Sophie stared down at the locket. Outwardly it seemed so harmless, especially compared to the dagger next to it, but Sophie could feel the corruption nearly boiling off the thing. Sophie still wasn’t sure exactly how things became corrupted, but it felt like something terrible must have happened.

Or maybe several something terribles.

She was tempted to ask Sterling about it, but she felt that his patience was probably wearing very thin and she should just get down to business.

Right. Purification.

She hesitantly reached out with her mana to examine the locket. Immediately, something felt different than the last time she tried working with the corrupted artifacts. It wasn’t the locket… It was her own mana! She could already tell the difference in her control. After working with the candle flame which was sensitive to even the smallest mana flare, the locket felt almost easy in comparison. The corruption was everywhere – the locket was nearly completely consumed by it. In fact, Sophie had a difficult time even finding any slivers of pure mana left, although she was sure there had to be some there. Somehow she felt that something even worse would happen if the locket was left in this state and became completely corrupted.

She frowned – right. She needed to do something about it.

She began by gently pushing her mana at the corruption, but it resisted. Something about the locket said – enough.

“Focus on burning the corruption out rather than channeling,” Sterling murmured, nearly breaking her concentration entirely, but Sophie was able to keep her hold. Just barely.

Hmmm. Sophie remembered that from the other day. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak with the tenuous grasp she had on the locket – it resisted her with everything it could, but she focused on her mana again, imagining it as something hot that could burn out corruption – perhaps like a thin stream of faint blue fire mixing in with the murky grey-black of the locket’s mana.

The Understanding washed over her. She felt the corruption in the locket finally relent to her mana. Slowly, carefully, she began to burn some of the corruption away.

“Well, well,” Sterling murmured, breaking Sophie’s concentration entirely this time. Sophie glanced over at him, wondering if she had done something wrong, but he shook his head. “Continue,” he said, gesturing at the locket. “You’ve got the hang of it now. I might as well leave you to it and get to my own tasks early today.”

Sophie felt a sudden spike of panic at the idea of being left alone with the locket, even though she knew now how to diminish some of the corruption. “Are you sure it’s safe? It’s not dangerous to work alone?”

Sterling snorted and shook his head. “As long as you don’t draw on the mana, you’ll be fine. You're not a complete idiot. I’ll tell Calli to look in on you.”

Sophie worked the strange half-compliment over in her mind for a moment before she glanced back down at the locket. She could feel there was less corruption, sure, but there was still quite a lot left. She doubted she would be able to finish the task today with her remaining mana reserves. “I could help you,” she offered, eager for a distraction. “I’m happy to take on some of the tasks, whatever it is the council has you do…”

But Sterling merely shook his head again, making his way to the door of the room. “Maybe another time,” he said, and with that he left her alone in the storage room with the corrupted items laid out on the table before her.

Sophie frowned down at them, unhappy to be left to her own devices. She sighed. It had been days of working on this stuff with Sterling. She was… growing used to the man, but he still annoyed her severely. At least he hadn’t said anything further against Elowen. He hadn’t even mentioned the spirit at all since that first day.

Sophie’s frown deepened at the thought of Elowen. She was quite unhappy with the current arrangement – with Sophie coming in to Caulis every morning to work on focus, when Sophie could easily do that at the shrine. But at least Sophie was working on purification today. She ought to get back to it, she supposed.

The dagger caught her gaze, breaking her out of her reverie. Sterling had said it would be more difficult to work with, but maybe Sophie should find out for herself.

She reached out her mana to examine it, ignoring the locket for the time being. Immediately she could tell the dagger was not going to be as simple to work with. Not that purifying the locket was easy exactly, but at least she could find the corruption to target. In fact, she was practically tripping over corruption every way she turned when she worked with the locket.

Here, in the dagger, she could feel that there was some amount of corruption, but it was rather small on the whole of things. When she tried to pinpoint it with her own mana to burn it out, it felt slippery and elusive. Even when she tried focusing her mana into that burning flame of purification, she felt like she was simply wasting it on the dagger. She broke the connection.

So that’s what Sterling meant. She obviously did not have enough skill to truly purify the dagger. At least not right now.

She shook her head and turned her focus back to the locket.

Her earlier attempts at purification seemed to help somewhat, but there was quite a long way to go. The locket seemed to hold a surprising amount of mana for something so small. Easily more than a mana lamp, and yet it didn’t glow or otherwise show any outward sign of the mana that it held. In fact, if Sophie couldn’t sense the corruption residing within it, she might’ve believed that it was completely inert. Harmless, even. She wondered who it belonged to. Had they known how corrupted it was? Surely a mage would have been able to tell. Surely anyone who sensed mana could…

Before her thoughts could wander any further or she could attempt to purify it once again, however, the door to the room burst open, startling Sophie terribly. Acacia charged through it with a determined look on her face. “You!” she pointed at Sophie. “What has Calli been doing to you?”

“Um, what?” Sophie replied. She blinked at Acacia blankly as the other woman held up a familiar paper bag.

“You haven’t been by the bakery in ages. Even Hollis was getting worried about you.”

Oh.

Sophie hadn’t been to visit Acacia in a while, had she? Ever since she started working with Sterling at The Cracked Coin, she had been mainly living off of Felicity’s generous salads and potato wedges and occasionally even taking some home for later. She had felt guilty about it at first, but Felicity insisted, saying Sterling’s mood had improved greatly in just the few days he had been working with Sophie.

Not that Sophie could tell, of course. The unspecialized mage seemed just as prickly as always, but she gladly accepted the food.

“I’m sorry,” Sophie replied finally. “I really am. I just got caught up –”

“You mean Calli’s had you trapped here, hasn’t she? Learning purification for her own devious purposes.” Acacia interrupted, but she was grinning and there was no heat in the words.

Sophie felt relieved to see that Acacia didn’t really hold it against her at all. “I suppose you could say that,” Sophie agreed, laughing. “Although I guess I really do need to learn it. Especially after what happened with Elowen…”

Acacia’s face took on a more serious expression at the reminder. “Hollis sends his regards, by the way,” she said. “He’d love it if she came to town again. I’m sure he’d give her more cakes.”

“I’m sure she’d love that,” Sophie replied, although she wasn’t actually sure if Elowen was really up for going back to Caulis again anytime soon. They hadn’t discussed it at all, not since the day Elowen had the bad reaction to the corruption.

Acacia looked pleased at the reply and pushed the paper bag towards Sophie. “Well, I guess I won’t bother you if you really are busy. But I thought you’d need a restock.”

Sophie accepted the bag, opening it up to find a veritable pile of chocolate croissants. She laughed again, delighted. “You shouldn’t, Acacia. I need to pay you for these somehow.”

Acacia shook her head. “No way. Not if you have to put up with my sister. I should be paying you. I mean, this is basically a bribe.”

Sophie still didn’t really understand the strange relationship between the two of them, but she wasn’t going to turn down free croissants. “Well, thank you,” she replied. She was starting to feel hungry, after all, and she didn’t have Felicity here today. She supposed a croissant or two for lunch couldn’t hurt. Or –

“Wait, can I buy you lunch? I need to stop by the inn, and then we can go to The Cracked Coin. I’ve been spending a lot of time there, and I feel like I should go back as a paying customer.”

Acacia gave her a strange look at the request but shrugged. “I suppose,” she said. “I’m not going to say no to free food. Hollis probably doesn’t expect me back for a while anyway. But why do you need to go to the inn?”

“I want to leave a message for that priestess who’s in town. Ingrid? Have you met her?”

“Ingrid’s back?!” Acacia practically squealed with joy. “Really?”

“Um, yes,” Sophie replied. Now it was her turn to be confused. “At least, that’s what Calli said, although she didn’t have anything good to say about her…”

Acacia laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t listen to Calli. Ingrid’s great. Come on, let’s go see her!”

And with that, Acacia dragged Sophie out of the door, yelling at Calli on her way out that she was ‘rescuing’ Sophie from Calli’s ‘terrible influence’ and that they may or may not be back later.