Chương 104: Chapter 102

Cal's eyes were trained on the sky, tracking a white blur hurtling toward the earth. Manic screams trailed behind it, rising in tempo as the object neared the end of its death spiral. Moments before it would have broken against the rugged field, two brilliant wings snapped open. A gust erupted from them, sending dirt, rocks, and uprooted grass at him. He held his ground in the face of it, but as a feathered scythe careened toward him, he was forced to a knee lest he lose his head.

"Wooohoooo!" Lily hollered, whooping as she blasted past him. If someone were to ask him how he ended up here, Cal wouldn't have a straight answer for them. He was in no mood to entertain Lily right now. He wasn't in the mood to entertain anyone. Yet he still found himself in a pasture, watching the crazy chick take the future meal out for a spin. Behind her, the sun hung on the horizon, its golden rays spilling over him as a constant reminder that the day was destined to end.

It felt agonizingly slow, and Cal desperately wished for night to take hold, welcoming the uncertainty it promised. Cal spat on the ground, trying to get the figurative and literal bad taste out of his mouth. His muffins had sucked. Dry, chewy, misshapen—he'd overstirred the batter, probably added the baking powder twice, and somehow botched the pouring. It was a tragedy in the form of baked goods, and he couldn't even blame Olivia's interference for it.

She hadn't said a word during the process, observing it with trepidation. There were certain points where he was sure she'd say something, but each time, she seemed to lose her nerve. Cal was the same. He kept thinking about Alice, how she accepted Marcus's decision but never forgave it. It wasn't a direct contradiction to his own advice. His talk with Olivia had unearthed old grievances. He could acknowledge much of it was projected onto her, but some of it was hers alone.

However, she had said sorry, and worse still, he felt like she meant it. There were safer subjects they needed to discuss, some pertinent for tonight. They didn't get to any of them, and in the end, all he had were profoundly disappointing muffins. He'd eaten every single one, needing to destroy the evidence. The beast did a one-eighty, one wing slicing through tall blades of grass and another angled toward the sky.

The sudden turn would have shattered the spines of most beasts, but the snake-like creature completed it with fluid grace. As it zipped past him again, its tail whipped out, slapping the earth and flinging what didn't smell like soil his way. Cal fell flat, letting the muck pass above him before lethargically rising to his feet again. The creature completed another turn, already on its way back.

Each of its previous maneuvers had bled off speed, and a final tilt of its wings to nearly vertical let it drift gently to the earth, its belly flattening the grass beneath it. Yesterday, when he'd ridden the beast himself, he distinctly remembered it stopping on a dime and throwing him off.

"You said she was a menace!" Lily accused heatedly as the beast began slithering closer.

"She's great! Aren't you, girl?" The creature rumbled, narrowed pale eyes focused on him. Its tongue flicked out, circling him as a predator would.

"I guarantee it's considering what I taste like right now," Cal bluntly stated. That he was doing the same thing was conveniently lost on him. Lily leaned forward, hugging the beast before patting its side. The creature halted in response, extending its wing to rest against the dirt. The human on its unsaddled back slid down the feathered ramp, coming to a stop at the wing's base. She sat there with her legs splayed out, a grin on her face, and dirty blonde hair in complete disarray.

"You're imagining things," she dismissed, leaning back against the feathers.

"Don't mind him, girl. He's being dumb." Cal got the sense it minded him very much. He still didn't really get why they were here. It wasn't planned, that was for sure. He'd meant to be in the city by now, not in a field with a temperamental beast. Two of them, even, depending on what definition he chose to apply. After finishing the last of the dreaded muffins, he headed back to the dorms to inform Alice that he'd be in the city tonight. He wanted to say more, but Olivia's presence complicated matters.

It proved a moot point. Lily had been there when they arrived, and essentially dragged him off to go 'do something fun.' He would have put up a stiffer resistance if Alice also hadn't insisted that he join the girl. Leaving Olivia alone with Alice was… uncomfortable, but so was sticking around. In a morbid sense, this was almost a test.

"The only dumb thing is that," he said, gesturing toward the beast. Its gaze held steady throughout his insult.

"And you for liking it. It was 100% trying to throw you off at times." It didn't towards the end, but prior to that, there were several maneuvers he interpreted as malicious. Honestly, he was hoping she'd be thrown off. That would have taught her a good lesson. Instead, she seemed to lean into the creature's flight style. He really shouldn't have been surprised, considering how bumpy their trip to the Empire's border had been. Lily gasped, clutching her chest.

Her head whipped to the beast, purple eyes shining with delight.

"You would never, right, Brighteye?" The beast didn't react to her question, but the girl didn't seem to notice, smiling brightly.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said, turning to him with a look of reproach.

"You upset her by being all brutish. Totally not how you're meant to treat a lady." Cal wondered how many times he was going to think about throwing Lily into low orbit before he actually did it. The major stopping point was that she'd probably enjoy it too much.

"Woe is me for wanting to fly in a straight line for more than a few seconds," he deadpanned, only to have the girl nod in agreement.

"You're the weird one." Lily nudged the beast with her shoulder, attracting its attention before rolling her eyes. The beast lost interest quickly, locking back onto him.

"It's flying," she stressed, slowly enunciating in case he had difficulty hearing her.

"What's the point if you're only using it to get from point A to point B? You need the wind in your face and the feeling of weightlessness. You should be using it to forget everything and treat the sky like your playground." Cal glumly turned his head up, watching the passing clouds. It was never that simple.

"One day," Lily continued. His gaze drifted back to her, finding the girl staring down at her boots. She knocked them together, humming to herself for a moment.

"I'll soar on my own power. People will see me in the distance, wondering if I'm a comet or something." She paused, laughing softly at herself.

"Then someone will say," her voice shifted, turning deeper.

"That's just Lilliane Arcutien. She'll come down when she wants, and not a second sooner. Duke, Marquess, Count—it doesn't matter. She'll ignore them all!" The girl took a breath, relaxing back into the wing.

"Until then," she said wistfully, stroking the creature's feathers.

"This is about the closest I get." Cal let her have a few seconds of peace before chiming in.

"In that hypothetical future," he added dryly.

"When does your boss fly over and bonk you on the head for insubordination?" Lily's smile grew bigger, and her laughter returned. She scratched her head, feeling where she might get bonked one day.

"Whenever the city I'm stationed in writes a formal complaint," she said cheekily, sticking her tongue out.

"Good thing news moves slow across the continent." The beast's head reared back, lips peeling back to reveal its fangs. It hissed, but before he could wonder whether this was about to become a justified killing, it snapped its head to the side and sneezed, sending globs of mucus into the tall grass. It shook off the disorientation, blinking before refocusing on him.

"You okay, girly?" Lily asked, her voice going up in pitch.

"Let me know if you need to use the brute as a tissue." Cal had been subjected to significantly worse, but he was still not going to acquiesce to that.

"Stop personifying it," he peevishly said, "and if it could get away with it, it would be taking a chunk out of your side right now." It was more likely to swallow her whole, but hey, semantics.

"You're just jealous she likes me more," the girl said condescendingly, her smile turning smug. Her brow grew pinched a second later, and her tone turned introspective.

"There's probably more going on in there than you think. Remember the cat thing we fought in the tower basement? The one that turned invisible. It didn't look like a tamed beast, but it still tried to run. If it could do that, what's to say Brighteye here couldn't love me while hating your guts?" This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. He'd been hoping she'd forgotten about that incident.

Normal magic beasts didn't have strong, if any, self‑preservation instincts. Their primary drive was destruction, and only upon arriving at the Empire did he witness any behaving with real calm. Alphas were the exceptions. The beasts who created and directed waves were of unknown intelligence. They weren't smart enough to steer their hordes around prepared defenses, but there was clearly something going on with them. That the cultists managed to capture and contain one was unexpected.

Cal's eyes strayed toward the fence line, some fifty meters away. Their 'escort' for the day, Romero, leaned against it. Allegedly, the man was giving them space to interact with the beast.

"I wouldn't worry about him overhearing us," Lily said dismissively, noticing but misinterpreting the cause of his distraction.

"He's a weakling, and I've been watching the angle of his camera. If he turns out to be our secret admirer, I'm feeding him to Brighteye." Cal hadn't been worried about the potential cultist spying on him. However, he had noticed that Romero had been glued to his phone for the entirety of their visit. He'd wanted to look for an opportunity to ask about their deal, but something on that screen monopolized the man's attention.

"She might get indigestion," Cal said, slipping up in his reference to the beast.

"And the fact that it doesn't like me is proof of its lack of intelligence." Lily pressed a fist to her mouth, eyes squinting in thought.

"Let's pretend we live in a world where you're too mature for whatever you're about to say," Cal said, ignoring the dramatic betrayal that played out on her face.

"Also…" In principle, he wasn't against revealing what he knew about alphas and beast waves. He'd already hinted at it with Anne a while ago, and the only reason he didn't do it at the tower was because there had been too much going on. This might have been his chance to explain it, but realistically, what was Lily going to do with that information?

"... I'll tell you later," he finished lamely.

"With a bigger audience." Informing the Right was the smartest move. She'd be in the best position to distribute and employ it. It might even earn him more brownie points. Should he bake her brownies? Considering her parentage, maybe an alcohol-infused dessert would work better.

"So mysterious," Lily responded with an unimpressed tone, waggling her fingers at him.

"Is this because I said no to breaking into Evergreen's office? Sheesh, give a girl a break." At the reminder, Cal picked out a blade of grass that had been lodged in his blazer. He fiddled with it but held off on practicing. He let it go, and a breeze carried it away. His eyes followed it until it melded into the rest of the field. There had been a lot of talk about lineage and parents as of late. Cal inspected the girl lounging against a beast.

Anyone who saw her would see a relaxed figure without a care in the world, but he knew better than that.

"Hey, Lily," he said abruptly, prompting her to look at him curiously.

"If your dad said sorry out of the blue, would you accept it?" Lily blinked at the personal question, seeming surprised but not put off by it.

"He wouldn't," she said with absolute certainty.

"Father's a product of his time. In his eyes, I should be on my hands and knees thanking him for snagging the youngest Finger as my fiancé. Even after I prove him wrong and become a Finger, nullifying my betrothal, he wouldn't be able to swallow his pride long enough to say a single word—let alone the eulogy of an apology I'd deserve." Her mouth split open, and she covered the yawn with her palm. He thought it was performative, but the way she carried it hinted otherwise.

"If the impossible did happen," she continued with a shrug.

"I don't know, but I wouldn't agonize over it. I'm not giving him that much power over me. It'll be yes or no." Cal had thought something similar before. It was harder in practice.

"Super weird question, by the way," she said under her breath, then added more audibly, "Is this related to why you're in such a mood?" His lips pulled to the side, fighting off a cringe. He hadn't been trying to hide his emotional state, but he didn't like being called out on it.

"Maybe it's because you dragged me into a field with a beast that likes to provoke me?" he shot back defensively, with a raised eyebrow.

"Seriously, what are we doing here?" Lily leveled a hard stare at him—not angry, not offended, just… pointed. It was as if she'd already done the math on a piece of homework and was waiting for him to catch up.

"I'm not entertaining you," he said with a sigh, frustrated with how he'd missed the obvious.

"You're entertaining me." There must have been signs earlier, but he hadn't been looking for them. It was clear now that Lily was on Cal duty, which meant Alice was…

"I didn't think you'd be afraid of flying," she said with a touch of wounded pride.

"So that's my fault." Afraid of flying, huh? He shouldn't be. No, he couldn't afford to be. Whereas before that would force up feelings of worry and helplessness, only warmth came.

"You suck at this," he said with a soft smile on his lips.

"Thanks." His friend, wild, rambunctious, and willing to fight the world, grinned at him.

"Course!" Cal sat in the back of a car, oddly at peace. They'd stayed in the field a little longer, trading barbs and nonsense until they got a text from Alice saying Olivia would meet him at the trolley station. The official story was that Emily had some stalkers who needed dealing with. Lily had enthusiastically offered to help, but he assured her this wasn't another case like Petro and that he'd just need to scare some ruffians off by wearing his Academy uniform. A uniform he was still wearing.

"Does this happen often?" he asked curiously. There were two others in the car with him. Olivia sat in the driver's seat, and Captain Davis sat across from him. His question was directed to the latter woman. She wore a dark brown leather duster with a beige pantsuit underneath. Her copper hair was tied back into a ponytail, and she stared out the tinted window with expectation on her face.

"Exceedingly," she said, not sounding disturbed at the admission.

"If we were constantly to be in contact with another, then the risk of discovery would be heightened. We've been operating more tightly recently, but it's normal for agents in field work to go dark for a few days. More often than not, it's due to a job getting away from us." As the resident expert, Cal didn't challenge the captain's assertion. His finger ran across the leather interior, wondering where they'd acquired the vehicle.

The captain had picked them up from the station and driven them to the alley where they were currently parked. She'd traded places with Olivia since, and now they were waiting for his shroud to be delivered. Night had already fallen, and they were cutting it close. However, as the guest of honor, Cal wasn't afraid of being a little tardy.

"The alternative," the captain continued in a flat voice, "is that they're chained in a cell. Standard treatment would consist of restraints, isolation, and sleep deprivation. The more involved forms of torture depend on the jailer. They can be rather creative. I once heard that an agent was force-fed snakes, and another—" Cal raised a palm, silencing the woman.

"I get the picture," he said, finding her nonplussed attitude strange.

"I'm just going to hope Lennard isn't currently chained up by Miss Justiciar and enduring whatever her imagination conjures." Miss Justiciar didn't seem very torture-y. If she did catch Lennard, she probably wouldn't know what to do with him. It was only after thinking about it that Cal realized how silly it sounded. Well, if he had been captured, they would work it out one way or another. Cal just hoped they'd find wherever the man stashed his cloak.

"Apologies," the woman said, turning to him with complete seriousness.

"I wasn't sure how to frame it." Was that…

"Because a picture needs a frame." Cal wondered if she'd been like this before he dragged her out of the hells, or if the memory had left her scarred and unfunny.

"You don't need to explain every single one," Cal said, falling short of making it a standing order. He would have thought that seven deliveries and zero laughs would have been enough to get her to stop, but number eight proved him wrong.

"Understood, sir," the woman replied smoothly. Cal dropped his hand to his lap, where a thick binder lay. When Olivia said she had dossiers for suspected and confirmed members of Infinita Nox, she hadn't been joking. There were easily a hundred entries in here. It would have been overwhelming if she hadn't highlighted threat levels, notable magics, and their likelihood of attendance tonight. Although that last one simply encompassed all who did regular work in the Empire. He'd gone over it a few times now.

It was far from fully memorized, but he'd be able to point at a guy and say, "That's the dude who makes people's heads bleed." There were a few problematic figures listed in there—people who would either be annoying to kill or fight. However, there weren't any category five demons or spirits, so he liked his odds. All of this was under the assumption that they immediately ambushed him after entering the colosseum. If they didn't, then he might be a tad more diplomatic. Just a tad, though.

Cal reached a device further down the seat. It was a dull grey metal shell, with jagged holes drilled through to fasten leather straps. It resembled a muzzle, and he wasn't looking forward to wearing it.

"It was the best I could do," the woman offered unprompted.

"After the last incident, I doubted the efficacy of sending an agent with you to be an interpreter. I fashioned it out of an old radio unit, but it's crude." It was definitely ugly, but it served its purpose. The Wheezing Death, as Cal had forgotten, couldn't speak on his own—not since the corpse worshipers had ripped out his tongue for betraying their order. He communicated through intermediaries or manifestations, and as the captain said, sending an agent with him would be ill-advised.

This radio would work as a voice changer, making him sound close enough to what they expected. If he layered a normal sound‑amplifying manifestation on top of it, that should fool most people. Not everyone, of course—anyone who knew the man's signature would notice—but the whole thing was one big game of pretend anyway. He just needed to ask questions if he could and kill if he couldn't. The car bounced, an object landing on its roof. From the window, he could see a woman leap down before opening the door.

Cassey, carrying a bundle and sweating profusely, clambered over him, plopping down next to the captain.

"Sorry, boss," the Federation agent said between breaths.

"I had to go to five stash houses before I found it under some floorboards. He hid it well." She didn't waste any time in shoving the bundle in his face. He caught it, unfurling it slightly to see his shroud and a second pair of clothes.

"You look well," he said, turning back to the panting woman. Cassey wore a loose-fitting robe, pumping the collar in an attempt to cool off. Through the movement, he could see bandages wrapped around her torso. The braid she styled her hair with also felt shorter, but he couldn't be certain.

"I got a gnarly scar if you want to see," she offered, already picking at her bandages. The captain directed a stern look at the girl, and she ceased tampering with the strips of gauze.

"It'll be removed when you cycle back home," the captain said before looking at the shroud in his lap.

"Are you certain about traveling there yourself?" The colosseum was a long way off, and with the trains not operating at this time of night, it would be easier to be driven there.

"I'd rather no friendlies nearby," he stated honestly.

"It makes my job easier." They'd likely be watching the avenues of approach, too. This was the best option.

"Good luck, Boss," Cassey said with a thumbs-up.

"Can't be worse than last time." He would have preferred her not to say that, but he offered her a nod anyway.

"I'll change on the roof. Grab my uniform from there," he said, reaching for the handle. Cal paused. There was one last thing to do.

"Hey, Olivia," he said lightly, feeling the illusion of weightlessness. The girl stiffened, tanned fingers curling around the wheel.

"We're cool." It was short, two words, depending on how he'd count conjugations. Did that mean all was well? No, even in a world of magic, that was impossible. Still, it was a start—a real one. Cal stepped out into the cool night air, breathing it in. His pockets were full, and he considered leaving some of his other belongings behind before deciding against it. He had a lot to lose. Too much. So he wouldn't.