Awakener's Guide to Climbing the Tower

Later that day, Misha finally left the room Alaric had deposited her in. The healing song had done its job too well for her liking.

The Central Crematorium had changed subtly since morning. People were awake again, and the old halls no longer carried the strange graveyard stillness they had during the night before. People moved through the old halls again, though nobody had regained enough energy to make the place alive.

Caius' room sat farther down the corridor, recognizable mostly because Hiiro's voice could already be heard from several doors away.

"–I'm just saying, if the scale thing comes back, we should test whether it can throw something heavier than the Primarch."

Astrid replied with the exhausted patience of someone who had already heard several variations of the same argument. "That is not what the Chamber was for."

"How do you know?"

"Because I listened when Caius explained it."

"So did I."

"No, you interrupted three times."

"One of those was a good question."

"One was whether the scales could weigh a dragon."

"It was relevant for future reference."

"It wasn't."

Misha stopped outside the door.

A smaller voice joined them, Carl's. "I think it really wasn't."

There was silence for a few seconds, then Hiiro answered, with his voice sounding like he was genuinely betrayed. "You don't know for sure."

Misha almost smiled before she pushed the door open.

Four heads turned, and for one brief second, the noise in the room disappeared completely from Misha's awareness.

Caius was already awake. He sat propped against the narrow headboard with two folded blankets behind his back, his blond hair still slightly damp around his temples where someone had cleaned him. The color in his face had improved significantly since the night before. His eyes found her immediately and there was clear recognition in them.

Misha's shoulders dropped before she realized how tightly she had been carrying them. "You're awake."

Caius smiled faintly, the corners of his mouth lifting with restrained warmth. "That appears to be the general consensus."

"Good. I was beginning to think you were committed to making me personally responsible for an unconscious boy I barely knew."

His smile deepened slightly. "My apologies."

"You should be."

Misha crossed the room without waiting for permission and stopped beside the bed.

Hiiro stared at her, then squinted, then leaned sideways as though viewing her from another angle might reveal something important.

Misha noticed. "What?"

"Where were you?"

Her hand, which had been reaching toward Caius' head, stopped.

"Astrid said you left Caius' room, then nobody saw you until now."

Astrid's eyes moved toward her, that look carried significantly more context than Hiiro understood. Misha ignored it for the moment.

"I was resting."

"Where?"

"Somewhere."

A voice drifted lazily from the door. "Adult stuff, kid."

The room died since everyone, except for Misha, turned toward the owner of the voice.

Misha closed her eyes. She had almost forgotten the bastard had followed her. Then, slowly, she finally turned her head to him.

Alaric stood in the doorway with one shoulder resting against the frame. He wore the smugly relaxed look of a man who had arrived at exactly the right moment to ruin somebody else' day.

Hiiro's eyes widened, Astrid was staring blankly at him for half a second before her mouth tightened with immediate suspicion, and even Caius stopped smiling. Only Carl was looking at him in confusion.

"Alaric." Misha's voice came out dangerously quiet.

He smiled slyly. "Yes, darling?"

Hiiro looked between them. "Adult stuff?"

"No," Misha said immediately.

Alaric lifted one hand as though trying to calm her. "Now, sweetheart, there's no need to be embarrassed."

"There is nothing to be embarrassed about."

"That's the spirit."

Misha'r brow twitched. That was not what she meant. Sighing, she pointed at the doorway. "Leave."

Alaric pressed one hand to his chest, openly wounded by how she was treating him. "After everything we shared?"

Her left eye twitched this time. "We shared nothing."

"That feels harsh considering you spent the night with me," he said as he stepped into the room and nudged the door closed behind him.

Every person in the room reacted differently. Hiiro's mouth fell open, Astrid was just as shocked, Carl looked at Alaric the way one might look at food dropped onto a dirty floor, and Caius, he did not move at all.

Alaric continued before she could stop him. "In my room, no less."

In the next instant, Misha swung at him. Not with Twinfang, she still had enough restraint left for that, but with a fist aimed straight toward his face.

Alaric caught it. The movement was so clean that for the briefest moment, Misha simply stared at him, her eyes widened as if she had not expected him to do that.

Then his expression changed. His eyes widened as if he had surprised himself, and he immediately let go of her hand with a sharp wince. "Ow!"

He shook out his palm dramatically and flexed his fingers, selling the impact as though catching her punch had hurt him more than it had stopped her.

No one made much of it. Misha had not thrown the punch with proper form, and from the outside, it looked more like instinct and luck than anything worth questioning.

Alaric rubbed at his palm with exaggerated offense. "I heal you, pick you up from a freezing floor, use my own body to keep you warm, and this is how you repay me?"

Misha slowly drew one of Twinfang's daggers. "I can repay you with this."

The man immediately stepped behind Hiiro. "Kitten, claws away. I'm fragile, expensive, and very difficult to replace."

"You know what? I'm having a very strong urge to test the 'fragile' part." She took a step forward.

His gaze dropped to the blade before lifting back to her face. "On second thought, I think I'd rather you punch me again. "

Hiiro looked delighted. "Oh, now this is getting interesting."

"You," Misha said, pointing the blade at him next. "Don't encourage him."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're grinning."

In fact, he was, widely and completely without shame.

"That's just my face."

Carl stared at him. "No… it isn't."

Hiiro turned slowly toward him, and the younger boy maintained the same unimpressed look.

Then Alaric placed one hand solemnly on Hiiro's shoulder. "You see, young man, this is why children must be protected from cynicism."

Carl's brows knitted together. "I'm not the one hiding behind a teenager."

"..." Alaric's hand slipped off Hiiro's shoulder.

Astrid turned her face away, biting back a laugh.

Hiiro stared at Carl with open admiration. "Kid's got claws too."

Carl looked at him next. "You're also letting him hide behind you. Does that make you feel more dependable?"

"..." Hiiro's admiration vanished.

Misha rubbed her forehead despite having the mask on. At this point, Carl looked smarter than both of them combined.

Hiiro, however, recovered with the speed of someone whose ego had spent years developing emergency defenses.

"You know what?" He straightened and folded his arms across his chest. "We need a group name."

She stopped rubbing her forehead as she turned to him. "No."

Hiiro blinked. "I haven't even said anything yet."

"You said we need a group name and I'm rejecting the idea early. It saves time."

"That's not how voting works."

"There was no vote."

"There could be."

"There won't be."

Hiiro ignored her with impressive confidence. He glanced around the room instead, studying each of them as though he were assembling some grand strategic insight rather than trying to name a group that had formed mostly because circumstances kept refusing to let them separate.

"Think about it," he said, raising one finger. "We've been fighting together for a while now."

Astrid immediately corrected him. "We've been trapped in increasingly dangerous situations together."

"Same thing."

"It really isn't."

"We survived Floors Seven to Ten together, then Exodus, then that Primarch." Hiiro pointed at Caius. "He nearly killed himself with a magical scale."

Caius' brow lifted faintly from the bed. "I would phrase that differently."

He ignored him. "And Misha keeps collecting people."

She frowned deeply. "I do what?"

Hiiro gestured around the room as though the evidence spoke for itself. "Look at us."

"I am."

"No, really look."

She sighed once more. "I'm starting to regret it."

Alaric leaned forward slightly from behind him, smiling with obvious amusement. "I'm curious to where this is going."

"That alone should stop him," Astrid muttered.

Hiiro pointed toward Misha first. "You're wandering around a fake identity."

Misha's eyes narrowed. "Hiiro."

"Mishana is not your real name?" Carl asked, turning toward her.

She sighed. "It is my real name."

'Part of it.'

"Yes, that's her real name," Astrid added without hesitation.

Hiiro blinked and looked between them. "It is?"

From where he sat, Caius answered before Misha could. "Mishana is the name she formally introduces to others, but Misha and Shana are just what she likes to be called."

Hiiro stared at him for a second, clearly trying to remember when that happened, but Caius gave him a calm, meaningful look and he immediately understood.

"Right," he said before he moved on. "Anyway, as I was saying, Misha has that. Caius is away from his home, Astrid came from somewhere nobody even knows exists."

Astrid stared at him this time. "..."

Hiiro paused. "...Not that I know anything about that since she doesn't share it with me. But moving on, Alaric is a bastard noble who apparently has nowhere to go."

Alaric placed a hand over his chest. "The elegance with which you summarize my tragic personal history is breathtaking."

"And Carl…" Hiiro stopped, his enthusiasm dipped noticeably. For once, Hiiro seemed to realize where the sentence would lead before his mouth got there.

The boy had lost his family, there was no funny way to finish that.

He scratched the side of his cheek, then dropped his hand. "Carl's with us now."

It was a small thing, but Misha noticed it.

Then, Hiiro's confidence returned almost instantly. "So basically," he announced, "we're all strays."