Author: Lurina

025: In Fading Image (𒐀) - The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere | Royal Road

Abbey House | 8:21 AM | Second Day

I'd been expecting Ptolema, since she'd looked almost ready earlier, but it ended up being Ran instead. I suspected she had also slept badly, but it was always hard to tell with her. Her brain was like a rock. You could throw sleep deprivation, alcohol, or even most drugs at it barely notice any perceptible change.

"Morning, Ran!" Seth said again, cheerfully.

"Morning," she replied. "No breakfast yet?"

"They're still getting it ready," I said.

She grunted. Her eyes wandered to Balthazar, and flickered with curiosity for a moment as he smiled back at her. But whatever impulse she might've been having to inquire further didn't stick.

"In that case," she said, heading towards the abbey door. "I'm gonna take a walk."

"Is everything alright...?" I asked, puzzled.

"I just need to clear my head," she said, as she opened it. "We'll talk later, Su."

And just like that, she was gone.

"Pretty brusque, even for her," Seth noted, looking a little curious.

"Yeah," I said, frowning.

"I, uh," Theo hesitated. "I hope nothing happened."

I nodded distantly, still looking to the door.

Another set of steps came down a few moments later. Once again, it wasn't Ptolema, but rather Kamrusepa, who had obviously spent quite a long time on her hair in anticipation of our big event. Her defiantly puffy mass of ginger locks had been methodically brought to heel and straightened, and now dropped asymmetrically over her right shoulder. It was surprisingly long like this-- Half way down to her waist.

As she made eye contact with Seth, there was brief moment of uneasy tension. Usually, whenever the two of them fought over something, the next day Seth would act like nothing had happened at all. I thought it to be either as a testament to his lackadaisical demeanor, or a very advanced form of passive-aggression.

But he didn't do that this time, for whatever reason. He didn't look angry. Just... Recitient. Uneasy. Theodoros seemed to have picked up on the atmosphere too, slowly biting his lip.

It ended up being Kamrusepa who spoke first, with a subtle sigh. "Good morning, everyone!" she said, with a stiffness that betrayed the awkward atmosphere.

"Uh, morning," Theodoros said, not making eye contact.

I was about to say something about her hair - maybe break the ice a bit - but Balthazar beat me to the punch, speaking up first.

"Ahah," He said, with another small smile. "Good morning. You must be Kamrusepa, right?"

She did a very subtle double-take for a moment, then raised an eyebrow. Apparently she'd been so focused on Seth she hadn't noticed our new arrival at all.

"...quite right, yes," she said, with a short nod. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"I'm Balthazar of Isan," he said, though he didn't extend his hand this time. "I'm here as a personal guest of Zeno of Apocyrion. Nice to meet you."

She looked at him for a moment with eyes that reminded me of a customer at a butchers shop evaluating a slab of meat of unknown of origin, probably making the mental calculations of their relative standing. Then, she broke into a smile. "A pleasure to meet you as well," she said, stepping forward and shaking his hand. "Personal guest, hm? I know the order's charter permits them for the inner circle, but I wasn't aware there'd be any present this weekend. Are you a disciple of his?"

"You just missed the explanation, Kam," I said, and I found I couldn't keep a note of suspicion out of my voice as I spoke. "He's from the Qattian academy. Apparently Zeno took a liking to some work he put out."

"As she says," Balthazar said, with a nod. "Although, I suppose you might call me a disciple of his, in a roundabout fashion." His smile changed a bit, and his eyes shifted slightly, as if enjoying some inside joke. "Don't worry, though, I won't be in your hair beyond us sharing lodging. The old man largely just wants me to sit around and look pretty until tomorrow, then show me off a bit to his friends."

"Is that right," She asked, and then a playfulness came into her tone. "And are you worth showing off?"

"Hah, scarcely." His smile turned a bit sheepish. "Frankly, I expect this whole business will turn out to be a waste of time for me. I'm a little jealous of the rest of you, for all the publicity you'll be getting."

Kam nodded, seeming somehow pleased by this admission... Probably because it placed him in a less professionally intimidating position. "I'm sure you'll get something worthwhile out of it all the same. If you're not here to participate in the conclave, then perhaps you're being scouted for a low-level position in the order."

He didn't seem of a mind to respond to this notion, only smiling as she spoke.

"So," Kam continued, looking back upward. "I see we also have one of the staff with us?" She made a small gesture towards Sacnicte.

"I can get out of here if it bothers you," she responded impassively, taking a sip of her drink.

Kam scoffed. "I'm hardly making that suggestion. I was just a little puzzled."

"Saci was just checking up on me and Theo while we were chatting here, so I asked if she wanted to sit down and have coffee with us," Seth said, speaking for the first time since Kam had arrived. There was a certain reticence in his tone. "Nothing too out there."

"Mm, I see." Kam curled her lip, looking towards her. "Forgive me, but... Is this... Allowed, for you...?"

At this, the woman laughed a bit, and I was struck again by how obscenely pretty she was. Everything in her face just clicked for a moment, and I felt the shot of something in my brain's reward system. She didn't seem too bothered by Kamrusepa's rude question. "Because I'm staff, you mean?"

"Well, yes."

"Like I said, I'm not just a servant," she said. "I don't think they're gonna fire me just for taking a break with you kids."

Kids. That was the second time she'd used that word. The more I saw her, the more I picked up on the subtle cues that indicated she was a lot older than our class - not that there was any way to know for certain, since so long as you didn't let your health fall apart through sheer negligence, it wasn't until someone was pushing 400 that you started to see the signs unambiguously, and that could be pushed back another century if you had a decent healer giving you a personalized treatment.

Still. There were trends, little indicators that, while not absolute, you could use to make guesses. Even perfectly healthy bone, long improved from its naturally-evolved form via alternations to the anima script made in the Imperial Era, would still be subtly warped by the unrelenting pressure of gravity through the passing of the centuries. Older people tended to be a little more squat in subtle ways, with shorter faces that sometimes protruded a bit more.

And then there were the eyes. The stereotype was that they were supposed to look more tired, but that wasn't really the case - you had people like Neferuaten, still almost manic in their energy at times, just as much as you had people like Linos. But there was the sense of something hard to put into words draining away as time passed, or if not draining, then at least being changed.

I would have pegged Sacnicte at about a century and a half, three times the age of our class, at minimum. Though I wasn't particularly confident.

"They might fire me for some of the stuff I was saying earlier, though," she added, still looking amused.

"What do you mean?" I asked, feeling a little curious..

"She was, ah, just in the middle of telling us some... Stories about this place, before you and Kam came downstairs, Utsu," Theodoros said.

"You can say 'ghost stories', if you like," Sacnicte said, taking another sip of her drink. "It's basically what I was doing."

"Ooh, now that sounds rather interesting," Kamrusepa said, leaning in a bit.

I furrowed my brow, not sure I shared her enthusiasm. I had enough things to fret about this weekend without worrying about this place also being somehow haunted.

"It's not, really," she said. She set her drink down, taking up a cigarette and lighting it, not asking permission despite us all being relatively close. "If you work with a bunch of arcanists outside of the city anywhere for long enough, you'll see the occasional bit of weirdness. It's a hazard of the profession. If anything, what makes this place a novelty is that it happens so inconsistently." She took a drag. "Last place, breathing would suddenly start to feel like drinking cream every three nights. Took weeks to get them to believe it was happening. Turned out to be a side-effect of survey incantation they'd botched part of the engraving on, so it was interacting with the space it was overseeing rather than just examining it."

"That's... Sort of awful," I said.

"Yeah, I probably could've died," she said casually, crossing her long legs.

Balthazar, at least, looked like he enjoyed the story. "The things arcanists will think they can get away with, once they're out of view of the censors."

I was getting a little annoyed with how every other thing he said seemed to be tinged with this subtle knowing attitude. Maybe that was the reason he was rubbing me the wrong way.

No, that wasn't it. That was too logical an explanation. It was something at a more base level. Something in the way he looked at people-- At me, specifically.

He glanced at me again, for a moment, noticing I'd been gawking in his direction. He offered only a puzzled smile. I averted my eyes quickly.

"Anyway," she went on. "I was just going over some weird shit I've seen here over the past few years. Nothing that you can't explain as somebody fucking up some complicated incantation."

"I'm not so certain about that," Theodoros said, with a worried look. "That story about the monster you saw outside the main building..."

"Like I said, that one was probably just me being jumpy late in the night," she said, making a dismissive motion. "You have to understand, I spend months here with no one but Yantho and whoever else they assign to make sure this place doesn't burn to the ground between meetings. Being isolated for that long in a creepy place, your mind starts to play a few tricks on you."

"Didn't stop you telling the story, though," Seth said.

She nodded, curling her lip into what seemed like a half-sardonic 'that's fair' sort of look. "Well, I might've been starting to have a little fun spooking you guys. Hard to resist, y'know?"

"Um... sorry," I said, interjecting. "What's this about a monster?"

She smirked. "Want me to repeat it?"

"Well... You don't have to," I said. "But I am a little curious."

She lowered her cigarette, crossing her arms together as we spoke. "I'll do a short version this time. It was three years ago, and I'd been down here mostly on my own for about three weeks. I'd just been checking the golems operating here in the visitor's bioenclosure, and was heading up to main building. I went through the seal, and was half way across the grass when I suddenly heard a weird sound from overhead."

"What sort of sound?" Kamrusepa asked. In contrast to Theo, who seemed surprisingly harrowed, she obviously wasn't taking this particularly seriously, a clear tinge of amusement in her tone.

Sacnicte curled her lip, looking up thoughtfully. "Kinda hard to describe. Sort of like... Leaves rustling against each other, except instead of something soft, it was coarse, like sandpaper. A whole bunch of little scratching sounds, all moving together in a way that was almost organic." She twirled the cigarette around her finger idly as she spoke, her eyes wandering. "I looked up towards the roof of the building, and that's when I saw it. Near the top, half out of sight, I thought I could make out a... Bird thing, about thrice the size of a human. It had a long, pointed peak, like a pelican, but no eyes that I could see. I dunno if it had feathers, but it was almost stupidly colorful - all pinks and vivid greens, like something from a rain forest." She paused for a moment. "I say bird, but it wasn't just a bird. I saw lots of spindly legs, too. Like a spider."

A bird and a spider...

"What... Happened next?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said, with a snort. "I didn't even really have time to process it, let alone reach for my scepter, before it ducked back around the roof. After that, I circled the building, and even used the Power to fly up there and take a look for myself. Didn't find any sign there'd been something up there, though. Mundane or arcane."

"Very spooky, indeed," Kamrusepa said, with no small measure of irony.

"But you think you imagined it," I said.

She shrugged. "Probably. It was right up by the lamp. Maybe a speck of something caught my eye at a funny angle, and my brain just made a crappy attempt to fill in the blanks... Though I guess that wouldn't explain the sound. Fuck, maybe I was just having a little stroke. Who knows." She took a drag. "There are other explanations besides that, I guess. Could've been someone from the order had snuck in and was doing an experiment without me knowing."

"Can people do that?" I asked. "Just come and go?"

"If they're high enough ranked, then yeah," she said, with a nod. "The logic engines we have in security pick up on all that sort of shit, though. Nobody had come in on that day, but maybe someone had earlier in the week and just never left. I dunno-- I reported it, but that stuff isn't my job. 'course, another option is that it was Yantho playing a prank on me." Her lips flicked upward. "You wouldn't think it, but he has a side like that to him."

"Couldn't it have been a real monster?" Theo suggested. "One of the... Paradox things, from the Lower Planes."

Kam scoffed. "Those can't exist in the Mimikos, Theo. Their bodies only work with the broken physics the Ironworkers created from botching reality."

"I know, but we're not in the Mimikos, are we?" he said, seeming remarkably tense. "I don't know how it's supposed to work here, what's... Plausible."

"As far as I know, it's pretty much the same," Sacnicte said. "I think the only thing a little different is the gravity. The highest place you'll ever see actual monsters is the Tempest." She snorted. "Hell, I'd be more likely to believe it really was something paranormal."

Theo rubbed the side of his head. "That's, ah. Not exactly comforting..."

"Come on, Theo," Kam said, patronizing, though not in a strictly mean-spirited fashion. "You don't believe in ghosts, do you?"

He was silent, looking at her uneasily. Seth sighed to himself, and I was left with the impression that we retreading conversational ground.

"...oh, gosh," she said, with actual surprise. "You actually do believe in ghosts! I, ah...." She seemed taken off guard for a moment, tripping over herself. "Pardon, I wasn't trying to be confrontational. I was just, well--"

"It's not like I believe in ghosts," he said, looking a little embarrassed. "I just think there are probably, well... Forces, in the world, that people can't quite understand within the framework of conventional scholarship. You hear all sorts of stories like this. About... Strange creatures seen in the Mimikos, or physical anomalies that can't be picked up by the Power." He brushed his hair a bit to the side. "I'm a man of science, of course. But the things some people will dismiss outright are, ah, well. It's alarming, to me, sometimes."

I wasn't surprised to hear him say all this. Years ago, when we'd... Well, when we'd both been very young, he'd had some kind of traumatic, unexplainable encounter while on holiday with family, doing a country hike. He'd never been very good at telling the story coherently, but as I understood, a fog had descended over their group in the evening, and he thought he'd seen strange, oil-skinned beings in the shadows. When it was all over, someone had gone missing. The Alliance's rangers and censors had investigated, but they'd never found the cause, nor the missing person.

It was amazing how much people could be changed by little experiences like that, when they were still kids. Sometimes it made me wonder how much people really had any will of their own when it came to who they were.

"Heh, never hurts to keep an open mind, right?" Seth said, although his heart didn't sound completely in it. "My dad used to say that no matter how much you know, it's stupid to think you could ever understand everything."

"'The only thing I know is that I know nothing,'" Balthazar quoted. "Though I'm not sure that's quite the intended application of the logic."

"Honestly, I really didn't mean to be condescending," Kamrusepa said. "To tell the truth, I'm almost a little envious of people who can still believe in this sort of thing in the modern era, where there's very little left at all that can't be explained scientifically. I wish I could hold on to a sense of wonder like that." She looked to Sacnicte. "Did you ever mention all this to any of the inner circle, by any chance?"

"I put it in my report," she said offhandedly. "Never heard anything more about it, though. That's just how it goes."

My eyes wandered over to Kam. She kept glancing at Theo - if I knew her, she was probably fighting the urge to try to pick at his worldview. Nothing had ever happened to confirm it, but I had a strong sense that she was the type of person who would self-describe as a skeptic, probably quite vocally.

Still, she seemed to be trying to mend bridges this morning, and said something else instead.

"You know, on the topic of ghost stories, I actually happened to hear one from Ophelia after you went back to your room earlier, Su."

I blinked. "What, really?"

"Just a little one. Apparently, she got up to get a snack in middle of the night, and saw something peculiar moving around in the kitchen, with long, spindly arms. She thought it was a golem at first, but then it turned to her, and it looked like it had a human face... So, who knows." She let out a thoughtful hum. "So perhaps you're right, Theo, and this place is haunted."

Theodoros looked accordingly perturbed, but for some reason, Sacnicte seemed to find this anecdote amusing, letting out a subtle snort.

There was probably a conclusion to draw from that, but suddenly, another thought tangential to all this came into my mind, and I spoke up before the conversational window closed.

"By the way, Sacnicte," I said.

She looked at me, her bright eyes somehow even more penertrating than I'd expected. "Yeah?"

"Have you ever... Encountered anything odd, in the pantry, over in the main building?"

"Oh, that place." She made a subtle groan, rolling her eyes. "This is about what happened yesterday, right?"

I nodded. The others, with the exception of Theo, looked a little puzzled, but she didn't give them a chance to interject before continuing. "That place, I'm sure is nothing supernatural - it's always fucking up in some way or another. I've lost count of how many times it's broken down and we've had to replace all the food. Should really move it, but I guess everyone here's too rich to care." She took another, longer drag.

"What's wrong with it?" Theo asked.

"It's to do with the eris supply for the sanctuary," she explained, and though her tone remained as casual as ever, something I I recognized as professional precision crept into it. "Everything that's enchanted or uses the Power here, from the golems to the eris pools to the air and heat, gets it from a central source below the main building. It used to run off these big tanks of pre-refined shit they'd bring in from outside every so often, but I guess at some point someone got the bright idea to make this place completely independent, so they built a convention furnace to generate it instead."

Once again, I was struck by how I really did not understand any of the order's thinking processes when it was coming to budgetary decisions.

"They redid almost all of the engravings to tap into the new power source, but apparently, the ones for that room in particular were so shitty and outdated that the people they hired couldn't get it to work. But they couldn't just gut them, either, because it's right on top of the basement where a lot of the most important inscriptions are - along with all the big logic engines - and apparently whatever idiot had originally designed it meant they kinda blurred at the corners. They managed a workaround, but the result is there are anomalies all the time."

"That seems sort of dangerous," I said.

She shrugged again. "Not really. There's nothing essential in there, and if a human was inside whenever something funky started happening with the Power, their resistances would stop it dead." She shook her head. "Not like that stops it being a pain in the ass."

Somehow, I didn't feel like that appeased my sense of unease about the place, not least of all because of the markings on the wall that had still gone unexplained, though I doubted Sacnicte would be able to tell much about them.

"Er, what about the other servant, though--Yantho?" Theodoros said. "He was passed out there, too."

"Oh. That's, uh, probably due to something different," she said, glancing to the side. "I shouldn't say, though. Not my business."

Odd. Had it been something personal?

I thought about maybe asking her about my luggage yesterday to try and pursue the mystery of the letter, but I wasn't really sure what to say, especially in front of so many people. 'Hey, I know this might be a little peculiar, but did you happen to place an ominous note, possibly written in blood, when I gave you my bags? Or if not, did you see anyone else come near them?' It wasn't really something easy to approach with discretion.

Seth spoke up while I was still fussing to myself over it. "Oh, hey-- So, since we got a few people here now and breakfast is apparently still not happening yet, there was something I wanted to bring up."

There was a couple of assorted "sure"'s and "yeah"'s, including my own, though Kam kept quiet. She reached into a pocket of her cardigan and pulled out her logic engine, flipping it open, though her eyes did turn to regard him after looking at it.

"So last night, before dinner? Me and Ema were checking this place out, and it turns out the bathhouse they have at the other end of the building--" he pointed accordingly, "--is actually really nice. They've got a cold, hot, even a temperate bath, like a real one you'd find in the city. Even their own little sauna."

"Oh, that does sound nice," Theo said.

"Yeah!" Seth said cheerily. "So: we were thinking that between our presentations and dinner, we might all have a little party out there, for a bit? Just to relax and celebrate getting over the toughest part of this whole thing."

"A bathing party with both sexes," Kamrusepa said, smirking. "A little risque, even by your standards, Seth."

He frowned. "Come off it, Kam. Obviously I mean we'll wear something, or take turns in the hot bath, or whatever." He sighed a bit. "Hell, the 'bath' part isn't even that important. I just think it could be kinda fun for us to all do something together and work and stress off."

"I, ah-- I like the idea!" Theodoros said, breaking into an awkward smile. "After that's all over, I'll... Well, I'll definitely need to do something to calm myself down, to say the least." He scratched the back of his head, then looked in my direction. "What do you think, Utsu?"

I was hesitant for a second, though I tried not to let it show. I didn't really like doing stuff which involved showing a lot of skin to people - bathing, exercising. It felt... Inappropriate. Somehow unfair, even at this point.

I was engaging in an ongoing battle to avoid people seeing me as an anti-social weirdo, though, and it would probably be fine if I only took off my sandals. So what I eventually said was, "Oh, that could be nice." I smiled. "Well, assuming my presentation goes okay, at least. If it doesn't, I'm not sure I'll be in a celebrating mood."

"Heh, well, if we all fuck it up, maybe we can find wherever they keep the drinks and hold it there, instead." He grinned at me. "I don't think you have anything to worry about, though. You're near the top of the class."

I felt a bit embarrassed. "Ah, well..."

He looked over to Balthazar. "You could come too, if you wanted, Bal."

He held up a hand. "Very kind of you to offer, but I'll pass. I feel like being there as a stranger would probably just make it harder for everyone to relax."

Seth smiled a little more sadly, but he didn't disagree. He turned to the side. "I'd invite you too, Saci, but I kinda assume that would be a no-no for you."

"Don't worry," she said. "I don't really like that kinda thing anyway."

That left Kamrusepa as the only person who hadn't yet offered a serious response, and she paused for a moment as Seth hesitantly edged his head to regard her, both of them still obviously not quite sure how to talk to each other after what had happened. Overhead, I heard the sound of faint footsteps, and I felt a funny tingle in the back of my head for a moment, But I didn't think much of it.

At least, not yet.

Kam, for her part, eventually let out a sigh, and then spoke in a flatter tone, bereft of much of her usual flowery intonation. "Seth, I'm sorry for how I behaved last night."

His brow furrowed in a mixed emotion, and he opened his mouth hesitantly. "Kam, I--"

"I've been fixated on trying to make the absolute most of this opportunity, to the point that it's impeding my judgement." She wasn't making eye contact, instead facing one of the windows. "I was behaving as though the whole class was some extension of myself that I have a right to direct to service my own needs, but that's obviously not the case, and in that wrongheaded attitude I made what was probably an already traumatic conversation for Bardiya even worse. He was, obviously, not at fault, at least not remotely singularly. And if I had a problem with what he was saying, I would have served everyone - including myself - better by keeping my mouth shut."

At this, Seth stared in what I can only describe as complete shock. Seeing Kamrusepa admit fault with this level of unambiguity was like watching a horse sprout flippers and subsequently dive into the ocean. Theo was pretty stunned, too.

"Obviously, I'll say the same to him whenever see him, either at breakfast or before our presentations." She looked in my direction. "I'm sorry about getting frustrated with you, too, Su. I shouldn't have called you a stereotype or implied you're a child just because we disagreed on something. In fact, you were right. It's far too easy for me to stop thinking about people when I become focused on something."

I honestly didn't know what to say. I looked down at my lap, fiddling with one of my braids. "It's... I mean, It's fine. I understand all this is important to you, and it was a long day. And trying to interrogate you about your behavior right then wasn't mature of me, either." I tried to smile. "These things do just happen sometimes, I suppose..."

"Yeah, I..." Seth hesitated, scratching the back of his head. "It's okay, Kam. I wasn't going to bring it up. I'm sure Bardiya wouldn't have, either."

"Be that as it may," she said, "it didn't feel responsible of me to simply leave it at that. So. Again, I apologize."

I heard someone starting to come down the stairs, and once again, I felt that tingling in the back of my head.

In retrospect, I was being pretty stupid in that moment, though I suppose the blame was shared by everyone at that table to some extent. After all, you were taught the signs in school from as early as five years old, and then again and again all through childhood and adolescence, just as surely as smoke means fire and that strangers offering gifts should be stayed the hell away from. The only excuse I can make is that I was still too flabbergasted by the genuine outreach I was witnessing to put two and two together.

"Sorry to interject, but would you all prefer if I made myself scarce, for a bit?" Baltharzar indicated towards the door. "This all seems rather personal."

"Nah, it's... Okay. I don't we'll linger on this much." Seth sighed himself, turning back to regard Kamrusepa. "Look, I get it, Kam, I really do. Like, you're not wrong in thinking that one of these old geezers might, shit-- Throw a tantrum and just not wanna talk to us anymore because somebody dared to disagree with them." He shifted uncomfortably. "And I know you're... From a different kinda background to a lot of us, so I can see why it would piss you off to see a bunch of spoiled kids - from your point of view - treat these kinda opportunities like something, y'know, disposable."

Whomever it was arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and the tingling feeling intensified, now accompanied by a very faint ringing in my ears. I noticed Sacnicte suddenly frown, too. But for a moment or two, it felt so unlikely, so silly a notion in this context that I couldn't convince myself it was worth making a fuss over.

Those two moments were, unfortunately, enough.

"It's not like that," Kamrusepa said, almost sounding a little vulnerable.

"But, Bardiya..." Seth frowned, looking downward. "Even with what he's been through, he really does try to temper himself with this stuff, and--"

"Hey, uh," I interjected. "Sorry... I think I feel a... Rather, cover your fa--"

Behind me, the person approaching turned the corner to face our group. As I spoke, in what could have potentially been a very stupid thing to do, my eyes instinctively flicked in their direction.

It was Ophelia, dressed in another one of her set of covering white dresses/robes. She was staring ahead, her eyes already focused on our group. On, I could only presume, Balthazar, who out of the corner of my eye I could see was also regarding her with something of a curious expression, slowly giving way to one of disquiet.

For one, harrowing moment that in my memory feels drawn out to minutes, everyone was frozen. All of us having probably realized what was happening by the now unignorable odd sensation and the distinct ringing noise, but still processing how to react. Ophelia staring ahead with the strangest look, like she was horribly confused, but couldn't understand why.

I realized, suddenly, what had been bothering me when I first saw him.

The two of them had the same eyes.

And then, in what was becoming a disturbing pattern for the weekend, she keeled over and vommited violently on the floor. But unlike the previous time, it wasn't over quickly. Almost as soon as she fell, she wretched again, this time blood mixing in with the bile being expelled from her throat and dripping from her nose as she outright collapsed onto the floor, twitching and making awkward grunts of pain.

There was no mistaking what it was. Even if the fact it was happening at all betrayed either deceit on the part of Ophelia or Balthazar, or tremendous incompetence from the order.

A prosognostic event.

"Oh, gods..." Theodoros said, paling and covering his mouth in shock.

"Wh-- SHIT!" Seth cried out as he rose to his feet, practically bounding forward and grabbing at his scepter, which was crowned with an eye, one of the Mekhian symbols for biomancy. He started shouting out the words for some incantation.

I rose up, too, though wasn't certain what I was doing yet. I looked to Balthazar again. Blood was trickling out of his own nose, and he was holding up is hand, staring at it with a strange, unreadable expression. Almost like curiosity. His head lulled, his eyes having no focus.

"Stop!" Kamrusepa said, running towards Seth, drawing her scepter, "I can use the Time-Reversing Arcana, but only for a moment! Switch to the beguilements while I cast!"

Seth's eyed widened in understanding, the quickly uttered the words to terminate his own incantation prematurely as Kam begun her own, chanting the words with a razor precision. Save for Fang, she was the fastest in our class in terms of the actual speaking element of using the Power, and the words rolled off her tongue like the eruption of a coiled spring.

"S-Someone get him out of here!" Seth cried out with a panicked gesture towards Balthazar. "And keep his eyes on the ground! Theo-- Come over here and help hold Ophelia!"

The boy was frozen in pure panic for a moment, then quickly nodded and rose, rushing to Seth's side and moving to hold the now wildly-jerking form of Ophelia, who's mouth was starting to froth, as Kamrusepa continued her complex incantation. Sacnicte, who for the first time didn't look casual at all, stood up and took Balthazar by the shoulders, pushing his head downwards and guiding him swiftly towards the door.

He, at least, could still stand. I thanked heaven for small favors.

"Go with her and stabilize him, Su!" Seth shouted as he gripped Ophelia's arm. "I'll try to be out in a minute!"

I didn't really want to. In moments like these, cruel calculations were always being made, and honestly my gut instinct was to stay and help my friend and classmate as much as I could rather than helping this stranger who for some reason I didn't particularly like. But on a higher level, I knew it was the right decision from a medical perspective - she already had enough people there - and I doubted that sort of selfishness would be received well by anyone else.

I ran quickly to the side room to grab my scepter, then followed the two of them out the door, my ears still ringing as I went. On the edges of my tongue, I could taste the faintest trace of iron.