Chapter Twenty: Reconnecting

+++++Ezra+++++

"Rill won't be joining us this morning?" Teak asked.

"She's feeling ill," Ezra said.

The scriben's wooden mask inched up in a slightly-creepy smile, which was the only way that Teak knew how to make them. "That's good," he said.

It was good that Rill was feeling ill insofar as it meant they'd finally got the dose of neurotoxin right. It had taken three attempts - Dr. Pithvil hypothesized that Rill would take significantly more toxin to harm than a normal human and had started with three times the normal dose and tripled it each time from there. Finally, at twenty-seven times a toxic dose, ten times the dose that would kill within hours, she felt something the next day, and that something was probably the deterioration of her human nervous system - which meant she'd probably get much better soon thereafter. But, for the morning, she was waylaid in bed with nausea and muscle spasms and the doctor herself at Rill's bedside with a healing decoction at the ready, should she take a turn for the worse.

"Good. Rill is becoming too advanced for the intermediate focus exercise, but you still need quite a bit of work."

Ezra huffed. "Is that so?"

The focusing exercises were designed to help mages speed in their elevation and were attested by the magi of far-off Qathir and their thousands of years of magical cultivation. They seemed to work well enough for Rill, whom Teak estimated to be at the equivalent of a high human 5th elevation. That was normally where the more-powerful infernics leveled off, but Rill hadn't even approached her inflection point in advancement, which made Lusha and Teak equal parts excited and uncertain. He could smell it on Lusha and hear it in Teak's telltale creaking, which he thought nobody could hear.

Ezra, on the other hand, wasn't advancing at all… or, at least, he was no closer to being able to manipulate the energies he absorbed. He was slowly growing his own innate store of arcane energies, though the structure of his soul was so strange that nobody was quite sure what to make of it.

"It's like an arcane fairy floss," Lusha Dryad had observed. "It seems insubstantial, but what's there is sickeningly potent."

"And it's the size of this island… metaphorically speaking," Zigna added. She was one of those extremely rare borrenkin infernics - ironically, one attuned to violet creation energy rather than the green one might expect of a flower-spangled half-tree-woman. Ezra suspected that she and Lusha were an item, however that coupling might work out.

So Ezra had a very odd Earth-human soul that, apparently, wasn't much good for magic beyond charging crystals and doing a virtually infinite number of pitiful 2nd elevation techniques. If he tried to arrange his energies any longer than a fraction of a second, they would disappear in the cotton candy clouds of his soul. But his magical sense was expanding daily - he could sense energies farther and farther. As far away as Teak could, and the man was probably close to 7th elevation.

"You are an interesting case, Ezra," Teak said. "But I'll crack that nut… but first, our morning focusing…"

Ezra sighed. According to the household staff, it was a great honor to participate in Master Teak's morning ritual. But the magnate-slash-crime-lord's mild patronizing got on Ezra's nerves. Which, he supposed, meant he needed to focus more.

"If you're going to teach Rill new focusing techniques, then teach me, too… I'm not getting anything out of Inward Conveyance."

"You're not ready for it."

"Then we'll have pissed away a morning of my piss-poor progress. I'll inform the Riyiday Evening Post…"

Teak sighed in that creaking way of his. "Well, at least it will do me some good. Very well. Let us begin… Zigna?"

The infernic borrenkin tapped a little gong, which was a sort of superstitious spirit-banishing thing that always took place before the sessions. At least Ezra thought it was superstitious - in Medias, spirits were a lot more real than they were on Earth. For all he knew, banishing them might actually do some good. In any case, the dying hiss of the gong, which he could hear for a full minute after Zigna tapped it, gave him something to focus on as he turned his thoughts inward…

"You fell asleep," Teak said.

"I didn't," Ezra insisted. He hadn't… he'd been far too interested observing what he found as he turned inward to his soul and found it to be not a cotton candy but a dense and endlessly-ramified network of tiny motes of pulsing energy. It was a lot like looking at a brain from the inside, and Ezra suspected that he might be observing just that.

"Oh no? Then what sort of bird was calling out in front of the west window two minutes ago?"

Ezra cracked his eyes open, his lips pursing as he searched his memory. "Nyezo-bird."

"No, it was a pileated brushbill…"

"No, it was a nyezo-bird mimicking a pileated brushbill."

Teak harrumphed in that creaky way of his. He swiveled his wooden mask toward Lusha Dryad. "Have somebody go out there and find out what sort of bird was making all that racket. And then have it cooked for supper - I don't care if it tastes like garbage."

It was a nyezo-bird, of course. You just couldn't trump super hearing and a near-perfect memory. Ezra couldn't do magic worth a beggar's brushpin, but he could identify any smell, sound, face, or taste that he'd put a name to once.

After breakfast, Ezra went to check on Rill and bring her some oat porridge and toast - he figured that was sufficiently bland even if she was feeling ill. Rill picked over the offerings, none too pleased with them, and then Dr. Pithvil took even that away.

"I've got nerve toxicity, not an upset stomach," Rill insisted.

When Rill reached for them, the doctor dumped the food, bowl and all, right into the waste bin. "I gave you a nutritional broth and electolytes - you don't need any more food… and it may upset your digestive tract. It's a neurotoxin, but it targets other organs to a lesser extent, including the intestinal lining. And, no, I didn't just know that off the top of my head. I've read three books on the topic and written four expert neurologists ever since you and Teak came up with this crazy idea. And he's donating two stacks a day to my clinic while I'm here so, by all means, ignore my advice. Maybe I can upgrade to chrome on the examination beds."

"Fine," Rill said. "But as soon as I'm feeling better, I'm eating a huge steak, well-done." She winked at Ezra, which was good… she'd been in too much discomfort earlier to display much humor. As an ifrit, Rill was quite insistent on eating her meats thoroughly burnt - until Ezra revealed that you could eat your steaks blackened and they didn't have to be disgustingly tough and dry. Rill agreed it was a fine compromise.

+++++Ezra+++++

Ezra fussed over Rill for a while to Rill's delight and the borrenkin doctor's great annoyance. He wandered out to Teak's garden and picked a bouquet of flowers for her - the gardeners would have them grown back and blooming as floridly as ever by tomorrow - and wandered back to freshen up the slightly-wilted bouquet of flowers he'd procured for Rill earlier. Then he handed the doctor a smaller bouquet of slightly-thorny purple flowers.

"What are these for?" she said.

"They're mallow thistle… they're for indigestion after Rill eats her blackened steak…" he made fleeing eye contact with Rill… "medium rare… tonight."

"Indeed…" Dr. Pithvil hazarded a whiff of the flowers and seemed vaguely pleased, which was about as much jollity as you ever got out of her. "Why would you know that?"

Ezra shrugged. "I read Anise's book on herbalism once." Once was all it took.

Teak rapped on the side of the door and strolled in. He glanced at Pithvil's patient notes and nodded - for all Ezra knew, he was familiar with medical notation. Or maybe the old scriben just wanted to look smart. "Ezra, if you're free this afternoon, I'd like you to run an errand to the Orchard Pass in town…"

Of course, Teak knew that Ezra didn't have anything going on. He knew Ezra's schedule better than he knew it, himself, and that schedule currently consisted of: cultivation training from six fifteen to seven in the morning and worrying about Rill. The end. And Teak was an especially insidious criminal mastermind in that he never threatened you. He never even pushed. He simply insinuated, and the subtext was always: fail to do this for me and you will forego the many favors and protections I can provide. Unless you were stupid - stupid people, Teak would just threaten because they couldn't read subtext.

Ezra shrugged. "What's the errand?"

"I'd like for you to deliver a package for me."

"What sort of package?"

Teak placed the medical notes down. "My package, to be delivered to Orchard Pass."

"Sure."

Naturally, Ezra took a look inside the package at the first opportunity. It was filled with… what looked to be tinted contact lenses, just like Ezra's. Well… not just like Ezra's. His had iris covers in the darkest black available and, with some help, he'd scrawled a tiny enchantment onto the thing - the same kind they used on expensive variably-tinted windows - to absorb even more light without burning his corneas. That meant that Teak was in contact with a sizable network of underground infernics… who may or may not have been headed by Plenakton. Or maybe it was just to get Ezra to think all that… no, that was foolish. Teak didn't care what Ezra thought all that much as long as Ezra still hated Fenrik. Which he did, of course.

He took the estate's horseless coach (not Teak's private one) over to town, the wind whipping through his hair. It was a warm mid-autumn day and pleasant, though dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. He ambled into Orchard Pass. Unexpectedly, it was a bookstore. A bookstore peopled by strange proprietors and stranger customers, the current ones being a priest in some manner of blood-red vestments, two old women whispering conspiratorially over a big, worn copy of something, and three young men (well, they were maybe a year younger than Ezra's body) giggling over an old Qathiri book illustrating various improbable sex positions. He doubted they were reading it for the articles.

"Can I help you, sir?" the dorthek woman running the front desk asked.

"I’m just here to deliver a package."

"From whom?"

"The sender."

The dorthek squinted at Ezra, paying special attention to his eyes while Ezra did likewise. This was going to be a bit of a problem, Ezra realized - having introduced contact lenses into Medias out of personal necessity, he'd inadvertently made it much harder to find others like himself. The dorthek woman's greenish-brown eyes looked perfectly natural, but he supposed that it was, if anything, even easier to make a lens fitted for a big dorthek eye. Eventually, Ezra reached up and tapped his sternum twice - the woman repeated the gesture and accepted the box.

His task completed, he walked in the general direction of where he'd parked the coach, the wind whipping his hair about… he'd have to get it cut eventually, or else do something to rein it in. He had a few brownbacks in his pocket - the payment system at Teak's retreat was very informal and Lusha Dryad would just give you a few bills if you asked - and figured he might buy something nice for Rill for when she was feeling better. And, just as he made to cross the street to the little chintzy gift store, somebody… two somebodies… swooshed around the corner and nearly ran into him.

"Um… hello," he said.

Anise's mouth just opened and closed without much else happening, so Franyi spoke for the two of them. "Hello, Ezra… I'm sure there's a story here…"

Ezra considered how the two girls held hands, how they smelled, how Anise blushed and tried to hide behind the taller, slimmer girl… they had a good amount of wine in a little carrying box… and, of course, there was the fact that they were on Sidoade Island on what should have been a school day.

"I think all three of us have stories," he said. "I hope everything's well?"

From their expression, he could see that things were complicated. Maybe he'd ask them more about it later. He asked where they were staying, and they told him: Franyi's parents' place, but only for the night. And Franyi made it clear that her parents were there, and Ezra thought it amusing that she was trying to maintain propriety while smelling like Anise, as if he couldn't pick that out with them half a meter away and upwind from him. They were getting a cake to celebrate… the girls were vague on what they were celebrating but, if Franyi's parents were bankrolling their stay, it was probably to celebrate the girls making 5th elevation, which seemed far too early in Franyi's case and impossibly early in Anise's. Ezra expected there was a story there, too.

He found out where they were staying - the little cliffside community just up the shore from Juzulali - and left them to get their cake while he picked out something that Rill might like. He wound up buying a necklace made of treated ceramic chain with a little crystal pendant - after what she'd done with the gold earrings Teak had let her wear, Ezra thought it might be wise to buy Rill personal effects that had a higher melting point than gold or silver. With that in its little wooden carrying case, he sauntered out toward the coach and spotted Anise carrying a large cake with Franyi close behind, trying to convince her that they should take a coach.

"I can handle it," Anise said.

Did she not realize that they'd be lucky to get halfway back before the downpour started? Already, the sky was darkening to the purple-gray of mid-evening and the whipping wind had become a constant press of cool salt breeze from the east. Ezra jogged up to them and pulled the cake box out of Anise's hands before she could object.

"I'll drive you back," he said. "Otherwise you'll get caught in the storm and the cake will be ruined."

Anise glanced between Ezra and Franyi and then gestured for him to give her the cake back, which he did. She glanced to the incoming gloom roiling above them. "Thanks."

+++++Ezra+++++

The rain really started coming down as Ezra rounded the final curve into the little cliffside neighborhood. Fortunately, Franyi's place was only three houses down because Ezra had just about zero visibility. Lightning crashed around them and the wind was still picking up. The three of them dashed to the house, with Ezra easily beating the other two and waiting under the little porch awning with the cake box - the box was damp, but he figured the cake was probably fine.

Franyi and Anise rushed under a moment later, giggling and absolutely soaked. Franyi showed them in, at which point Franyi's mother rushed over and fretted over her… actually, that probably wasn't Franyi's mother. She had the same caramel brown skin, but there wasn't much resemblance in the face and she had intensely indigo eyes. The woman wicked the water out of their hair and clothing with a casual gesture, beading the water up into the air above their heads like little swirling crowns of liquid, and directing it toward the sink.

"This is Qinzi," Franyi said. "My, um…"

Qinzi gave Ezra a visual once-over. "I'm her step-mother."

"She's my mum."

"Well… it was nice meeting you," Ezra said.

When he turned to leave, though, Anise pulled him back and told him the weather was too intemperate to drive half-way across the island along weaving country roads, which was a good point. Ezra couldn't control water willy-nilly like Qinzi could, and the blustery bursts of wind were enough to rock a carriage - they were boxy things, not nearly as well-balanced as cars back on Earth. He wanted to go back to Rill to see if she was feeling better and, regardless, cook her a blackened steak and give her an unmeltable necklace. Instead, he found himself roped into the Jashopo celebration, with its wine and its lemon cream cake.

As he ate and sipped wine and glanced to the weather every ten minutes to see whether it was safe to drive back to Teak's, Ezra realized he was in the middle of a very odd household. For starters, his new and improved magical senses told him he was in the presence of four 5th elevation mages and an infernic who was very nearly that - strange enough already. On top of that, they weren't treating her as a thrall, even though Ezra could clearly see the little bump of a plug beneath her snug blouse… could it be fake? And the not-a-thrall infernic thought she was being discreet, but Ezra could hear her fingers stroking along fabric and hear her soft toes playing footsie beneath the table. Fortunately, a mouthful of lemon cream cake overwhelmed his sense of smell enough that he didn't have to smell all of the insane sexual tension in the room.

Ezra assumed that this meant he was among allies. Unusually horny allies. For a moment, he wondered whether half of Sidoade Island were secretly free infernics. More likely, it was just the circles he happened to run in. And he was very fortunate that he happened to run in Annise Derrigin's social sphere.

"I need your help," he said, when the rain started to let up and he strolled out to the front patio with Anise. She followed behind with a little cardboard box with lemon cream cake for Rill and himself.

"I don’t have much money… I could probably ask the Jashopos…"

Ezra shook his head. "I don't need money." He regarded her for a minute, her earnest hazel eyes betraying no hint of guile. She was a good person… maybe too good to rope into the sorts of dealings that Mr. Teak was involved in. Far too good to be involved in the sorts of dealings her bastard uncle was involved in. Gentle rain hissed around them and pattered off the porch roof, and real evening finally came even as the clouds slowly lightened, tinting everything a suffuse indigo, as if they were on the bottom of a great, calm sea. "I need your help stealing your uncle's notes," he said. "The ones that he used to make Rill and me…"

"When?" Anise asked. She didn't even hesitate.

"When's good?"

+++++Ezra+++++

By the next morning, Rill was up and about and feeling better than ever. She said her head felt clearer and her reflexes faster - and she'd been clear-headed and quick before. She was a little nonplussed when Ezra had no trouble beating her ten times out of ten in a hand-slapping game, and she singed his palms a bit out of pique. Oh well - they'd heal quickly enough.

Dr. Pithvil recommended waiting a few days before administering another dose of the toxin, just to make sure the first dose had done its job and then cleared from Rill's system. That was fine, because Rill was beyond excited to be going on a mission to steal Fenrik's notes with Anise's help.

"I like Anise," she said.

"Anise is very nice," Ezra agreed.

She was very excited to be going to steal Fenrik's notes, even though Ezra had only told her about the mission so she wouldn't worry about him. He didn't want her going - it was too dangerous. Especially when you considered that Fenrik of Westval was now an 8th elevation High Sorcerer. His recent tribulations had driven him to intense inner turmoil, from which he'd emerged a stronger sorcerer perhaps a decade or two earlier than might be expected, if it was to be expected at all. That meant Ezra was suddenly slated to steal plans from a stronger and more-influential sorcerer than originally anticipated. He didn't want Rill to go, but Rill said she was going, which meant she was going. Rill would let you discuss what she ought to do all day long, but once she stated she was doing a thing, the discussion was over.

"Your magic is weak… maybe you should stay behind and let Anise and me break in?"

"I'm the only one who Teak actually asked. I'm going," Ezra stated. If Rill wanted to argue to determine who between them was the most stubborn, it would be a very long and stubborn argument. The discussion was over.

Rill tapped on her crystal pendant, flashing it on and off as the imbued and drained the magical energy from it. "Fine, but you have to stay close to me."

Ezra sighed. His girlfriend - he supposed that was what Rill was. They hadn't really discussed it, as Ezra wasn't quite sure how to discuss his incipient relationship status with an incipient goddess. His girlfriend was coming with him to the city house of an insane high sorceress and she was worried sick that Ezra was going to get himself hurt. It was as sweet as it was infuriating.

They stopped by Lusha's business chamber to inform him and the dryad already had two airship tickets for the next morning. Whether he'd been spying on them or was simply well-prepared, Ezra didn't care to speculate - neither would have surprised him. The dryad gave Rill a handful of high-quality crystals to enhance her available energy but didn't bother to give any to Ezra, since he couldn't do much with them anyway aside from drain and re-fill them ad infinitum. Instead, he handed Ezra an alchemical pistol and a holster. Like most such pistols, it was a three-shot with spherical, brassy bullets the size of a shooter marble - in St. Arbalest, guns tended to go for impact rather than number of shots.

"Do you know how to shoot?" Lusha asked.

"Not well…"

Lusha checked the wall clock and his schedule. "Then you'd better practice. Meet me around back in an hour and a half and we'll cover the basics of shooting. Until then, practice loading and unloading."

Being at Mr. Teak's place was a bit like being in a very nice school where they taught you how to do magic- and criminal-adjacent things. He and Rill were the only full-time students at the moment, but Ezra got the feeling that he was being fast-tracked toward a more 'applied studies' position, as indicated by tomorrow's trip to Fenrik's place. And, beyond the two of them, criminal-adjacent people were constantly stopping by, such as Lusha's borrenkin beau Zigna, who'd showed up in need of a healing decoction and two bullets extracted from her bark. Courtesy of Stomen Blose's men - she didn't shy away from that bit at all, though she didn't say what she'd done to deserve the slugs.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have somebody who already knows how to shoot a pistol doing the job?"

"Teak specified Ezra, and I'm sure he has his reasons… if the boy fails, I'm certain we'll ask you to take a crack at it."

Ezra was pretty sure he knew the reasons, though: Teak and Lusha didn't want anybody who didn't already know to discover whatever Fenrik had done to summon Rill and himself to Medias. Literally anybody else… anybody who didn't already know and didn't already have Fenrik as a sworn enemy… would be a serious liability if they took so much as a glance at whatever those plans showed. If Teak had the slightest doubt, he would probably kill that person… but Ezra fascinated the man, which meant he was safe. Safe from Teak, at least. Because the second reason was that, if he got caught, Teak could deny any involvement. People would assume it was simply a case of a runaway infernic returned for revenge, and Teak would leave Ezra to his fate.