"I'm all ears."
Principal Blake looked at her, calm and expectant, raising one eyebrow in curiosity. Mercury swallowed. All the questions she had so neatly arranged and rehearsed in her head earlier had tumbled all over the place.
All the things that had confused her, worried her...all the questions...What were they again? Where should she start?
"Um..." She fidgeted awkwardly. "This might be a bit of a stupid question, but–"
"Wrong. Stupid questions don't exist, just stupid answers." Principal Blake smirked. "Let's hear it."
"Why...do Light and Dark Mages hate each other so much?"
"Oh." Principal Blake raised both eyebrows. "That's not a stupid question, that's a very good question. Well, you know how Light and Dark Magic are fueled by different types of emotions?"
Mercury looked into nowhere, recalling what her parents had told her when she was very little. "Light Magic runs on positive emotions...joy, happiness, love. And Dark Magic on negative ones like hatred, anger or fear...right?"
"Exactly. Neither's inherently good or bad, as your parents should've told you." Principal Blake gave a quiet sigh as his eyes darkened. "But since Dark Mages are always stronger in bad times, the Light folks started to fear us. They started saying we were making things worse and preying on people's suffering. Some of us probably did, but they started hunting innocents too. Till not too long ago they didn't even allow us to exist..." He smiled wryly. "I hate to say this, but the segregation we got right now is already a progress compared to old times."
Hunting innocents...Mercury shuddered. Had she heard this right? Had the Light Mages really tried to kill people just for the source of their magic?
Had her father's ancestors, her father's family also...?
"Right now we've got separate communities," Blake went on. "We don't talk if we can help it. We never exchange knowledge. We don't try to kill each other though...still, don't like it. Pointless drama, you know."
Mercury looked at the ground, deep in thought. She tried to understand this conflict and couldn't. The actions of the Light Mages didn't make sense...but she understood the Dark Mages. She understood why they were afraid.
At least the magic community she was supposed to be joining had a reason to hate the other side. Mercury wasn't sure if that was scary or reassuring. Reassuring, because the Dark Mages weren't at fault. But scary, because she wasn't sure how they would react to her. Would they really let the descendant of their oppressors let into their ranks? Wouldn't they suspect her, think that she might still be one of them?
"I..." She took a slow breath, trying to put the jumbled thoughts in her head into words. "That's...scary."
"Don't worry," Blake said gently, a knowing look on his face. "Twilit Mages like you are exiles. The Light Mages can't even interact with you. No sane person at this school will think you're one of them, don't sweat it."
Mercury wasn't so sure, but she wanted to trust him. She wanted to believe that he was right, that the others wouldn't make a wide berth around her for who she was.
"And no sane person should hate you for what half your ancestors did," Blake added, and Mercury started wondering if he could read minds. "You never even met them. And you don't approve of what they did, I know." He smirked. "It's written all over your face."
Mercury turned pink.
"So my ancestors..." She shuddered, an icy chill running down her spine. "They really did...?"
"It's best not to ask for details, Miss Day."
Mercury didn't know what to reply to that.
"Don't worry," Principal Blake said again, standing up and crossing the room to pat a hand on her shoulder, even if she couldn't feel him. "I'll make sure nobody treats you badly for your name or your roots. After all, to the Lights you're just as much of a monster as the rest of us, so why should we treat you like crap too? Just try your best, that's all I expect of you."
He paused for a moment, then he smiled. "And if it helps you–"
~ ~ ~
Is this really the right place? Mercury asked herself as she looked down at the slip of paper with the address in her hands, then up at the crowded mall in front of her, then back at the address. There were a lot of places she had expected a magical bookstore to be, in backyards, small alleyways, lone old houses, but a humongous, glittering shopping mall definitely wasn't one of them.
And yet the address was right, and Mercury was left wondering if Principal Blake had given her the wrong place when she had visited him yesterday. Maybe he'd got the cities mixed up. Maybe this had been the right address once, and the bookstore had moved. There was no way it could really be in here, right? Or were people just walking in and out of it and buying Magic 101 schoolbooks like it was the most normal thing?
She looked down at the instructions Principal Blake had written under the address and felt even more weirded out than before. What was he...?
Go up to the top floor via stairs or escalator. (Do not use elevator!) From there, find old elevator @ the back (near fast food hell). Get in alone. Push button, go up, get out, you're in the store.
Well, at least those instructions seemed to fit the location, she had to give them that. Maybe she hadn't come to the wrong place, after all.
That didn't keep it from being a weird spot. But Mercury definitely wasn't in a position to judge others based on weirdness.
Bracing herself for a lot of unwanted human contact, she stepped in through the automatic doors, nearly knocking over a three-year-old who ran into her path to retrieve his toy, narrowly dodging his mother as she prepared to yell at her to watch where she was going, walking at a snail's pace behind a group of old ladies with shopping carts who had all the time in the world, almost stepping on a man's feet, stumbling around him and knocking into a texting girl instead. A series of profuse apologies and a beginning anxiety attack later, she finally escaped from the crowd for a second to catch her breath in front of a closed shoe store, gathering her strength to venture into the hell that was the escalator a few feet away.
Mercury had never liked crowded places. And this was exactly why.
She felt an awful lot like the protagonist of a very hard video game, and she was a terrible gamer.
After three attempts to step outside that all ended in her staying where she was, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and moved back into the ocean of people, her eyes fixed on the escalator as she tried to avoid more collisions.
Then she was standing on it, moving upwards, people pushing and shoving and tripping and stumbling and yelling and cursing all around her as she tried to ignore them all. It was too hot and too loud. But after a few minutes it was over, and she tried not to step on anyone's feet as she tried to steer as clear of the crowd as she could.
A shadow moved behind her. A hand darted out, quick as lightning, snatching her bag and pulling it off her arm.
Mercury whipped around. From the corner of her eye she caught a tall man in an orange jacket walking hurriedly along the rows of people, her bag tightly clutched in his right hand.
Her bag...with everything in it. Her money, her phone...everything she needed to get the books and return back home.
Despair grabbed her from behind. She had two options, she realized.
One, she let the man leave with her bag and stayed behind with no way to buy the books she needed or call her parents and tell them where she was and what happened, unless she went to the information booth or asked a stranger to borrow their phone.
Two...she chased after him. Through the crowd and everything.
Her body moved on her own. Before thinking twice Mercury had sped forward, leaping into the crowd, her eyes locked on the orange jacket. People moved all around her. In every direction, on every side, figures were pushing, jostling, rushing, stumbling along, some coming to stand in her way, others nearly tripping over her. Mercury dodged to one side, then to the other. Every time she looked up there seemed to be more and more people between her and her target. The orange jacket was disappearing in the crowd.
This was no good. At this rate she'd lose him. She had to go faster, somehow. But with all these people around, the only way would be to push through.
No. No way. She couldn't do that.
Her gaze darted about, nervous and panicking. If only there was a path where she didn't have to worry about dodging strangers every two steps. If only there was a spot where she could see the orange jacket from a distance–
Wait a second.
Taking a deep breath, Mercury slipped through the rows of people, thanked herself for putting on her sneakers today, and leaped onto the railing.
For a second she wobbled. Rows of escalators, the ground level and two more floors underground yawned up at her, dozens of feet of thin air reaching up and threatening to swallow her whole. If she lost her balance here she'd be dead, she realized.
But then she'd just have to not fall.
Gritting her teeth, she straightened up, her feet gripping the metal below. This was no different from balancing on fallen trees, she told herself, except narrower and higher. She could do it. Compared to pushing strangers or losing her bag, this was nothing.
The man in the orange jacket was still pushing on through the crowd at a steady pace, making for the escalators. Mercury followed him as fast as she could. Her feet were getting steadier and steadier as she adjusted to the narrow, slippery railing. The distance between them was getting shorter and shorter.
Then he was in front of her, within arm's reach, and Mercury jumped off and snatched the bag from his hand.
The man turned and blinked. His eyes went round as he gaped down at Mercury, processing the situation. Then an idea flitted over his face, and he grabbed her arm.
"Thief!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.
Mercury froze. People around them stopped walking, turning around to stare at them both. She could feel countless eyes resting on her, glaring, judging.
Her body felt cold. Her knees felt like jelly. Her heartbeat was too loud in her ears.
"No!" she burst out, trying to tear herself free, but the man's grip was like iron. "I'm not a thief! You stole this from me–"
"Liar! Can you believe this bitch? First she steals from me and then she lies about it!" The man's voice was shaking with fury. "Kids like you should be in jail! Somebody call security!"
Whispers arose, murmurs, countless voices that were white noise in Mercury's ears. Fingers were pointed at her. She felt cold. Her head was spinning. Panic gripped her mind, holding it tightly in its icy claw, putting all her thoughts to silence.
"I'm not a thief!" she shouted, sounding like a liar even in her own ears. "I never stole anything! This is my bag! Why doesn't anyone believe me?"
No good. It's no good. They think I'm a thief, they'll never believe me, I'm going to get arrested–
A sudden gust of wind blew through the building. The man's jacket flapped open, revealing countless wallets stuffed into the inside pockets.
"So the guy who got his stuff stolen collects wallets, huh?" said a voice from behind. "Kinda weird hobby, man."
~~~
"Target secured. Operation started. Everything going as planned."
There was a small pause. Then the mouth on the other end of the line curved into a smile, knowing and satisfied.
"Excellent. Monitor the girl. We move onward to phase two."
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