I open my eyes to an unfamiliar room.

It’s pretty bare. There’s the bed I’m laying on, a stool in one corner, and a window looking into an alleyway.

That’s all the furniture in here. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sophie sitting in the stool, and Mom standing next to her. Aunt Tamaya is standing by the window, talking to Mom in hushed tones.

I shift my head a little, and suppress a groan. Half my body feels weirdly tingly, and my left shoulder still feels tense and sore.

Aunt Tamaya is the first to react to my being awake, though Mom and Sophie are quickly behind her. She quickly steps over and places her hand on my right shoulder, stopping me from getting up.

“Easy now, you’re still recovering. I’ve healed most of the damage, but injuries that severe take a toll on the body. You need rest, so stay in the bed for now.” Her hand glows a soft gold, and some of the lingering pain in my shoulder fades.

“Tingles.” I groan. It’s disorienting, going from feeling fine while projecting into the Astral Armoury to feeling weak and sore when awake.

“That’ll be the new skin. Your burns were bad enough that I had to encourage some fairly rapid growth, so it’s still raw. Your skin will be a bit discoloured for a few days until you can get some sun to even it out, but it’ll be fine.”

“Shoulder hurts a bit.”

“Deep tissue damage. Frequent healing over the next few days will sort it out, so no strenuous activity until then, understand?”

I nod.

“Good. Honestly Valerie, you’re lucky you didn’t lose that arm, you fool girl. If the heat had cooked the bone there would have been nothing I could have done.”

Mom steps up. “She understands, Tamaya. Berating her further doesn’t help.”

“Oh like you’re one to talk, miss I’m-going-to-calmly-flay-them-alive,” she snaps. Then she looks apologetically at Mom. “Sorry. You don’t deserve that.”

Mom chuckles faintly. “It’s okay. Fifty years I’ve known you, and mana deprivation is the only thing I’ve ever seen cause you to snap at someone like that.”

She used all her mana on me? I didn’t think it was that bad.

Aunt Tamaya nods a little and steps back, taking a seat on the stool in the corner.

Mom turns to me. “How do you feel, Valerie?”

I get the feeling she doesn’t mean physically.

“Wrung out. Like a bit of an idiot to be honest.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Armsmaster and I went over what I did wrong back there. To be honest, running was kind of obvious in hindsight.”

I notice Sophie looking at me oddly. “Hey Sophie, you okay?”

She looks a mix between astonished, relieved, guilty, and a little angry. “Am I okay?! I should be the one asking you that! You almost died because of me!”

I’m honestly a little indignant at that.

“Nah.”

“What?”

“I said nah. You weren’t the only one to make mistakes, Sophie. I should have told you to go for the other end, you’re better suited for that kind of fight than me, and I should have knocked down one of the guys attacking you after I intercepted the fire mage. He was surprised by my entrance enough that I could have done it.”

“But-”

“But nothing,” I say. “Sophie, you didn’t ask me to step in, it was my choice. Understand?”

She glances back and forth between Mom and me. Mom gives her an encouraging smile. I wonder what that was about?

“Okay,” she says, and steps back to let Mom talk.

“So. Armsmaster gave you a talking to?”

“Yeah. You know it didn’t even occur to me to run? I just didn’t think of it, but we could have managed it.”

Mom gives Sophie a significant look. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not. It’s just who you are, Valerie.”

“Hmm.”

I recall something Armsmaster mentioned and decide now is as good a time as any.

“Hey, Aunt Tamaya?”

“Yes, dear?”

I point at Mom, “Is she calm?”

She blinks. “Pardon?”

“Is she calm? ‘Cause she does this angry-calm thing where she looks calm but is actually the complete opposite and honestly it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

Mom looks mildly scandalised, but Aunt Tamaya chuckles. “Yes, she is. I made sure of it before I let her in.”

“When did you see me do that?” Mom asks.

“My 12th birthday. Remember, when we went to that park and there was this creepy older guy? You were distracted, but then you saw him talking to me, came over, and just looked at him. He couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Anyway,” I continue, “Armsmaster said I should talk to you about ways to improve on that fight. It was a bit of a hot mess.”

Sophie groans. “That was really bad, Val.”

I blink at her. “What was?”

She looks at me strangely. “‘Hot mess’? There was fire?”

Oh. I made a pun.

I chuckle. “Sorry. Anyway, what did you think, Mom?”

Mom looks thoughtful for a minute. “You know, just earlier I got an offer that plays into that rather nicely, you see-”

There’s a knock at the door.

It opens to reveal a man in his mid to late thirties, so seventy-ish if he was a mage. His brown hair is long and tied back at the nape of his neck. His clothes are fairly expensive looking, in soft, dark colours, and his eyes hold a strange distance to them. Like he can see further than most, despite being indoors.

“Hello, Tamaya, Ariel, I got that hair ointment you…” He trails off, looking at me.

Or rather, my hair.

He fixes Aunt Tamaya with a positively filthy look.

“I thought you said you couldn’t do anything about lost hair?”

She smiles at him innocently, “Why whatever do you mean?”

He points at my head. “That, right there, is a full head of hair.”

She looks at me, “Well, would you look at that, so it is.”

“You said she had lost some hair, Tamaya.”

“I what?!”

“I did say that, yes.”

“So why did you ask me to get you a jar of ointment, Tamaya?”

“Well, I needed a replacement for the one in my ring, of course.” She looks at him like this is obvious.

I’m still stuck on apparently losing my hair.

“Woah, woah, backtrack! What’s this about lost hair?”

Aunt Tamaya looks at me, “The fire damaged your hair pretty significantly, Valerie. You’re fortunate I had a spare jar of growth ointment. It was quite hideous.”

I look at Mom, “Mom, could you…?”

She smiles wryly, “Of course, Valerie.”

She holds up her hand with the ring, and with a flash of blue light a silver mirror appears in her hand. She floats it over to me and I take it in one hand.

The first thing I see is the skin on the majority of my face is much paler than I’m used to, as if it had never seen the sun. Given what Aunt Tamaya had said about forcefully regrowing it, it literally hadn’t.

Looking at my hair, I see it is much shorter than it used to be, just reaching past my chin. It’s almost as short as Mom’s now. I sigh in relief and pass the mirror back.

Meanwhile, the man looks at Aunt Tamaya in confusion, then realisation dawns on his face. “Something I’ve done has upset you.”

Aunt Tamaya raises an eyebrow. “Really? I’m upset, am I? Well maybe you should have applied some actual common sense before making that offer, and realised that it was the worst time to do so.”

“You know we need a replacement for Abraham, Tamaya. And not only is she the best I’m going to find for the job, I thought it would help.”

“It just might Roderick, but that doesn’t make it okay to ask about when her daughter is injured in the next room.”

Mom coughs to get their attention. “I’m sorry, do you two need the room?”

The man, Roderick apparently, looks at Mom incredulously, “What?”

“Well, I thought if the two of you are going to bicker like an old married couple you might like the privacy.”

Both of them look at Mom, look at each other, then start blushing furiously.

Aunt Tamaya gets up and starts pushing Roderick out the door.

“Thank you for helping Roderick dear but I’m sure you have things you must be doing so goodbye for now!” She says all in one rush.

After she slams the door behind him, I can’t help but ask, “So, who was that?”

Mom grins. “Roderick Henderson. The Headmaster at Cardinal.”

I gape at Aunt Tamaya. “You sent your boss to buy hair ointment? And he did it?”

She blushes a little stronger. “Roderick’s a good man and a good Headmaster, but he makes the same mistake as most others with the Foresight Aspect and relies on it too much. He forgets his common sense. And he’s a bit of a pushover, if you ask right.”

Mom snorts.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“No, it’s something, what is it?”

“Well, if you haven’t noticed what’s going on there, then it’s really not my place to say.”

“Ari! Come on tell me!”

I laugh at Mom and Aunt Tamaya’s antics, but all the while I can’t help but feel like I’m forgetting something.

**********************

Night had fallen.

As Edgar crept along the alleyways of Hortell, he thought over the day’s events.

When he got the request to set up a hit, he was intrigued. Business had been slow for his outfit this past decade, and they’d recently begun making plans to switch to smuggling. So then came in his crew’s latest job.

Some girl’s mother had pissed off the wrong people. Apparently, she’d been kicked out of town years ago, never to return. Except she did, and brought her daughter with her.

His client wanted the girl roughed up a little, dead if they could make it seem like it wasn’t premeditated.

The description he got said she had silver hair and eyes of all things, so it wasn’t hard to find after a few days. One of his scouts found her walking towards the market, so Edgar picked the most likely shortcut to it, used his C Grade Shadow Affinity to hide his boys in place, and waited.

That’s when things went south. Hard.

First of all, she had a friend with her. His moron lookout somehow missed a wolfblood beastkin of all fucking things, so instead of one on eight it was one on four. Still manageable numbers, though. The only reason Edgar had brought seven men with him was because he liked to be thorough.

Bad thing number two. They were both mages. The client said the target was one, that didn’t surprise him, it’s why he brought two more of his own. But the beastkin? They’re kind don’t get many mages, and they just so happen to end up with one? What kind of luck is that?

Bad thing number three. He noticed the girls weren’t intimidated by eight men. Well, seven men and a woman, but Mary is an honorary man at this point so he didn’t bother correcting himself out loud. Regardless, he’d long learned the difference between bravado and confidence. Bravado he could handle, it didn’t mean much. But true confidence came from truly knowing you would win. He knew something was wrong

Bad thing number four. He tried to warn Sawyer something was off, but the colossal idiot didn’t listen. He’d always been one to put too much stock in his strength, so when he looked at two girls he must have been thinking with his fists. Again.

And bad thing number five. The girls were skilled. Too skilled. It couldn’t have just been a difference in Grade. Everyone knows Ariel Endmarch took down three S Grades at the same time during the Steelwoven Massacre. Plenty of cocky kids with high Grade Affinities get stomped on all the time.

No. This was something else.

The beastkin was fast and knew how to fight, but not with her bare hands. She was losing.

The target, though?

She tore through her side like nothing he’d ever seen before.

The client said she was a Stellar mage, of all things, and new to magic to boot. Stellars are shit for offence, everyone knows that, so how the hell was she able to tear Sawyer apart like that? Not to mention when Davis got behind her, she just tricked Sawyer into smashing his head in.

It was like she already knew Davis was about to grab her.

That’s something that comes from years of experience, and she’s only had two weeks?

Edgar knew a losing fight when he saw one, and got out of there as fast as he could.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that he found out how fortunate he was.

The girl’s mother had learned of what happened, and according to rumours came flying in on a storm of steel feathers.

He had attempted to orchestrate the death of the Warbreaker’s daughter.

When Edgar discovered that, he knew he had been played. Of course the target would be skilled, with a mother like that. Just what was the client thinking? Everyone knew what she had done after the Fortress’ death.

Edgar decided to find out, which is how he found himself making his way to the warehouse in the South Quarter where he had first met the client.

Opening the side entrance, Edgar stepped inside.

Just like the first time, the warehouse was almost completely empty. All that lay within was a crate, two chairs, and the hooded figure sitting in one of them.

Waiting for him.

Edgar should have known this job was fucked from the start.

“When you offered me the contract, and I asked about the target’s name,” he began as he approached, “you said it was ‘inconsequential’.”

The hood turned to follow him.

“Does Ariel fucking Endmarch sound ‘inconsequential’ to you?” he seethed as he sat down.

A moment passed as he glared into the hood’s depths.

“You feel manipulated,” came the voice from within. It was distorted and grating. Edgar knew there were better enchantments to hide one’s voice. This asshole used a cheap one just to seem more mysterious, he could tell.

“You’re damn fucking right I feel manipulated. One of my guys is dead, three more are in the guard’s custody, and the remaining three are one wrong move away from rebellion. So you’re going to give me a very, very good reason why I don’t gut you right fucking now.”

He wasn’t worried about threatening the hood. You don’t put this much effort into seeming mysterious and untouchable if you’re powerful.

“You will be compensated,” the hood replied, “should you be willing to perform one final task for us.”

“My price has gotten very high indeed, my shadowy friend. Unless you’re hiding a Relic in that cloak of yours, you’d best think of another way to buy me off.”

“How apt,” the voice drawled, “because that is exactly what we offer.”

From within the cloak’s folds came a gloved hand, holding an intricate wooden box. It was engraved in such a way that seemed to evoke an emptiness. An absence of something.

It sent a shiver down Edgar’s spine to look at.

The hand set the box on the crate, and withdrew back into the cloak.

Edgar licked his lips. “There’s a Relic in there?”

“Take a look.”

Nervously, he slowly opened the box, and was immediately assaulted by a thick malice.

Within the box lay a black knife, bearing a wicked edge and a snarling demon’s head set into the pommel. He could feel the weight of every life it had taken.

Far, far too many lives.

“What the hell is this? Are you trying to trick me you fuck?”

“What’s wrong? Do you have something against your payment?”

“Do I have something against it? This Relic is Feral you shadowy idiot.”

The hood nodded. “Indeed it is. Freshly turned a few weeks ago, in fact. Much better than the lesser versions of course. A few dead mages and you’d be a right terror with that little thing.”

Edgar began to back away. “You’re a fucking lunatic if you think I want anything to do with that.”

The hooded figure stared at him. “Ah. You are under the impression we have given you a choice. We have not.”

Invisible bands of force wrapped around Edgar’s body, restraining him completely. As much as he struggled to break free, he was held fast. He tried to use his Shadow magic, intangibility was a rare trick he worked hard above all else to perfect, but his magic did nothing.

He was trapped.

“Hey! Let me go, you hooded fuck! I ain’t helping you and your asshole buddies, so let me go and we’ll forget this ever happened okay?!”

Edgar was floated closer to the hood. Once he was before the crate with the box holding the Feral Relic, the knife levitated in front of him.

As it did so, Edgar’s hand and arm were wrapped in a tight cocoon of force, and against his will, he was forced to reach out to the knife.

Edgar was begging now, raving incoherently about how he would never help them, never use that stupid fucking Relic, but the hood ignored him.

“Do not be afraid. Soon you will understand. You will join us. Help us bring the end.”

Edgar’s hand finally touched the knife, and the instant he did, power flooded his mind and body. As it did, it carried with it a wave of absolute clarity.

Why was he afraid of his knife?

It’s his, he didn’t need to be afraid of that.

And killing… he needed to kill for his special little knife to get stronger.

He wanted his knife to be stronger, didn’t he?

Besides, it suddenly felt… wrong, not to kill.

No, not wrong.

Rude.

He was being so rude to his special little knife, when he could be helping it. Making it better.

How could he do that to his special little knife?

As he asked himself this, he realized that his bonds had disappeared. He looked to the hood.

“You like your special little knife, don’t you?”

He knew what he called his knife! He understands!

“Yes… Yes, I do,” Edgar said, half in a daze.

“We helped you meet your special little knife, didn’t we?”

“You did, yes,”

“Would you say that makes us friends Edgar? Friends help each other, don’t they?” the distortion of the hood’s voice wasn’t so grating now, Edgar noted dimly. It was almost relaxing. Almost as relaxing as looking at his special little knife.

“Friends help,”

“Then it’s only fair you do us this one little favour, isn’t it Edgar? Because that’s what friends do, don’t they, Edgar?”

“Only fair…” Edgar repeated, staring at his special little knife.

“Then listen closely, Edgar. We asked you to do something today, and you failed. So we need you to fix that for us, Edgar. But we understand that you want to spend some time with your special little knife. Do you understand Edgar?”

Edgar swore he could feel the eyes behind the depths of that hood boring into his soul. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there.

“You have three months,” the voice of the hood repeated, and when it next spoke, the words dug deep into Edgar’s soul. “Three months, then you will kill Valerie Endmarch.”

Edgar’s mind went dark.