Sechen stepped over the splinters that used to be the door to her room, a wall of opaque glass slid off to the side acting as a temporary seal to give her at least a semblance of privacy. Not that she’d ever sleep in this hotel again.

She shuddered at the hazy memories of her headspace that had followed Revel’s disappearance, fading back into reality only once Elach had busted down the door then run off to get help. She felt bad for how she’d accused him in retrospect, but also knew that she hadn’t been completely wrong in suspecting Elach. He was still hiding something. And how did he manage to sneak that bird in?

“It looks nicer than the last time I saw it.” Metea/Irric offered as she looked around the room. “At least they managed to get all the stains out.”

“So their cleaning crew is top-notch. Big whoop.” Sechen said with a shrug. “Doesn’t make up for the fact that their security’s garbage.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Metea/Irric agreed, walking to the bed and picking at the sheets. She frowned at what she saw, going straight to the other bed. “These haven’t been slept in. Where did you go last night?”

“Slept in a cot at the clinic. That snake really did recommend the best.” Sechen said, remembering the two women who had nursed her back to health ahead of schedule. “Were you there when they said it’d take me two days at least to recover?”

“I was.”

“Well, that’s the truth.” Sechen said, rubbing at the back of her sore neck. “My Issi might be in tip-top shape, but the rest of me’s running on fumes. Can barely control my own damned arm.”

“But you won’t rest while Revel’s out there somewhere?” Metea/Irric asked innocently.

Sechen paused, grimaced for a split second, then pulled her mouth into a tight line. “Damn right.”

“Well, I don’t think we’re going to get very far here.” Metea/Irric sat down on the bed, lying down and stretching out. “If they obscured you, someone who probably saw them for the longest time, then anyone who might have seen them for just a fleeting moment won’t remember anything.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Sechen asked, sitting down on the bed next to Metea/Irric. “Elach didn’t have any ideas, but that’s no big surprise.”

“We wait for Elach, then go asking around the training grounds. If someone actually captured Revel to use as a prize in the trials, that’s where any rumors would spread first.” Metea/Irric answered. “Unless whoever captured her’s not going to use her as a prize.”

“You just want to wait for Elach.” Sechen said with a frown. “He told me what happened this morning, and I don’t know why in the hells he’s still here with you. I would’ve run for the hills the second you gave me time on my own.”

“Why would he do that?.” Metea/Irric asked in obvious confusion. “It’s not like I eavesdropped on his conversation with the snake, butted into his problem with you, and told him how weak he was compared to me. And then tied him up with Rainshear and interrogated him… Eternals, that doesn’t sound good, does it?”

“No, it does not.” Sechen laughed, slowly tapering off into silence. “But I get why he’d want to stay. Helping Rainshear out is pretty important.”

“Yeah, it really is.” Metea/Irric agreed in slight confusion. She shook her head and forced a smile, which became real after a moment of glassiness behind her eyes.

Sechen grimaced at the silence, feeling like she should be filling it with more questions, but unable to form them. Instead, she fell back into small talk. “Elach slept at your place last night, right? How’d he handle coming down from the existential bleed high?”

“Oh, he didn’t. He just got stronger overnight.” Metea/Irric said with a wave of her hand. “Met with his patron in some kind of pocket dimension slash headspace and trained to the point most apprentices would be when they’re as old as us. Well, mostly you, since I’m only half that old.”

Sechen stared blankly at Metea/Irric. “Now, I wasn’t there when that happened, but I’m pretty sure that was supposed to be a secret.”

“See? I did it again, and I didn’t even realize it.” Metea/Irric groaned. “I told Rainshear about everything that happened last night without even asking you or Elach if that was supposed to be a secret.” She put her hands over her face and shook her head. “I don’t have a filter for these kinds of things. It’s like… I want someone to be on the same page as I am, so we can talk freely, but I don’t stop to think that maybe they don’t want me sharing what I know. It almost doesn’t feel like my own voice talking sometimes.”

“Hey, at least it only extends to Rainshear and your friends. If you went and blabbed some of the secrets you know to anyone else, things would be a lot worse.” Sechen pushed herself off the bed. “And I know you can keep some secrets. The really important ones.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” Metea/Irric threw her hands into the air. “How long until I absentmindedly tell Elach your big secret, or you his? It’d be better if everyone stopped trusting me with secrets.”

“Well, I won’t tell Elach that you told me how he got stronger.” Sechen assured Metea/Irric.

“No. but I will.” Metea/Irric sighed, pushing herself into a sitting position. “The longer he goes without knowing, the angrier he'll be when he eventually finds out. And I should tell him how my mouth outspeeds my brain sometimes, so he doesn’t confide anything too important to me.”

“If that’s what you think is best.” Sechen said with a shrug, gesturing at the door. “Let’s go see if anyone on this floor heard anything.”

“How can nobody have heard anything?” Sechen said exasperatedly, throwing her arms into the air. And hopping forward to catch the one that actually flew off. “I know the rooms are soundproofed, but the door got busted down right away. Someone had to have been in the hallway while the fight went down.”

“You’d be surprised.” Metea/Irric said, running her hand along the slick glass wall. “Whoever obscured you might have made sure nothing, not even sound or light, left your room while they attacked you.”

“Whatever. Let’s go check the park. Maybe someone down there heard or saw something.”

As Sechen stepped down into the stairwell, Metea/Irric settled into a comfortable silence that let Sechen know she was thinking deeply about something. She figured it probably had something to do with Elach since Metea/Irric had a tendency to latch onto anyone who gave her the time of day. Like a ten-year old who found a new friend at school.

As they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Sechen pushed open the door to a huge crowd. Manifestations, patrons, and apprentices alike swarmed the lobby like a fire to dry brush, threatening to spread into all the nearby rooms if so much as a gust of wind came by. Sechen nudged Metea/Irric to get her attention, and she looked around the room in confusion.

“What’s got them so riled up?” Metea/Irric asked.

“I dunno. Maybe a big school decided to come to the glacier this year?” Sechen suggested. But she knew that was wrong the moment she saw all the diverse markings and manifestations.

“No, that’s not it. See the body language of most of the patrons?” Metea/Irric pointed at specifically a bear-like figure that almost looked like someone wearing a bear’s pelt, except there was nothing beneath them. “They’re on edge. Not annoyed, but worried or scared about whatever’s causing all this.”

“That’s not good.” Sechen muttered. “First Revel and I get attacked, now whatever’s happening here? Something’s up.”

“That’s probably an understatement.” Metea/Irric said with a frown. “I think… at least a few of these people are wisp manifestations, Sechen.”

“Oh, Eternals no.”

“The Eternals have nothing to do with this.” Metea/Irric strode forward into the crowd weaving through people as if they weren’t even there. “C’mon. We need to get to the park. I can hear screams coming from there.”

“Alright.” Sechen said, falling in behind Metea/Irric without any of the grace she’d shown moving through the crowd. “Do you think someone’s been hunting wisps?”

“I hope not. But what I hope doesn’t change what’s real.” Metea/Irric said, shoving aside a manifestation that refused to move. “These people are terrified. It’s even more obvious up close. And whatever’s doing it might be in that park.”

Sechen somehow got ahead of Metea/Irric, much to her own surprise, pushing through the last of the crowd and revealing a clear shot to the park. Where chaos had broken loose. The ground was littered with what Sechen hoped were unconscious bodies, but by the rainbow of different fluids that were pooling under them, she had very little faith in her hopes.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Sechen asked as she felt Metea/Irric come up beside her.

“If you’re seeing a whole lot of death, then yes. I’m seeing what you’re seeing.” Metea/Irric said as she surveyed the area with a grim expression. “Go check for any pulses, and drag them out of the way if you find one. I’ll cover you in case anyone breaks off to attack us.”

“Alright. Don’t let me die.” Sechen said half-sarcastically, bringing her Issi to the forefront of her mind and running over to the nearest body.

It was clad in black robes tinted with bright yellow, and she couldn’t tell what the person inside of it was supposed to be. It looked like a child’s scribble of a person had been given three dimensions. The colour of their irises bleeding out into the whites of their eyes like ink into water, with a deformed head that seemed to be shaped around tumors and a perfectly circular patch of hair directly on the top of their head. Sechen prepared for them to jump up at her as she held one of their long, too-many-knuckled fingers between two of her own, shining light through it to check their pulse.

“This one’s dead. Or doesn’t need a heartbeat to live.” Sechen whispered, knowing that her words would find their way to Metea/Irric no matter how softly she spoke. Air practitioners had a bad habit of eavesdropping.

“Most of the bodies are dressed alike.” Metea/Irric whispered directly into Sechen’s left ear, even though she stood at least ten feet away. “Black robes with a splash of bright colour. There’s no way these people weren’t the attackers.”

Sechen checked a handful of other bodies, nine out of ten of which wore similar clothes to the first one she’d checked. All of them save for the one unique body had another two things in common; they looked as poorly constructed as the first body, and they were as dead as dead can be. Sechen carried the wounded outlier out of the park and into the waiting vines of one of the two doctors who’d treated her last night, who gave her an appreciative nod and got to work on the horribly wounded apprentice.