The door closed and, with a shimmer, sealed itself. Glenn looked back at Visk’s body. “RIN, get rid of that.”

She nodded and scrawled a quick seal, using the man’s blood as her ink. It activated with a flash of red light, dissolving Visk’s body (and the worst of the blood) in a burst of stage one alchemical energy.

Glenn dropped the last of the illusions he’d placed before Mathew’s arrival. Benefeld didn’t appear. He hummed. Impressive. Her illusion hadn’t failed then. That only lasted a second longer, though. Then Benefeld’s illusion crumbled, and she appeared beside him, flushed and shaking. Was that the normal reaction? Regardless, maintaining a seal in that state was impressive. Feeling a rare sense of pity, Glenn wrapped her in an illusion of a clean room with a nice, sterile smell. With a thought, he added a second illusion of a sense of calm over it. 

Benefeld took a shuddering breath and sank onto the well-worn couch. “That’s,” her voice broke, and she tried again. “That illusion. It covered the whole room without any gaps. It updated nearly instantly with each person’s actions.” She spoke with a level of wonder Glenn was uncomfortable with, and she didn’t seem to realize that her ability to analyze such high-level magic was incredible in its own right. 

Benefeld pressed her hand to her chest, fingers dancing over the layers of illusion as though she could actually feel them. “And this. Layered illusions on another person? I didn’t think that was possible without seals.” 

Glenn started. She could feel them. That should be impossible. He winced. Casting an illusion that directly affected the target’s emotions was a criminal offense, but Glenn hadn’t expected to be caught. This girl was made of impossibilities. “I -”

Benefeld flashed him a wan smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not worried about the legalities here.” 

RIN snorted. “I should think now. If you told anyone, you would have to explain that you spied on a classified meeting.”

Benefeld shrugged. “I was going to say because I’m a mage, but whatever works for you.”

Mages were, as Glenn understood it, just magic users belonging to families with a long history of Innate Magic, but it was true that they tended to follow their own set of rules.

“Why were you here in the first place?” Glenn asked. “And where did you get military-grade seals?” 

RIN eyed Benefeld. “Indeed. You said you and Glenn weren’t close. Why, then, did you follow us?” Though the question was reasonable, her tone was leading, as though she already knew the answer and simply wanted someone else to say it.

Benefeld bit her lip, staring down at the ground. “I don’t know why I came in here… I didn’t think about it. My body just moved on its own. It’s probably…” She shook herself. “Nevermind. As for why I was, you know, in the general area to begin with? That much I can answer.” 

Benefeld’s hands still shook slightly, and she clasped them together, pressing them tightly against each other to still them. “I guess this will sound stupid to you, but I want to become a detective.” She smiled hesitantly. “I’m just snooping into other people’s business right now for practice, but I’d like to form an agency over the summer. I just happened to be investigating Butcher when this happened.” 

Benefeld glanced back down at the bloody floor. She shouldn’t be able to see it, but Glenn wasn’t sure anymore what she could and couldn’t do. “As far as the seals go, that’s easier. I made them. It’s not hard to do when you can sense the magic in them, you know.”

Glenn wondered if even RIN could create seals that well. He’d known Sensors before, and none of them could make seals like that. The Sensor indeed.

RIN nodded and sat down next to Benefeld. The girl flinched, but only slightly. If she could see through the illusion, RIN’s blood-splattered form was probably not the most comforting sight. It was disconcerting even for some members of the organization, though it was the way Glenn liked her best. 

“Well,” RIN started, drawing out the word and examining Benefeld coldly. “Now what? Shall we kill you?” 

Benefeld’s already pale skin lost what little color remained. Then she licked her lips, visibly steeling herself, and said, “If you plan on killing me anyway, would you mind telling me who you are first?” 

RIN raised an eyebrow but shrugged and nodded. “Several years ago, an alchemist and his wife were part of a government-sponsored project. The different factions gave them different goals. The Science faction wanted to see if it was possible to create a human through alchemy. The Faith faction wanted to create a god. And the Magic faction wanted a weapon.”

Glenn kept one ear on the conversation while he readied some cleaning supplies. Science would send over a team later, sure, but ‘later’ with government agencies could take days, and he’d rather not have to walk around on bloody carpet. Dried blood was significantly less appealing than fresh blood. Ammonia, check. Cold water and bucket, check. Towels, check.

“The alchemist managed to combine these requests into one end result. Me. Reality Interface Number 19. The first 18 failed, of course. I was designed to obey any order from the alchemist - Alexander Tucker was his name. Because of the different requests, he gave me two absolute orders that I can never circumvent. The first: obey any order given by a person I have been keyed to - the keying process is annoying and long, and suffice to say, they avoided performing it more often than necessary. The second: to become first a weapon, then a human, then a god, presumably in order of increasing difficulty.”

Much of this was new to Glenn. They’d never discussed their pasts. He’d met Tucker in passing a few times, but never knew he was married or what he did.

Benefeld cocked her head to the side. “So why do you want to be with Glenn specifically?”

“My original orders give me no guidance for instances where orders contradict each other.” RIN looked intently at Glenn. “Though I am aware it was accidental, when he gave me the order not to do things he would not, it gave me a sense of freedom. Not much at the time - he was almost as obedient as me - but occasionally I could feel small choices available to me. Once he left and I revived, almost every order anyone else gave me became optional. I can hardly begin to describe how grateful I am to him for that accident, so I wish to remain at his side.” 

Benefeld nodded to herself and turned expectantly to Glenn. He ignored that too.

“What about Glenn? Why was he involved in the first place? Why is he here now?” She directed the questions at RIN. 

“Don’t answer that,” Glenn said absently. 

The redhead opened her mouth, hesitated, then bit her lip. “You heard him,” she said finally, sulkily. 

Benefeld nodded again. “I see. Well... ” She fidgeted slightly. “Well, if you have to kill me, I understand, but… What if instead, the two of you join my detective agency?”

“...What?” Both had the same reaction. 

Benefeld flushed and stood, pacing and neatly avoiding the parts of the carpeting Glenn was cleaning. “Well, I know things I shouldn’t know, so you should probably keep an eye on me, right? And while you could kill me, it would cause problems for you. My father uses heir seals on all his children.” 

Glenn’s lips twitched down as he blotted the carpet. It was true that Lord Sieg would be an issue if she was telling the truth about that. Heir seals were a tricky bit of work designed to identify a person’s cause of death. Because they were so difficult to apply, they were expensive, meaning most noble families only used them on their heirs, but the Magic Faction’s head could certainly afford to have them put on all his children… if Benefeld hadn’t done them herself.

The girl turned on her heel and paced in the other direction. “And I’m going to be creating a detective agency, assuming I live. Why not join? It would make it easier for you to keep an eye on me, and I’m sure your skills would translate well into detective work, making it an attractive option for me as well.” 

She stopped and smiled weakly. “Besides, a detective agency with only one person in it is pretty sad, don’t you think? Hardly an agency at all.” 

For all her bravado, she was still trembling. She must be terrified. Glenn couldn’t understand why she was still here. He eyed the carpet through the illusion. It still looked terrible, but the texture should be fine when it dried, and it wouldn’t attract bugs. He released the illusion. Benefeld twitched slightly but otherwise didn’t react. Glenn sighed. He’d killed heirs before. It was annoying, but not impossible.  

RIN, though, was tapping her lip again, eyes distant. “Why not?” she agreed, finally.

Glenn shot her an incredulous look. The redhead shrugged. “I can hardly achieve my goal of becoming more human if I do not interact with them. As much as I am grateful to you, Glenn, a shining example of normalcy, you are not. This girl is tolerable, which is more than I can say for most of your classmates, and we need not hide anything from her.” 

“Then you can join her,” Glenn said. “Leave me out of it.” 

RIN eyed him skeptically for a moment, then shrugged. “Tell me about yourself, Claire. You’re a Sensor and the Magic Faction head’s daughter. You have siblings, right?” 

Benefeld nodded slowly. “Four older brothers and one my age. Regulus is the only one attending this school at the moment.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Joffrey got sent into the Faith’s service as soon as his test came up negative. Johnatan is at East Granera University, and the two oldest are in the army.”

RIN gave the girl a patently artificial smile. “Are you aware that you and Glenn have been exhibiting signs of resonance?”

Benefeld winced and nodded. “Don’t worry, though. I don’t plan on pursuing it,” she said. “I can’t. Until I graduate and… well, for the time being anyway, I have a position to fulfill for Magic. I can’t devote myself to someone like that.”

RIN said nothing about that, but Glenn could see the way her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. She was thinking about something, and he doubted that, whatever it was, he’d like it. After a moment, she turned to look at him. “And you, Glenn? Do you intend to pursue it, or am I free to get up to whatever mischief I like with her?”

“Do as you like,” Glenn said through gritted teeth, not sure why the idea bothered him so much.

RIN raised an eyebrow. “Here I thought you’d disapprove of my experiments.”  

That got Glenn’s attention. He sighed heavily. RIN had, somewhere or other, picked up the idea that sex was an inherently human desire and so, despite her own lack of sex drive, often set about trying to seduce others. It hadn’t worked so far, because no one in the Labyrinth would dream of touching Glenn’s partner, but who knew what RIN would do given an ignorant civilian. He could order RIN not to bother Benefeld, but she’d just try her best to find a way around it. 

A student-run detective agency would probably get nothing more than requests to find missing cats and the like. RIN could handle that easily. Glenn sighed, annoyed. He could just stay in whatever room she planned on using for an office and read. Someone had to stay there to receive clients after all. “Fine,” he said. “Let us know when you have a location.” 

Benefeld beamed at him and rushed to the door, where her bag lay nearly forgotten. She withdrew two thick notebooks, both black and embossed with gold leaf lettering declaring them 𝛼 and 𝛽 in the possession of Claire Benefeld. “I’d appreciate it if you would read these before the end of the week. I’d like them back by then,” she explained apologetically. “Alpha contains all the facts I’ve been able to uncover about people, while Beta contains rumors, inferences, and suppositions. I’ll keep you up to date about any new information.”

RIN took the proffered books and wandered back over to the couch, already flipping through 𝛼 expressionlessly. 

“Well,” Benefeld continued, “I’ll let you get to it. I’d like to get the runic scripts homework done tonight.”

“Don’t bother.” The words were out of his mouth before Glenn could consider them. At her questioning look, he forced himself to explain. “With your sensing, you’d be better off jumping straight into direct manipulation. The school should agree to let you skip runic script if you can prove you’re capable.” 

Benefeld smiled. ”Thanks, but the school requires a parent’s consent. Don’t worry, though - I’ve been doing independent studies.” She held up one of her seals as a reminder. Glenn nodded. True enough, there’s no way she made those using what she’d learned in runic scripts. 

“Feel free to study here,” RIN said, not looking up from 𝛼. “I can help you with any theory you have trouble with.” 

“Thank you, RIN. Maybe next time.” Benefeld glanced at the ground and grimaced, then turned and left with a wave, leaving Glenn staring at the door as it sealed itself again. 

RIN glanced up at him. “Do you even know what resonance is?” 

“I thought Marissa ensured it was impossible, so I never looked into it,” Glenn admitted.

“You should, even if neither of you wants to pursue it,” RIN said. “Research shows that people with a thorough understanding of resonance have a significantly higher success rate at resisting its effects.”

Glenn already hated it. He closed his eyes and pressed the heels of his hands against them.