Ophelia was the first to move.
She walked to the supply closet behind the reception desk, opened it, and ca back out carrying a broom, a bucket, and a look of quiet resignation that suggested this wasn’t the first ti she’d cleaned up after sothing that shouldn’t have been possible.
She looked at the broom. Then at the crater.
Then at the broom again.
"I’m going to need more brooms."
Odelia was already behind the desk, pulling open drawers with the efficiency of soone who had inventoried disaster before. She set a stack of heavy-duty gloves on the counter, followed by two rolls of thick cloth, a box of sothing I didn’t recognize, and what appeared to be a first aid kit that had seen better decades.
"The windows will need boarding before nightfall," she said without looking up. "If it rains, the ground floor is done."
Milo had already taken off his coat, folded it neatly on a section of wall that wasn’t scorched, and rolled his sleeves to the elbows. He picked up one of the heavy gloves and studied the fused glass on the ground with the expression of an accountant reviewing damages.
"Cressida, start on the glass shards inside. Sweep everything toward the center, we’ll bag it after."
"Why do I have to go inside? It slls like campfire in there."
"Because you’re the one who asked how big the fire thing was instead of picking up a broom."
Cressida opened her mouth, closed it, then grabbed a broom from Ophelia with the energy of soone who’d just been given a prison sentence.
"For the record," she said as she disappeared through the empty window fra, "I still think this is cool. I’m cleaning, but I think it’s cool."
There was nothing that shocked more than seeing how they easily pulled each other together and started doing sothing about the ss.
I stared at them all for a mont, wondering inside my mind for a mont.
Milo threw his gaze at .
"You’re not going to contribute?"
"Let him be, he protected our ho on our behalf, that is more than enough."
I glanced in between the two of them for a mont.
’Wow...’
"You’re not going to ask for reparation fees?"
Milo looked at and exhaled.
"That’s kind of the point of all this cleaning... we must try and make this place look presentable in ti, else, our inco for the next few days, will certainly suffer it."
"Our? But I caused this..."
They all looked at in their own different ways.
"It’s all of us... he’ll take the reparation fee from us all. It doesn’t matter, we are all responsible for each other."
"Ah..." I was silent for a mont, unable to say anything to that.
’Why did they all have to suffer for sothing I caused? Wait why did we have to suffer at all?’
Before I got a chance to voice out my protest, Odelia pushed a pair of gloves towards .
"Just clean..."
I looked at her and looked at the gloves, then collected it and pulled them on. The leather was stiff and worn, molded to soone else’s hands. Probably Levi’s, knowing the state of their budget.
"What do you want on?" I asked Milo.
He looked at the lted fence. Then at . Then at the fence again.
"Can you... un-lt iron?"
"No."
"Then you’re on rubble. Start clearing the larger chunks from the courtyard so we can at least walk through without breaking an ankle."
Fair enough.
The work was imdiate and mindless, which was exactly what I needed. My body was still running on the fading edge of adrenaline from the fight, and the Blood Mage revelation had settled into the back of my skull like a headache that hadn’t fully committed yet. Lifting scorched stone and tossing it into a pile at the edge of the property gave my hands sothing to do while my brain caught up.
Maggie, predictably, did not help.
She had relocated from her pavent chunk to the front steps of the building, where she sat with her back against the doorfra and her eyes half-closed. The torn sleeve of her habit hung loose, and she made no move to fix it.
Cressida stuck her head out of the window fra.
"Is she going to help?"
"She just fought a Heroic Spirit," I said.
"And won! Which ans she has energy left!"
Maggie opened one eye. The crimson iris caught the fading light and held it.
"I do not do manual labor."
"But you’re sitting right there! You could at least hold a bag open or sothing!"
"I could also set you on fire. Would you prefer that?"
Cressida pulled her head back inside very quickly.
I grabbed a chunk of displaced pavent that weighed more than it looked and heaved it toward the pile. My shoulders burned. The white flas had taken more out of than I’d realized during the fight, and now that the mont had passed, my body was quietly submitting its list of complaints.
Ophelia had abandoned the broom, recognizing its futility against fused glass, and had instead started wiping down the interior walls with wet cloth. Through the empty window fras, I could see her working in thodical lines, top to bottom, left to right. She didn’t rush. She didn’t skip patches.
’She’s cleaned up after worse, hasn’t she?’
It occurred to that a criminal company probably generated sses on a regular basis. Maybe not "Heroic Spirit lting the courtyard" sses, but the principle was the sa. Break sothing, clean it up, keep moving.
Odelia appeared beside carrying a leather satchel filled with flat wooden boards and a hamr.
"Help with the windows."
She simply stated what was happening next, like you either participated or got out of her way.
We worked in silence for a while. She held the boards in place while I hamred, and the rhythm of it was oddly calming. Board, nail, hamr. Board, nail, hamr. The empty fras filled one by one, turning the ground floor from an open wound into sothing that at least resembled a building again.
On the third window, Odelia spoke without turning her head.
"Sister Magdalene’s flas. They’re white."
"Yes."
"The fire that lted the fence was red. Deep red, almost black."
"That was the Fire Lord’s. Ifrit."
She was quiet for a mont, her dark eyes tracing the scorch line where the two types of fire had t on the building’s facade. One mark climbing upward in jagged streaks, the other pressed flat against it, leaving a clean border where white had pushed red back.
"Two different fires fought here."
"That’s what happened, yes."
She nodded, as if filing the information away in whatever internal ledger she maintained, and held the next board in place while speaking flatly.
"I might know who the Mage is..."
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