The next morning, I wake up early again.

Because Helen and Eve have started coughing too.

What is going on?

I swallow down the terror that comes from everyone suddenly getting sick, all at the same time. Not letting myself panic, I wake up Emily. Maybe it's just a coincidence?

"It's not a coincidence."

"W-why not? What's happening?" I stammer out my question, and Emily puts a hand on my shoulder to calm me down, but her expression is serious.

"Sometimes when you go near sick people, you get sick too."

"W-why didn't anyone mention that? We should have, we should have..." I trail off.

"Sorry, it's common knowledge. I didn't think to mention it. And besides... this is our only place to sleep. If anyone in here gets sick, it's up to luck whether we do too, since we don't have the option of staying away from them."

"That's..." Horrible? Insane? Terrifying? All of them? "What do we do? They'll be alright, won't they?"

Emily draws a breath, then turns away as she lets it all out again. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "We can't afford doctors who know about stuff like that. We just have to hope that when we get sick, we can fight it off on our own. If not, well... we die." I have no idea how to respond to that, and sit for a long time, staring at the other girls. My roommates, my friends. Who might just... die. All because there's no one to help them and no one who can do anything to save them.

"B-but..." I touch Emily's arm, since I can't say this out loud. With a look and a slight nod, she gives me permission to touch her soul again, and I take a moment to form the connection for telepathy. Then I think to her. "Maybe I can help? I don't know, but John was coughing, and I gave him some lightning mana, and then he was better the next day. I don't know if it's the same but maybe?"

"Well, sure, it's worth a shot," Emily agrees immediately. "It's has to be better than nothing." Nodding strongly, I break the connection, and after a careful glance to Jannette, still asleep in bed, I generate some lightning mana and give a little bit to each of them.

I glance back over to Jannette again once I'm done. I... haven't really spoken to her at all since... well, that. I'm reluctant to even approach her, especially for something like this. For now, she doesn't look like she's gotten sick like the other girls, so I just leave her alone.

While Emily does my hair, I use telepathy to relay a lot of what I learned yesterday, especially how using mana and magic are the same thing, and the gods are hiding it for some reason. Or at least, some parts of them are the same. I'm still trying to work out the details. I only briefly mention the mana structures I found inside a few of the magical creatures, skimming over the details because that part isn't really important to her.

By the time I've told her the basics from yesterday, she's done with my hair, and we head down for our usual morning routine. We do take some time to draw a bath so I can get washed up after Claire's comments about my appearance yesterday, but the other girls are all still asleep, so we just let them rest.

When John arrives, Emily tells me that she'll stay home to keep an eye on the other girls today, and that I don't have to worry about anything.

I give her a big, big hug as thanks and tell her I'll come home as soon as my classes are over, before I leave.

On the way to the refinery, I remember that I'm supposed to pick up the chromium I ordered today. What do I do about that...? I consider asking John if we can go there first, but it would take too long, and I already promised to head straight home...

A little while later, I'm sitting, eating my breakfast, when Eryk suddenly asks, "Aria, is there something wrong?" How could he tell?

"W-well, I..." I don't know, should I tell him? It doesn't involve him. It's not really anything he should worry about, but...

"Come on, just tell me. You always take things too seriously for a kid, you should rely on adults more," he scolds me lightly.

"I-I... Mmmm..." I grumble at myself, flustered. "I just don't want to bother you..." When I say that, he levels me with a hard look that makes me cringe back, and start talking. "The other girls at home got sick and I promised to go straight home but I realized that I'm supposed to pick up the order I put in at the blacksmith." It all comes out in a single rush under his pointed gaze.

Eryk snorts a little. "See, that's what I'm talking about. All that worry for nothing. I'll just send a shopkeeper to pick it up for you."

"B-b-but, but I-" I flail when he says he'll have someone do it for me. "I couldn't- your shop- but..." None of my broken thoughts come out in real sentences.

"Aria." His tone silences my protests. Then he rings the bell on his desk, and Isabelle comes in again. Seriously, is it specifically part of her job to answer when he calls?

"Yes sir?" she asks, her eyes never even straying toward me.

"Go to Montley Smithing and pick up the order Aria put in yesterday," Eryk instructs. Unlike yesterday, she doesn't act up at all. She just agrees, then leaves. What's with her change of attitude? Eryk notices too, because he just looks at the door and goes, "Huh."

I just can't believe he's having his employees do things for me. Just the thought fills me with such a sense of guilt, it's almost unbearable...

Despite how I feel, I have to finish my breakfast. So I just keep eating until I'm done, then move over to take the other seat and wait for Claire to arrive, since it's almost time.

Today's classes focus on nature studies again, plants this time instead of animals. As usual, Claire bombards me with new information, names and spellings and descriptions. How to identify plants based on their appearances, scents, the texture of their leaves, or their bark. What they all do. The poisonous ones, the edible ones. How they all taste, whether they're nutritious, any unique properties... Like all her lessons, the fifth bell comes before I know it, my head stuffed with everything I learned.

When I return to Eryk's office, he hands me the piece of chromium I ordered, along with the remainder of the ingot. It's so smooth... I guess Norman's ridiculous muscles weren't just for show... It's so smooth on the flat side, I'd almost think it was cast. The circle is a little oblong, with a few spots where it has some imperfections, but it's no worse than the average job Bob did on the much, much easier to make ones. I guess that's why it cost more than the rest of them combined...

As I'm rubbing a finger appreciatively over the surface, Claire eyes the metal with interest. "What is that you have there?" she asks.

It catches me off guard a little, and I have to take a moment before answering, "Well, I'm always carrying metal around, so I thought I would make them smaller so they're not as heavy."

"Ahh," She grins just a bit. "If you're looking to carry things and they're made of metal, jewelry is an option." She holds out her wrist, but I'm not sure why. I just look at it for a moment, before I notice. Oh, she's wearing something. It's a tiny thing made of silvery white metal, extremely thin and small, to the point I never actually noticed it until she drew my attention directly to it.

Just from the look, that must be alba. I knew Claire was rich, but she has enough money to wear something decorative like that? In fact... embedded in the small bit of metal are a number of tiny little red things, kind of sparkly and pretty...

"Ahh, on second thought, you are quite young, it would be rather inappropriate for you to wear jewelry at your age..." Then she smiles lightly. "Perhaps when you're older. I'm sure it will look wonderful on you then."

I gulp a little at the praise, lowering my eyes to the table. "Th-thanks..."

From there, we eat lunch as usual, though I do stop to ask about the new word she used there. Jewelry, and bracelet after that, when she says that's what she showed me. She goes on to explain how the little red bits are gemstones, which are a specific kind of crystal, which are like normal rocks, but people use them for decoration because they're really pretty. She actually talks about it for a while. I guess she really likes things like that?

Then it's back to class. Claire obviously picked up on how I don't know many words for clothing and... fashion, she calls it, so my afternoon classes are spent on learning a ton of words for everything relating to fashion. All sorts of clothes like dresses and blouses and shirts and skirts and... wow they all have 'S's everywhere... By the end of it, I know more about clothing and jewelry and hairstyles and all of those things, than I ever imagined there was to know about them...

"Haa..." I let out a big breath, sitting in my usual spot after Claire leaves for the day. But then I shake myself. I don't have time to just sit around. "I really have to get home," I say, "have a nice day, Eryk."

"See you tomorrow, Aria." With a small wave, he sends me off. I wave to John on my way out, and run straight home, cutting through the northeast district. It's not a mad dash like I did that one time, but I still make it all the way home very quickly.

However, as soon as I arrive, I know something is wrong. There are too many kids home already. It's not that long after the eighth bell, but there are already other children home, a group of a few big kids in the kitchen with a pot on the hearth. One of them is coughing... I quickly head upstairs. While the doors on the second floor are closed, my hearing lets me pick out more coughing coming from a few of the rooms.

On the third floor, it gets worse. I hear at least one or two people behind each of the few doors between the stairs and our room near the end of the hall. Is everyone getting sick? What do we do about it?

Pushing open our own door, I practically run over to Emily, she staggers a little when I hug her. "Everyone is getting sick, what do we do? Are they going to be ok?"

She just sighs. "I don't know..."

As much as I hate to ask after everything he's done... "What about Mister Fredricson? Isn't he supposed to... I don't know, be responsible for us?"

That makes her grimace as she looks away. "He left earlier when he realized all the kids were getting sick."

"He what?!"

Glaring at the wall, Emily explains. "This has happened a couple times over the past few years. When a lot of the kids get sick, Mister Fredricson leaves so he doesn't get sick too."

"B-but..." I don't even know what to say to that. When things get bad, he just leaves? He leaves us all here? Alone?

"Hey, it's not all bad," Emily gives me a squeeze. "Look, the other girls are starting to feel better." That finally makes me turn away to check them. Like she said, their breathing doesn't sound as labored anymore. I sit on the side of Eve's bed, stroking her hair briefly. I'm so glad they're getting better. That I could actually help them. That they won't just die for no good reason...

Then I turn back to Emily. "What about the others?"

She grimaces a little. "I figured you'd ask. You can't just go around to everyone's rooms and... you know." She sends a glance around the room, even though it's just us and our sleeping roommates. "People would get suspicious."

"But I have to help them."

She puts up a hand to stop me. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Still, you have to think of a way to do it that isn't too obvious."

"What about Riko? She could do it," I suggest.

"But what about-" Emily scoffs angrily, face still set in a glare at the floor. "He's not even here. Yeah, that should work fine." Without me even saying anything, Riko sighs, but picks herself up from her comfortable position anyway, and starts on her way here.

Thank you, Riko. Really.

It doesn't take her too long to arrive. She jumps in through a first story window and heads up the stairs, only attracting the attention of a few children as she trots past. I open our door just a bit so she can slip inside, then we swap mana until she's loaded heavily with lightning. She's pretty small inside and can only hold about one and a half at a time, but that should be fine. She slips back out of our room, and prowls around the house for a while, brushing past kids and pushing a little lightning mana into them as she goes.

As far as we can tell, no one pays her any mind as she comes and goes from our room, picking up more mana from time to time. When more kids start to get home, I take a nuvrite coin along with on of my new durite disks, and sit in the hall near the entrance. Riko's only giving each person about a quarter of one mana, a very small amount that should be just enough to help with the sickness without being too obvious.

However, there are around a hundred kids at the orphanage, meaning she'll need about twenty five mana to get them all. So I sit in the hall, trying not to stick out. As always, it doesn't work very well with my hair, but no one notices me any more than usual at least. While I sit, Riko brushes past every child who enters through the door, her best chance to get all of them. She keeps making laps back to me when she starts to run out. Each time, I pet her a little, and she takes off again.

Just like that, we manage to get all of the children at the orphanage. Or at least most of them, there are still some kids upstairs, and going into all of their rooms is too suspicious. For that, we just wait a little while longer, until everyone comes down for dinner, and Riko swerves through the legs of the children eating, getting anyone she missed earlier.

In the meantime, I just keep practicing with my mana. I keep trying to command it, make it move in the way I want, without needing to do it all manually. The whole thing brings back what I learned from Claire a while ago, about how everything is made from individual parts. If I'm thinking of my mana as a bunch of individual parts that I'm commanding all together, maybe it would be easier if I commanded them as one single thing instead?

By the time the night is ending, Riko has gotten some lightning mana into most, if not all of the children at the orphanage, and I still have no idea if my practice is paying off. It's only when I lie down for bed that I realize I forgot to ask Eryk about where I can buy Mira sap, so I ask Emily instead, and she just says I can get it at the central market.

I only have Firoday and Nuvoday left before the battle. I know I'm not ready, and it takes everything I have not to completely panic. But it'll be fine. Emily is doing well, Eryk's plans are on track, the kids at the orphanage will be fine. Even if things go badly for me, at least me being gone won't harm anyone else, right?

Lying in the dark, wrapped in Emilly's arms as she drifts off, I think. She would be sad if I was gone, wouldn't she?

She already lost her sister once...