What We Do to Survive

After roughly fifteen minutes of simply watching the healer fuss over Lea’s many injuries, I decided that it was probably safe to leave her alone with the older woman and stepped out of the room. I found Adonia hovering by the door, pacing back and forth with nervous energy as she mumbled under her breath. She jumped when she saw me standing almost directly in front of her, hands seemingly instinctively going to the locket hanging around her neck before falling lamely at her sides when she noticed who it was.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks, “how… how is it going in there?”

“Fine. I think. The healer is taking her time with some of the internal injuries, but she doesn’t seem too worried.”

“Good. That's good.” After a moment, she frowned and threw me an accusatory look, “Are you leaving?”

“Just for an hour. I need to check up on a few things.”

“Oh. Okay. Um, Arra came back with Erwin and Estin. Loraline’s assistant is looking after them. He said they should be waking up soon if you want to wait a little while longer.”

I considered the idea for a moment, then shook my head. “I’ll hurry. Hopefully they’ll have something for us by the time I get back.”

“You’re going after them?” she asked, a note of surprise in her voice.

“I just need to know where to start. Hopefully they’ll have that for me when I get back.”

“That's awfully altruistic of you. I thought Avalon students were supposed to be cold-hearted and uncaring.”

I looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. “I already said this can’t go unpunished. What did you think I meant?” I paused for a moment, trying to find a way to say what I wanted to say without coming off as overy possessive. “Leana is a close friend. An attack on her is an attack on me.”

She looked up at me searchingly, then smiled faintly. “I’m glad she has someone else looking out for her. I always told her she needed more friends.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Eventually I simply nodded and turned away. “I need to go. I’ll be back soon.”

“The guard at the door will walk you out.”

“Thank you, heiress Earthshadow. Keep an eye on her.”

“I will… and my friends can just call me Adonia.”

I considered going directly back to the Academy, but decided there was somethings worth trying before hand. I had a feeling it wouldn’t work, it assumed that the attackers had been careless idiots in addition to dead fucks, but I would feel very stupid if I didn’t at least try it.

I ducked into a small alleyway and quickly laid out a small ritual circle. First, I transmuted a single patch of hard-packed dirt into a smooth stone slab, then used a simple spell to momentarily heat the air above it to a blistering temperature before cooling it just as quickly. It was not a particularly thorough way of cleaning things, but it would hopefully do the trick for right now.

With that done, I drew the circle itself using a tablespoon of my precious milk diluted with pure water that I gathered out of the air. It was a terribly simple thing, barely larger than a dinner plate with three sections each containing only three runes, but I had very little experience with this sort of magic and this was just a preliminary attempt.

Then, wrinkling my nose in distaste, I fished out a small vial filled with thick, goopy, off-white strands floating in an alchemically-neutral fluid. It was something I’d read was always good to have with you, since you never knew when you might come across something small and valuable like a four-leaf corpsebloom or a crystal rosebud. The transparent ‘potion’ in the vial was completely non-reactive with most known magical materials and could be used to preserve delicate ingredients until they could be stored away properly.

This was not what I’d been carrying the vial around for, but in a pinch it had done the job. I carefully used a tiny silver spoon I transmuted to extract several of the drops I’d collected from Lea’s brutalized body, then let them drop into the center of the prepared circle.

From there, it was simply a matter of casting the spell itself, but the result proved just as unhelpful as I had predicted. Despite using what was clearly part of the attacker’s bodies, the tracking ritual returned no results. It didn’t even register the vial sitting in my pocket as the same substance that I had cast the spell with.

I sighed softly as I cleaned away the traces of my ritual. I had really hoped that the attackers had been as careless as I would have liked, but that was not to be. Several centuries ago, someone had begun distributing a powerful and irritatingly simple spell designed to fool exactly this sort of tracking. Despite being so simple that even a complete amateur could use it, the spell could render discarded genetic material completely untraceable by magic under seventh-circle and had rapidly spread among criminals and would-be rapists.

Well, this was a dead end. Thankfully I hadn’t spent much time on this, but it was rather annoying. I still pocketed the vial with the remaining samples I had collected. If it came down to it, I would find someone at Avalon willing to cast the needed spells for me. It would be painful to ask for help like that, but for Lea? For Lea, it would be worth it.

I made it back to Avalon in record time, all but running through the thankfully rather empty streets under the meager protection of an illusionary veil that distorted my features and made me hard to pay attention to. I slowed down slightly once I reached the Academy itself, forcing myself to act calm as I politely greeted the gate guards and passed through the portal. People in a hurry were much more interesting than those walking calmly through the hallways. I certainly didn’t need any extra attention right now.

My first task was tracking down Miranda, made almost trivially easy by the tracking spell built into her necklace. Though I had implied that it would only let me find her if she activated it, in truth I could easily trace the connection between her necklace and my ring as long as they were not too far apart. The only active part of the enchantment was the small alert spell woven into my ring that would activate when she channeled mana into the enchanted plate.

It was actually a very interesting piece of magic, and one that I had a feeling I would be making extensive use of in the future. Fundamentally it wasn’t even really an enchantment, but rather a sympathetic bond formed by aligning both the mystical and physical properties of the material in just the right way. Both the ring I wore and the small plate of silver hanging between her breasts had once been part of the same specially treated bar of transmuted silver. I had then ritually split it in half and painstakingly formed the two halves into the desired shape without using any magic directly on the metal. The end result was a nearly undetectable connection that, in theory, would ignore many of the standard ways of blocking tracking spells. I hadn’t had the opportunity to test it as extensively as I would have liked, but it seemed to be working well so far.

I followed the connection all the way down to Miranda’s private room. I knocked once, waited a few moments, and then simply walked right in. I knew it wasn’t exactly a nice thing to do, I’d realized over the weekend that denying her any sort of privacy had been one of those things that had made Miranda so utterly terrified, but I was still keyed into the wards on her room and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. I had been planning to start treating her room as a private space for her to retreat to if she needed it, like it was supposed to be, but right now was not the time for pleasantries.

I found her lying passed out on her bed, a dopey smile on her face and a familiar-looking vial lying discarded on the sheets beside her. After a moment, I recognized it as the first dose of processed elven juices I’d given her the night before. Judging by the state of her sheets and the placement of her hands, I imagined she had enjoyed her early dinner a little too much.

In many other situations, I might have left her to sleep. I hated being woken up at the best of times and she looked so very peaceful. The smile on her face was warm and open and her muscles were slack and relaxed. Despite my urgency, I still stood over her for nearly a full minute before finally casting a spell that was technically meant to counter powerful sleeping enchantments but worked just as well on natural sleep.

Miranda’s breathing hitched momentarily as the spell washed over her and then she stretched languidly, pushing her light sheets aside and unintentionally giving me quite a show. Her eyes opened slowly and she blinked several times before they finally snapped towards me. She scrambled upright, kneeling down on the bed facing me with her legs slightly spread and her hands palm-up on her knees. “Orion!” she exclaimed groggily, “I’m so– what are you– how can I help?”

“You’re fine,” I told her quickly. I hoped we were finally past the constant reflexive apologies but it was best to reassure her that she hadn’t done anything wrong before it could grow into another mess. That was rather unlikely given her new bindings, but it paid to be cautious. “Hurry up and get dressed and ready to go. There’s a bit of a situation and I would like some backup.”

She sprang to obey and I began to fill her in on the situation, starting from how I’d run into Lea during that first fateful walk a few weeks earlier, brushing over our past relationship, and quickly summarizing everything up to finding her in the guard station earlier in the afternoon and taking her over to Adonia’s estate.

Miranda listened quietly, asking the occasional clarifying question as she quickly and efficiently got ready to go. She slipped into a dress that was rather conservative by her standards, covering most of her arms, back, and belly in form-hugging silk, a long skirt hiding her legs from view. Though the cloth was translucent and delicate-looking in places, I could feel the protective and durability-enhancing enchantments woven into the fabric, and closer examination revealed runes stitched into the inside of the dress using threads of the same color as the silk.

Instead of her usual heels, Miranda donned a pair of tall boots, the dark leather shining as though freshly polished and neatly complementing the brilliant red of the silk. Lastly, she slipped on a half-dozen enchanted rings, switched out several of the piercings in her ears, and quickly added four small charms to the necklace hidden under her dress.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Let's go then. I have a few things to grab from my room as well and then we can be on our way.”

My own preparations didn’t take long either. I changed into my typical school outfit (it had always seemed obvious that my day to day clothing should be as durable and heavily enchanted as I could afford), grabbed a few extra vials and some more specialized tools that seemed like they might be helpful, and emptied out my bag of school books and papers, leaving only my supply of collars and other enchanted equipment. I also passed off several items I felt might be useful to Miranda, such as one of the older, non-levitating collars and several vials of useful potions.

Then we were off. I led Miranda back to the Earthshadow estate at a brisk walk, continuing to answer her other questions as they came up. I made sure to impress on her that Adonia was an ally of convenience and was not to be trusted with any private information or secrets.

At one point, Miranda suggested that it might be useful to bring Cayla with me as well, and I seriously considered the idea before temporarily discarding it. I was loath to reveal that link just yet, especially since she was such a low-ranking noble. Perhaps the connection might be useful later, but for now it was simply an unnecessary risk.

We made it back to the mansion only a little over an hour after I’d left. I was pleased to see that Adonia had left instructions with the gate guard, as Miranda and I were quickly ushered inside and led down unfamiliar corridors to where Healer Loraline’s office was located. The healer herself was not there to greet us, apparently still up in Adonia’s chambers working on Lea, but Adonia appeared a moment after we did, emerging from a hidden staircase just outside the room’s doorway.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed as she rounded the corner, “Excellent timing, I’m told Erwin just woke up a few minutes ago and Estin should be waking up soon as well.” She blinked and finally seemed to notice Miranda, who was standing a step behind me with her hands folded behind her back. “Oh, hello there. Who’s your friend, Orion?”

I was somewhat irritated by the delay. If Lea’s uncles were awake, I wanted to be questioning them yesterday, but I knew from experience that some people cared a lot about making sure all the niceties were observed. It was best to be polite and accommodating, else you risked causing yourself long-term problems. I had enough of those as it was.

Fixing a polite smile on my face, I gestured to Miranda, “Adonia, I’d like you to meet my good friend and ally Miranda. She’s one of my classmates and a talented mage. Miranda, this is Adonia Earthshadow, heiress of the Earthshadow name and sixth-year student at Lightcastle.”

Miranda took a step forward and curtsied, the fine silk of her dress shining even in the dimly lit hallway. “A pleasure, Heiress Earthshadow. You have a beautiful home.”

Adonia bowed her head politely, “It’s lovely to meet you as well. Thank you for coming, Earthshadow appreciates your assistance in this matter.” She turned back to look at me and gestured towards the waiting door. “Shall we?”

I nodded and followed after her into the Healer’s rooms, Miranda and the guard that had led me here trailing after us. We passed through a small waiting room, down a short hallway, and finally into an open room with several large, clean beds lining the walls. Each one was surrounded by metal rods set into the ceiling which could be used to close off the bed with thick, opaque green curtains.

At the moment, only two of the beds were in use, and a young man in white robes hovered nervously between them. Erwin and Estin had both seen better days. They were awake, but dark bruises still covered their skin and half-healed burns were scattered along their arms. The moment we stepped into the room, Adonia rushed over to the beds, sitting down between them and crying out, “Oh, Uncle Erwin, Uncle Estin, look what they did to you!”

I stood awkwardly by the door as the trio had a surprisingly tender reunion, with Adonia constantly assuring them that Lea was being treated by a highly trained healer and that she would be alright. Eventually, the conversation finally moved towards what I was actually interested in.

“It was a trio of men,” Estin murmured, his voice rather dry and hoarse. He took a sip from the glass of water offered to him by the healer’s assistant and continued, “There was a big one, must have been nine feet tall, he barely fit into the shop. He had this huge club he used to batter down the door and smash all the shelves. I think his name was Buzz? At least that's what the other guys called him.

“The other two were smaller, still pretty tall, but like, normal-person sized. One of them had a ponytail and a goatee, the other was clean shaven and wearing glasses. They were both mages, I think. Glasses started throwing around fire when Erwin tried to brain him with a chair.” He swallowed heavily. “It didn’t work, but at least he tried something. I never even made it out from behind the counter.”

“Esty,” mumbled Erwin, “don’cha beat yourself up about it. They did… did plenty enough damage as is.”

I was frowning. This was all well and good, but it wasn’t really enough to go off of. I needed something, anything. I stepped forward, “Is there anything else you remember?” I asked hopefully, “Did they say anything? Drop any other names maybe?”

The two brothers considered things for a moment, then Erwin mumbled, “Yeah, there was one thing. When… when Leana came in. And they grabbed her… The boss told the giant to give her a message…” he choked up slightly and the assistant hurried around the bed and offered him a drink of water as well.

“Thank you, son. Right, he told him to give our Leana a message.” He swallowed loudly and sank down deeper into the pillows on which he was propped up. This is what a… a dumb whore like you,” he choked up again and finished in a whisper, “a dumb whore like you gets for trying to reach above your station.”

I looked over at Adonia and our eyes met. She scowled, a dark gleam in her eyes, and I nodded slightly. That was definitely something to go off of, that was for sure. Apparently, it was past time I paid a group of idiot children a visit. My hands closed into fists, nails digging into my palms and blood and mana rushing through my veins. I’d thought I had plenty of time to take care of them. Well, it sure sounded like one of them hadn’t learned their lesson.