am-books Chapter 48 - Something Different
Chapter 48 - Something Different
There was no hiding what just happened. Mirian had already attracted a few strange looks when she'd started casting in the alley. Then there was the loud crack of the body hitting the paving stones, and then the contents of the spy's satchel had spilled out across the pavement into the street. Now Mirian was standing next to a very obviously dead body, with a crowd of students staring at her, gaping.
Mirian thought fast. She needed to act surprised. That was easy, she was surprised. "Holy shit!" she said. Brilliant, she thought.
"I was... I was just trying to... I was trying to...." she stammered, and she was only half-faking it. Her brain was racing with what do I say, I can't fuck up the cycle this fast! She could kill herself; it was an option. But if the cycle only truly reset when the Divir moon fell—she couldn't do that to Lily. She needed an excuse that made sense.
By now, the guard from the plaza had run over. "Move aside," he commanded, pushing a first year who was too slow to react out of the way.
"My friend—uh, my friend said they put my bag on the roof, as a prank, and so I was getting it with lift object but the—and it just fell! I swear it wasn't me!" Mirian blurted out. It wasn't a great lie, but it was plausible. Was it plausible?
The guard wasn't even looking at Mirian though. He was better at hiding his shock then the students gathered around, but his gaze was fixed on the dead spy, and his eyes were wide. He knows him.
Then, to Mirian's surprise, Professor Seneca joined the crowd. "Bertrus, what's going—oh my," she said, noticing the body. But before that, she'd been talking to the guard. Wait, how does Professor Seneca know the plaza guard?
The crowd around the alley was growing. Mirian could hear that more guards had shown up near the back and were trying to get a clear path through it. Mirian felt the panic rising. Just a moment ago, she'd been thinking that logically there weren't any consequences to the break-in, and then she'd gone and felt the worst pain of her life. That memory would live forever in her now. Worse could happen to her now if she didn't get this right.
"Professor! Someone put my bag on the roof because—well, anyways, it was on the roof. And when I pulled it down with a spell, there was... he just came down! I didn't—you have to believe me!" She had to get Seneca to believe her. If it was just up to the guards, they'd cover it up like they did when that other spy was captured.
Professor Senca said, "It's okay Mirian. I'm sure the investigation will—wait. Bertrus, those are Academy glyph keys. Why did this man have Academy keys?" Sure enough, when the satchel had disgorged its contents, it had scattered the three keys too.
"I... I don't know, Sefora. But I'll get to the bottom of this."
"Like the other investigations?"
That's right, Mirian remembered. There'd been loads of break-ins. Every professor probably knew about them, and knew they weren't getting properly investigated. She needed to leverage that this cycle.
But as she was contemplating what she needed to do next, Mirian realized she wasn't the focus she thought she was. The guard—Bertrus, apparently—and Seneca were staring at each other. Then Seneca picked up the scroll that was next to the glyph keys and also unrolled it. She blinked, no doubt recognizing the Eskanar script.
"This might explain... quite a bit," Seneca said, handing it to him. "If you need someone to assist on the cryptography, I know someone who can help."
Valen was the only one to talk to her. "Woah, it's Miss Murder. Anyone else on the hit list?" she said, which was both amazingly callous and quite impressive. How the hell had she heard about what had happened that fast? The girl was better informed than the Akanans.
"Shut up," she hissed at Valen. "And please don't talk directly at me. I don't want to die of poison." That insult she'd stolen from last cycle's Valen, so it felt right to dish it right back at her.
When class was over, she 'discovered' the spy, whose key predictably jammed in the lock.
"Watch out! He has a lightning wand!" she screamed, which made the spy's eyes go wide, because he hadn't even pulled it out when she said it. When a dozen students and Professor Viridian rounded the corner, he also realized how fucked he was.
When Bertrus and two other guards showed up, he saw Mirian and started. "You again!" Then he looked at the spy—who was sitting down and bound by a force rope spell—and Professor Viridian—who had the glyph key the spy had just tried to use. He blinked, looking back and forth between the spy and Mirian.
Mirian was sitting in the corner with her head in her hands pretending to be miserable. "Why does this keep happening to me? I'm just trying to pass my exams!"
The spy, for his part, was gazing intently at Bertrus.
"Alright, well, I need witness statements," he said. Under his breath he muttered, "Again."
***
The next day, after the Alchemistry exam, Professor Seneca motioned for Mirian to join her as she turned in her exam.
First, she glanced over the exam. "This is... I wasn't even planning on grading section four because we didn't get to it in the review, but these transformations are all right. I wouldn't have believed it was you if I hadn't just watched you take it right now. Something clicked?"
"Thank you," Mirian said, smiling. "Yeah, I guess. Also I studied. A lot." That was true, at least.
"Are you doing okay?"
"I'm trying not to think about it," she said. Then she added, "No." It wasn't the death of the spy she was talking about, though. A day ago she'd fallen into a pit trap. She'd been shot to death, sliced apart, and watched her friends die horribly. But what else was there to do but bare it? The worst part was, it would all happen again.
"Do... you want to talk about it?"
"Maybe later," she said. After I save Professor Jei.