Chapter 256
Rachel followed the twins' black SUV down Bayview Avenue. Thick clouds covered the sky as the day progressed, casting the landscape in gray. A bit of snow piled up on the edges of the road.
Gale never did like the weather in Toronto. Even in the winter, they'd barely get any snow. Whereas in the north, they'd get metres. Camping in the snow was always fun, making a giant snow fort and defending it against dad was the highlight of every winter. Mom would even sometimes join him behind the walls to defend.
The car turned left as it turned off the main road, following the car up ahead. They entered onto snow covered dirt path where a rusted sign, almost covered in snow, marked "Evergreen Brickworks."
Driving further down the road, the snow barely reached the ground as the trees covered the canopy above with snaking branches and leaves that somehow resisted the cold.
Another sign appeared. Red letters on a white background.
KEEP OUT. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.
"Is this really the place? It looks abandoned," Gale said.
"It's supposed to," Rachel said.
The twins' SUV rolled to a stop at a gate ahead. Beside it, a box that had a card reader. Kyle's window rolled down as his hand appeared with a card in his hand, black and blank. Tapping it against the reader, a panel opened where he placed his palm.
Blue light, ether, leaked out at the side of his hand pressed on the panel. A second later, the gate swung inwards with a creak. Once the twins were through, the gate closed.
Rachel eased her car forward until they reached the same post. She rolled down her window. Pulling out a similar black card, she tapped it and the panel once again opened. She pressed her hand on it, letting ether flow into the panel, and the gate swung inwards again.
Rachel drove through.
The road ahead cut straight through thick woods. Only the car tracks gave them a hint of where the road was as there was no clear path.
Gale's tendrils saw the multiple instruments around the trees. Multiple cameras tracked the two vehicles as they ventured forth. He counted at least 6 so far while they passed through the unmarked road.
Between the cameras were poles that jutted out from the frozen ground. Even though a thin layer of snow covered the trees and the landscape, these poles maintained their surface. Each pole had markings, a combination of what looked like runes and jagged lines of circuitry.
Rachel kept her speed steady, following the twins' taillights through the winding path.
Minutes passed. The woods grew denser.
Then something shifted. The air changed.
Gale felt it before he saw anything. A sort of thickness in the air, similar to entering the alley in Chinatown, yet slightly thinner. Definitely not something he felt when he just went around mundane areas.
The trees parted. Through the gap, the silhouette of a giant building that reached to the sky emerged. A castle, maybe, but it had a lot of modern minimalistic angles and design. Stone walls covered the left part of the building. A tower rose up from the centre. On the right side, glass walls and lookout boxes.
It was a mix of modern and traditional.
The trees began to part.
"The camouflage is but a waste of ether," Erin said from the back seat. "Why not simply allow the public to witness this castle in all its glory? The resources expended on concealment could be redirected toward far more productive endeavours."
"Because mundanes would lose their minds if they saw what was happening here," Rachel said.
"Their minds appear fragile enough already. What difference would it make?"
"It makes all the difference."
The road led them to a parking lot situated just in front of the main entrance. Eight stone steps climbed toward massive wooden doors. Ornate translucent glass embedded in the wood gave it a sense of modernity that clashed with the reinforced iron bands at the edges and hinges.
"Welcome to Sterling Institute where kids play politics and idiots like those two are in the hall of fame," Rachel said.
"They're famous?"
"Don't ask."
"But-"
"You'll find out soon enough," she cut him off.
Rachel pulled into a spot near the twins' SUV. Kyle and Clyde were already out of their vehicle, leaning against the hood with matching grins.
Gale opened the door and stepped out first. Craning his head upwards, this castle was probably just as big as the castle in the Eclipsed, and that was already big.
"Amazing how this could be hidden in plain sight," Gale muttered.
"A waste of ether," Erin said as she floated out of the car.
"Can't have mundanes knowing about this whole thing. Last time, it started a witch hunt. Quite literally," Rachel said.
Kyle and Clyde closed in on them. "Everyone ready to finish this investigation?"
"My nose is ready," Gale said.
"Why not your tongue?" Rachel asked.
"That too, but the nose is first."
The group walked up the eight stone steps. Kyle pushed through the wooden doors first, and the rest followed with a grunt.
The lobby opened up to something Gale had never seen before that only felt like it was something out of a book.
Polished marble floors stretched out in every direction. Crystal chandeliers gave off a light that created no shadows. Arched doorways held glass that opened to a courtyard. Stone pillars rose from floor to ceiling and held paintings of old men and women in robes and witch hats.
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Exactly four roombas were moving throughout the floor vacuuming. A sigil appeared on top of each one, the same one Lily had used, a silencing sigil.
A duster floated in the area dusting off surfaces. That was probably the second thing that looked magical in this place, other than how big and polished it looked. It was magic and technology working together, though that somehow diminished and elevated his astonishment.
Students moved through the space in small groups of 2s and 3s. Most wore the same uniform. Others had it styled to show off more of their shape. White shirts underneath a cloak with dark pants for the male students, and female students had the choice between a skirt and the same dark pants. Their cloaks were gilded with silver leaf at the ends and patterned with a blue crescent moon and a quill pen.
The moment the group walked in, conversations started dying as the students looked in their direction. Eyes tracked them as they moved across the lobby towards the glass doors of the courtyard.
Tendrils spread outwards immediately on instinct from the gazes. Gale heard the whispers passed on from student to student.
Those are the twins from the Path.
Kyle and Clyde, right? The hall of fame idiots who stole chairs from the lobby?
Who's the girl with red hair?
Holy shit. That's Rachel Ann. From the Ann family.
What's she doing here with them?
Heard there's a missing student case.
Path must be investigating.
Who's the short guy?
Never seen him before.
He looks... dangerous.
Is that blue haired woman floating?
No way. She's floating to just walk. That's weird.
At least thirty students stared at them. If it was Gale before, he'd definitely feel the danger that came with the stares. But here, he held himself back as he moved himself closer to Rachel to hide himself.
The last time Gale entered a school and was stared at, he broke someone's arm. That was the orphanage. Basically the same thing though.
This here was different. A place where the smartest students enrolled to start their steps into the magical world of Aur. That's what they said about it anyway. Then why did their whispers sound like the same thing the kids would sound like in high school?
"We need to find one of the shits that call themselves the NETS," Kyle said, keeping his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. "School's underground info brokers."
"An underground network," Clyde said. "In a hidden magical school in an already hidden magical world. Stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my entire life."
"But useful," both twins said at the same time.
Rachel glanced around the lobby briefly before returning her attention forward. "Where do you think they'll be?"
"Just follow," Kyle said. "We'll find one eventually when we're out and about."
"Those shits are constantly patrolling for new info anyways."
As the group continued walking through the lobby, Erin stopped walking entirely. Her gaze fixed on one of the pillars. Looking closer, there were thin copper inlays that produced patterns similar to the poles they passed in the forest on the way here.
"Even though these are an inefficient use of ether, the amount consumed is largely minimal for such a large expanse." Erin's finger continued moving along the line in the pattern. "I commend the design. Whoever engineered this array understood the principles of distributed load balancing. The redundancy layers alone suggest stars of theoretical work."
"Caffeine Transcendent," Rachel said simply.
Gale looked over at her. "Who?"
"The only person to have reached the stage higher than an Arcane," Rachel said. "Nobody knows where she came from but she appeared after the Salem Witch Trials, but wasn't associated with any of the witches. I heard she gave specific people gifts, and this is one of them, a camouflage array. Witch Moura's crystal ball was also from her."
This whole thing that surrounded the campus and this giant castle itself being hidden in plain sight was impressive by itself. Probably. Gale actually didn't know any of that. But if Erin said it, the Caffeine Transcendent must've been one hell of a character.
"Why is she called Caffeine Transcendent?" he asked.
Rachel thought about it for a second. "Even I don't know the full story behind the name. She died when I turned twelve. That's what I was told anyways, and now her influence still has weight to this date."
"She died?" Gale asked. That wouldn't make sense. There's no way a person that was stronger than the Arcanes can die.
"Rumours," Rachel said with a slight shrug. "Some people believe she faked her death and is hiding somewhere in the world. Others think she's actually dead and the stories are just wishful thinking. Those idiots over there think she was sent to another world in a freak accident."
"I don't believe it. It's fact," Kyle said.
"You can't tell us that someone that powerful would suddenly just disappear. It's gotta be an isekai scenario," Clyde said.
"That is highly probable. Rifts that lead to an Origin Defense State would potentially capture beings that can defend its territory," Erin said.
"Ridiculous. You guys need to get out and stop watching movies every day and night," Rachel muttered.
"No," the twins said at the same time.
"But why caffeine specifically?" Gale asked.
Kyle grinned. "Rumours also say that caffeine was a stronger drug to her than dust ever could be."
"More addictive than dust," Clyde said. "Supposedly she drank 10 cups of coffee, 6 monster drinks, 3 Starbucks lattes, and a Red Bull every single day and still wanted more by the end of it. That's where the name came from."
"That's really hard to believe," Rachel said. "Maybe the caffeine got to her? A heart attack?"
"A Transcendent getting a heart attack from coffee?" Kyle asked.
"Harder to believe that than her getting isekai'd," Clyde said.
The group reached the set of glass doors at the far end. The glass doors opened automatically.
Gale was expecting the cold air to hit him right away, but what hit him was a nice cold breeze of about 14C. The snow that fell onto the floor also didn't melt, making the scene even harder to believe.
In the middle of the courtyard, a giant sigil floated in the air. That must've been controlling the temperature and also letting the snow keep its temperature while letting everyone else feel a nice gentle weather.
A student walked towards the lobby, oncoming their way. Phone in hand, bulky headphones over his ears, but Gale already saw those shifty eyes looking everywhere. Tendrils also couldn't hear anything from the headphones, instead, it amplified the surrounding noise rather than block it.
His signature was Awakened. Gale could probably easily subdue him if he made any sudden movements. The boy also had lollipops and miscellaneous candy in his pockets. A weird detail.
Kyle's eyes glanced at Clyde for a split second, then he shifted his weight, angling his shoulder toward the oncoming student. His shoulder bumped the boy hard, causing him to stumble sideways, arms flailing around to catch his phone mid air.
Before he could recover, Clyde's foot hooked onto the boy's leg. That sealed the deal as the boy fell flat on his face onto the courtyard's rough floor. His phone skidded on the ground hitting the wall and the headphones came loose from his ears to dangle around his neck.
"Yo, what the hell was that for?" The kid pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. The moment he saw the tall twins looking down on him, a fake smile appeared on his face, a recognition of some sort.
Clyde pulled out a bag of potato chips, Ruffles, sour cream and onion. He tossed it at the boy who caught it against his chest.
The boy's fake smile turned into a real smile this time as he scrambled to his feet. Instantly pocketing the bag of chips into his cloak, he said, "Eh yo, now we're talkin', eh? You want some info, eh? I got everythin'. Name it, I know it. You want dirt on teachers? Got it. Student drama? Got it. Who's datin' who? Got it. You name it, Enzo knows it, capisce?"
Kyle and Clyde looked at each other.
"Still the worst accent I've ever heard," Kyle said.
"It's embarrassing," Clyde nodded.
“Who’s dating who?” Rachel muttered.
"Looking for a boy named Lucian. Who does he usually hang out with here and who's the last who spoke to him?" Kyle asked.
"Eh, who's asking? That one's a sensitive name, eh? Everybody lookin' for the guy." Enzo's eyes darted around first before continuing to speak. "Classified information. I'll need 2 more of those potato chips or a soda. Coke Zero, preferably."
Kyle nodded to Clyde, who pulled out a Coke Zero Cherry.
"I said Coke Zero. Who drinks Cherry shit, eh? Nobody, that's who. Now pay up otherwise I ain't spillin'."
"That's all you're going to get; otherwise, we might bring you back to Floor 3, Unit 2E4. You get what I'm saying, buddy?" Kyle said.
"Fine, fine, fine. Sheesh. I was just jokin', ehhhh. Coke Zero Cherry's my favourite. Humour me a bit eh. This the Path's investigation request?" Enzo asked.
"What of it?" Clyde said.
"Eh, just wondering. Follow me. Let's talk somewhere more quiet," Enzo said, waving them over as he began to walk.
Rachel sighed.
Gale honestly lost count of how many times Rachel sighed just this one day. And she was probably about to again as he looked behind him, noticing Erin was gone. Tugging at her sleeve, he pointed at the missing blue haired woman.
Rachel sighed again, loud enough that it caused the twins and Enzo to give her a weird look.