She bristled. “No, sir,” she spat.
“Fine.” She heard his clothing rustle as he shifted around to pull out a notebook. “Putting aside outlandish accusations, could you start at the beginning of the story?”
The Amicus glanced up, meeting her master’s eyes. Ma’Shite looked as annoyed as she felt behind the stranger’s shoulder. For some reason, that made her feel better. She dropped her gaze again.
“Why should I talk to you?” she said, feeling braver. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jacques Vellane. I’m an independent investigator your master has hired. Now, please—”
Ma’Shite interrupted. “I am not her master.”
Both the Amicus and Mister Vellane looked back at the elf. He leaned forward on his desk and continued more firmly.
“Amicus Nark is a free and independent woman. She is my ward, but not my slave or my servant. You will treat her with respect, Mister Vellane, or I will have to ask you to leave.”
There was a long second of silence, during which the Amicus stared at Ma’Shite with mixed emotions. This was a point they never agreed on, and she didn’t like that he’d dragged the point out for the stranger to see.
At the same time, she was grateful for his defense, leaving her to wonder if she hated or loved him right now.
Finally, the investigator took a deep breath, and his tone shifted to something that was almost respectful.
“Could you please tell me what happened as best you remember?”
She couldn’t tell him everything. Anything to do with her ability was dangerous territory, so she skipped telling him about monitoring the building and simply claimed she’d gone inside to do a quick inspection. He didn’t seem to think that was strange, so she stuck to that version, claiming that she came upon the demon when she checked the kitchen.
“Do you know anything about what happened there on a magic level?”
She didn’t even flinch, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Magic level?”
“Did the demon do anything strange before exploding? Did you notice any other strange behaviors or occurrences? Did the lights go out before or after the explosion?”
She wasn’t sure why he was asking this, but she wasn’t thrown off. All she had to do was stick to details someone without a mana sense would notice. “It rolled into itself and exploded. That’s all I know.”
“Hmm.” The gentleman topped his pencil a couple of times on the notebook, watching her with narrowed eyes. Then he put both pad and pencil away. “Very well. Thank you for your time, Amicus Nark. May I call again if I think of any other questions?”
She didn’t look up. “As you wish.”
He said goodbye to Ma’Shite and left, meeting a servant who’d been hovering outside—probably returning to his post after the Amicus was safely inside—and asked to be led to the front door.
There was a long moment of silence, punctuated by the receding ‘click, click, click,’ of their visitor’s cane.
“He knows you were lying.”
The Amicus grimaced and finally lifted her chin. “I didn’t lie.”
“You left out information. That is, technically, as much a lie as changing facts.” Ma’Shite rounded his desk and sat on the edge, crossing his arms with a long sigh. “Why did you bring up the Regent?”
She clenched her teeth. “It was him,” she insisted tightly. “It’s always him.”
“You can’t accuse someone without proof.”
“And how am I going to get proof if no one will investigate?!”
Ma’Shite rubbed his forehead, a headache coming on behind his eyes. “Please, please, my dear, just let me handle this. One day he’ll make a misstep, and then we can do something about it.”
She stared at him.
No. There was no more confusion. At this moment, she really hated him.
Without a word, she spun on her heel and left, heading straight to her room. There she began to jerkily and forcefully pull on her belt, lining it with her pouch and weapons. The stench of the fire lingered on the leather, making her mood even more sour. Sour enough that when she finally left with Chloe, her friend didn’t dare say anything to her.
Ma’Shite was infuriating!
If someone didn’t push him, he’d never do anything. He’d always be the one to bat away attacks, never the one to end them.
She clenched her fists as she walked, striding so fast that she almost left Chloe behind before realizing what she was doing. She slowed down.
Fine, if he won’t do anything, then she, Amicus Nark, will.
***
Eblin: 15 Years Old
He blamed Roryce for what happened.
His back ached from the caning the Regent had given him. It was almost two days ago, but the bruises were so deep that it was all Eblin could do to keep his back straight and pretend that nothing was wrong. Especially when he had to sit forward in his seat to avoid touching the chair back.
Meanwhile, his anger simmered.
Roryce Mendon. For two days, Eblin had been cussing and cursing that name, fixating on it. The boy who had everything. Genius, fortune, and an influential House. They were all things Eblin should have had.
But unlike Eblin, Roryce didn’t have to lift a finger.
If he wanted to inherit his family’s Head position, he could do it. He didn’t have to scrape and fawn and bow, presenting his pitiful efforts day after day only to be rejected time and again. Eblin was never enough, but Roryce could become Regent if he’d put his mind to it.
Eblin hated the other boy.
He shot a glare toward Roryce’s back. The last class of the day was Basic Imperial Law, a class every student had to take eventually. If Roryce had been following the normal schooling pathways, he would have taken it two years ago when he’d been admitted a year early. Instead, he was taking it like it was an afterthought.
Eblin couldn’t concentrate enough to even take notes. By the time they left class, he had made up his mind.
He had to do something—anything!—to get his mind off the pest. To calm down.
He needed to concentrate if he wanted to prove that he was worthy of everything that Roryce took for granted. Then he could triumphantly rub it into the other boy’s nose.
That’s why he climbed the wall and spent the afternoon wandering around the city, hopping from merchant booth to storefront. So by the time the sun was low, he’d filled his pockets with candies and gifts for his various female acquaintances.
Tired and sore, but satisfied, and with the coming darkness bringing a chill, he turned toward the Academy.
His return to Academy grounds was not smooth.
Halfway down the vine he’d climbed to get out, it finally snapped under the abuse and he fell, landing right on his back.
For a second, all he could do was gasp. The pain was enough to make him dizzy, filling his vision with stars and blackness at the corners. Tears! It hurt. He closed his eyes tightly against burning wetness as the pain throbbed through him.
But they were only bruises, so after a few seconds, the pain receded. By then, he was able to sit up shakily, using the wall to balance himself.
What he was not expecting was a callused hand so close to his face.
Startled, he looked up into the gentle brown eyes of one of the groundskeepers as he offered to help the boy up.
“You alright, lad?”
Alarmed, Eblin jumped to his feet and flinched. But he had something more important to address than his aching back.
“Don’t you dare tell anyone what you saw!”
He said it as haughtily and full of menace as he could manage, but the effect was muted by the pain tightening his throat. The groundskeeper raised an eyebrow and dropped his hand.
“That you fell and hurt yourself?”
Was this man an idiot? “No,” Eblin snapped. “You just didn’t see me, alright?”
For a second, the man studied Eblin’s face. Then a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth as he half turned and began walking away. “Sure, lad. I didn’t see one of the students climb over the wall. Not today, not last week, and not every week since he got here. Good evening, young lord.”
Eblin stared after the man, befuddled, his insides shaken.
Was he actually agreeing? Or letting Eblin know that he had a means of blackmailing the boy? Disturbed, Eblin hastily returned to the main complex, leaving the Academy garden and the wall behind.
Since he’d eaten his fill outside, he skipped dinner and went to his dorm. He paused only a second outside his room, clutching the handle hard. Even with Eblin dying the last couple of days, he was pretty sure he would’ve found a reason to punch that annoying twerp if Roryce hadn’t found another place to sleep.
How or where, he didn’t care. He just hoped Roryce was still absent so he didn’t have his mood ruined.
The door opened to emptiness. With a sigh and a grin, he grabbed his books and dropped off his loot, then went downstairs to flop into a chair in the common room. The silence of the big room weighed on him, and he had difficulty concentrating, obsessively glancing at the clock as he struggled to read.
The dinner hour finally ended, heralded by the steady stream of students that followed soon after.
They came in, chatting and laughing. A few of the boys even snuck girls in, whisking them through the common room and up the stairs.
Eblin only began to relax as he soaked in the sounds of people.
He was actually starting to make headway when someone tapped him on the scalp. Looking up, it was to the toothy grin of Alvis Mendon, Roryce’s half-brother, who was Eblin’s age.
The boy leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, “Wanna do something fun?”
Because his father wouldn’t approve, Eblin normally wouldn’t even consider doing anything with Alvis. But between Roryce (their common enemy) and the interesting and dangerous things Alvis normally got into, it was difficult not to enjoy his company.
Eblin glanced once at his book.
If he wanted to get ahead of Roryce, he really should study. However, unable to deny his curiosity, Eblin put his book down and followed the boy and two of his friends from the common room.
They went behind the building, where a smaller garden was located. Alvis gave a signal to his two friends, and they darted away in different directions. Confused and intrigued by the mystery, Eblin followed close to Alvis’ heels.
Behind the building was a small annex.
It was probably originally meant to be private quarters for distinguished students. However, ever since the laws of “equality of class among the student peerage” were passed a few years ago, they have been converted to different uses.
In this case, the building appeared to have become the home of some on-site servants.
At first, Eblin thought there was no one home. Then the door suddenly opened, and one of Alvis’s friends leaned his head out, beckoning with a wide grin for them to hurry.
Even more confused, Eblin followed, sneaking into the annex.
When the door closed, it cut off much of his sight.
“Mind giving us a light, Master Eblin?” said Alvis cheerfully.
Emboldened by Alvis’s respectful regard and his pride in his own abilities, Eblin held up a hand. A flame flickered above his palm, but immediately, he began to sweat and look around for something to ground the light into. Something small so it didn’t attract attention.
There!
He picked up a candle off an end table, letting go of the first difficult light and lighting the candle instead. Immediately, they were surrounded by a small, golden halo, and he no longer had to concentrate to keep it going.
The boy who’d let them in led the way toward the back of the annex. As they got closer, Eblin could hear odd, muffled sounds. He’d once watched his nanny beat a rug over the railing back at home, and that’s what noises reminded him of.
When they reached the end of a hallway, they pushed open a door that had had another light behind it.
His mouth fell open, and his mind went blank.
The other of Alvis’ friends, the one who hadn’t opened the front door, was already in the room and leaning over something tied up on the floor.
Roryce.

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