It was not like awaking from a dream. Instead, Carryl felt like her entire body was sore. Every attempt to move was met with protest of pain and exhaustion. The first movement she managed was forward, but it was halted by bindings on her chest. Her eyes finally began to see again and she found herself in a spacious room. She saw a soft carpet and her hands bound together in her lap, her legs tied to the legs of the chair she was sitting on, her head heavy with the weight of iron, the sound of jangling chainmail next to her ears, the world seemed dull and without lustre and she knew the worked iron around her head was suppressing her magic gift.

The only light in the room came from a single light vial, standing on a wide, ornately carven wooden desk behind which she saw a familiar face. Professor Fesure.

“What is going on? Why am I tied up?”

Next to Professor Fesure stood Nannade, her body still wrapped in dark cloth and wearing the green hooded scapular but her head free. “Mademoiselle of House Dwyllaigh,” Professor Fesure addressed her with palms pressed together. “I am sorry for these circumstances, but it seems you became an unwitting witness.”

The word called to Carryl’s mind the event she had just witnessed. “Oh I sure did! I saw that Nannade is the thief and now I know you are in on the conspiracy. I should have known your secrecy had a reason, Nannade, feeding us those lies!”

Nannade and Professor Fesure shook their heads. “No, Mademoiselle, you misunderstand.”

Carryl tried to move but she remained bound in the chair. The large windows were blocked by black curtains; she could not turn to see the door. “What are you going to do with me? Silence me?”

Professor Fesure shook his head again. “Mademoiselle Dwyllaigh, I must tell you, that you have the wrong idea of what is going on here.”

Carryl tried to raise her hands to show them to the professor but found them not just tied to each other, but also the bindings on her legs and the chair. “In what way is my understanding of this wrong? You bound me and brought me here. Nannade is the burglar and you are in on it, it is not that hard to understand.”

The Professor stood up. “No. Nannade is not the thief.”

“But I saw her, sneaking through the alleys and threatening another stud-”

Nannade exploded from her angry composure. “HE WAS THE THIEF!” Carryl flinched together at the suddenness of it all. “AND YOU HELPED HIM ESCAPE YOU-”

The Professor raised a hand and Nannade fell silent, then he continued. “Mademoiselle Nannade is a highly appreciated specialist in investigations of crimes of magical nature. That is all I can tell you. And even that is more than anyone else can know. That is why we tied you. We need to have your agreement to not tell anyone. It could seriously impact her work and even endanger her if her cover was compromised, since her work and skill are valuable to the University, we value her cover equally.”

Carryl again tried to tear at her binds. “What agreement can there be? I am at your mercy.”

With a wave of his hand and a sharp look, the Professor dismissed Carryl’s bindings, a breadth of a hair away from Carryl’s skin she felt the magic work. Cut and frayed the bindings fell to the floor and all restraint was gone. Carryl could not help but rub her wrists as she stood up. She pulled the chain coif from her head, which caused it to tear quite a few of her hair out with it. With another wave of his hand, Professor Fesure opened the door at the end of the office.

“Go, leave this room, tell anyone you wish. But know that if you do not cooperate, we will not restrain ourselves in reporting you for casting unlicensed magic and entering the campus premises around the guard.”

A pulse of ice went through Carryl’s veins as her heart contracted in dread and the memory came to her. She looked to her hand. She had cast blood magic and was seen, this could mean her expulsion, her damnation by her own house and worst-

She had to stop for a moment. Her hands showed no signs of blood. The cut on her right hand was gone, all that was left was something like a bruise where it used to be. Did she just imagine that all? No, she remembered vividly the choir of her ancestors beseeching her. She had given in to the life force coursing through her own veins.

“Mademoiselle Carolinia?” The Professor’s voice returned her back to the moment at hand. “Do you understand the severity of your violation? You burned Mademoiselle Nannade’s vestments and we found fresh grain in your pockets. You may say it is your word against that of Mademoiselle Nannade, but I fully trust her testimony and so would any court, seeing as she has professional credentials to back it up.”

Carryl looked up to the Professor, then to Nannade, still standing stiff and attentive, but her eyes speaking words quite clearly. She knew what Carryl was thinking and advised her to agree with the Professor. Carryl did not know what web of conspiracy she had fallen in to, but she knew she was already wrapped in tightly. She swallowed, then answered. “Yes Professor. There will be no problem.”

The Professor’s face lit up with contentedness. “Very well then. I hope you fine young ladies can continue to get along. Now leave, you will need rest for your lectures tomorrow.”

The moment of dread still sat with Carryl while she walked to the door, thoughts of dishonour, expulsion, execution sucked deeply in her stomach as she walked down the stars by the feel of the handrail and finally found her way out through the door. Out on the campus, the silence and darkness pressed down on her. The lanterns were dimming, the hard stone walls cast long shadows from the light of the Salt Spire, how long she had been unconscious she could not guess.

A feeling of being watched pressed against the back of her head, but the windows to Fesure's office were on the other side of the tower. She looked around and again found nothing. She felt a hostility waiting for her on this campus now. She found a single drop of blood on the sleeve of her white student robes. It could not have been her imagination, it had happened, she had sinned.

Even in the disinterested looks of the guards, schemes and threats were lurking, eyeing her as she passed by and down to the scholar’s district. How far did this conspiracy go? Carryl averted her eyes and tried to act naturally.

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She returned to her room as quietly as possible. Merry did not seem to notice her late return and Carryl was glad for it. Her bed was far from inviting, more like a cell to confine her. Carryl had expected much worse consequences from casting bloodmagic, yet Professor Fesure seemed little disturbed by Carryl’s actions.

During her confusion, she saw something outside the window; it was Nannade. She held onto the windowsill with a single hand and pointed upwards with the other, beseeching Carryl with a pleading gaze. Carryl was still dazed, but the look on Nannade’s face made her recognize her friend. As if the events had been wiped away, she agreed with a nod and left the room for the roof.

It was likely after midnight, but Carryl did not care. It was not as if she would be able to sleep anytime soon anyway. The roof was her refuge, her vantage point above the city. She put a board into the hatch and looked to the side of the building where her room's window was. From there, a hand shot up from the edge, Nannade’s head followed a moment later.

“Thank you for coming.” Nannade said, smiled and pulled herself up onto the roof with a last heave.

Carryl moved a few more inches from the edge and turned her head back to the vista. The city lied there, indifferent to all that had happened. She turned back to Nannade and gave her a scowl to make it perfectly clear what she felt. “What do you want, valued professional?”

Nannade said nothing until she was just a few feet’s distance to Carryl, where she remained standing. “Please don’t hate me because of that back there. It is not something I chose.”

“Well, you chose to knock me out and drag me to the Professor.”

Nannade's face became angered. “I also chose to hide your wound and clean up the blood so he doesn't sentence you for blood magic on the spot.”

Again, ice flowed through Carryl’s veins, but this time, she suppressed her reaction. She would not be pressured. “Then it really was you who did do that. Why? So you can pressure me some more privately?”

Shock and regret appeared in Nannade’s voice. “What? No! I wanted to protect you!” But there was a feeling of a hungering gaze piercing Carryl’s heart from behind.

“That is not what your companion thinks. I do not know why, but I can feel her looking at me as if I was a helpless meal to be devoured whole and alive.”

A sigh escaped Nannade. “I was afraid you’d be able to tell. I don’t know why, but your inquisitive mind refuses to be fooled by Ssil's magic, at least partly. Be assured, Ssil's will have no say in this. Can we still be friends?”

Carryl was silent for a moment. “I do not know, Nannade, can we? Can we still be friends if you hold this kind of power over me?”

“No, Carryl, I told you, it is not like that. I want us to be true friends, I would never pressure a friend with that, I wanted to protect you!”

For Carryl, those few precious memories with the shy and honest crolachan she had befriended after such a rocky start wilted and turned bitter, then were replaced with a smirk, reptilian and hungering. “If you really wish to be my friend, Nannade, please be honest with me, just once.” She felt tears in her eyes as she said that. She had been fooled by words again, as if there was no difference to the nobles with their hollow etiquette.

The attention for what question Carryl was about to ask was almost palpable in every inch of Nannade’s demeanour. “Yes, absolutely.”

“Why are you here? If you are actually already a professional user of magic, valued so high by the academy, then why are you here? Is it all just part of your cover? Do you silently laugh at us when we talk about our academic aspirations, when we pay attention to the lectures and dread the coming exams? Are we just a joke to you?”

“No, Carryl, not at all. I have to acquire this degree just like you. Only then will I be allowed to take my own contracts as a professional, rather than what my superiors order me to. I’m a servant now, I wish to be my own master. In a way, what you got to see is the true me. The me I wanted to be but couldn’t. I couldn’t because for the last ten years, my only purpose was to be turned into this valued professional and to be ordered around. In a sense... In a sense, I was glad you caught me.”

“What?”

“I always wanted a true friend. Someone I could be honest to, I could talk to about... this.” She made a gesture towards her attire. “I couldn’t even...”

Nannade made an uncomfortably long pause. Carryl decided to actually turn around and saw her sitting down and inching closer to her.

Carryl decided to push on against Nannade’s silence. “You couldn’t even what?”

“I couldn’t even tell this to the person I loved. Everyone who ever knew about what I did was my superior. I just wanted someone I could see eye to eye.” Before her, Carryl saw a beaten and disappointed girl, bare of any pretension or demands, humiliated by more than just slavery. It was almost as if Nannade’s heart was naked before her, only a thin, loose cloth remaining in front of what would have been a clear view onto all of Nannade’s desires, wishes and – most importantly – fears. “I really wished to not have to lie to at least one person.” But something remained, an uncertainty, as if a lie was still wrapping her like a black cloth, another skin the fake snake was yet to shed, a desire or act that Carryl had not yet seen.

“Well...” Carryl was looking for words. “I guess you need not fear me ever telling anyone, at least. You got the leverage to make sure of that. You can keep being friends with Merry as you were, but I cannot guarantee that we can see eye to eye while you have this power over me. I really liked the fake you, Nannade.” She got up and turned to the hatch.

Carryl was already at the hatch when she heard Nannade. “What if I evened the scales?”

For a moment, Carryl halted. “What do you mean?”

“What if you could destroy me as I could destroy you?” She saw Nannade’s face a despair as deep as the night sky, her eyes pleaded with Carryl, to stay, to not leave, as if she was afraid of being alone, but she went on; she did not want to be fooled a single time more.

“By doing what? I already know that you are valued and Fesure already said that if it was my word against yours in a court, you would come out as the more believable party. I do not buy it, no.”

Nannade leaned forward, as if crawling towards Carryl, stretching out a pleading hand, who still stood at the hatch. “No, I assure you. But please, answer my question: do you think that we could still be friends? I know I cannot make what you did and I saw undone, but I can make it so you know, that I would never expose you because you could do even worse to me. Could we still be friends? Please tell me!” Nannade held her hands together as if praying, bent forward in prostration.

Her voice had struck deep within Carryl, she could not deny that, she did not want to leave that former friend of hers in this darkness. Maybe she could like the true Nannade equally as she had done the fake Nannade. “I guess it would put my mind at ease. Especially if that snake of yours understood the repercussions as well and will stop looking at me with those hungry eyes.”

Nannade reached beneath her wrappings and pulled the snake out, struggling and wriggling in her grasp. “I assure you, she will.” The snake raised her head and hissed at Nannade with angry eyes. “Whether she wants it or not.” Ssil hissed even louder, struggled, Carryl had never seen an animal as angry and hateful at a person, but in a battle between the two minds, the snake eventually relaxed and gave in.

“Well, what is it you wish to tell me?”

Nannade walked straight towards the hatch. “We’ll have to go inside; someone might actually see us up here.” Without a further word, she stepped down into the attic.

Carryl remained on the roof for a moment longer, looking around as if expecting to see someone peering over the edge of the roof, then she followed Nannade.