Vayal Academy

Unwilling to “waste more fucking time,” with the Headmistress, Mailis bids me goodbye. Her hard face softens just a moment before she leaves, and, looking at the ground, she says, “I hope you find your girlfriend, Orc.”

I don’t make it to the office, though. Vila intercepts me in the hall, eyes angry. Professor Yola, my Fundamentals of Magic teacher, stands behind her, looking slightly confused.

“This is her?” the Professor asks. Her tan face has only grown more graceful with age, framed by silver hair. Her hazel eyes are tired behind her slim glasses.

“Yes, Professor — she should be back in Diligence, per the Headmistress’s instructions.”

“I have important information for her!” Normally I’d do whatever a Professor said, but right now I have to put that all aside for Mae. Be brave. “It’s about the missing students.”

“She’s lying, Professor. She just wants to bother the Headmistress.”

Yola puts a kind hand on her shoulder, and Vila freezes. “It could be. But we cannot discount her without hearing her story. You wait here, Vila, and I will hear what she has to say.” She gestures to a nearby classroom, and I enter with anxiety roiling in my stomach.

It’s okay. She’ll listen.

Yola sits with her legs crossed and her hands resting gently in her lap. “Tell me what you saw, Miss Hare.”

I can’t quite bring myself to tell her everything — she doesn’t have the same aura that Tailina does — for fear of what it might mean for Alyx and Mae. Still, I get through the important parts: the creature of static, Mae and Nym both kidnapped. I just leave out what they were doing in Vila’s room at the time.

Yola considers it all and softens, seeming more kindly aunt than stern teacher. She puts a hand on my thigh and nods. “I will bring this all to the Headmistress — I promise. In the meantime, if this thing really is stalking about the halls, you will be safest in the Diligence Compound with Guardian Vila, yes? Especially as you are our only witness.”

I’d like to disagree, to press, but before I can she calls Vila in. “She was telling the truth,” Yola says, with a smile at me. “Or at least, it seems like it. Please keep her safe in Diligence, if you would — I must go.”

The moment she’s out the door I turn my eyes to Vila. “Please-”

“No. Save your breath. You heard her, I heard her, we all heard her. My instructions are clear. Your instructions are clear. We will go to Diligence, you will shovel shit, and I will make sure you don’t run off. Surely you understand that.”

I collapse in front of her, holding bunches of her skirt in supplication, and she looks down on me like some looming, judgemental titan. “Please, Vila, please. People are in danger. Serious danger. I can’t just sit there while Mae’s in trouble. Please. You can stick with me the entire time, watch everything I do, you can make me turn the mill for the rest of the semester, just please.”

She stares at me and I hold her gaze. Her sneer’s replaced by uncertainty, and at last she blows air and rolls her eyes. “Fine. I will be watching.”

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you.”

I realise what has to come next. Oh Gods, time to ruin the tiny amount of progress I just made. “Alyx saw what happened to them.” Vila starts to yell, voice twisted in anger and disbelief, but I talk over her, desperately. “I’m telling the truth, please! Please! I don’t even have to be there, you… You just take the muzzle off and ask her!”

Vila hesitates, stares at the ground, then sneers with her huge, dazzlingly white canines. “Fine! But you must help me return the muzzle when we’re finished.”

“On my life;” I say — what’s happening to Alyx is tearing my fucking heart out, but Mae could die; Alyx will understand. “I’ll do whatever you want, but let’s hurry.”

She rolls her eyes, but nevertheless sprints alongside me, so at least she seems to believe me about the mortal danger thing. There’s no snow, and the afternoon winter sun is almost warm as we hurry along.

Vila’s common room is larger, nicer than ours, with a full dining table as well as cushiony couches and a huge hearth. As we slip into her room, Vila hisses: “no touching,” and I squeeze my fists together, hating her. I hate her even more when I see Alyx, naked and on all fours, pacing. Her face lights up in alarm when she sees me and she starts pulling desperately against her chain, barking insistently.

“Wruff arf arf wruff!!! Wruff wruff!!” she cries.

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to rush over and hug her, kiss her pretty face and try everything I can to get that thing off her (when it comes down to it, I’m no better than Nym). “I know, I know,” I say, “Mae and Nym; I saw. Only I didn’t see who did it. We need you to tell us.”

“Wruff wruff wruff arf!! Wrrruff bark bark!”

“Vila’s agreed to take the muzzle off so you can tell us who it was, but you have to let her tie you up first, okay?” Alyx immediately stops jumping on the chain and accepts Vila’s attentions (Vila, who has produced a length of glossy black rope from her plain bedside drawer). I hope it’s because she’s as worried about Mae as I am, and not because I accidentally activated the collar. Staring at her achingly pretty face, obscured by the terrible muzzle, staring up at me passionately while Vila restrains her, I add, “I’m not allowed to touch you, I’m sorry,” voice breaking, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Alyx shakes her head, eyes comforting.

Her captive’s arms and legs totally restrained now, Vila inserts the key; it turns with a heart-stopping click; I can’t wait to hear her voice, I can’t wait.

Finally, Vila yanks away the headgear and-

And nothing happens. It remains stuck tight.

“Wruff arf arf!” says Alyx desperately.

“What the-” Vila yanks again on the muzzle and nothing happens. She reinserts the key, turns it, nothing. My heart sinks.

“Syrene fucked us again,” I say, barely able to believe it.

“Grrrrrr wruff!”

Vila shakes the brown leather straps desperately, tossing poor Alyx’s head around wildly in her panic.

“Don’t hurt her,” I say. “Find some paper! Let her write a note!”

Vila, utterly shaken, rushes across the room, rustles through her desk, returns a moment later with a notebook and quill, thrusts it into Alyx’s hands, who writes so quickly and violently that her words slash through two sheets of paper.

Hi Hattie, nice try!

“No!” we both cry, as Alyx cries, “Wruff!”

That bitch! “Was it Syrene that took them!?” I ask. She shakes her head aggressively. My entire body is screaming at me to fall to my knees and cradle Alyx’s head in my arms, but I fight against it.

I tear my hands into my hair, distraught, terrified for Alyx as well as Mae now; what if we can never get it off? And now I feel completely useless, because I don’t know what else to do now, don’t know where else to go.

Indel, says something in my brain; Indel — she’s a princess and she loves you, and she’ll know what to do.

On our way to Indel’s room, my curiosity gets the better of me. That, and I need a distraction after that. “Why did you owe Mae?”

“Intent on pushing your luck, are you?”

“You don’t have to answer,” I add, quickly, because she is right — there’s not much I alone can do to stop her dragging me to Diligence, and besides, it’s a question for another day.

We walk in silence, but for the distinguished tap of her shoes on the tiled floor and a faint rustling of wind outside. Minutes pass before she says, “Did Mae not tell you?”

“No. Not a word.”

“Hm. I had- no. Nevermind.”

More silence.

“I had thought she would after you joined each other. It- it is not like her, to keep things.”

“Well, it’s private, right?”

“I- Yes, I suppose it is.”

“She respects that. I know she does. She wouldn’t betray your trust.”

Silence reigns until she stops, suddenly, in front of the Goldfoil Library’s whitewood doors, under the gaze of the Empress’s portrait, hung high on the wall. “I- I loved someone. Back home. The garrison commander.”

On one hand, we don’t have the time, but on the other, it’s so rare to hear that quiet vulnerability in her voice that I can’t help but turn. Her eyes look everywhere but me. “Mae was in town, with her father. I went to him, seeking a token to demonstrate my devotion. For all my family’s wealth, I myself had little, and could afford none.”

I think I see where this is going. “And Mae gave you something?”

“Yes. A beautiful silver band, with a shining sapphire set within. After this, I should like you to return it to her.”

“Okay. I will.” We look at each other, her slight grimace setting me on edge, and I add, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“I was a foolish child. I should have known I could not win.”

“What?”

“It- is no matter, not now. I have said too much. Let us speak with your Princess.”

Indel’s fine apartments are as put together as always, not a single silk sheet or silver spoon out of place. Afternoon sun filters through intricate windows, bathing the room in orange light that makes the whole place feel like home — even Vila softens as we enter, letting out a quiet sigh.

“Indel?” I call. No reply. “Princess, please, I need you.” That should have her running, but the room remains still. Castellan’s not even in his pen.

Okay. She’s off in campus somewhere. That’s okay. I’m still not sure exactly what it is connecting us, but there’s something — the same thing that connects me to Mae, Alyx, even Nym. Tune into that, and you’ll find her.

It’s times like this I’m glad to be a Mystic. I close my eyes and stir the mana in my soul to action, like swirling a finger on a dusty counter to launch the motes to the air.

I freeze.

“Are you alright?” Vila asks, stepping forward — a bright, beautiful cord of light tethering her soul to mine. It’s so obvious now that I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. Her destiny is just as wrapped up in mine as Mae’s and Alyx’s. She stands there in a whole new light, and it takes everything in me to not lean in and kiss her. It’s the exact same feeling as when I tune into the link around the others.

“I’m fine,” I say, too quickly, looking inside myself. There’s a tug across the Academy — Alyx, no doubt. But only one. Mae, Nym, Indel, all as distant as each other, like they’re in another world. “No. Something’s wrong. I can’t- she’s not. I don’t know where she is.”

“If she is not in the Academy, might she be in her Temple?”

Of course! Drive. Yes. She’ll be in Drive. It’s only Restorationists that are going missing; nothing’s happened to Indel. She’s just in her Temple, and we should get over there, because even if Indel’s somewhere else Mae’s dragon can help us, yes, the dragon will help, it has to. “How do we get in?”

Vila’s pretty face turns to fear. “I do not enjoy it.”

“Please, Vila, we need to find her.” I’m betting it all on the fragment of Syrene embedded in Indel’s back caring about Nym enough to free Alyx, surely we can convince it to help. We have to.

“There is a small portal in the gardens.”

“That’s not so bad. I can help you get through. I’ll hold your hand.”

She glances out the window. “It is not so simple. You must leap from the tower high above. The fall is terrifying.”

“But we can do it.” I take her paws in my hands and squeeze. “We need to do it. For Mae. We have to help her.”

Her eyes meet mine, and I can’t help myself running a thumb over the soft fur on the back of her hand. “Well,” she says, “I… I suppose we have no choice. You are right. Let us,” Vila shivers, “let us enter Drive.”