“Did I kill him?” Syril asked, confused by the question.

His uncle looked bewildered, his eyes wide again, but his face flush with frustration,

“No. Did you invite him to dinner?” The thick sarcasm was unmistakable. Syril was taken aback; he hadn’t expected such a direct question, albeit he wasn’t sure what he had expected.

“No, of course, I didn’t!” Syril said as earnestly as he could muster.

His uncle sighed, exhaled relief washed over his face, “and you don’t know who did?”

Crap.

He didn’t know how to broach this subject; he wanted to tell his uncle everything – to remove the burden now dumped on his shoulders.

He wanted help.

No, he needed help; he needed someone on his side to understand what had happened. But a voice deep within him was shouting, screaming for him to hold this secret close to his chest.

“No, I don’t,” he mustered all the confidence he had left within him, hoping the slight tremor in his voice went unnoticed.

His uncle continued to stare; his eyes cut into Syril like a surgeon’s scalpel. Syril stared back, determined to not back down, to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was innocent.

As he stared beyond the spectacles and into the eyes of the man who had raised him, he began to feel calmer; sore muscles relaxed, and his stress seemed to wash away like dirt in the rain. Warmness passed through his extremities, and the crowd’s voices vanished into mere whispers on the wind.

He felt weightless as if he was floating through all his problems. In the back of his mind, a compelling impulse, to tell the truth, was nagging at him, pulling at his will like a loose thread.

“Are you absolutely sure?” the voice felt like an invitation. His mouth opened, and the words sat on his tongue, itching to be told.

Tik

Tok…

There it was again, that stupid watch. The beating of its gears once again flooded his senses. It pierced through his drowsiness and wrenched him from his daze. He blinked again and felt each of his senses sharpen, the weightless feeling evaporated, and the full extent of the evening bore down on him like a collapsed building.

“I’m positive,” Syril spoke with newfound determination; he needed his uncle to believe the lie, at least for now.

His uncle studied him for a moment, his face emotionless; Syril wondered what was running through his head. His uncle had worked in foreign affairs for half his life, to the point where he lived and breathed diplomacy.

Try as he might, getting a sense of what he was thinking was like reading a book that wouldn’t open.

His uncle pushed his spectacles up his large nose, “Right,” he stood up, removing his coat and tossing it into Syrils lap.

“Hold this for me, would you.”

Syril opened his mouth to ask politely what the hell he was doing, but his uncle had already stormed down the hallway toward the lone city guardsman positioned at the classroom door.

The guard stared unblinkingly ahead, clad in a grey bodysuit that clung to his lean figure like a second skin; the emblem on the right breast pocket displayed a white rose encircling a sword; evidently, he was a member of the urban combat unit.

The guard was bald, his eyes bleached white, with no colour or pupil visible. His head was tattooed in ornate symbols; no skin was left exposed; each character was as intricate as the last.

Syril would have thought they were beautiful if he had not known their power. Guards were covered head to toe in combat Runes, emblems of stored magic that granted the wearer battle advantages. Syril didn’t know what each rune did; only those who trained and specialised in Runic architecture had the authority to hone that expertise.

“Excuse me, but what kind of circus are you running here?”, His uncle demanded, walking towards the stationed guard, his voice trembling with anger.

The sense of rage and authority that rolled off his uncle was stifling; it was a feeling that Syril, unfortunately, had experienced many times when growing up.

The guard initially made no response as his uncle stormed up the hallway, but the unnaturally blank face creased in annoyance as he stopped mere inches from the guard.

“My nephew has been sitting on the floor for Gods knows how long. He’s hurt, not to mention traumatised. Why hasn’t an apothecary seen him?” he puffed his chest, jabbing a finger into the guard’s chest, “you and I both know that you can’t hold a student without represent-”

His words were cut short when the guard closed the little distance between the two. He drew a black stick from his belt, “Sit Down and wait, or I’ll make you myself,” his voice deep and steady.

His uncle laughed, “Son, you don’t scare me. I’ve dealt with bigger and tougher men than you, so don’t threaten me.”

The guard held up his hands, widening his eyes and shaking his head in mock fear.

“Oh sir, I wasn’t threatening you. I was just making a suggestion.”

His uncle’s face was unreadable; to the untrained observer, it would have appeared calm – but Syril knew there was fury hidden behind his eyes.

“Well, let me make a suggestion to you, boy.” His voice now edged with anger, “put your little stick away, turn around and say nothing while my nephew and I walk through those doors there.”

He jutted his thumb at the doors towards the end of the hallway, “and we will come straight to your offices tomorrow morning to discuss this matter further.”

“Are you threatening me, half-breed?”

His uncle raised his hands to the sky, his face plastered with mock excitement. “Halleluiah, they do have brains!”

The guard was shaking with anger; the sleek black stick was now glowing an electric blue. Its light became brighter with the passing seconds, arcs of electricity danced in the air around the weapon, and a faint hissing echoed through the hallway.

Syril felt his stomach drop, certain his uncle was about to die.

“I know your type,” His uncle spoke, his face once again impassive, “better than you may ever know. You think you can bully those you deem beneath you because you have some power.”

His uncle stepped away, turning his back on the guard, and continuing down the hallway, “You have no authority to hold a student on campus grounds without parental or legal representation. So, in saying that, I’m going to take my nephew, I will walk out that door, and you will not stop me.”

The guard laughed; the arcing electricity was now blinding, “Half-breed sit down.”

Syril was now sweating; he was sure they weren’t making it out of this hallway, let alone the school; nonetheless, he stood and went to follow his uncle down the hallway, but he found his legs uneasy. After sitting for so long, they had numbed to a point where it was a struggle to keep them steady.

He caught himself on the wall and violently shook the numbness out, he ran to follow his uncle down the hallway.

The same cold voice echoed, “I said sit down.”

His uncle didn’t break stride, “And I said I’m going home; we will see you all tomorrow.”

It took everything Syril had to follow his uncle down the hallway; he trusted him beyond words but the hidden fury his uncle was holding terrified him.

He’d experienced his uncle’s rage a few too many times in his childhood, but never to this extent – this was something else. The anger that rolled off his uncle tugged at the air around him. It was like walking through hot oil, his eyes stung, and he felt his chest tighten into a constrictive wheeze.

They were now mere meters from the door; maybe they’d be able to leave safe and unscathed; they could perhaps work out how to get out of this mess.

The guard roared down the hallway, “I’m warning you!”

His uncle turned so fast that Syril nearly ran into him, his face was red, “you will be forced to what? Kill me? Hurt me? I don’t care who you are. I don’t care how tough you may think you are. You have no authority here. You’re a glorified dog.”

The guard moved so quickly that Syril didn’t see the beam of energy until it collided in front of him; its brilliant light exploding into blue sparks that illuminated the entire hallway.

A crackle of electricity hung in the air, blue specks of light fell around him like snow in the winter, and from the classroom door the guard lowered the weapon, the end now smouldering, faint specs of electricity danced in the air around it.