In the corner of the dingiest tavern in Reefcliff she could find, Carmine sat jotting the bare essentials of a plan. She'd not returned to the tower in days, despite it being just a walk across town. She couldn't go back, not yet. She needed some time to process what happened. What she'd done.

She killed someone. Some would call what she did murder. Maybe they'd be right. In the days since she returned, the headman's empty eyed stare lingered in her mind. It didn't haunt her, as she thought it might. Part of her knew she should be horrified by what she did, taking a life, but in place of those thoughts, she just remembered how he'd wronged Carmine's family, and discovered: she could live with it. She killed him, sure, but after everything he did, that didn’t bother her one whit. The fact that it didn’t bother her did bother her. Carmine didn’t consider herself the best person, but neither was she the worst. Killing shouldn’t be an easy thing. It shouldn’t.

What really stuck in her mind was what she did to her parents. By the ancients, she hoped they weren’t too aware when the spell went wrong. The horrified souls in their bodies clawed desperately for life. Hopefully it was just a bad dream to them, if the dead dreamt at all. Mother and Father deserved better, and she'd give them that, if she could. The only matter was how.

Leval tower was one of the major magical authorities in the empire, and she had the good fortune to be a student. She doubted she could just waltz in and start researching forbidden magic, but as a starting point, it gave her better access than most. It's no hidden lair, though; she’d have to keep her work quiet.

Which meant lying to the people closest to her.

That really bothered her, but…there was no other way. Her circle couldn't be complicit in her deed. She wouldn't allow it. They’d understand why Carmine was doing what she planned, and they’d try to talk her out of it, or worse, they’d try to help. This would be a lonely affair, but as a traveling witch that is pretty close to what she studied to do.

Rattling armor plates called her attention to the opening tavern door as Carmine snapped her notebook shut. A single exorcist walked inside, stilling her heart cold in her chest. Had they found out already? She pulled her gloves tighter and clasped her hands together, waiting patiently as the exorcist surveyed the room. As his eyes landed on Carmine she readied a dozen possible spells in her head for a confrontation; anything from transmuting his armor to a heavier metal, or a sunburst to blind him for time. With her options ready she waited as he approached her table.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Jordan said, lifting his helmet’s visor. His beard finally grew patchless. He looked at the several bottles lined on Carmine’s table and cocked his head. “Did I miss a party?

“No,” She replied, her curtness flinching the exorcist. She pushed the bottle aside, hoping her breath didn’t reek too much of alcohol.

“This is all you?” Jordan shook his head with an impressed huff. “Remind me never to challenge you to a drinking contest.”

“Why are you here?” Carmine asked.

“Bit touchy today?” Jordan glanced to the side, shifting uncomfortably. “I was looking for you, and heard someone matching your description was over here. Your circle said you’d been missing for a few days. They’re worried about you.” He glanced back at the bottles. “They got a reason to be?”

Carmine huffed a long, weary sigh. Of course. She stood up for the first time in hours, unsteady on her feet. Shoving the table out from her path, she headed towards the door. “Back to the tower, then.”

“Uh, right.” Jordan followed after, plates clinking as he rushed to keep up.

Carmine emerged from the dank interior. Wincing she lifted her hand against a sun she hadn’t seen in days, her mood fouled further. Jordan marched up beside her. Nowadays, Carmine stood taller than him even in full armor, but they were still eye level to each other; the perfect height for Carmine to see his concerned frown shifting her way every other second.

“Fallout with old family.” She told him, not turning to meet his eyes.

“Oh.” He gave an exaggerated nod, as if he understood. “Problems with Sir Nicholos?”

“No. Other family. The kind that sells you out to an angry mob and gets your parents killed.”

“Oh.” Jordan’s eyes widened as he realized he did not, in fact, understand. "Yeah…uh, Tera mentioned something like that with the archive’s journal-" Carmine snapped her head towards him. "-you know what, forget I said anything."

"I don't need to be reminded of all that right now," Carmine said, only half a lie. In that little slip, she recalled an earlier truth Jordan let loose years passed. On her first day at Leval, when she met him again, he mentioned a vault.

Arcane knowledge resided in Leval's walls, as any academy held, but few others had exorcists patrolling the halls. No guard protected burnt books; they kept them stored. What profane, indestructible secrets did they hide, trusted to the Leval family? More importantly: where?

Carmine walked back to the tower, finger to her chin in thought the whole way. If Jordan thought it strange, and he probably did, he said nothing. Good, the less anyone involved themselves with her, the better.

"Thanks for finding me," she gave the standard pleasantries. "I'd better get back to my circle."

"They are pretty worried," Jordan agreed. He scratched the back of his neck, words on the tip of his tongue. "If you, uh, want to talk to someone, someone who’s a bit more of a stranger, I guess, just…let me know? Or you can forget I put my foot in my mouth, either is fine."

Carmine narrowed her eyes. He probably just wanted to help, but she couldn't help some suspicion, given what she intended. "Sure, Jordan," she answered. "Maybe I will."

"Right. Good." Jordan pointed behind him. "I've got some patrols to do. See you later."

Carmine stepped inside without another word. She found the nearest lift and through the whole ride up she thought about what she could say to her circle. She didn't want to lie to them, but the truth couldn't be shared. As for what she would say, no answer came by the time she opened the door.

The clicking doorknob destroyed any hope of slipping in quietly, and before she even stepped in the room, Carmine felt eyes on her. Kay stepped close first, her hands shaking as she signed before giving up half-way through the question and pulling Carmine into a hug. She felt a tremble through her friend's arm in the moments before she pulled away.

"Where have you been?" Adelaide asked, her tone exasperated, yet relieved. "You disappeared with no warning for days!"

"We thought something bad might have happened to you," Emmet added. "Almyra told us you came back late after you left with your cousin, but then you vanished."

"We didn't know what to think." Xander finished. "Your…attitude felt off when we separated."

"I needed some time alone," Carmine gave a vague explanation. "My cousin, well he's fine, but his dad, my uncle," Carmine motioned to the scarred side of her face, "he did this."

"I..see." Adelaide stepped back, giving Carmine a path to the dorm lounge. "So…the bad kind of reunion."

"I laud your grasp of the understatement." Carmine retorted. She moved towards the lounge, dropping onto the most comfortable couch she needed after days of uncomfortable bar stools. As she looked around she noticed the circle's resident faun absent from the dorm.

"Where's Almyra?" She asked.

'Out there, looking for you.' Kay signed.

"Even though the exorcists and tower staff said they'd handle the search, she insisted on going anyway," Adelaide explained.

"We were looking too, but," Emmet started, though a look of guilt passed his face. "We stopped after they took over. We…the exams are getting closer and-"

"It's fine Emmet." Carmine eased his conscience. "I should be the one to apologize. I wasted your time. I should have left a note."

"And now?" He asked. "Do…you want to talk about what happened?"

Carmine shifted in her seat, crossing legs and folding her arms. Her uncle's mewling face, cut with glass, and the headman's burning home stood fresh in her mind. "No, I'd…prefer something more normal for the moment. You said final exams are close?"

“We finally have a date for them,” Adelaide said, pulling out her notebook. “They’re next at the end of the mouth, over the course of a week with each circle member having their own specific day. We take our trials independently, and we don’t have the details of what exactly we’ll be tested on, only that all our skills will be examined.”

“Just two week? Great," Carmine grumbled. "We don't know what they're testing specifically, only that everything might be tested. Sorry I picked such a shit time to be a problem-"

"Hey, no apologies needed," Xander wagged his finger. "If you needed time alone then it's what you needed. It's not like we were just sitting around while you were gone."

"Fair enough, Xander." Carmine wished he'd be less reasonable; It made lying all the harder. "If it's all the same to you I wouldn’t mind a bit of studying."

"We were planning to use the tower's library," Adelaide offered a welcome distraction. "I'll send a message to Almyra to meet us there."

"Good idea," Carmine inwardly winced. She would be harder to work around. She knew what happened years ago in Rieland, and had a frustrating way of getting Carmine to talk. "I'll just drop some things off in my room. No need to wait, I'll catch up in a minute."

"Not going to portal out this time I hope." Adelaide smirked.

"Not this time." Carmine smiled as she shut her door. She dragged a tense sigh from her lungs the moment the door closed. At least they believed her, for now. She moved over to her desk, plucking a small puzzle cube from its surface. Rearranging its blocks, she opened a gap in its center leading to an impossibly large space within; her own arcane safe. She couldn't risk her notes being found by anyone, and as much as keeping them close at all times would be a comfort, that seemed to ask for trouble. She dropped the hand drawn necromantic sigil inside, along with her observations from the ritual itself and sealed them away for the moment. She placed the cube back on her desk and cast an illusion over it, making it appear no more than a small horse statue. With that away, she tried to get a grip on her thoughts. Stop thinking like Carmine, the dark mage, and just be Carmine, the student. She had time to think a plan through, not rush-

Three knocks at the door interrupted her ruminating. She inched closer, ready for any potential confrontation as she pulled the door open a crack. She relaxed when she saw Emmet. He fidgeted, but straightened up when he saw Carmine had answered.

"Emmet, what's wrong?" Carmine opened the door wider. He stood alone, the others stepped away. "I told you I'd be right out. You didn't have to wait."

"Yeah…Adelaide told me you probably needed space right now…but this was sort of a private thing."

"And it is…about what exactly?"

"About what I told you before, at the pier before…well, you disappeared. I just wanted to apologize, it wasn't fair to dump that on you, and-"

"It's fine Emmet. Honestly, I wouldn't mind helping with someone else's problems right now." Truth be told, she hadn't thought about what he said until that moment, but…she remembered how he wanted to impress his parents. Maybe, as shitty as the thought made her feel, there was an opportunity there for both of them. "I…actually had an idea, Emmet."

"That's dangerous," he joked, closer to the truth than he realized. "What is it?"

"If you want to impress your parents and the tower staff, just showing what they expect you to know won't cut it. We need to do something beyond the usual student trial."

"You sure about that? Leval is the best institute of magic in the nation. This test is already plenty advanced-"

"For normal sorcerers, sure, but we're not just normal sorcerers. You are going to be the next headmaster." As much as she wanted to help and motivate Emmet, the thought of manipulating him tainted the words bitter on her tongue. "You…we could go beyond what they taught us. We could do more than just pass a test."

"OK." Emmet nodded with a shrug. "What did you have in mind?"

"Look, the library is great and all, but anyone at Leval can pull from the same tricks. Your parents have to have a restricted repository, right?"

Emmet immediately furrowed his brow. "Where are you going with this?"

"I'm not saying we do anything actually illegal," not you, at least, she thought, "But they have to have some books and guides locked away from students, higher magics, and whatnot. If we found something like that…” she left him to think of the possibilities.

Emmet cupped his chin. “They do have an advanced section for higher rank sorcerers. Usually you have to be a court sorcerer for a noble, or another authority figure to even request access."

"That's what I mean." Carmine grasped his shoulder with an excited shake. "We're practically sorcerers already, and I'd bet my favorite cloak we'll be promoted to higher ranks the moment we pass. We could advance our careers right out of the gate. You know this tower better than most, you know how to get around it."

Emmet's face scrunched inward as he delved deep in thought; humming, shaking his head, nodding before frowning again.

"This could backfire," he countered. "Being found out is one thing. It would take a lot of explaining, and we might be in hot water for a while, but honestly my parents would probably bail us out. Not exactly fair but," Emmet shrugged. "No, what if we choose something that's beyond our reach and…and it goes wrong. Instead of impressing people, I embarrass mysel-"

Carmine covered Emmet's mouth. "Emmet, please. You're the fucking heir to this tower, and not just by blood. You're going to be the master of it someday because you have the talent. I see it, and everyone else will too." Manipulation or not, that was no lie. "You can do this."

Carmine lowered her hand from his mouth, expecting another rebuttle. Instead,

"You know what, fuck it. Let's do it." Emmet agreed, standing straight and motivated. "I'll see about getting us in to look around. Should we…tell the others about this?"

"I don't…" Carmine pinched the bridge of her nose. "Adelaide's too much of a stickler to protocol, and Xander is annoyingly honorable sometimes. I…can talk to Aly and Kay, but-"

"It's fine," Emmet said. He clasped Carmine's hand in his own and he smiled. "I-I'm fine if it's just, uh, us. In fact, I-I like that idea."

Carmine's brain froze. Emmet's face flushed, and struggled to meet Carmine's eyes. Oh no.

"Right," She agreed despite her inner voice telling her to call it off now. "It will probably be easiest if we keep this between us."

"Then we have a deal." Emmet grinned wider. "But first we should probably catch up with the others so they don't think we've run off together this time."

"Yeah, I doubt they'd be so understanding a second time." Carmine replied, forcing a smile on her face. Her plan already hit its first hitch; one thing she could never plan for.

Feelings.

She and Emmet had been stealing glances at each other for a while now, but neither made any move. Carmine, at least, had no idea how. Now she'd gone and planted an opportunity between them, one Emmet would try to make work more than likely. If she stuck to her plan…she would use that against him whether she intended to or not.

Would she do that to him? Could she be that cold?

The image of the dead headman flashed behind her eyes, and she quickly pushed the thought aside.

She needed to get to the library. Everything else could wait.