“Sir. Sir, you can’t go in there.”

Ameryth heard the voice, felt the swirling emotions involved in the exchange, and knew her secretary wouldn’t be able to stop this one either.

The door to her office slammed open and yet another panicked parent waltzed in uninvited. It surprised her a little that it was David Payne, Ryan’s much too young father. He hadn’t seemed the type.

She looked up from her conversation with Lisa and greeted him in a curt tone, “Mr. Payne.”

The man spotted the girl in the chair in front of her desk and looked surprised, but the emotion shifted into dismay as he understood why she would be here, and finally, anger. He stormed up to her desk and demanded, “Where is my son?”

Ameryth plucked the tiny note off her desk and handed it over. He snatched it out her fingers with a frown and glanced over the three short sentences on the torn-off paper that said,

Headed into Open Sewers for glue stuff. Back in three hours or so. Hang out?

That had been twenty-four hours ago.

It seemed Micah and Ryan were another two students unaccounted for in this mess. Two of far too many, some of which had been spotted in the Guild or headed for the Tower just before the incident.

Ameryth was still waiting on confirmation for the others and hoped they were at home and just hadn’t thought to check in. It was much better than the alternative, considering the continuous news coming from the Guild.

She was waiting for an inevitable name to show up that she knew personally. Most of her friends were climbers.

She hoped she wouldn’t ever hear the name of one of her students.

Would this be the hill her school was made to die on? Walker was already speaking to the lawyers, but they should be safe. They had gone missing during the weekend, outside of their responsibility. It was an unfortunate accident and other schools had missing students as well.

Rationally speaking, they couldn’t be singled out. Rationally speaking.

Hopefully, worse wouldn’t come to worst before that happened.

Mr. Payne’s shoulders slumped after reading the note for the third time and he looked up at her.

“As soon as we know anything, we will inform you right away, Mr. Payne,” she assured him. “We are doing everything we can to learn of their whereabouts and ensure their safety.”

Irritation shot up in his chest like a cloud of buzzing flies, and crawled up his neck to his temples, but they died just as quickly. A knee-jerk reaction to the platitude and him not being able to do anything, but not one he acted on, thankfully.

He made a face and asked, “Speaking with the Guild won’t do me any good, will it?”

“The Guild is currently closed to the public,” Ameryth told him.

That got a storm of anger in his mind, but only a small part of it was directed at her by association.

“You can still try?” she offered.

He nodded—all the signal Ameryth needed.

“Melanie, will you please guide Mr. Payne outside and direct him toward Rana and the others? Tell them to give him anything he needs and extend the same offer toward him as the other parents, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. And again, I’m so sorry for the constant interruptions.”

“It’s fine.”

She put an arm behind the man and gently herded him outside along with the note, closing the door after them.

Ameryth bit her tongue to keep from calling out, that he should leave the note here. They might need it for the lawyers. She supposed there were enough people who knew of it by now, though.

The man would probably idle around the school after going to the Guild anyway, like most other parents. This was the closest place they would be to wait for news if they didn’t want to join the protesters.

She turned back to Lisa. “You said you would need mana rings?”

She nodded and spoke in an unnecessarily abrasive tone, “Bootcamp’s over. It’s not like you need them anymore, right?”

A challenge. Would she help her students?

Ameryth thought about it for a moment, weighing the costs and the chance that there might not be any more mana rings in the future against the chances of her plan helping anyone.

Of course, she would help her students, but she wasn’t sure this was the way of doing thing. In the end, she felt the same flies buzzing inside of her as Mr. Payne. She wanted to do something.

The sliver of a chance that it might help one of her missing students was worth it, even if it didn’t work. The girl would have to consult other [Summoners] about her spellscript first, but then Ameryth would allow it.

She was about to say so when yet another knock on her door interrupted them and Melanie poked her head back in. She looked physically pained to speak.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Denner, but there is a woman from the Guild here and she is demanding she speak with you. She said her name was Deborah Rouco, a former colleague of yours?”

Ameryth frowned and glanced passed the door to verify. Her old colleague was waiting at the desk, tapping her finger against the wood impatiently while she glanced back at the line of parents waiting outside.

“Deborah? What does she want?”

She was a [Summoner], too. Ameryth frowned and glanced at Lisa.

“She’s asking if the school has any mana rings it can donate during this crisis. She’s willing to make it an ‘official thing’,” Melanie said and frowned. “I’m not entirely sure what she means.”

Ameryth suppressed a smile in relief. Deborah knew what she was doing. It would be fine to trust her. “It would seem you aren’t the only one with this idea,” she told Lisa before addressing Melanie, “Tell Mrs. Burke to please assist Ms. Rouco in any way she can and give her access to our tools and information, but tell her to keep me updated on the results, if she could.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lisa was already moving to get up with a scowl.

“Ms. Chandler? Can you please assist her as well?”

She froze and frowned at her.

“I’m sure, as a student of this school, you’ll do your absolute best to represent it in this hour of need, yes?”

Lisa rolled her eyes and spoke in a gratingly sarcastic voice, “But of course, Ms. Denner.”

Before she could leave, Ameryth added, “This was a good idea, Lisa. To help your classmates. Even if it doesn’t work, thank you.”

She glanced back in surprise, but didn’t say anything as she ducked out of the door and left.

Ameryth could sense her standing near Deborah, presumably introducing herself, as her secretary fetched something for them. A man approached the two of them in the hallway outside and tagged along. Mr. Payne?

Then they were out of her range and Ameryth could relax. Something about that girl unnerved her in the weirdest way.

She frowned and leaned down to glance under her desk. “Tsk.” A bit of mana banished the red lizard that clung there. She would have to reprimand her for that, no matter the circumstances.

Then she straightened back up, tidied her suit, and called for her secretary to send the next person in, wondering when this nightmare would end.