Maybe it was just too much to hope for that I'd have a quiet Oneday after the weekend I just got away from. I sighed regretfully and headed downstairs, walking out to the student center for breakfast. I let myself wrap up in my thoughts while I walked. I need to make another appointment with Digger Jdim for the supplies for the tomb-robbing mission with Kurumi. Shopping for supplies for the demolition job for Quoissi Eyellon. It's getting close to time to kill the Cachexia, but I'll get better reception if I bring the magisters in on that. I should send word to them about that. But first I really need to get in touch with Lady Hanje. She's going to need a lot of -
Oh bugger.
I sighed, and gave my brother a wave. He was standing out in front of the building, clearly waiting. And staring at me. Inside, I started tensing up. Gods what would it be? The transformation last night? The forged papers and the break-in? Is he pissed that I went on a treasure hunt without him? The goddamned dunk tank? What?
To be extremely explicitly clear: last night I drew on my affinity to his essence, and shapeshifted myself into him. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only person who has ever used sorcery to become another person. It cannot be done with scrivening or wizardry. Certainly not the healing arts. The body of clay technique could technically?... sorta?... but only at a superficial level. When I did it, I also acquired his skills, his knowledge, his perspective and memories. For that time, I very actually was not me at all, I was a second Nathan, following my will. For many many reasons, it is critically important that nobody finds out that I did this. Not the least of which was because I immediately used his abilities to commit a burglary and other crimes. Some pretty serious ones. And now I'm being confronted. The guilty conscience is immediately in overdrive.
"Morning Nathan," I said, as noncommittally as I could.
He was giving me a strange look, like he was assessing me but he wasn't sure for what he should be looking. Which made me self-conscious, and made him suspicious. Finally he spoke, and let me off the hook. "I got a letter today. Sisa Wellen quit? She said that you and I are going to be managing affairs in the city now."
Well, obviously this is a big relief after I've been plotting more murders. "Oh, right. She was a traitor and last night was the first chance I've had to fire her without some sort of reprisal."
Shock rocked him back. "When did she betray us?"
"We-e-ell," I said sardonically, just a little cheeky, "for one thing, on our twelfth birthday."
The surprise flicked over his face and then realization, anger, understanding, and then curiosity and suspicion again. Face journey! He understood that his and my twelfth birthday, the last birthday we celebrated together, was the day of the fire. He processed his way through that, and then had a follow up question. "Why did you leave her in place for all these years? Why wasn't she part of your revenge spree?"
"What, you think I haven't thought about that?" I snapped. "I couldn't root out just one traitor close to home, without setting off all the others. They would either dig in, or they would start selling us out while they still had the chance. I can't give them a reason to feel desperate until I had a way to actually get rid of them. And at that time, twelve years old and far from home, I had no way to do that. I was not going to chase down every single Meadwhite and burn their-"
"The Meadwhites?" he said, frowning. "They're our cadet house. They've been our closest allies since-"
"Since they figured out how to take our money and funnel it straight to their real leader, the last Duke Meadwhite."
"Oh be serious, there hasn't been a Duke Meadwhite since they were last a Central House, and that was over a hundred-"
"He's a lich."
He stared at me. "This just keeps getting more and more outlandish! What exactly is going on?!"
I jabbed him in the chest, suddenly flushed with frustration and anger. "I told you to investigate. There are clues, information, you had routes for information. You had your own ideas. Why weren't you at the Fashion Week event?! You'd have been caught up with everything! You could have helped! What have you even been doing lately?!"
"I was there!" he protested. "I went with Curigi! We saw the whole show, drank the punch, everything!"
"Curigi?" I said. "Why did you go with her?"
He stared at me like I was pretending to be stupid. "... Because I like her?" he said.
Oh gods he's fifteen years old.
"So you took her on a date, to Fashion Week," I said.
"Right," he said. "And they said the main building is reserved, so she would have to go around to the annex building. We got to see the same show but in a different order. Each designer would do a full production for each crowd, but we -"
"She was sent to the annex building," I interrupted. "And you?..."
"Well, I went with her! What was I supposed to do, send her to go alone?"
"Yes!" I almost yelled, my hands flapping in front of me. "Of course! Or better yet, use your pull to bring her in anyway! Like you did with Freckentop back at the saint's feast!"
He chuckled, just a little lopsided smile. "I thought you hated when I do that. Now you're endorsing it?" It's weirdly disarming. And I was used to seeing him use that rueful chuckle and quirked smile to defuse a stressful conversation. This time it just pissed me off.
"For bringing a Freckentop into our affairs?" I managed to keep my voice down. It was strained, but not loud. "Yes, I hated that! But by all means, it's better than you abdicating Fashion Week to go sit in the bloody annex building with the baronets and the unranked officers and the merchants!" And this was when something connected in my head. If he had been flirting with Lachel this week, he'd have been at the main gala with us. Instead, he was in the annex building with Curigi. Was this why Lachel had been so upset with me on Sixthday? She thought that I'd pushed Nathan away from her and ruined her relationship?
This is potentially hilarious. She thinks I've got some personal feud with her, and I drive a wedge between her and my brother. She confronts me in the bathroom. I'm actually driving that wedge in because her parents are killing so many of the people I'm partially responsible for. She gets upset and confronts me at a party because of high-school dating drama. The very next day I'm using one-of-a-kind magic to break into the administration building and send Skeici Gianwen to a new class for my indirect assassination attempt.
I'm bringing black-ops assassination methods up against kids that wanna hold hands in math class. Meanwhile, apparently Nathan thinks the big concern here is that I'm trying to act too adult and too aristocratic.
He shook his head. "I didn't expect this from you. That kind of elitism? That's never been your style. I thought you'd be proud that I rejected the snob-fest so I could spend time with someone I have authentic feelings for! You've always been more down-to-earth and humble like that! You get along better with the villagers at Skydown than you do with any of the sophisticates of the upper-crust here, why are you working so hard to fit into their game? I know that's not who you really are, Natalie."
I felt myself wilting. He was giving me the appeal-to-humble-egalitarianism speech. It's so earnest and modest and heroic, and it's exactly the kind of thing I like about Nathan, but now he's telling me that he's disappointed in me for putting on airs and entirely missing the crucial point.
"Nathan," I said with as steady a voice as I could find, "if I don't participate in the upper-crust society, then the humble and honest hoi polloi of Hearstwhile won't have anyone to represent them there. Did you think that by sitting over in the cheap seats you're doing some kind of favor for the people who can't get on the list for the main party?" He was taken aback, speechless. I took in his reaction, and now it's my turn to be disappointed. "Shit. You really did. I'm sorry, brother, but if your job as a leader takes you to the snobs and sophisticates, you go where the job leads. Making a principled display of rustic values is less important than getting into the room where decisions are made."
And now his smile is dawning. "Is that what you've been doing?" he said. "I thought being in Hearstcliff had just gotten into your head. The culture here, the people.. that's why I was so shocked that you were returning to Skydown Crossing for church! I was hoping to set a good example and get you to appreciate a simpler life, but - are you all right?"
"It's just a headache," I said, wincing. Thoughts racing, stress mounting. No wonder he's been paralyzing all his routes to a good second-act outcome. "Look, it's good that you're trying to be the 'man of the people'. Don't get me wrong. But you need to be building relationships and mingling with people who can help you going forward."
"Ah!" he said with a knowing wink. "But you see, that's what I've been doing! I met quite a lot of people last night, contacts and even some favors. Maybe it's not the high-ranking nobles and the owners, but I'm getting a lot of good associations with the people who do the real work and get things done! Valuable information, and useful positions. Much more important than just hobnobbing with the idle rich!"
He's been blowing off all the most important networking opportunities because he's got this romantic fantasy in his head about being the duke who has more in common with the peasantry than the peerage. The reason he's been shirking all the social opportunities was that he wants to prove himself as a folk hero and not just an heir to fortune. I let this knowledge absorb, while I dragged my hand down my face.
"Are you all right?" he said. "I mean, really. That looks like a pretty bad headache."
It's a good thing I wasn't feeling guilty about Princess Lachel. "Let me bring you up to speed. Sisa Wellen helped the Meadwhites and their lich to burn our house down. Yesterday I was able to fire all of them at once and cut them out of our affairs without doing any more damage on the way out. Cousin Petty and Cousin Bruce are going to be handling the day-to-day of Harigold business in the city. You may get called in to sign off on bigger decisions. Also, the cranberry blight was started by a necromancer hired by the royal family, the king and queen. It's one of the main reasons that they were already squeezing us with a trade war for the past few years, to tie up our reserves and resources so this pestilence would cripple us."
"Wait, what?!"
"I don't have time this morning, Nathan. I'll catch you up during homeroom." I started stalking off in a huff.
Why did he even corner me outside of the dining hall anyway? He has to know we're going to see each other in homeroom for almost an hour. He can't be that eager to learn about Sisa Wellen. I tossed my hair as I walked into the dining hall and headed for the serving line. And then my pace slackened off. I slowed. I stopped. I thought a bit, and then I thought a bit harder, and then I turned around.
The door slammed open at the push of my hand. "Why did you really want to talk?" I demanded.
My scowl must have been really something, but he did not flinch from it. "I told you, there was-"
"No," I said. "This is not about whether you tell a story well. This is about telling a story I can believe. You did not know that anything important had happened until I told you. But you wanted to talk now, instead of homeroom. Why?"
He gave me a bland and unimpressed face. Suddenly inscrutable, reacting to my suspicion. "You're always busy in homeroom, Natalie. And so am I. This was the best chance I had." Using a very reasonable tone of voice, just a little too deliberately so. Trading credibility for deniability, now that I was aggressively questioning, he was switching to non-answers instead of rebuttals.
I glared, and he allowed a small faint smile. Either he had told me the truth and I was acting like an ass for nothing, or he had something he was hiding and nothing I did was going to rattle him into revealing it. Maybe he was just trying to rattle me and see how I'd react. Maybe I'm acting suspicious. But I'm pretty sure he's up to something.
Or I'm making something out of nothing. Which face is real? Which reactions are trustworthy? I'm getting mixed messages for different reasons and even after I've literally had his mind for a few hours I still don't know what's real with him.
I narrowed my eyes but I headed back inside. Something is definitely up. He's acting off. I'm not going to let myself be distracted now.
From behind, his voice again. "Do you know what your problem is, Natalie?"
I whirled on him, this time pushed past all politeness. "What?!" I snapped.
He stood straight, shifted his shoulders. "I didn't think so," he said, and walked away. I have the most infuriating brother in the world.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Two sheets of paper folded, in an envelope. We're outside of the dining hall, finished up lunch early. The easiest time of day for me to brace him about paying off his debts to me. Yheta glanced them over, and put them back in the envelope, and the envelope into the deep square pockets of his navy-blue peacoat. "Seems simple enough," he said. "Don't suppose you've got any tips that would pay off faster? My folks like doing favors for people that have already made money for them."
Even after weeks like this I still need to immerse the essence of clay to slow my temper. I let out a tense exhale, unclench my jaw.
"Yheta, this is part of our deal. After you killed my cousin. You're just delivering your side of the bargain."
"It was an accident," he pointed out. He still sounded very put-upon. He spent days cringing like a kicked puppy because I was mad at him, but now that I need him to pay off part of his debt he's acting like his guilty conscience has already paid his share.
"A seat at the table, and connections to your connections," I said, holding his eyes with a glare. He tried to glance away nonchalantly, and I moved back into his eyeline, and this time I let the daggers show in my eyes. "We've already had a deal. You already owe me. Don't ask me to sweeten it further right now."
He huffed, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Surely you've got some kind-"
And he was right, I did. I knew all kinds of information that could strike huge profits for his network of smugglers, thieves and culprits. But all of them come at the expense of Meadowtam and its citizens, so that's a hard no.
"This pays dividends next year," I told him. "That's not long. Your uncle's associates are very used to putting in investments that pay out after a calendar year."
He sucked his teeth, and tried to glance away again. "Sure. They are. For him. But I'm not him, and I'm still establishing myself. I can't really ask for anything without giving something."
"You could set up a hit against my family but you can't get storage depots moved?"
And he's looking uncomfortable again, ducking into his collar. "I lost a lot of clout over how that went down. I took the blame for those mistakes."
They were his mistakes. Also, he still hasn't figured out why he was wrong to even try to kill my family members.
"Are you telling me that I need to help you get your clout back before you can set up these depots?" I asked, keeping my voice very level, very calm.
"Well, I'm saying it would help..." he hedged.
Unbelievable. "Yheta, I'm going to help you." He brightened up. "I'm going to make you solve your own problems this time." He sagged dispiritedly. I did not stop. "I'm not going to prop you up. This needs to be something you solve on your own, with your own hard work and talent. I think that you won't get your confidence back until you are able to stand on your own accomplishments. That's the biggest favor I can do for you right now."
[ Quest Failed: Clout of Sorts. ]
He sighed deeply.
"You've got my map, and my list," I told him. "Just get those supplies moved, and you'll be the hero this time next year."
"Fine," he sighed.
"Good. I'll see you at dinner bell, all right? But I've just spotted someone else I need to talk to."
He wished me well, I said goodbye, and then I whisked up alongside my next appointment. I fell into step alongside the girl. "Gala-" I started.
"HOLY SHIT," she yelled, quite unnecessarily, leaping away from me. Her bookbag thudded to the ground and she gasped for air, palms pressed to her chest. I'm having all the worst conversations today.
"Very funny," I said, and levitated her bookbag back up so she could take hold of it again. "I need some more work from you. Not a big rush, but I wanted to get to you early before it becomes a rush."
"Lady Natalie," she said, still not quite standing up straight. "Ah, ha, what- you're- ha, what do you need?"
"I need measuring tools," I said. "Something to find stone density, and something else to find the distance to solid surfaces. High precision, if you can get it."
"Sure," Gala said. "How?"
"How?"
"Yeah, how would you like that to work?"
I was slightly taken aback but not much. "Um, like a wand or something that I can point in a specific place and it would light up a display that tells me what the distance is?"
She grimaced. "I can get the sigils to to define that distance or that density. But communicating that back? The main way to get information from sigilry is by having them light up. Like your thumb ring. They're good at doing stuff- warded walls, mana blasts, helping crops, killing insects, warming or cooling. But you want me to make something that... I dunno, lights up thirty times if it's thirty inches away?"
"Maybe one set of ten sigils for the ones place and another set for the tens-" I started. I'm pretty sure that programming the sigils to do that would be unreasonably hard because her eyes went wide open like I'd just jumpscared her again. "Or, not," I suggested.
She shuddered. "Why don't I just do something simple, like make a pair of wands that light up when they're exactly twenty feet apart from each other?"
"Make it fifty feet and you've got a deal," I told her.
She blew out a relieved sigh. "That's much better. The kind of work you'd be asking for..."
"So I guess there's no sigil that takes information from another sigil and modifies it?" I asked.
She shrugged. "How would we know if there was? Not the kind of thing anyone would discover on their own."
"Wait, sigils are ... discovered? Not created?"
She didn't actually say "Duh?" but her face did the job for her.
So the power of sigils is something that just... occurs, if you use the right technique. And you can't design new ones. Looks like funky magic writing powers are not going to replace computers in this setting. I was kinda looking forward to some cool magitech stuff.
But ultimately, I guess that's what magic is. It does its own thing in its own way and it doesn't need your understanding or permission. It's just gonna keep being magic.
Speaking of-
"Oh, and Gala?" I paused. "Is there a way to store mana and access it later?"
She snrrrked a stifled laugh. She wiped her eye and suppressed a laugh. "Sorry, that's one of the oldest jokes in sigil-working, there's always someone who claims that they've found a way to replace mana potions and it's always a hoax or a delusion. Funny that you just mentioned it on your own."
I sighed. "Dammit. I really wanted a way to bank my mana for when I need it. How hard is it to make a mana potion?"
"I'm in sigils. Find an alchemist to yell at you when you ask them that question."
A few more questions in: No, there's no alchemists on campus. No, there's no alchemy classes on campus. Yes, the reason is exactly what you think. It would be criminally irresponsible to have such a thing in a boarding school. I sent her on her way, and I went on my own.
She's okay. Sometimes snarky, sometimes dorky, sometimes helpful. She never really seems to settle in any kind of reaction, and I can never really get a read on her. Still, I'm gonna be really disappointed to lose her help when I murder her mother. But, some things just really have to happen, and Grade Kralcit needs to die at my hands.