Janice fell to her knees on cold stone floor. A dimly lit room spun around her, illuminated only by faint white imbuents covering every bit of the room. The fragnts of a crushed Imbued Artifact slipped from between her shaking fingers, turned to nothing but powder. Its purpose had been served. She had been delivered to the safe house.
Her lungs burned as the last twists of Father’s magic danced within them. Adrenaline made her heart pound like a runaway horse. Janice didn’t let herself breathe in. There was still foreign magic in her lungs — and drawing it deeper into herself had a nonzero chance of very unfortunate results.
Only five seconds after the last of the energy had faded did Janice finally allow herself to draw in a ragged breath. Her fingers were trembling, and it wasn’t from lack of air.
Spider had nearly caught her.
She gave herself exactly one second to acknowledge the emotions gripping her before she shut them down. Rising to her feet, Janice brushed the dust off her pants and adjusted her jacket. Father did not approve of needless panic.
All situations had to be approached in a calm and logical manner. Emotions could influence decisions and create flaws in plans that should have been flawless.
Still — she’d never expected Spider to have read them so thoroughly. Janice had been serving Father ever since he’d taken her in from the streets as a child. Not once had anyone ever managed to get the upper hand over him, even in the slightest altercations… and this demon had managed it multiple tis.
“Janice.”
Father’s words echoed through the dimly lit room. Janice spun toward their source, failing to conceal the surprise in her eyes.
“You’ve already returned?” Janice asked. Thoughts raced through her mind and she nearly asked Father if Spider had managed to interfere in his plans again before she noticed the plain wooden staff held in the old man’s hand. Her eyes widened. “You were successful?”
“Such is the thing with most long plans,” Father said idly. “Though they may be hundreds of years in the making, the actual execution and success is often decided in re hours. Yes. I was successful. The paynt for that hard-earned success was the groundwork I spent so long laying. Tell , Janice — why are you here? I did not call for you.”
“Spider,” Janice replied. “He knew more of our plans than we thought. He declared there were traitors within the Bastions that sought the artifacts hidden within the Archives. Then, when asked to identify them, he went straight for . He knew.”
Father’s head tilted to the side. His features didn’t so much as change in response to the new information, but Janice had known him long enough to tell that he was deep in thought.
“Traitors?” Father repeated. “Plural? Are you certain?”
He didn’t seem surprised in the slightest that Spider had managed to figure out what they were going for.
Janice’s brow furrowed. She cast her thoughts back to Spider’s speech.
“Yes,” Janice said with a nod. “In all of the houses.”
“Interesting,” Father said, tapping a finger against his thigh. He ran a thumb along the surface of the wooden sheperd’s staff. “How curious.”
Is he not concerned that our plans were discovered?
“I fear I may not understand sothing,” Janice hedged. “Is this not a serious problem? We are not done with the Arbalest Empire yet, are we? There is still more we have to prepare.”
“Correct,” Father said. “On both counts. I do have spies in the other houses, but they are not the ones that Spider refers to. They have no relation to my foremost mission in the empire and were simply there to ensure there would be no interference on our path to the Main Branch of the Linwick Family.”
“I — oh. So why would Spider say there are traitors in all of the families?”
“That is the question,” Father mused. “There are two potential answers to it. Three, if we assu there is a possibility that Spider is a fool — but assuming your enemies are fools is the best way to beco one yourself. Let us use this as an opportunity to practice. Tell what these three options are, Janice.”
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Janice hesitated for a second to dig through her thoughts. Father was thodical. He didn’t mind delays in answers. He did mind when answers were wrong. To him, there was nothing worse than a quick, incorrect response.
“The fool’s option is to assu Spider made a mistake,” Janice said. That was the easiest of the three. “It would be to decide that Spider sohow found out about your spies and just assud they would be part of your plans to get the artifact rather than just spies.” RαŊö𝐁ƐṤ
Father nodded. “Good. You did not cover all potential options, but it is close enough. We can dismiss that one. What are the other two options?”
“One would be that he lied. He has so sort of agenda that needs the nobles at each other’s throats.”
“Not an unreasonable possibility. He is responsible for the deaths of several high-ranking mbers of the Arbalest Empire. And the final option?”
Janice swallowed. She hesitated for a mont longer before speaking. “The last option is that Spider is right, and there are other people in the empire that were aware of the items within the Archives and were also attempting to get them.”
“Well done. And if that final option is correct, then there are other Rank 7s in the kingdom that have evaded Garina,” Father said. “They will likely discover that the Long Night is missing soon enough and may cause potential annoyance. Which of those final two options do you believe is the most likely?”
That was a trick question. Janice shook her head imdiately. She didn’t need to think about this one.
“It’s impossible to say without more information. Making conclusions, even if they are just guesses, without basis can cause unintentional bias. We must be aware of both options if we consider Spider a threat.”
Father smiled. And, even though Janice was more than aware the smile was only for her own benefit and did not mirror the man’s true emotions, she appreciated it nontheless.
“Good,” Father said. “I have trained you well. Co then, Janice. There is more we must prepare. This location is Imbued to protect us from prying eyes for approximately 30 days. We will assu it lasts 25. In that ti, I must remove the bindings upon the Long Night — and then we will be done with this empire.”
***
Noah managed to contain his complete befuddlent at Janice’s sudden retreat throughout the rest of the eting. It was the only thing he had to do, after all. Fuyin’s confirmation of his bullshit had taken care of everything else for him.
All he had to do was stand around while the room collapsed into chaos for what must have been the dozenth ti that night. There was nothing left for him to say — and that was definitely for the best.
This wasn’t the first ti he’d managed to pull a blanket over people’s eyes, but sothing was different. Noah couldn’t quite place his finger on what it was. His stomach felt simultaneously uneasy and satisfied, as if he’d just had a great al.
His runes also felt ill at ease. He couldn’t hop into his Mindspace to check on them, but it didn’t feel like anything was actually wrong per say; it was just… different. Odd.
Todd’s mask did an excellent job of concealing his face from everyone else so he could indulge the thoughts with what little attention he could spare them. He was pretty sure he had a pretty confused expression on his features — but fortunately, nobody else could tell.
It wasn’t long before professors and their students hurriedly left the eting, all rushing to prepare for what was to co next. Nobody knew exactly what would co of a revelation like this, but there was no doubt about one thing — there would be opportunity in it.
There was always money in war.
His job for the night had been accomplished. The noble houses would turn on themselves for at least as long as it took them to figure out there weren’t actually any traitors within them. And, in that ti, none of them would be able to work together to go after Isabel.
Noah wasn’t stupid enough to hope that they’d just give up on her Master Rune. If anything, the houses would individually all want it even more. Powerful weapons beca a whole lot more valuable when tis were tense.
But nobody was going to be working together against him. They couldn’t do that when they couldn’t trust each other… so he’d bought them so ti.
And ti was exactly what Noah needed. It had been far too long since he’d been able to work with his students. They were in need of so redial lessons.
He’d gathered their group and slipped out of the Advanced Track eting. Fuyin had done nothing to stop him, but she’d caught his gaze as he left. Her eyes spoke of a promise.
They’d be speaking again soon. Noah didn’t actually mind that. She seed reasonable enough for an Inquisitor. Perhaps there was sothing useful he could get from working with her — but that took second priority to preparing his students.
Nobody stopped them as they left. Noah wasn’t even sure if most people noticed. They were all too caught up in their own worries.
They put several minutes of distance between themselves and the eting before Moxie caught Noah’s eye — and sothing about her expression brought him to a dead standstill.
“Hold on,” Noah told everyone. “Give us a mont.”
He and Moxie stepped to the side and lowered their voices.
“What is it?” Noah whispered.
“We may have so trouble,” Moxie replied, her features grim. “Jalen ran by the eting as if he was being chased by sothing. He reached Rank 7 and got kicked out of the Empire — and he’s not alone. Father’s also a Rank 7, and he just managed to get his hands on so ridiculously powerful artifact.”
Noah stared at her.
What?
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