging her with treason and blood magic, some of the other things she'd done in the meantime would probably still be considered a crime, and she was unwilling to go to jail for any length of time.

This wasn't a problem she could fix through entirely legal means, not at this point, and not when she had so little power. Illegal means, such as blackmail or bribery, might still be on the table. If she had some way to be sure she could trust the coppers not to arrest and execute her, she could make a deal to give back the book in exchange for her freedom. But making that kind of deal would require some extra leverage to ensure they wouldn't go back on their word whenever it became convenient for them.

Still, it was worth keeping in mind that there might be other solutions to her problems, visible if she came at them from a different angle.

If she could decrypt the book, perhaps that would give her a better idea of the best options, or the leverage she would need to keep the University and the coppers sufficiently wary of her retaliation.

And yet, she wasn't sure she was willing to give up the identity of Sebastien Siverling. Not unless the same opportunities she had as Sebastien could be afforded to Siobhan, which seemed...unlikely. At the very least, her Crown Family schoolmates would probably feel betrayed by her duplicity. '*And would Professor Lacer be willing to take Siobhan Naught as an apprentice?*' But these problems were pointless to consider at the moment, and so she set that line of thought aside as she moved on to the actual casting of the divination spell.

Mixing a couple shavings of the bone disk with the mercury for the mapped divination spell---rather than her blood---didn't increase the difficulty of casting, and Sebastien soon found Tanya's location, tucked away in the library. With this, she didn't need to follow Tanya to know where she was, though the downside was the increased difficulty compared to the compass spell.

'*That's one small step of many complete. Now for the things that can be completed with a handful of coin.*'

The morning gloom had burned off by the time Sebastien arrived at Waterside Market, but despite the winter sun shining down with all the strength it could muster, the residue of the inter-gang battle lived on in more than the faint smell of smoke. The crowds were sparse, and people moved faster, trying to finish their shopping and get home without lingering. Coppers patrolled around the market or stood glaring near the more expensive shops.

Sebastien bought an eclectic variety of items, stocking up on extras of her most-used components and supplies as well as a few dozen small vials, jars, and pouches for organization. Despite the nearby law enforcement, she was able to get what she required with nothing more than a flash of her student token.

After becoming Siobhan at the Silk Door, she took a roundabout way to Liza's house. The streets grew busier the farther south she went, with people huddled by braziers of fire in the alleys and curled up in doorways to escape the icy wind.

But not as many people as she had feared. The fires caused by the fighting had been put out before they could ravage the whole of the Mires, and both the Church of the Radiant Maiden and the Stewards of Intention had taken in refugees. If she knew Oliver at all, she was sure the Verdant Stag was doing the same.

Siobhan's path took her past some of the damage. There must have been areas worse affected, but it wasn't as bad as she'd been expecting. A few destroyed walls let in the elements. The cobblestone street had shattered in places from excessive force. Scorch marks from overpowered spells lingered, accompanied by barriers of poured stone that no one had gotten around to dissolving.

Siobhan rapped on Liza's door with the lion door-knocker, avoiding its teeth. After a few moments, it apparently decided she was safe, and the lock opened with an audible "click." Siobhan walked in and waited in the dining area attached to the kitchen.

Liza arrived a long few minutes later with a steaming mug of dark tea in her hands, sleep-grit in her bloodshot eyes, and a scowl on her face.

'*She's tired. Perfect,*' Siobhan thought.

"What do you want? Be quick about it. I've barely gotten any sleep for the past two weeks dealing with all this *shit*, and I am running low on fucks to give." Liza didn't even bother to glare at Siobhan, staring wearily into the mid-distance and gulping down her steaming tea.

Siobhan replied without preamble. "I have a newly developed spell in the testing stages that can allow you to give up sleep without side effects."

Liza's expression was blank for a whole second of continued bleariness, and then she turned to Siobhan with sudden hawklike focus, her Will tightening the air between them. "Continue."

"The spell array and theory have been reviewed and approved by an extremely accomplished sorcerer, but I haven't attempted to cast it yet. It works on sympathetic binding principles. Technically blood magic, but it only requires a raven. I assumed you would have no qualms with that."

"No side effects? No sleep debt? No decrease in mental or physical function? How long does it last?" Liza asked, rapid-fire.

Siobhan held back her smile and answered confidently. "It's still in the testing phase, but it's based on restricted experiments carried out during the Third Empire. No side effects for the person giving up sleep. There would probably be some minor sleep debt if you push the duration of the spell to its limits, but nothing like what you would normally experience. I'm not sure of the specifics when not using another human as part of the spell. I'd estimate you could spend one to three days awake in a row. You'll likely still experience some fatigue, and any serious injuries or extended stressors would require you to rest outside of the bounds of the spell...but the benefits are obvious, I think. These last two weeks could have left you feeling as tired as you might after a long day of work, rather than as if you'd been pushing yourself without a break for days straight."

Liza stared at Siobhan like a dog staring at a juicy steak. She tried to take a drink from her cup but realized it was empty. "Give me a moment." She retreated to the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with two cups full of tea. She seemed slightly less eager as she handed one cup to Siobhan.

Siobhan took it with thanks but only blew on the steaming liquid, not taking a sip. It wasn't that she thought Liza would drug her...but the other woman hadn't hidden her greed well enough. '*There are spells that keep people from paying attention to what they're signing, so why not a couple drops of a tincture that can make someone a little too compliant while negotiating?*'

"You have my attention," Liza said. "I'm skeptical about these claims, especially since you say it's merely in the theoretical stage right now, but I would be willing to test it for you. I assume the components are expensive?"

Siobhan almost snorted at the blatant attempt to swindle her. "The details of the spell are proprietary information. I'm willing to give you the information, but it certainly won't be for free. The components aren't cheap, but I was able to get my hands on them, so I don't need your help with that."

"What *do* you want?"

Siobhan hadn't expected Liza to be this interested. She'd simply hoped to avoid paying to cast the spell while also keeping everything set up at Liza's house. But she wasn't one to let opportunity go to waste. '*Liza was willing to knock sixty-five gold off her fee to study the warding medallion Grandfather made me. This isn't as magically impressive as that...but obviously Liza could make great use of it. She might be able to develop a similar spell herself, but without access to the University library resources...maybe not.*' "One hundred fifty gold," Siobhan tried.

Liza scoffed. "Ridiculous! I haven't even seen this spell in action, and you admittedly haven't cast it yourself. Everything you're telling me is hearsay. Twenty gold, and I'll help you test it. I have protective wards built into the casting room below that should help keep us safe against violent spell reactions, and my Will is almost certainly necessary for a spell that does what you say. Without me, you would be risking your sanity and your life. Hells, something like this could easily trigger a break event."

That was an undeniably persuasive argument, especially considering Siobhan's recent experience, but she would not give in just like that. Liza had actually offered to *pay* her! For a spell that Siobhan developed herself! "It's not quite as demanding as you think. I wouldn't turn down your help, but with some effort, I can cast it myself. I'm not worried about serious reactions. As I said, another sorcerer has already reviewed it. One I trust. This is the kind of spell that could change your life. An extra eight hours a day? How much is your time worth, Liza?"

Liza narrowed her eyes. "Eighty gold."

"One hundred twenty gold, and the ongoing use of your casting room downstairs."

"One hundred gold, the use of my casting room, and I'll assist in the development and testing of this spell. But if the spell is totally unviable, I'll want my coin returned."

Siobhan almost agreed, but hesitated. "You'll sign a blood print vow of secrecy. And I want ten percent of the income if you ever use this spell or its principles for anyone else or otherwise earn coin from the knowledge." She didn't want Liza able to pass on the information to others for money or favors, but casting the spell directly should be fine. With Liza's prices, even a small percentage could fatten Siobhan's purse significantly.

Liza smirked. "Not bad, girl. Five percent."

"Agreed."

Once they had worked out the details of the vow, which protected each of them in both word and intent, and completed it, Liza waved at Siobhan impatiently. "Well, let's see it. You brought the spell information, I hope? I won't be able to devote any significant time to the project for the next couple of weeks while I finish up my current commitments, but I can take a look."

Siobhan pulled the wrinkled sheaf of papers from the bottom of her bag. Women's fashion made carrying all the necessary items so difficult. "While I'm here, I was wondering if you could take a quick look at my warding medallion. It experienced some strain," she said, pulling it from underneath her shirt while remaining careful to leave the transformation amulet hidden.

Liza waved her over to a desk covered in bits of metal and tools, turned on an extremely bright lamp, and settled a multi-lensed monocle device on her head. She set the medallion under the light and peered down at it. "Which spell saw use?"

"Umm, energy-deflecting?"

"Hmm. It seems fine. No melting like the anti-scrying function. That one is probably on the edge of breaking, but my divination-diverting ward should protect it as long as it remains on your person." She flipped the medallion over, inspecting it with an absent smile for a while longer. "Still one of the most impressive artifacts I've ever seen. It protects against most dangers someone might face, both magical and mundane."

Siobhan took it back, rubbing her thumb over the cooling metal. "What are all the functions, exactly? I've looked up all the glyphs on the surface, so I know the gist of it, but I've never had the chance to examine what's woven through the inside layers."

Liza pulled off the monocle and considered her for a few seconds in silence. "It wards against scrying, of course. In addition to that, it tries to divert or counteract specific energy, temperature, and force parameters. Those will help to protect you against the worst of the most common battle spells. It's got a list of common minor curses, too. It acts to discourage its own theft, or being noticed unless attention is specifically drawn to it. It will protect you, once, against a fall greater than ten meters, and can filter out an air bubble from the water around itself if you start to drown. And it should stop a small projectile like an arrow---anything moving faster than thirty meters per second."

That was...more thorough than Siobhan had realized. Grandfather had thought of almost anything, even if he hadn't gotten to finish the medallion before she took it. '*Thank you,*' she thought, though she knew nothing of him was left to hear her.

"I'll be back in a couple of days with the most important supplies," Siobhan said as she stood to leave. "I was thinking we could start testing with mice. Try to get some sleep in the meantime."

She was halfway through the door when she paused, almost tripping over the doorjamb with the sudden idea that had halted her. "I need to get a simple battle wand, and some kind of remote-triggered artifact that would allow me to destroy evidence---a bag, for example, or footlocker---in a radius of a few feet without causing additional destruction. Can you give me a referral to someone in the Night Market that does good, *affordable* work?"

Liza glared as if Siobhan were a flesh-eating slug that had crawled up her boot, nearly pushing her out the door, but not before giving Siobhan the location of a shop, as well as permission to say that Liza had sent her. "*I* certainly don't have time to dance to this girl's crazy whims," Liza muttered to herself before slamming the door behind Siobhan.

Siobhan grinned. Liza loved her.

She stopped by the shop that she'd sold Ennis's belongings to, where she picked up a handful of different outfits for both women and men, each with a distinctly different look, just nice enough to be unmemorable. She purchased those plus a few canvas satchels and backpacks in various states of wear.

Siobhan felt the pain in her purse-strings as she paid, a good seventeen gold poorer. Clothing was so expensive. She hadn't even bought shoes! It would have been even more expensive if not for her trading in her old Raven Queen outfit---which she'd cast a color-changing spell on to avoid recognition.

After that, she went to the Night Market. The sun was setting by that time, but the Night Market had been aptly named, and the street and shops within maintained their inviting lights. She was surprised at first to see scattered shoppers, and even a couple of shopkeepers, wearing masks, but realized it made sense that some people would not want to be seen doing business there.

The shop Liza had recommended had an empty stunning wand on sale, and the artificer on staff absorbed her order for a remote-triggered destruction device with extended, dubious silence. Finally, he said, "I think I have a land mine from the Haze War that could be modified to do what you want. That would be cheaper than a booby trap meant for a safe, which would be your other immediate option. The purpose is destroying *evidence*, yes, not for use on your enemies?" he asked, giving her a hard stare.

"Yes," Siobhan assured him, trying to look trustworthy. "And I need the triggering mechanism to be discreet, something I can hide."

"How soon do you need it?"

"As soon as possible?"

He gave her another judgmental look. "An extra gold for the rush job. I can have it ready in an hour."

Siobhan reluctantly agreed.

While she was browsing, waiting for them to charge up the wand and modify the land mine in the workshop at the back of the store, she found the perfect artifact to solve another of her problems.

She almost missed it, because it sat on a corner shelf among a jumble of less dazzling items that most people would have little use for. She wouldn't have even known what it was if not for the little card attached to it by a string. The artifact was composed of two glass-and-copper spheres. The large sphere contained a clear liquid, within which a tapered iron needle floated, suspended in the center. The second sphere, attached to the top, was much smaller and opened up to allow the user to place something inside it.

It was a dowsing artifact, meant for miners, spelunkers, or wild herb gatherers. One simply placed a sample of what they were hoping to find within the little sphere at the top, closed and twisted it to activate the divination, and then followed the compass needle, which could rotate in the four cardinal directions and also adjust up and down.

Some of the glass between the embedded copper braces had obviously cracked and been repaired, and the card said the divination only reached out about ten meters from the artifact, but it was perfect for Siobhan. When the shop's artificer came back out, she bought it for only three gold after haggling him down due to the obvious damage.

The stunning wand, which now had twenty-one fresh copies of the standard stunning spell, cost seventeen gold. The remote-triggered mine, which had been retooled to cast a single, powerful disintegration spell, cost another twelve gold, and could be triggered by pressing a discreet, compressible button. Altogether, it was more expensive than she had been expecting, and she wondered if she was being charged extra because her purchases were so obviously illegal.

On the whole, she had spent over fifty gold on her shopping excursion, almost every coin she'd had to her name before the agreement with Liza. To potentially buy herself safety, it was a bargain.

Now she only needed to find the most optimal places to set up her own safe houses, places she could escape to, pick up a stash of emergency supplies, and change her appearance.

The Silk Door could probably operate as one. '*Other than that, I could do either Dryden Manor or the Verdant Stag, but it would be prudent to have the emergency stashes somewhere completely unrelated to the Verdant Stag. If I can get to Oliver's house or the Verdant Stag, I'm likely to be okay. I need contingencies for when I* can't *go to them for some reason.*'

Siobhan returned to the Silk Door, looking around the little closet for a place to keep a secret stash. Although the room was reserved only for her, others might still enter while she wasn't there, and she didn't want to chance her valuable stash being stolen.

Eventually, she used an idea she'd originally come up with as a better hiding spot for the stolen book currently embedded in a mattress at Oliver's house. At the time, she hadn't had a clean way to cut into and control the manor's marble floor. But now, she knew a very handy, simple spell that allowed her to create extremely precise incisions. Using the stone-disintegration spell she had been practicing for Practical Casting, she carved out a circle of the floor and lifted it up from the rest. '*I need to practice a version of this spell for wood, something that will allow me to hollow out part of a tree or take apart wooden floorboards without the damage being noticeable.*' There were plenty of places throughout the city where she could create a similar stash.

She divided up some of the basic components she'd bought into the vials and pouches, then made copies of her most useful spells on some new seaweed paper, keeping the arrays small and portable. Into a single emergency getaway bag went one spare outfit for both her male and female form, a basic set of spell-casting supplies---including a small, adjustable-flame oil lantern---and an assortment of coin totaling ten gold. She only had enough clothes for two full kits, but enough of the other supplies remained for a few more stashes.

She placed one of the prepared bags and all the extra supplies in a hollow space between supporting floorboards, underneath the stone veneer. Before she sealed the stash up again, she drew a complete spell array for the stone-disintegration and reformation spell on the underside of the veneer. That way, if she arrived in a hurry, she wouldn't need to take time writing it out again. She could cast with the spell array whether or not she could see it, as long as she remembered where it was. '*I should add some dried food rations and a canteen of water,*' she realized as she stood, rubbing her aching knees. Best to be prepared for anything, even fleeing into the wilderness. If she had the coin, another battle wand would be an optimal addition.

Her new stunning wand and the disintegration mine both went into her bulky school bag, though she had to use her cutting and mending spells along with some scrap leather to create a discreet, additional secret pouch for the mine inside. With it, there would be no need for another scenario where she had to place herself in danger to retrieve the bag and items within it. She could simply destroy it all from a distance, leaving no evidence leading back to her.

She hesitated over where to put the disintegration mine's compressible button, which needed to be pressed three times in quick succession to activate the artifact, and was useless if she was over two kilometers away from the mine.

Eventually, she decided that she currently didn't have any good spaces for the button and decided to follow up on another idea she'd had, using the last of her leather mending scraps to create a kind of holster that she could wear around her waist. It held her black sapphire Conduit and the beast core Tanya had given her flush against the skin of her left side, over her ribs and in a position where her arm would shield it. A much smaller pouch contained the mine's activation button, surrounded by stiff enough leather that it would be difficult to trigger by accident.

She moved around while watching herself in the small mirror to test the holster out. It was much more comfortable than keeping the sapphire tucked inside her boot, where it always dug into the skin of her calf. The holster's design required a few tweaks and a color-changing spell to look more like skin, but when she was finished, it was invisible from the outside. Even if someone pressed up against her, the leather was angled and tapered such that they might feel something strange but wouldn't immediately realize she was keeping something stone-shaped under her clothes. She even added some notches that would allow her to adjust it based on the current size of her torso when she switched between forms.

Lastly, she copied the hidden pockets for the mine and wand into the bag she used as Siobhan.

She took the second filled emergency getaway bag with her as she left, mulling over a good location for it as she walked through the darkening streets. Eventually, she found a nice alehouse in the northern part of the city, located between the University and the nearest exit through Gilbratha's white cliffs. It had a public bathroom for customers, which had a window large enough for her to crawl through. She locked the bathroom door, then worked quickly to cut out a portion of the floor in the back corner and dig out a hollow space below it, where she placed the second getaway bag. She cleared away the evidence, packing some of the stone and dirt into the side pocket of her school satchel to dump out later, and left the alehouse with no one the wiser.

She grinned to herself, feeling rather clever and, if she were to admit it, like a child playing at being a spy. She had always had a fondness for hidden pockets and compartments. It felt like she had made real progress with the day's work. While she hoped these arrangements were never again necessary, knowing that they existed gave her some measure of comfort. It was a start.

On the way back to the University, Sebastien made sure to pass by a very specific shop window. She noted the folded paper decorations sitting in it. The next secret meeting of thaumaturges was twelve days away.

That was plenty of time to prepare, as long as she stayed on top of her schedule and managed her time. She needed to be more efficient, perhaps getting a few minutes of homework and study in during the breaks between classes, when other students were ambling through the halls and chatting with each other.

Above all, however, she needed to avoid adding anything more to her plate. She couldn't afford another project, or another problem.

---

Question: Where else would be ideal places for Siobhan to hide emergency stashes?

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 103 – Illusion Chamber


Sebastien


Month 2, Day 3, Wednesday 10:40 a.m.​

That Wednesday, Sebastien arrived at the Natural Science classroom a few minutes early, hoping to squeeze in some of her History reading before class started. She had a new schedule to optimize her productivity. It wasn't much different from the old one, just more rigid and regimented, with less room for breaks, side projects, or aimlessness. It---along with the beamshell tincture---was allowing her to keep up with all her classes and projects, but afforded her barely any leeway. She hoped that a few stolen moments of extra work here and there would allow her to get enough ahead that she could occasionally take an hour or two to herself.

Ironically, despite her underlying fatigue, the hardest part of the plan was making herself get a full eight hours of sleep every night, in two four-hour chunks with only an hour of homework slipped between them. She had to force herself to cast her dreamless sleep spell and actually attempt to rest.

Sebastien stopped before the closed door to Professor Gnorrish's classroom, frowning at the paper stuck to the door. "CLASS MOVED TO LIBRARY TUNNEL," it read in big block letters. With a quick check of her pocket watch and a put-upon sigh, Sebastien spun around and hurried to the northern edge of the Citadel.

The crystalline tunnel between the Citadel and the library was dark, letting none of the outside light through with its normal shattered rainbows of color. A couple people at either end of the tunnel had opened a part of the wall that she'd never noticed before and were messing with something inside. Sebastien stepped into the tunnel warily, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom.

Gnorrish stood in discussion with a handful of other men and women at the center of the tunnel, though beyond the glint of a faculty token, it was too dim to make most of them out.

Sebastien sat cross-legged against the wall, imitating the handful of other students who had arrived before her. Her eyes slowly adjusted, but it was far too dim to read, so she tried to let her mind relax. She was still buzzing with energy from her morning dose of beamshell tincture, which tended to give her a feeling of bottled-up energy that needed to be released somewhere.

One of the men who had been talking with Gnorrish turned in her direction, his familiar silhouette attracting her attention.

"What are *you* doing here?" Sebastien blurted out to Professor Lacer, drawing the attention of the other professors and students.

He sent her a scathing look, and she ducked her head in an apologetic bow. "I meant, I'm surprised to see you, Professor Lacer," she amended in a much softer tone.

"I am here to do a favor for a fellow professor, and, not incidentally, for my apprentice as well," he drawled.

She wondered what kind of favor would require so many of the faculty.

Reading the curiosity on her face, Lacer simply said, "You will see," and moved to stand nearby, his expression clearly stating that the conversation was over and anyone who disturbed him with idle chitchat would feel his wrath.

The other professors split up as well, at equidistant points along the length of the tunnel.

When Damien and Ana arrived, they looked around with curiosity. "What are we doing here?" Damien asked, the question aimed toward no one in particular.

"The whole tunnel is a simulation chamber focused on visual illusions," Ana said. "I imagine there will be some sort of demonstration."

Gnorrish loudly instructed the students to arrange themselves into groups and join a professor. A handful of other random students quickly joined Sebastien's trio.

Sebastien rapidly tapped her fingers against her knee, letting Damien and Ana's light chatter flow over her head.

Gnorrish walked slowly between the groups of students along the length of the tunnel, a ball of light floating above his head. His booming voice carried easily. "The next few weeks of this class will be an exploration of light. Or, more correctly, an exploration of the electromagnetic spectrum that includes visible light. It is an important research area in modern natural science for multiple reasons. Not only is light a freely available energy source for your spells---in some cases even more abundant or useful than heat---it is both versatile and powerful. I believe it has the potential to do so much more, and as it is considered one of the more difficult energy sources to channel, we will be spending extra time learning about it."

Sebastien tracked Gnorrish's slow pace with her eyes, unblinking, as if she could suck the knowledge out of the man with her eagerness alone. '*The more I understand the subject through the concepts of natural science, the better control I'll have with* all *magical applications that use light.*'

Lifting his hands to the sky, Gnorrish paused, and then, with a dramatic flourish like a conductor before an orchestra, he dropped them.

An illusion sprang to life in front of each student group, not unlike what they were learning to do in Practical Casting, but somehow, perhaps because of the surrounding darkness, seeming more tangible. "Behold! One of the many utilizations of light magic," Gnorrish trumpeted, throwing his arms wide with a grin.

The illusion spell displayed a stack of waving lines. They all seemed to move, flowing from left to right, with the ones at the top at such a gentle slope they barely rose or fell at all, and the ones at the bottom in a zig-zagging frenzy.

Sebastien peeked toward Professor Lacer, who had one hand pressed against a section of the tunnel wall and the other curled around his Conduit, his focus on the illusion hanging in the air before them. The other professors seemed to be doing the same, and, though the image in front of each group was almost identical, Sebastien thought theirs seemed more *tangible* than most. As if she would feel the lines if she reached out to touch them.

"Light is a form of energy, and it travels in waves like these," Gnorrish said. "We can tell how much energy an electromagnetic wave has by the frequency---how many waves, from peak to trough, pass through a point in a set period of time. As long as light isn't passing through substances with different densities, that means light with a shorter wavelength has more energy, while light with a longer wavelength has less. Light doesn't have mass, so it's not like water, but water can still be a good analogy. Imagine you're in a boat on the ocean. Your boat is anchored, a single immobile point, while the water moves under and around you." The illusion changed to show the side view of a cute little boat, floating atop deep water. "The peaks and troughs of each wave are always the same height. If each wave is so far apart that you rise and fall over them so gently it's barely noticeable, with one wave passing underneath your ship every minute, you might say the waves were low-energy. Now, suddenly the waves get closer together, and as they pass under you, *ten* every minute, your boat pitches and sways so steeply you need to grab onto something to keep from being thrown off the side." Gnorrish mimed a wild scramble for purchase against the pitching deck of a boat, to the laughter of many of his students. "Those are high-energy."

Gnorrish stopped his wild flailing, grinning at their response. Professor Lacer switched the illusion from a boat back to the stack of waving lines, and Gnorrish pointed to a very small section of light waves in the middle of the nearest group's illusion, which took on the appearance of a section of a rainbow. "Our eyes and brains are adapted to perceive this particular range of wavelengths, which we call 'light.' Can anyone tell me what's special about light?"

Students shifted uncomfortably as his eyes roved over them, but no one spoke.

He looked to Sebastien. "Mr. Siverling! What do you think?"

She was confused for a moment, then realized it was a trick question. "The only thing special about it is that we can all see it, and we gave it a label called 'light.'"

Gnorrish lifted his hands, bobbing them back and forth as if weighing something on an invisible scale. "That's not entirely wrong, but not entirely right, either. The leading theory is that we see this part of the spectrum because it's the most *relevant* for us. The majority of our sun's radiation happens to fall within this range, and it manages to pass through our atmosphere without being absorbed or scattered. It could also be because visible light is the only set of electromagnetic radiation that propagates well in water, where it is theorized all the mortal species rose from. Yet *another* theory is that radiation in that part of the spectrum is easily stopped by matter. If we had evolved to 'see' using super-long wavelength radiation, for instance, which can pass *through* matter, we'd be bumping into trees and falling into holes because they'd be invisible to us! Or perhaps we wouldn't be able to see at all, because the radiation would pass right through our eyes and out the back of our skulls."

With another conductor's wave, Gnorrish changed the illusion to show a tree standing before a huge eyeball, which was sliced in half so they could see its pieces and what was happening inside it. "Thousands of years ago, people thought that sight came from our eyeballs sending out tiny little information-gathering probes, which returned with the images we see." The eyeball shot out little birds, which landed on the tree, and then returned, flying back through the pupil. "Of course, we know today that sight comes from *light* entering our eyes, passing through our pupil, and hitting the retina, which lines the back of our eyeballs and contains two types of photoreceptors."

He went on to explain how rods allowed humans to see in greyscale in low lights. In brighter light, the red, green, and blue cones allowed the perception of seven distinct colors, with some ten million distinctions between individual shades and hues. "Did you know that human infants only perceive black, white, and grey?" Sebastien reached out, letting the tips of her fingers trail over the gigantic slice of eyeball, and almost jumped when it rotated away from her finger as if she'd actually touched it. She snatched her hand back, rubbing the tips of her fingers---which hadn't felt anything---and looked at Professor Lacer. She wasn't sure if she was imagining his almost imperceptible expression of smugness, but her attention was soon drawn back to the lecture.

"It's not until about five months of age when we begin to see all the colors. Prognos children, however, see all colors from birth." Gnorrish's hand sketched out a wide arc, and the illusions morphed into bright light passing through a prism, splitting into the full spectrum of color. The rainbow beam stood out starkly against the relative darkness, revealing fine particles of dust in the air.

"This is what it looks like when you separate light into its different wavelengths, which is easy to do using a prism. Right on the edge, below violet, there is *another* color." He paused dramatically. "Ultraviolet. Interestingly, it can be used for sterilization of bacteria and the newly discovered 'viruses' in lieu of sterilization potions, once thought to be working against 'bad humors.' Prognos, who have an extra two photoreceptors, as well as special oil droplets in their photoreceptor cells, can see ultraviolet, as well as distinguish between colors much more accurately than us. They live in a world of color that most of the other species cannot even imagine." He paused wistfully for a moment, staring at the rainbow of scattered light. "Other creatures can see further on the spectrum in the other direction, known as infrared, which allows them to identify heat sources even in relative darkness, making them wonderful predators."

As if reading Sebastien's mind, Gnorrish answered her immediate question. "Attempts have been made to create spells that allow people to temporarily see beyond our normal visible spectrum, but they haven't made it into general use, even among adventurers and the military, who would seem to particularly benefit from additional sensory abilities. Why?" He didn't pause long enough for anyone to attempt an answer. "Basically, these spells have too many side effects, including synesthesia, where the brain confuses one sensory pathway with another and you begin to feel, taste, or smell colors. Other side effects are confusion, disorientation, and pain---in some cases, to the point of causing mental trauma. And in a few unfortunate instances, people have experienced rupturing of the vessels of the eye or brain due to incompatibility and overstimulation. Please do not experiment with this."

He paused to let that warning sink in, meeting students' gazes again to impress his seriousness upon them. "There are some potions that work safely, particularly for the infrared wavelengths, but they require an ongoing regimen over several months to adapt the brain to the expanded sense, and then continued upkeep to maintain that adaptation, which is very expensive and hasslesome, especially in the beginning."

He turned back to the illusion, which morphed several times to show different examples as he walked them through the mechanics of refraction and reflection. As she took in the detailed visual examples, Sebastien felt her grasp on the concepts deepening beyond the surface-level understanding she'd once thought was all she needed. The illusion chamber made learning these somewhat abstract concepts significantly easier.

"Let us pause and think. How is this knowledge useful? What could you do with it?" Gnorrish asked.

"Invisibility spells," a young woman piped up immediately. "You could just bend light around yourself so people see whatever's behind you."

A young man lifted his hand. "That works for illusions, too, making people think something is there when it really isn't."

Gnorrish nodded, pointing at the man as he replied. "That effect is encountered in nature through mirages, including the superior mirage known as the Fata Morgana, which have created illusions of floating islands that lure sailors to their deaths. It's also why, in the morning, you can see the edge of the sun before it has geometrically risen above the horizon. Continue."

Several others had their own ideas of varying obviousness.

"Shared perception spells, like you were saying."

"The eagle vision potion and spell."

"Dark-vision magic!"

"Some magical beasts are really attracted to the color red," another young man piped up without waiting to be called on. "Maybe it's the only color they can see? That's important to know if you want to survive in the wilds."

"Image-capturing artifacts," Ana murmured.

Damien leaned forward. "Hidden messages! If you can tune a spell's output to create a specific wavelength, you can have a receiver spell set up to recognize that exact wavelength---ideally one of the invisible ones---and you can use it to send pre-set signals. There's a new communication device the coppers are using that probably works on those principles. It must!"

'*A temporary blindness hex,*' Sebastien thought. '*You could interrupt someone's sight without permanently damaging them just by keeping light from hitting their retina.*'

A witch with a clear, jelly-like eel from the Plane of Water winding around her damp shoulder said, "Healing spells to mend or replace eyeballs. Or augmenting spells to improve the distance or ocular precision, even. Eagle vision could be permanent, if you did it right."

'*It's probably also applicable to wards against certain kinds of divination or revealing spells,*' Sebastien thought. '*Reflect or redirect the magical waves. I wonder if my divination-diverting ward uses any of these principles?*'

Damien raised his hand, speaking before Gnorrish had a chance to point at him. "There's a shield spell that looks like a super-smooth silver mirror and reflects all kinds of energy attacks. Aberford Thorndyke used it to survive being thrown into a pool of lava. And maybe you could make a spell that turns infrared radiation into red light, to help illuminate the dark!"

Some of the students laughed, but Gnorrish only grinned wider. "Indeed, both very creative applications of the principle we've discussed."

'*Sundered zones,*' Sebastien thought. She only realized she must have said this aloud when Damien's head snapped around to look at her. She shrugged. "They're obviously reflecting all light, to be that perfectly white, and magical effects can't pass through them." Supposedly. And yet an Aberrant like Red Sage managed to affect the world through its prophecies, despite containment.

Though Professor Lacer seemed uniformly unimpressed with the students' offerings, Gnorrish was pleased. "All good ideas!" Gnorrish continued lecturing, explaining how refraction worked in mirages, rainbows, sunsets and sunrises, and various different lens shapes, with illusory illustrations for all of them, with ridiculous jokes peppered throughout the lecture to help them remember the mechanical details. He even used a couple of equations to explain things for the more mathematically inclined.

Then he let their groups play with the illusions directly, setting them various tasks with light sources, lenses, and different substances. Sebastien took charge, allowing no dissent, using hand motions and the occasional verbal request to Professor Lacer to change brightness, angles, and shapes. This interactive capability was the true feature of the illusion chamber. If only it didn't require other professors to collaborate, putting forth their personal time and effort, perhaps it would be used more often.

Under Sebastien's guidance, her group created their own simple eyeball, then both a telescope and a microscope, and some fun-house mirrors that morphed their reflections in various ways. They simulated infrared vision in one of the mirrors, and, at her request, Professor Lacer attempted to make a ball of light give off ultraviolet radiation, which was very strange. As Gnorrish had said, none of them could see it, except for a single half-prognos student in one of the other groups, but it caused normally invisible smears and splatters on their clothes and surroundings to stand out with a peculiar glow as the substances absorbed the ultraviolet and converted it back into visible light.

By the time class ended, her group was trying to produce their own miniature Fata Morgana mirage of a floating island in the sky, though they had some trouble with the delicate balance of the required conditions.

Sebastien had lost herself in it like a gleeful child playing with a fascinating toy and couldn't help but be slightly disappointed when the illusion dispersed and the walls of the tunnel lightened, allowing the weak sunlight to come through in blinding rainbow-colored sprays and sparkles.

All the professors looked exhausted. Professor Gnorrish didn't even have the energy to raise his voice or wave his arms about as he dismissed them. Even Professor Lacer had a faint sheen of sweat on his brow, but when he met Sebastien's gaze and incandescent smile, the corners of his lips twitched up faintly in response.

---

Question: What other spell or potion applications could you see this information being used for?

 

[Grek]

The obvious one which they all seem to be missing is the other end of the equation: using light to fuel spells. Absorbing light is equivalent to adding a darkness spell to everything you cast. Selectively absorbing the wrong sort of light and emitting the right sort of light, that's a more efficient illusion. Absorb just the infrared and you have a way to hide from heat detection. And if you can get a bunch of mirrors to concentrate light all on one point, you've got a much more efficient way to fuel bigger spells.

 

[AzaleaEllis]

Chapter 104 – A Fit of Pique

Sebastien

Month 2, Day 3, Wednesday 2:00 p.m.​

The excitement over the simulation chamber lasted through the lunch period, which Sebastien rushed through to focus on homework. However, as she settled into her usual spot near the front of the Practical Casting classroom and waited for Professor Lacer to appear, her thoughts turned back to the weight of her problems.

Specifically, that she was wanted by the coppers and would never have a chance to live and openly practice magic in her real identity.

When a copper crown appeared on her desk and slid forward under the force of Damien's finger, her gaze trailed up his arm and met his own.

She raised an eyebrow.

"Copper for your thoughts?" he asked, his somewhat embarrassed grin revealing that he understood how banal the joke was.

She snatched up the coin and tucked it away. "My thoughts are worth at least twice that much, but I suppose I'll give you a discount." She leaned in to make sure they weren't overheard. Eyes brightening with excitement, Damien did the same. "I'm wondering about what the Raven Queen stole," she murmured.

Damien initially looked surprised, but he focused as she continued.

"That book was just one item out of the whole haul from an archaeological expedition, right? Why exactly is it, specifically, so valuable? All of this interest and effort seems a little much for a simple antique, right?"

Damien looked around to make sure no one was listening in. "I read an Aberford Thorndyke story where someone stole an old painting worth ten *million* gold crowns. If it was old and rare enough, maybe something pre-Cataclysm, some people would be willing to pay a ridiculous amount for it."

She hadn't considered that the book could be pre-Cataclysm. She suddenly remembered that she'd cut the leather apart to examine the inside more thoroughly, and then used a mending spell to put it all back together. '*Surely I didn't rip apart a prehistoric antique worth ten million gold crowns...right?*' She suppressed a shudder.

Sebastien hesitated, tapping her forefinger nervously against the desk. "What if that's not it, though?" she asked, her voice even lower. "Because...why wouldn't they just say so? The fact that it's all so shrouded in mystery makes me suspicious."

Damien frowned, humming thoughtfully. "What if she didn't actually steal a book at all, but they don't want to reveal what she really took? Maybe she kidnapped someone important and is holding them hostage, but they don't want to tell the public because..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "Well, I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't want to tell anyone about a kidnapping. At least not that doesn't sound too silly to be real."

He didn't notice Sebastien's deadpan look, continuing with increasing enthusiasm. "Or what if they're trying to capture her because she has some blackmail on someone important, and they can't afford to give her what she wants? And they don't want to *kill* her because she's set a dead man's switch to release the blackmail. Oh! Or maybe she's cursed someone powerful and rich with a slow death, and they're trying to find her so she can lift the curse, but don't want anyone to know. Or---"

Damien stopped, his mouth still open but the excitement draining from his face. He turned to meet her unimpressed gaze. "Sebastien, what if she stole something really, I mean *extremely* dangerous? Something the University shouldn't have had in the first place and doesn't want to admit they lost? They wouldn't want to tell anyone what it was because they wouldn't want to panic the masses with the truth. And that would explain why the High Crown is putting so much pressure on Titus. It would even make sense why she's so bold, because she knows they're probably wary about pushing her to the point of desperation. But..." He shook his head, taking a relieved breath. "If that were the case, Titus would have definitely called in the Red Guard. That's the kind of thing they exist to handle, after all. And, I forgot, but I'm pretty sure it really is a book, because I eavesdropped on---well, I *overheard*---Titus talking about it with one of his investigators some months ago, and he mentioned how the University hadn't been able to decipher anything useful from the remaining books."

Before Sebastien could reply, Professor Lacer arrived. After a few minutes showing them variations of fully fleshed-out light-molding spell arrays, he set them to continue their practice with the minimalist arrays allowed.

The understanding she'd gained from Natural Science made the illusion spell easier. Though the placebo effect was a real thing---which Gnorrish had vehemently cautioned them about when trying to teach them how to do experiments---she didn't think it was just her imagination. The detailed understanding had improved the clarity of her Will, and so she required less sheer force to achieve superior results. It was as if the light wanted to follow her instructions, rather than being forced to do so.

When class ended, Professor Lacer stopped her as she walked by his desk. "Mr. Siverling. Please come to my office Saturday morning. Free up a couple of hours."

"Why?" she blurted. When he raised his eyebrows, as unimpressed as he had been when she was similarly rude earlier that morning, she cleared her throat and amended, "I mean, I will, but what is the purpose of the meeting? So I can be prepared."

Lacer stepped slightly closer, palmed his Conduit with one hand, and made a grasping motion with his other.

The air was suddenly so still it almost seemed like a liquid, pressing against the small hairs on her skin with every minute movement. '*It's that sound-muffling spell. To anyone trying to eavesdrop, we must seem as if we're under water.*' She recognized it from when he'd woken her up in the middle of the night to berate her for casting with Will-strain.

"I want to do some tests on that boon you received," he said, privacy ensured.

Her heart gave a single desperate clench, then started pounding. "What kind of tests?"

"Do not worry. I have no reason to suspect that you or those around you are in danger from it, as I said previously," he assured her, obviously noting her sudden anxiety and attributing a different reason to it. He paused, then added, "These tests will not invade your privacy or take away your autonomy. I simply wish to learn more about the magic in play and see what clues it might give about the mindset of the caster. I do not believe she acted on a whim, and if it was deliberate, I want to understand why."

"Oh. Okay," Sebastien croaked past numb lips before realizing that she should have protested. '*But what reason could I give?*' she wondered desperately.

"Head along then," Professor Lacer said, dropping the sound-muffling spell as easily as he'd cast it.

Sebastien tried to control her expression as she left, pressing her hands to her flushed cheeks, lamenting the pale skin that showed her physical responses so easily, but she stopped mid-step and turned back to Lacer. She had some questions that he seemed like the only person who might be able and willing to answer, and perhaps a limited amount of time in which to ask them. '*He took me as an apprentice, gave me his old Conduit, and even came out in the middle of the night to save me from the Red Guard. Surely he won't be upset if I just ask? If he doesn't want to answer, he's not the type that will be reluctant to say so.*'

She walked back toward him, clearing her throat uncomfortably.

"What is wrong?" he asked immediately, throwing up the sound-muffling ward once more. "Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

"I'm fine. I just had some questions, and I don't know who else to ask."

He stared at her assessingly for a moment. "Proceed."

"The Raven Queen... What did she actually steal?"

Professor Lacer adjusted his grip on his Conduit. "I understand your curiosity." She thought for a moment that he would refuse to tell her more, but he continued. "It was a book, as you have probably heard. As to the exact contents, I am unaware. However, I do know something about the expedition that retrieved it."

Sebastien's grip tightened around the strap of her satchel, and she tried not to look too desperately interested.

"I applied to join the expedition but was denied. At the time I considered it to be petty infighting and politics, and thought little of it, but now..." He trailed off, leaving the rest to her imagination. "The expedition went into the Black Wastes." He nodded at her raised eyebrows. "Yes. All who went were aware of the risks, and they were extremely well supplied. They judged the possible rewards to be worth it. Supposedly, some powerful diviners had found the location of Myrddin's hermitage, where he spent much of his time in solitude toward the end of his life."

Sebastien couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath of air.

"Of course," Professor Lacer continued, "people have been claiming to have found Myrddin's hermitage every couple of decades since he died, so I am rather skeptical. However, it is obvious they did find something of historical significance, and perhaps of great worth. The rumors of Myrddin's lost inventions and discoveries are, frankly, overblown and ridiculous. The man, while impressive, lived over a thousand years ago. We have made many advancements in sorcery---in thaumaturgy as a whole---since then, and to think that he may have made breakthroughs we struggle to comprehend today is extremely unlikely. It is a particular failing of character to long constantly for the 'better days' of the imagined past when really, the best days are *now*, with even better to come tomorrow."

He let out a deep breath, his dark blue eyes growing distant as he looked past her. "That being said, there are obviously mysteries in this world which we do not yet understand, and I suspect many of them come from the pre-Cataclysm eras, which I do not long *for*, but long to *understand*. Perhaps Myrddin made some discovery along that vein and spent his later years trying to decipher it."

Lacer's attention returned to Sebastien. "In that case, if they really did find his hermitage, the things they retrieved *could* be of value. The Raven Queen's interest in the items points increasing weight toward that possibility, in my opinion. The University still retains possession of the remainder of the expedition's haul, but a select number of people in the History department have exclusive access while they inspect the items. The theft has made their paranoia about security seem more reasonable, but they have reported no significant findings yet, and I believe people will eventually begin to grow impatient with the secrecy and apply pressure for open access. Knowledge, like any other resource, can only be kept for oneself so long as one has both the skill and the power to ward off others."

Sebastien couldn't help but feel that was a warning about her own secret, though she knew he hadn't meant it that way.

"That is all I know," he said, "and keep in mind that much of it is speculation."

"I understand. Thank you," she responded, giving him a shallow bow as she turned to leave, her mind already spinning with this partial confirmation of what she had speculated herself.

She'd passed halfway through the bubble of the sound-muffling spell when she paused yet again. "I'm not sure if you were aware, but Grandmaster Kiernan called me into his office last week, ostensibly to give me contribution points and make sure I was doing alright, but really to pump me for information about what happened. I told him to talk to you."

Professor Lacer's eyes narrowed. "I was not aware. I will discuss this with him."

This time, Sebastien really did leave. Most of the students had already moved on by the time she exited the classroom, but she tried to keep herself from being visibly uneasy. She wanted to find the nearest bathroom stall and lock herself inside it until her fingers stopped trembling and the tension in the muscles of her neck and back stopped sending electric arcs of pain up into her skull.

'*Professor Lacer might be skeptical of Myrddin's accomplishments, but I have proof that whoever made the transformation amulet did things I've never heard of before. So I stole Myrddin's journal or something. Stars above, no wonder they're all so desperate to catch me.*' She shuddered, wondering again if there were some way to get rid of it, to just give it back, without endangering herself.

'*But more immediately pressing, Professor Lacer wants to examine my ward, or at least how its magic works. It makes sense, since they are under the impression that the divination-diverting ward Liza created for me is actually some mysterious boon given by the Raven Queen. Is there a chance that he finds something dangerous? No matter my desire for control or privacy, the possible danger involved in a spell cast by the Raven Queen is arguably more important than my comfort. There's no way I can just* refuse *a checkup.* *Should I contact Oliver, or maybe Liza, to warn them? How risky is this? Do I need to give up my identity as Sebastien and leave the University in advance?'*

"Sebastien!" Ana's voice called.

Sebastien's head jerked up, the movement sending another spike of pain up through the back of her neck. One of her eyelids twitched.

Ana was leaning against the wall in the hallway outside Lacer's classroom. She tucked away the pink leather notebook artifact that allowed her to communicate with her little sister, smiling. "Accompany me?" she asked.

Sebastien hesitated, her mind stumbling a little as she struggled to focus on anything but her pervasive anxiety, but nodded, hoping whatever Ana needed wouldn't take too long.

Ana slipped her arm through the crook of Sebastien's elbow and led her off.

"Where are we going?" Sebastien asked.

"I have something important to discuss with you. I'd rather not do it where random passersby can eavesdrop."

Sebastien hoped it wasn't some juicy piece of gossip or the like. Ana was much more socially attentive than Sebastien, and tended to care about things that could create social leverage, whereas Sebastien just wanted to focus on the magic. Someday, she would leave all this behind, and knowing all the latest gossip would be useless.

Even though the hallways were mostly empty of students, Ana pulled Sebastien into an unoccupied classroom, closing the door behind them.

Normally, this level of intrigue would have raised Sebastien's interest, but at that moment, it was all she could do to keep herself from vibrating apart. She suppressed another shudder at the unfortunate wording of her thoughts.

Ana ran her fingertips lightly over the smooth knit of her scarf, her face alight with some emotion Sebastien couldn't place. "You mentioned that I needed to deal with my uncles in a more effective and permanent way, do you remember? Well, I've figured out how to do it. I'm going to discredit them and, hopefully, have them removed from the Gervin Family line of succession. My father has the ability to do that, if there's just cause. I simply need to convince him it is necessary."

"Great," Sebastien said. She realized her fingers were tapping impatiently against the side of her thigh and stilled them. "Did you need feedback on your plan, then? I'm not particularly versed with social manipulation, and I don't know your father at all, so I'm not sure I'll be much help, but I'm happy to listen."

"Actually, I was hoping you could help me implement the plan. I know my uncles have done things that could be used to blackmail them. There's almost certainly proof in Uncle Malcolm's office, probably in his vault. If I could access that, I could use it to knock them down and put myself in a position of power."

Sebastien stared at Ana. "You want me to break into your uncle's office and go through his vault?"

"Well, maybe," Ana said, biting her lip anxiously. "I'm open to suggestions about the details of how we'd implement all this. It shouldn't be that dangerous; I've a plan to make sure Uncle Malcolm is preoccupied at the time, and I know how his security system works."

Sebastien let out a short, sharp laugh as a sudden surge of outrage rose up in her stomach and through her throat, spilling out into the world as cutting words. "I'm happy you've figured out a solution to your problems, but I really don't have the time or the wherewithal to get involved in this kind of dangerous scheme. Why don't you commandeer someone who has more time on their hands, like the rest of your Crown Family friends? Or hire someone to help you who would be willing to place their safety at risk for some coin. I'm sure you can afford it."

Ana went pale, and in the silence that followed, Sebastien knew she'd made a mistake. She didn't want to take on a new project---she could barely handle her current workload---and she was wound up like a coiled spring with stress. Even so, she hadn't meant to snap at the other girl like that. She should have turned her down more gently.

Ana gave her a wide, bright smile that looked almost feral, her eyes glittering with the sheen of unspent tears. "Sebastien Siverling, do you think you're the only *real person* in the world? You act like your goals and interests are the only important ones, like your ideas are the only ones that hold value."

Sebastien tried to interject, but Ana's voice only grew louder. "If someone disagrees with you, thinks differently than you, or just acts in some way that you don't like, they must either be stupid, ignorant, or otherwise unworthy of your attention---perhaps because they're a noble and thus somehow worthless? The Crown Families might be elitists, but you're a reverse snob, which is really no different than a normal snob. You need to open your eyes and realize that in the real world, you don't stand atop some pinnacle of worthiness alone. You're just like the rest of us, down here mucking about in the shit, blind to the wider reality." Ana growled the last sentence, spun on her heel, and stalked out of the room.

She slammed the door behind her, leaving Sebastien alone with the echo of Ana's bitterness off the stone walls.

---

Question: If you were Sebastien, would you have been able to handle the situation with Ana better? If so, how?