Chapter 3

A few days later, Soren, Yukiko Sato, and I made our way through the bustling Haneda airport in Tokyo. Mr. Maki had advised us to come wearing our dress uniforms, and he had been right on the money. We had been waved through security without a second look once we’d flashed our IDs, bypassing lines of hundreds of travelers. There were advantages to being a Wizard Corpsman.

Haneda had been in the top five most-travelled airports in the world before the Horde’s invasion, and it had become number one once the others were wiped out. There were throngs of people everywhere I could see. I was amazed at how clean everything was; I didn’t want to be whoever had to climb up and clean off the hundreds of skylights above us. We strolled through a shopping center with everything you could need for a flight, and the air was full of delicious smells from a dozen small restaurants.

I couldn’t enjoy the scents, though. I felt guilty all the while, making my stomach sore. I hated lying to Soren and Yukiko. God, maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a spy? I preferred to spread secrets around, not keep them.

“What a rip-off,” said Soren. He stopped his ranting as an older man rushed between the three of us, shouting something about being late. “Rose gets to go to the beach, and I’m off to bloody Iceland for the winter!”

I made a comforting sound, though I’m not sure he could hear it over the dull roar of a thousand conversations in a hundred languages all around us. “Iceland has plenty of beaches,” said Yukiko Sato, sounding like a know-it-all, like always.

“Yes, but who’s going to use it when there’s more night than day this time of year?” demanded Soren. His wheeled suitcase hit a divot in the concrete, nearly causing it to tumble over. A red aura surrounded the black case, steadying before it had the chance.

“You aren’t wrong,” replied Yukiko, the source of the gravity magic that saved Soren’s luggage, “but the beach is technically there.”

Soren rolled his eyes. “Rose, help me talk some sense into Yukiko.”

“O-oh, right,” I said. “I’ll make sure to send pictures of Java.” That wouldn’t be a problem, would it? I hoped not; O’Connor had promised me some downtime, and I’d never been further south than England or Japan before. I wanted to enjoy myself.

“Are you okay, Rose?” asked Yukiko. I had to look down to meet the petite woman’s gaze, and her eyes shone with concern.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, a little too quickly.

“You are being unusually quiet,” she replied. Her English was a little stilted, but I chalked that up to her refined upbringing. She came off as aloof in her native Japanese, too.

Even after half a year, it still felt weird hanging out with the daughter of the Hitori Sato, the richest man in the world. Half of everything I owned, from my phone to my GoSato console, and even my running outfits, was made by SatoCorp. Yet, there was the CEO’s daughter, shooting the breeze with peasants like us. I wondered if I could get a friends and family discount from her, but I was always too embarrassed to ask. I didn’t want to seem like I only hung out with her for her money; it was a bit of a sore spot for her.

“I’m just a little nervous,” I said.

Soren laughed. “I’m the one who’s afraid of flying! What do you have to be nervous about?”

What didn’t I have to be nervous about? Since I had met O’Connor, everything I’d said or left unsaid with my friends had been a lie. A day after my meeting with the Lieutenant, Mr. Maki had summoned the three of us to his temporary office in the admin building.

“The structural damage to the school is going to take longer to repair than we had hoped,” he explained. “Headmaster Tachibana has arranged for you students to be paired with a unit for special training until it’s safe again. Think of it as a work-study.” He held up a tablet, squinting in a way that made me wonder if he needed glasses. “Mr. Marlowe, you’re bound for Iceland.”

Soren’s face sank. “Iceland? Isn’t there any—”

Without missing a beat, he turned to Yukiko. “Ms. Sato, your father wants you as close to home as possible.”

“I’m sure used his sway with the Corps to see to it?” Yukiko’s scowl made me flinch, and it wasn’t even directed at me. “When do I leave for Tokyo?”

“In two months, when the Work Study is over. You’re going to Melbourne,” he replied, grinning cheekily. “I don’t care how much money Hitori donates to the League, I’m not going to let him stifle my ace student. Be ready for hard work; I recommended you personally, and I won’t have you making me look bad.”

Yukiko’s smiles were normally subtle, but she wore a toothy grin. “Thank you, Sir.”

“Of course. Now for you, Ms. Cooper,” Mr. Maki continued. “You’re going off to Java.”

“No, I have to…” I trailed off. “Oh, Java? I misheard you. That sounds great!”

“Well, isn’t that lovely for you,” muttered Soren.

The two men must have been in on it together, since I swear Mr. Maki had winked at me. I wasn’t quite sure where I was off to; to obscure my real destination, I was bound for a small airport in Saga Prefecture where I would rendezvous with Lieutenant O’Connor for a chartered flight.

“Rose? You’re going quiet again,” said Soren.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’m not worried about myself, it’s you. What will you do without me to look after you?”

“I am sure Mr. Marlowe will do just fine,” said Yukiko. “Mr. Maki will be there with him.”

Soren groaned, massaging his temples with his free hand. “Yes, because I want the Divine Blade looking over my shoulder the whole bloody time I’m on this work-study. I thought the whole point was to learn on our own.”

“You have to admit, Soren, that you are a bit of a special case,” said Yukiko. “You do not have the best track record.”

I could tell Soren wanted to disagree, but a former demonkin turned Holy Brother didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. “It’s not like I’m planning to make the same mistakes again.”

“Magpie, that sort of talk worries me,” I said. “Not planning to? That makes it sound like there’s a chance.”

“Believe me, you-know-who wouldn’t want me again, even if I didn’t despise them.”

We exited the shopping area and came across a fork in the road. I stopped, seeing that we were going different ways. I was nearly run over by a rushing woman when I suddenly stopped, and I got an earful in what I thought sounded like Polish.

“Hold on, guys,” I shouted to Yukiko and Soren up ahead, who hadn’t noticed I had stopped. “This is where I get off!”

Soren turned and nodded to the side. The other travelers around us didn’t appreciate us holding up traffic, but we just had enough time for a proper goodbye.

We made our way to a small coffee shop off the main walkway, the only place where we could grab a seat. We selected a raised table with spindly-looking stools. Seeing a sign that the café’s seats were only for customers, I ordered a bottle of water. I figured it was all I could keep down.

“Rose, Yukiko, it’s been… That is, I’m…” Poor Soren. I could tell he was struggling to come up with the right words.

Hating the silence, I took his hands in mine. “This isn’t goodbye forever, Magpie. Next year, we’ll all be back at Nagoya, and everything will be back to normal.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” said Yukiko, taking a genteel sip from a cup of tea. “They might decide to send us to a local school instead of hauling us back to Japan.”

“I’ll miss your optimism, Ms. Sato,” said Soren reflexively. He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. This isn’t the time for sarcasm. Look, you two are… I don’t have many friends in this world, and you both are two of that small club. It’s going to be strange not seeing you every day.”

Yukiko nodded, absentmindedly glancing at her watch. I swear, the girl was ruled by her calendar. “You put that well, Mr. Marlowe. We had some… rough spots early on, but I appreciate that you both found it in yourselves to welcome me back.”

“I wasn’t always the best to either of you,” I said. Yukiko particularly; I had taken months to get over how she’d treated me during our War Games. She’d shoved a handkerchief in my mouth to shut me up after I’d been knocked out of battle. I could still taste the cotton and what I hoped was my own sweat. “I’ll miss you both terribly. I promise, I’ll call you every day, and send pictures!”

“Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver,” said Yukiko. “I don’t think you’re lying, but we’ll be serving with military units. We might be out in the field for days on end.”

I wanted to disagree with her, but I had no idea what Lieutenant O’Connor wanted me for. “Then I promise I will when I can.”

Yukiko nodded. “That, I will agree with. Before you go, though, I have a gift for you both.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a pair of wooden cubes the size of a golf ball. I didn’t have the slightest idea what it was; the tiny runes seemed to be related to a spell for finding or tracking.

Recognition dawned in Soren’s eyes. “These are some of your Finding Devices, right?”

“That’s right,” said Yukiko.

“You really need a better name for these,” he said.

“It’s short and descriptive,” countered Yukiko.

“But it’s so plain! Rose, back me up.”

“Maybe a little bit,” I said, trying not to sound ungrateful for the gift. “Should I know what these are?”

“I forgot you weren’t there at the Serving Wizard’s House when the Holy Brotherhood attacked,” said Soren.

“That one weather wizard was disguised as Rose, so I see where you could slip up,” said Yukiko.

“They tried to frame me and they still thought I’d join the Brotherhood.” I crumpled the half-empty water bottle in my hand, and if I hadn’t drained my magic down to the bone before the long flight that morning, I might have caused an incident.

However, I had, so I didn’t. I was still peeved, though.

“These are trackers I designed,” said Yukiko. “Hiro, Mariko, and Kiyo all have them.” They had been Yukiko’s main friends before Soren arrived at Nagoya, and it had been a darn shame they had split us up when the school was suspended.

Soren winced at the mention of his ex, Kiyo. I didn’t blame him, but won’t go into it here; it’s complicated.

If Yukiko noticed, she didn’t give any sign. That didn’t mean she didn’t notice; she wasn’t always the most sensitive person. “They’re an efficient design. If you run magic into them, all of the others will light up and show where the others are, at any distance.”

I slowly nodded. “It uses that Magical Resonance thing they taught us about, right? Where two tuned fabricata can communicate at any distance?”

“That’s it exactly,” said Yukiko, looking extra-proud of herself, which is saying something. “If you run into trouble and your phone isn’t handy, activate it. I make one for all of my friends.”

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have too many of those,” said Soren. “You’d never have time for anything but building these.”

Yukiko shook her head, chuckling all the while. “I cannot say I looked at it from that angle. I suppose being aloof is more efficient.” She glanced at her watch, frowning slightly. “It looks like our time is up; my flight starts boarding in a half hour.” She hopped out of her chair, not gaining much height after standing up, and gently placed a stack of yen bills on the table.

I thanked her for the drink and slipped the Finding Device into my purse. On a whim, I surprised her with a bear hug. I had to bend over with our height difference. “Even if we get reassigned, don’t be a stranger, okay?”

She froze a moment, before wrapping her arms back around me. “Of course not. I just finished breaking you in.”

“And I just finished teaching you manners,” I replied.

Soren coughed into his hand, blushing and looking away. Was he getting hot and bothered watching us hug? That was so… Soren. I stifled a sigh; why couldn’t I have normal friends?

I broke things off. “Soren, the same goes for you.”

“Of course, my dear,” he said, finally meeting my gaze. “You won’t be rid of me so easily.”

He looked so darned sad, like a lost puppy. Thinking of not seeing him every day, a wave of melancholy rolled over me. I couldn’t help it; I hugged him too.

He laughed to himself. “You should be careful doing this in public, Ms. Cooper. Someone might get the wrong idea,” he said.

“But you won’t.”

“At least not that you’ll hear about,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too.” I waved goodbye, running back into the sea of travelers. At least, I tried to; nobody would make an opening for me. I checked my own watch, and I panicked; how had twenty minutes passed? “Oh no, I’m going to be late!”

“Give ‘em Hell, Rose!” Soren shouted in my ear, half-deafening me and earning him dirty looks from a hundred people who stopped to stare. I wondered what he was thinking, then I realized he had created an opening for me in the tightly-packed crowd.

Once I had jammed my way through, I turned to wave again. Soren didn’t notice, since he was getting an earful from one of the baristas. I dashed towards my gate, smiling to myself. Bollocks to having normal friends; I liked my current set just fine.