Author: Lurina

024: In Fading Image - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

It started, what felt like a thousand years ago, on a beach.

Mind you, I use that word with quite a lot of generosity; there were little tides to speak of, and the influence of the sea extended only a dozen meters inland, with what coastline there was counting just as much of its weight in pebbles and rocks as sand. It was the last place you'd want to spend a sunny day in-- Not that it was a sunny day by any strech of the imagination. It was the end of winter, and the lamplight, half masked in the tall clouds, bore down without any warmth or kindness. I didn't want to be there.

I had to be, though, because I'd lost something important. And I don't just mean my dignity, though I'd absolutely lost that too. My hands digging into the rough ground, my fingernails chipped and filthy, clothes stained with the damp soil.

I was still in primary school back then, though approaching the tail end. Through a series of very dumb events that aren't worth recounting, I'd managed to offend some group of bullies, who'd been dedicatedly targetting me for some months in sequence.

Children at that age, just at the cusp of adolesence, can be quite novel in their cruelty. When someone is younger, they're incapable of the kind of focus to really torment someone - they might be spectacularly violent or mean for a day or two, but it's rare you'll see a long-term commitment. And when they're older, they'll usually have either started to develop a sense of empathy that keeps them from certain acts altogether, or at least an intuitive sense of how much they can get away with that keeps them restrained.

But between maybe nine and thirteen... Well, they've capable of being awful, but often haven't quite learned to what degree they can safely escalate it yet. So they'll push their luck until they get some kind of punishment. A backlash from teachers, a parent, some manner of authority figure. Like a stone hurtled into the air, trying to see how far it can soar before it's pulled inevitably back to the ground.

Back then, I was a very shy, closed-off child who didn't really know how to talk to others, and had few people, adult or child, who would make a fuss for the sake of my well-being.

So as it turned out, they discovered they could push it pretty far indeed.

Recently, they'd moved up to petty theft. They'd raided my bags at some point during the day, and stolen my logic engine, as well as some other sentimental errata. A little blonde-haired doll I brought to school, some nice pens. After the day was over, they'd told me they'd buried them in that tiny beach, in a rough area a few yards wide. There was some wider context for the 'joke', and they'd framed me as being a worm or a mole or something. When I'd been very young, more like six or seven, I'd dug a big hole in the garden behind the schoolhouse, though even I couldn't tell you why at this point. Because it had been so public, the story had stubbornly followed me.

Even today, there are few feelings I loathe more than the one I associated with that. Of being tied to a past I couldn't even see myself in anymore.

Anyway. They were telling a lie, obviously-- Or at least I assume so, since I never saw any of those objects again. Only an idiot would have fallen for it. But I needed the logic engine for my schoolwork, and the thought of telling the teacher I'd lost it tore into me with painful embarassment. And the doll was something ferociously sentimental. I couldn't face a world where they were both just... Gone.

So, I dug. Scraping up little holes wherever I saw patches of things sticking out of the muddy, rocky sands, as the Great Lamp slowly fell towards the horizon.

At some point, a finger of mine got cut quite badly on a sharper fragment of stone. Even as I tried not to use it afterwards, the wound inevitably got sand in it, and stung with this dull, throbbing ache that filled me with a sense of total powerlessness. Of being so at the mercy of the world that I barely existed at all.

I started to cry, then. A pained, ungraceful blubbering, pained and throaty. But still, I dug. As the lamplight grew ever more orange, as the cut throbbed ever more terribly.

At some point, I heard footsteps approaching. At first, I ignored them, but then I realized they were light, and I suddenly felt afraid that it was one of the bullies, come back to mock me for my efforts or enact some further cruelty. I looked up.

It wasn't them.

"Ah..." She spoke hesitantly, though with obvious concern. "Are you okay?"

I blinked, stunned for a moment, only half about to see through murky eyes.

"What are you doing...?" She asked, when I didn't respond.

I'm not sure quite what happened in my brain at that moment. Something about a mix about lingering suspicion of this stranger, general fatigue and awkwardness, and the suddenly intense embarassment about it all, about how real the painfulness of this all would feel if I admitted it to a stranger, led to my mind becoming a strange cocktail of impulses.

And then, without even seeing the words coming as they left my mouth, I suddenly told the worst lie in my entire life.

"A-ah, er. I'm f-fine," I said. "I'm just building a sandcastle."

She blinked, too. She looked at me. At my muddy cotton clothes, my fingers. The shallow hole at my knees, and all the others around me.

"Oh," she said.

A moment of silence passed between us. Then, she continued.

"Um... Would you like me to help?"

Abbey House Upper Floor | 7:19 AM | Second Day

There was no "morning" setting to the sanctuary lighting, it seemed. Dawn had come almost at once, flooding the area once more in warm, subtly-sterile light.

Faced with troubling evidence of something dangerous and delicate, evidence that called into the question the trustworthiness of people around them, a rational actor would likely decide to keep it to themselves. To bide their time and act normal, telling only the people they trusted absolutely under the most secure of conditions, so as to retain what could very well be their only advantage: surprise. I liked to think of myself as a rational actor.

I liked to think a lot of stuff about myself. 'Being contrarian about everything isn't offputting, it just demonstrates critical thinking.' 'It's not weird that you still wear your hair in twin braids at your age.' 'No one can tell that you're depressed.'

You know. All sorts.

"Uh... Sorry, what is this, Su?"

Ptolema looked at the paper with bleary eyes, scratching at her wet hair. Ophelia, who was sitting adjacent to her, was giving me the nicest, most empathetic look someone could give while still conveying that they thought the recipient had completely lost their marbles.

In fairness to her, I probably did look, and assuredly felt, a little crazy. After I'd found the note, I'd considered rushing out to someone else's room, probably Ran, and shaking them awake right then and there. However (in a moment that said quite a lot about my priorities) I found myself too embarrassed to actually do it. As a result, I'd ended up pacing up and down my room instead, waiting until I'd heard someone wake up.

When I finally heard people come out of their rooms, I rushed out to the source of the voices almost immediately. I'd found Ophelia and Ptolema in the game room we'd spoken in yesterday, only this time they were out on the balcony drinking tea, and in Ptolema's case eating a few crackers, since breakfast was apparently not being served yet. They'd greeted me like like normal, sane people, which of course I'd responded to by launching into a panicked, incoherent explanation, before eventually giving up and simply thrusting the note at them.

My general respectability wasn't helped by the fact that I hadn't gone through any of my hygiene routine. We were all still in our pajamas - or in Ophelia's case, a very modest nightgown - but I hadn't even showered yet. My hair was a tangled mess, and, to say it in the blunest terms, I probably smelled pretty bad.

"I told you," I explained. I found it in the book that the professor gave me."

"Book...?"

"A book about the order. He gave it to me after we had a conversation about them, about my grandfather. After you brought Ran and I to his office."

"What kinda book?" She asked.

"It's an old journal of his-- Look, that part isn't important," I said, impatient. "What matters is that I was reading it in bed, and this fell out of one of the back pages. It must have been put in there beforehand for me to find."

She yawned, not seeming as alarmed by this as I'd hoped. "Uh, right..."

"What does it say, Ptolema?" Ophelia asked, leaning her head over.

"'Your life is in danger,'" she recited sleepily. "'Do not trust any within the inner circle. Find the archive on the top floor of the main building. Remember your oath.'"

"Oh," Ophelia said. "That does sound rather serious."

Yet in her delivery, she still sounded more worried about me than the content.

"It's got to be some kind of warning," I said, undeterred. "About someone in the inner circle of the order planning something."

"Like what?" Ptolema asked.

"I don't know, something dangerous! That's what it says!" I exclaimed. "Something so serious he couldn't even tell me directly!"

"Why wouldn't he be able to tell you directly?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but hesitated.

Why wouldn't he have been able to tell me directly? I could come up with some potential answers, but they were all conspiratorial to the point of absurdity. That the room had been bugged, or he'd been somehow hypnotized with Neuromancy in such a fashion that he couldn't say it out loud. But even if those were the case, why do it with such subturfuge, with such a vague message, instead of spelling it out properly?

Of course, these thoughts had crossed my mind earlier in my room, too. It's hard to spend two or three hours fretting about something without stopping to think about it at least a little. But they'd seemed hollow, a way to calm myself down from something self-evidently serious.

Yet actually talking to someone about it instead of stewing in my own juices was making the whole situation feel a little different. I struggled to come up with some kind of answer that didn't make me look like an idiot.

"He must've still wanted me to go to the conclave, for some reason," I said. "To not back out at the last minute. For whatever is in the archive he's talking about, or--"

"But then, how would he know you wouldn't just read it during the trip?" she asked, furrowing her brow. "Or before then, when we were all waiting around for Lilith to show up?"

I blinked, breaking eye contact and staring into the middle distance for a moment.

How embarrassing, came the thought. You're being outsmarted by Ptolema. Is that all it takes? Losing an hour or two of sleep?

"Would you like some of our tea, Utsushi...?" Ophelia asked, with concern. "It might be easier to express your feelings about all this if you calmed down a little bit."

And now she's patronizing you. This is going wonderfully. "I... look," I said. "I know there's a lot about it that doesn't really make sense, but you have to admit that this is pretty scary, right? I'm not just being hysterical about this." I frowned anxiously. "There's almost no way this could have got in the book unless he'd left it there, and the wording is obviously referring to the conclave! It says 'the inner circle' right there!"

"I mean... It's kinda spooky, yeah," Ptolema said. "I don't blame you for being scared or anything... But are you sure no one else could've got at it, at some point? 'Cause this feels like just the sorta thing that Ezekiel would do as a shitty prank. He's always getting at you for being neurotic." She squinted at the paper. "The text is all capitalized and huge, too, with lines that look like they were done with a ruler. So you can't recognize the handwriting at all."

I frowned. "I left it by my bed after I unpacked, but I'm pretty sure I locked the door."

But was I actually sure? Being honest with myself, that whole part of the night was a blur. I'd been obsessing over the funny feelings I'd been having for the whole evening and hadn't been able to get my head clear. I remembered deciding to go for a walk, going down the hallway... Maybe I'd gone for my keys? Or was that before I'd gone to bed?

I rubbed my eyes. I was supposed to have a good memory, but trying to pry the information from my mind just made my head hurt.

"Well, even if you did, it could've been when Sacnicte brought your bags up, right? I saw them lying by your door myself." She made an awkward smile. "Like I said, I'm not trying to act like you're nuts for feeling scared about this, or whatever. Just that maybe it might be too soon to start freaking out?"

Maybe they're in on it, I thought. Maybe you've already doomed yourself by confiding this much. See, people go around calling you 'paranoid', but you let your guard down for just one moment--

I shook head, pushing away the intrusive thought.

"If whoever wrote this is telling the truth," I said, gesturing towards it, "then something awful could be able to happen. I'd rather be 'freaking out' a little prematurely than just sticking my fingers in my ears and pretending I hadn't seen it."

Ptolema frowned. "Hey, c'mon, I didn't say that."

"What are you lot shouting about, pray tell?" Someone interjected.

The voice was Kamrusepa's, but was surprisingly distant, so it took me a second to process where it was coming from. She was standing on an adjacent balcony further along the building, leaning idly against the railing. Though she was still wearing a nightgown - a much less modest one than Ophelia, which showed her arms and part of her legs - she already looked a lot more put-together than the rest of us, with makeup applied and her hair tied up in some transitional state of complex preparation. She was clearly going all-out for the day of the presentation.

But Kamrusepa was one of those people who, no matter how she styled herself, always looked kinda like a kid. It was unfortunate, considering her personality and ambitious nature.

Not that I was one to talk. About the only thing I had on her in that respect was height.

"Su found some creepy note in a book that professor Inadu gave her," Ptolema replied, raising her voice a bit. "It says that somebody in the order is dangerous."

I frowned, annoyed. Kam was perhaps the only person, excepting Ezekiel, who I wouldn't have shared this with. Hell, if someone from the inner circle told her to murder me, she'd probably do it.

"What?" She scoffed. "That's absurd."

"No, it's real!" Ptolema said. "We were trying to figure out if it was a prank or not."

"Can you two please not shout about this...?" I said, my face getting flushed. "Even if you think I'm being stupid, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let the entire sanctuary know about it."

"What's Su saying?" Kamrusepa said, still shouting.

"Oh, she's--" Ptolema's gaze flickered as she tried to reconcile two irreconcilable goals. Then she continued shouting, but in kind of a more raspy way, like she was trying to capture the auditory aesthetics of whispering without actually doing it. "She's telling us to try and keep quiet."

I sighed, rubbing my brow.

Kamrusepa rolled her eyes, went back indoors for a moment, then returned with her scepter, spinning it idly for a moment before mumbling what was probably the Form-Levitating Arcana, which was the most common for simple feats of flight, since created a link between the mind of the caster and the Power's manipulation of their body. Then she hopped off the edge of the balcony and floated over to our group.

"Show off," Ptolema said.

"There," Kam said, as she descended. "Now then, what's all this about?"

"This thing," Ptolema said, holding up the note and tapping it with the side of her finger. "Here, take a look."

I reached out objectionably. "H-Hey, don't just..."

Kamrusepa snatched it between her fingers, examining it closely. At first, her expression was skeptical, even flippant, but slowly, her eyes narrowed.

"This was inside a book from the class coordinator?" she asked.

"That's what she said," Ptolema said, nodding. I didn't have the willpower to yell at her for talking for me despite me standing right there. "Some journal of his? That's what you said, right, Su?"

"Um, yes," I said, nodding.

"'Journal'?" Kamrusepa raised an eyebrow.

"It's sort of private," I said, not wanting to embarrass him by giving the details in the event that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. "It's something personal that he wrote himself. He didn't just give it to me as an off-hand gesture."

"Hmmm. Well, the red text is rather on the nose," she said, furrowing her brow, "but I'm not quite so callous as to dismiss this outright. You were saying you thought this might be a prank?"

I scratched at my head. "I left my things unattended for a while, so Ptolema thought Ezekiel might've snuck it in."

Kamrusepa snorted. "I can certainly see that possibility. It would be just like him to notice you're worked up about all this and try and make it worse."

I frowned. "Worked up?"

She smirked, though not in a malicious way. "I hate to be the one to break the news to you, Su, but you probably haven't been as subtle about the fact you've been dreading this whole affair as you hoped. It's not very difficult to pick up on."

My face grew even more flushed. I averted my eyes, looking towards the garden.

Ophelia had started nodding. "I didn't want to say anything sooner in case it sounded dismissive... But that's where my mind went straight away, too. He's always doing things like this. If the journal had looked interesting, or been the easiest book for him to reach..."

Which it had, I thought. if I hadn't locked my door, it had been right on top of the stack I'd left on my bedside.

"Well, our first move should be to ascertain if this theory has any weight, so we know how seriously to take this," Kam said. "I'll cast the Form-Chronicling Arcana. That should be able to tell us if the note was written prior to you having received the book, or after the fact."

I was surprised. The Form-Chronicling Arcana, from what I knew about it, was a simple Chronomancy technique used to infer determine how long a discreet object had existed in its current form, as well as information about its past state if you used a more advanced variant. Offering to perform it was welcome, but unexpected, since I'd expected her to just dismiss the entire situation.

"Wouldn't that just tell you how old the paper is?" Ptolema asked, as she broke another chunk of cracker off in her mouth.

"Not if I target the text specifically," Kamrusepa replied. "In any event, if if it's the latter, we can more or less conclude it's probably someone's idea of a joke - if not Ezekiel's, then someone else."

"Who else might it be...?" Ophelia asked.

Kamrusepa bit her lip, her eyes wandering upward in thought. "I don't trust that maid, Sacnicte. She comes across as a textbook troublemaker to me." She clicked her tongue. "If it's the latter, though... We might need to look into properly."

"I'm... Sort of surprised you're taking this so seriously," I said, shuffling on the spot a little.

"Why?" She said, as she took up her scepter again. "Of all the negative impressions I might've given you cause to form of me, I was rather hoping indolence was not one of them, Su."

"It's not that," I said. "But you seem like you're enamored with the inner circle. I thought you would've just dismissed the idea that... Well, that one of them might be up to something bad."

She snorted. "I do trust the members of the order," she said, and stole one of Ptolema's crackers, biting into and continuing to talk with her mouth full. "Broadly speaking. But it is rank stupidity to have absolute faith in anyone in the face of implication otherwise, especially someone with whom you have no prior acquaintance."

Can't argue with that, I thought.

"You're usually always gettin' at Su for being paranoid about stuff, Kam," Ptolema said.

"Well, usually her paranoia does not come with physical evidence," she said, and flipped up her scepter with her left hand to face the paper, then brought her right up to present before me. "Speaking of which, let's get to it. Take my hand, Su."

I blinked. "What for?"

"So you can see the result for yourself, obviously," she said. "I have a feeling any less won't put your mind at ease."

Again, this was surprisingly helpful. It was possible to share the mental 'output' of divination incantations, though it made the process of casting it much more wordy and awkward, and so was only done very rarely, or in circumstances in which confidence in the caster was limited. I'd only ever seen Kam do it for tests, but never for indulging anyone else.

Was she trying to make up for last night...?

Her expression was slowly growing irritated as I thought about this and dragged out the moment, so I snapped out it and took her hand. Then, straight away, she begun the incantation.

F o r m - C h r o n i c l i n g

" ...𒈪𒊑𒉌𒈬,𒉘𒄴𒌓𒐊𒐊𒐊𒐊, 𒅎 𒍥𒁍𒊹."

Sure enough, I could feel the result in a way that was impossible to fake; the focus on the red ink (or at least, I was hoping it was ink), and the nature of the information feeding into my brain.

1 year, 218 days, 17 hours, 44 minutes, 53 seconds

Kamrusepa blinked, also obviously confused. "Well," she said. "That's a dark horse result if I've ever seen one."

"How long has it been?" Ophelia asked.

"As strange as it may sound, close to two years," Kam said. "And there's no way to really falsify such a result. I confess I'm left feeling rather stumped as to an explanation."

I felt the same. It would've been one thing if it had been as late as a month or so ago, when the order had first afforded the invitation - if he'd wanted to set this all up far in advance, for some reason - but this strained all sense. Despite fitting so perfectly into the circumstances, and even coming across as addressed to me specifically... It couldn't be.

Ptolema scratched the side of her head, wrinkling her brow in skepticism. "You sure you didn't mess up the incantation, Kam?"

She regarded her sardonically. "I'm always flattered by your immense faith in me, Ptolema. No, I did not 'mess up the incantation'. Su can vouch for that much."

I nodded, looking downward thoughtfully. "There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the target or scope. It's really strange."

"Perhaps we've taken it out of context...?" Ophelia suggested. "It could be talking about something else, and have just slipped into the book by mistake. The professors office is... Well, it's quite cluttered with paperwork..."

"That's the only thing I can think of," I said. "But, well-- Who would have a note like this just lying around? And it really seems like it's talking about the order."

"'Inner circle' isn't exactly an exclusive term. It's used by most arcane organizations," Kamrusepa said. "That's not to say I'm satisfied with this explanation either. But I'm struggling to come up with alternatives."

I pursed my lips, trying and failing to produce one myself.

"And I mean," she continued, "it's only really the first part that makes that much sense for our circumstances. What does 'remember your oath' even mean? Have you sworn many oaths, Su?"

I shook my head, the frustration no doubt showing on my expression. "Only the Covenant. I don't have a license yet, so I haven't even sworn the Healers Vow." And I probably never will. "I was confused by that part when I first saw it, too."

She nodded, continuing. "And this bit, about the 'main building'. Do they mean the spire at the back of the sanctuary? Or the hall where they seem to do most of their meetings and recreation? I admit it's probably the latter, but you'd think if it were this serious, they'd be a bit more specific." She passed it back to me. "As outlandish as it may seem, I can only speculate this was all written in reference to some other life or death incident in the coordinators personal life, then left in it by accident."

"How would that even happen?" I asked.

"He could have been using it as a bookmark," Ptolema suggested.

"A bookmark."

"Hey," she said, with a shrug. "I've used some pretty weird stuff as bookmarks before."

"That said, there's one thing we can do to strengthen or refute this theory," Kam said, crossing her arms. "And that's to assume this note is genuine in spite of all this, and to check if this 'archive' exists. We're been given leave to roam about as we like outside of the spire, so verifying the main hall shouldn't be too difficult. And we might be able to look into the former with some choice inquiries, if we can't persuade them to give us a tour. "

I scratched at my messy hair. "The note makes it sound like the room could be hidden..."

"We should be able to infer if that's even a possibility based on the layout of the lower floors," she said. "It's not absolute, of course. But if there is an archive, then we'll know this might be worth taking further."

I nodded. The logic was a bit muddy - neither outcome would really prove nor refute anything absolutely - but it was probably the best move we could take without outright panicking. It really was surprising how seriously she seemed to be taking this.

"Neferuaten was showing some of us around the sanctuary yesterday," I said. "We're supposed to finish this morning. She mentioned possibly taking us into the tower, too."

"Interesting," Kam said. "Is there an open invitation?"

"I can't picture her objecting," I said. Although I'm not sure how Bardiya will feel about it, if he's still interested.

"In that case, I'll come along, too," she said, with a decisive nod. "Better to look into this sooner rather than later, so it's not cause for preoccupation during our presentations, and my mind will be clearer if I can confirm it for myself." She looked to Ptolema and Ophelia. "Either of you interested in joining us?"

"I might be," Ophelia said. "I haven't really left the guesthouse yet, and... Well, it would be good to put everyone's mind at ease, I think." She smiled diplomatically.

"Ptolema?" Kam asked, looking to her.

"Nah, no thanks," she said, holding up a hand. "I gotta focus on getting ready for my presentation. It's still kind of a mess right now." She made a goofy smile. "I hope you guys don't find any archives, though. I'd kinda like not get murdered this weekend on top of everything else."

"Suit yourself," Kam said, looking back in my direction. "Did she say when she'd be here, Su?"

"Uh, not specifically," I said. "I assumed it would just be some time after breakfast." I hesitated. "I was thinking it might be a good idea to tell her about this, too. I trust her, and if there really is something bad going on, she might have the context to put it together. Or at least be able to tell us if the archive exists."

Kam gave me a flat look. "Su."

I blinked. "What?"

"Remind me. What does it say on that paper you're holding, again? Second line?"

I hesitated, then broke into an annoyed frown. I wanted to communicate to her that this was different, that I knew the grandmaster in a way that the coordinator couldn't possibly have been aware of, even if he did write the letter. But there was no way to say that which didn't make me sound, again, like an idiot.

"If we're going to entertain this for a bit, then we need to do it comprehensively. Not pick and choose." She turned back towards the other balcony. "Now then, I'll see you all at breakfast."

Well, I thought, as I made my way back to my room. I guess that was a better result than nothing.

I still couldn't tell if my reaction to the note had been over the top or not. No doubt the shock of the moment, with it falling into my lap all written in red, had frightened me and distorted my thinking. But somehow, it still felt like everyone should've been taking it more seriously.

But was that really rational? In the face of so much evidence that seemed to render it impossibly unlikely to have been what I'd taken it for?

I shook my head, mumbling to myself as I unlocked my door again. Maybe Ran had been right, and my mind was subconsciously looking for any excuse to stop thinking about what really mattered, this weekend. To invent or overblow some crisis until it was all pushed to the back of my mind, where it was less frightening.

I washed my teeth with antibacterial elixir, took a quick shower, then dried myself out using the Power. I wanted to look my best for the presentation too, but that could wait until later. For the time being, I braided my hair and put on the nicer of the three arcanist robes I'd brought for the trip. This one was in traditional Saoic style, colored pale blue and with a knotted white sash.

Briefly, I caught my face in the mirror I'd moved the night before. My face flushed, and I lifted it back into the lavatory.

I went back out the door and down the stairs. Doing the aforementioned tasks, I'd noticed that my scepter had started to run a little low on charge, so the first thing on my agenda was to find the eris pool that Seth had mentioned yesterday. It wasn't particularly difficult-- it was the second place I checked, right across from the dining hall.

The name "eris pool" was actually a bit of an anachronism. In the modern day, most scepters were charged with pure radiant energy, stored in a complicated crystalline and lead matrix that went a bit over my head in terms of design. But that hadn't always been the case. Though the first scepters had been little more than braziers on sticks - with arcanists drawing energy from the flames in a very inefficient fashion - for centuries, they'd utilized an electroconductive fluid to contain eris, which had been kept in pools and filled the shaft of the scepter, connecting to their hilt with a complex mechanism to prevent discharges.

Though what you saw today were more like altars than pools, influences remained of what had been. They were raised up and rounded, resembling basins, with the light within playing strangely against the surface of the glass, so that your eye could almost mistake them as containing fluid. Pulses of vivid violet color swirled within the structure itself, fading out of the visible spectrum as they approached the base at the floor.

I unhooked my scepter, and placed it in the notch at the center. The process took about five, maybe three minutes, depending on the craftsmanship of the basin. I thought about just waiting, but I could hear voices coming from the lounge, so I decided to be social. I'd have to come back this way when it was time for breakfast anyway.

I passed by some golems as I left the room. A waist-high one, with long spindly legs, and another humanoid one resembling a marionette, both marching towards the dining room to presumably help with making breakfast. Turning into the lounge, I saw Seth with Theodoros, along with Sacnicte - who, in opposition to what felt appropriate, was just sitting around with them and hanging out like it was nothing remarkable - and...

Someone else, who I hadn't seen before.

He was a young man, though not resembling of the others in our class. He had ear length, light brown hair, a light-bronze complexion, and quite delicate-looking features... Yet they somehow didn't come across as immature. In fact, he was surprisingly good looking, to the point that there was something reminiscent of a statue in his appearance. His party was hard to place. My first thought was Inotian, but he could have been Rhunbardic, even Ysaran.

Seeing him gave me a vague sense of familiarity and recognition, though, which meant he probably hadn't undergone distinction treatment. That set him apart from the rest of the class, save for Ran, who'd only had surgery when she was older.

He wasn't dressed in a servants uniform, which was the expectation my mind jumped to at first glance, but rather a long brown and dark gold chiton of a fairly fashionable cut. If anything, it looked nicer than the robe I'd just put on.

"Oh!" Seth called out, noticing I was there. "Morning, Su!" Theodoros saw me, too, but averted his gaze for some reason.

He waved me, and the man's eyes followed. They were dark shade of blue. "Good morning," he said, in a gentle voice.

I couldn't place it, but something about him gave me an off feeling.

"G... Good morning," I repeated, stepping forward hesitantly.

"If you're wondering about breakfast, it should be about twenty minutes," Seth said, setting down his cup of coffee. "Yantho was feeling really down on how things went yesterday, so he's doing something big to make up for it."

"Big in what sense?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Smells like olives, though, so probably something Mnemonic." That meant either Ysaran or Inotian.

"I dunno if I'll be up to it. I ate a lot last night," I said, holding my arms together. My eyes turned again to the stranger. "Sorry to be rude, but who is this?"

"Oh, right," Seth said, "Sorry, brain dead. This is--"

"Balthazar of Isan," the man interjected, with a friendly tone. "Sorry about that. I ought to have said something when you were giving me a nasty look a moment ago."

I blinked. "Nasty look?"

Seth smirked. "You were kinda glaring at him, Su."

"Oh, uh..." I averted my eyes, then made a nervous smile. "Sorry, I was just surprised. I have sort of an unfriendly resting-face."

This wasn't quite true - when I was young, people had always told me that my face was pretty warm. It was just that I was used to frowning all the time.

"No need to apologize," he said. He extended his hand, and I leaned down and shook it. "You probably weren't expecting anyone else to be staying here. It's understandable to be confused. May I ask your name?"

"Utsushikome," I said, as I walked around to one of the seats and perched myself down. My legs hurt from standing all through the previous conversation. "Of Fusai."

"Utsushikome," he repeated, nodding slowly. "That's Kutuyan, isn't it? 'Unexpected Child.'"

I scratched the back of my neck. "I think it's something like that."

"It's pretty," he said, with a soft chuckle. "Must be a nuisance, though. Sort of a tongue twister-- Well, not that my own exactly rolls off it, either."

"We usually call her 'Su' for short," Seth said. "Pretty lucky for me, since I can't pronounce anything in Saoic languages without making a total ass of myself."

"Is that right?" Balthazar raised his brow curiously, then glanced back to me. "How do you feel about it?"

What kinda question is that? My smile stiffened a bit, and I laughed awkwardly. "I mean... One nickname is as good as any other, right?"

"I guess you could probably shorten it in a lot of ways," he mused, resting his chin on his hand. "Utsu, Utsushi, Shiko..."

There was an instinctual twinge in my neck and the pit of my stomach. I pretended to fuss with my bangs, concealing my face with the side of my hand.

"Shiko's pretty cute," Sacnicte said, sipping some of her own coffee.

"Mm, yeah!" Seth said, nodding. "I like that a lot."

"It, er." Theodoros spoke up. "I think it should be up to Utsu what names for herself are the best."

"Well... Yeah, obviously," Seth said, with a touch of embarrassed defensiveness. "I'm just kidding around."

I took off my glasses, rubbing my eyes. There was a momentary silence.

"Uh, so," I said, after it passed. "Pardon me if this is a bit of a rude question, but why are you here, exactly? At the conclave, I mean."

"Oh, I'm a parasite of your group," he said, with some amusement. "A glorified hanger-on, essentially."

"Right before you showed up, Bal here was telling us that he's here with grandmaster Zeno," Seth said, gesturing towards him. "Apparently one of his conditions for agreeing to be at this whole thing was that he got to invite an extra student of his own picking, from wherever he wanted. Not for the presentation part - just the networking."

So still nepotism, just more direct. Well, you couldn't fault him for a lack of transparency, at the very least.

"Like I said, a parasite," Balthazar said, as he took another sip. "The old man happened to take a liking some work I put out in a student journal a year or so ago, but compared to the rest of you, I'm nothing special."

"What's your discipline?" I asked.

"Thanatomancy," he said.

"The same as me, then," I said, frowning.

"Really?" he said, not sounding too surprised. He leaned forward, crossing his arms. "What's your school?"

"Entropic," I said.

He stared at me for a moment. The corner of his lip turned a little more upward, subtly. "Ah, I'm transformative." He leaned back in his seat. "Probably for the best. It would be a bit awkward tomorrow, if our work was too similar."

"Mm," I said. I found my eyes narrowing a bit. "What healing academy do you go to?"

"The College for Humanitarian Arcana, in Qatt."

I knew the school. It was probably the second best institution for studying healing arcana in Ysara, but it had a very subdued reputation in comparison to the Old Yru academy. They never made a fuss about their discoveries and tried to plump up their reputation at every opportunity like the headmaster did.

I probably would have preferred to have gone there by a fairly wide margin. But the high publicity of going to the College of Medicine and Healing had been part of the point to begin with.

Balthazar was looking vaguely amused. "You're a pretty aggressive questioner."

"Oh," I said, and hesitated. "Uh... Sorry."

Why was I acting odd with him? He was acting perfectly personable. I couldn't find any logical reason for being put off. I must've still been shaken up by what had happened earlier.

"No need to apologize," he said. "I'm happy to ease your curiosity."

I found myself feeling embarrassed again, but also somehow annoyed. Around that moment, I heard someone else coming down the stairs.