When Elise woke up, Penelope did as well, rolling out of bed, and grabbing her sword from the ground in one smooth motion. For a second, they were both tense, waiting for something to happen, and then a moment later, Maia stumbled out from the short hallway to the door, smelling strongly of liquor.

“Maia?” whispered Penelope.

Maia giggled, then burped. “Hiiiii.”

Penelope dropped her sword and rushed over to support the drunk girl, who had been teetering dangerously.

“Maia, how much did you drink.”

“Too-” Maia giggled again. “Too much.”

“C’mere, let’s get you to bed.”

“I’m shorry,” said Maia as Penelope gently walked her over to the other bed. “I didn’t mean to. I jusht- I jusht got a bit… carried away.”

“It’s fine,” said Penelope. “Just rest well so we can have a good day tomorrow.”

“Okayyy.”

At that moment, the strength left Maia’s legs, and she fell forward. Penelope, surprised, barely managed to catch her before she hit her head.

“Woahhh,” said Maia. “Whoopsies.”

Penelope quickly recovered and picked the other girl up and set her gently on the bed. Elise scrambled aside to make room, and then stopped to watch Maia lay down, her body limp as she stared up at the ceiling with a dreamy, drool-y smile. Elise recalled something she learned in college about it not being good to let a drunk person sleep on their back, since they could suffocate on their own vomit, and she was about to suggest rolling her onto her side when she had another idea.

She activated her wings and flew right above the bed. Below her, Maia’s eyes widened, and she reached up weakly, giggling. Then, Elise rained {Fairy Dust} down on her with sobering her up in mind. A moment later, Maia’s smile was fading, and another moment later, she brought her hands to her face.

“Fuuuuck,” she said.

“Feeling better?” asked Elise.

“Yeah,” Maia replied. “Sorry about that.”

Her speech was still a little slurred, but she was clearly doing much better, so Elise let up on the {Fairy Dust} and floated back down to the bed. She considered carrying on until Maia was fully sober, but stopped herself. They hadn’t even known each other for a day, and Maia was still suspicious. Elise had no idea what her motivations were, or why she wanted to go after the Blood Syndicate so badly. There were clearly personal stakes of some kind, and the best way to find them out would be to ask when alcohol had let down her inhibitions a bit. Part of her felt guilty about using Maia like that, but she pushed that part aside.

“Maia?” asked Elise.

“Yeah?” replied Maia, her hands still over her face.

“Why do you want to go after the Blood Syndicate so badly?”

Elise noticed Penelope straighten up when she said that, clearly more alert and paying more attention.

“Who says I want to go after them?”

“You didn’t want to go on the mission for Otto until he told you it was ‘the mission’, whatever that meant. And Otto apparently signed a big contract with them for secrecy, but was willing to indirectly break that contract without hesitation and send you along to help us out.”

For almost a minute, Maia didn’t respond. Elise was worried she had fallen asleep, but then she slowly lowered her arms from her face, and continued staring up at the ceiling.

“When Otto said that I was like a daughter to him, he wasn’t lying,” she said. “He took me and my twin sister in when we were five. He was just a regular information broker working for the Blood Syndicate at the time, but it wasn’t a bad job. The Blood Syndicate is terrible, but we lived away from it, and only saw their members occasionally when they stopped by for information.

“That all changed when my sister and I unlocked our Systems though. Suddenly, we were ‘promising young recruits’ and ‘caught the eye of their scouts’. Otto tried to take us and run away, but we got caught almost immediately. They locked us all up separately. I don’t know what happened to Otto or my sister. All I know is that two days later, Otto came to pick me up, and we went back to the antique shop. Without her.

“He never told me exactly what kind of deal he made. I honestly can’t figure out how he did it. It never made any sense to me. Somehow, not only did he and I get to go free, but they let us leave the Blood Syndicate. All it cost was his silence and my sister.”

“...What happened to your sister?” asked Penelope after a few seconds of silence.

“I don’t know,” replied Maia. “I know she’s alive, but Otto won’t tell me more than that. I guess since he sent me with you guys, she must be in the same place as your friend.”

“So you’re working with us to save your sister?” asked Elise.

“Yep.”

“We’ll save her,” said Penelope. “We’ll save both of them, and whoever else has been imprisoned there.”

“I hope so.”

There was another minute of silence, and when Elise finally decided to say something to break it, she noticed that Maia’s breathing had changed. She had fallen asleep. Elise made eye contact with Penelope, nodded, and the two of them went to bed as well, Penelope wrapping herself back up in the other bed’s sheets, and Elise curling up in the empty space near the foot of Maia’s bed.

They awoke shortly after sunrise, none of them mentioning the night before. Penelope and Maia took turns in the bathroom, washing up and changing clothes while Elise got in a bit of quick meditation before they ordered food. Breakfast was an egg-filled pie similar to quiche, with ham, onions, mushrooms, and a fruit that Elise didn’t recognize, but added a bit of an acidic aftertaste to top it off.

Elise ate in her human form, then switched back to her rabbit form as they prepared to leave. She would have wanted to stay human, but none of them had any way of predicting how long the conversation with the Lappins would last, so they decided it was best not to risk running out of time on her transformation.

On their way over, Penelope told them a bit more about the Lappin family. While not near as powerful as Penelope had made them seem when tricking Elise into giving her identity away, they were still the heads of an international trading company with about as much wealth and influence as some of the mid-sized Jelorian noble houses. Their estate was on the outskirts of the city, but they had an office in the center near the government buildings, and that was where they went. Penelope said that Bianca’s parents were very involved in their business, so they were more likely to be at the office than at their estate.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The Lappin office was surprisingly modern-looking. It wasn't fully modern, with steel frames and tinted glass walls like Elise often saw around campus, but it wouldn’t have been out of place in the “historic” district full of buildings from the early half of the 20th century. It was made of red brick with tall windows lining each of its four floors. The entrance was flanked by two tall gray pillars that looked like they were made out of cement, and the doors were made of dark carved wood. There were two guards on the front corners of the building, but they both merely nodded as they watched Maia and Penelope walk inside.

Most of the bottom floor of the building was open, with only the occasional door on the edge leading to what Elise assumed to be side rooms or staircases. There were desks all around with generous spacing between, with one chair for an employee on one side and two for clients on the other. Most of the desks had employees at them, but only a couple had clients, leaving most of the workers with nothing to do but wait.

There was one central desk with two receptionists behind, both smiling politely as Penelope and Maia approached. Elise caught one of them giving her a not-so-subtle glance, so she used {Charm}, eliciting a more genuine smile.

“Welcome to Lappin Trading, how can I help you today?” she said.

“We need to talk to Frank Lappin, if he’s here,” said Penelope, putting her knight's badge on the table. “I’m a friend of his daughter, Bianca.”

“Oh you’re one of Bianca’s friends?” said the receptionist, smiling. “You must be Penelope then, right?”

“Yes, that’s me. Is Frank in?”

“I’m afraid not,” said the receptionist. “He’s been out for a couple months now, working out a deal in Grancia. I’m afraid he won’t be back for another few weeks. And his wife is with him. Do you know Robert though?”

“I know of him,” said Penelope. “I’ve never met him though.”

“He’s been running the place while Frank is out. Would you like me to send him a message and see if he’s available?”

“Yes, please.”

The receptionist pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote something down. Elise noticed that, just like when Otto was doing his searches, the ink slowly faded on the paper, and a minute later was replaced by new words. She wondered if it was the paper, the ink, or a skill that was making it work like that. If it was a skill, she wondered if it was the same skill as Otto’s or perhaps just a weaker variation. Otto’s clearly produced different results, but the way they worked looked nearly identical.

“You had perfect timing!” said the receptionist, smiling. “He just finished a meeting, and he said he’d be happy to see you. If you go straight back to that door behind me, there’s a staircase and an elevator. You can take either all the way up to the top floor, and he’ll be waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” said Penelope.

“No problem. Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

Elise was a little bit excited to try out a magic elevator, but was mildly disappointed to learn it was more or less identical to a normal elevator, just powered by magic instead of electricity. It didn’t even lift the whole elevator up with magic. From what she could sense, it just magically turned a wheel which wound up a cable that lifted the box. It made perfect sense to do it that way, and was probably more efficient than any of the random possibilities she had come up with, but she still thought it was a little lame.

At the top of the elevator, a man with black hair and gray eyes was waiting with a nervous smile.

“Penelope?” he said, turning to Maia.

“No, that’s me,” said Penelope, stepping forward.

“Oh, my apologies,” he said with a short bow. “My sister has told me about you, but I’m afraid she never told me much about your appearance.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m Maia,” said Maia. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you as well. My name is Robert, but my friends call me Bobby, and a friend of Bianca’s is a friend of mine, so feel free to call me that, if you want. And who’s this?”

He looked down at Elise, reached out to scratch under her chin. Elise leaned into it, using {Charm} at the same time.

“This is Snowberry,” said Penelope.

“Nice to meet you too, Snowberry,” said Robert. “Why don’t you all come inside and have a seat. I assume you came about Bianca?”

“Yes,” said Penelope.

“Excellent. I actually just received news from her the other day.”

“You did?” said Penelope.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s head inside, and I’ll share it with you.”

He turned and led them down to the end of a hallway to what seemed like his private office. There was a desk in the back, bookshelves on the walls, and a low table in the middle with couches on either side. Penelope and Maia sat down on one side while Robert went toward his desk.

“What have you heard from Bianca?” asked Penelope as soon as she sat down.

As a response, Robert opened one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out an opened letter, which he handed to Penelope. She opened it up and started reading immediately, thankfully having enough presence of mind to hold it low enough Elise could read as well.

The letter was long, and written somewhat formally, but the gist of it was that Bianca was safe, and was on her way back. She had been stranded in the wilderness on the continent of Carsas, only finding her way out recently, and then booking a ship to Vina. Elise read through quickly, but Penelope seemed to be much slower, so she went back and focused on some of the other details.

Bianca mentioned that she had run into someone she called “Professor James Lewis” while she was away, and that he would be returning with her, and that she wanted the Lappins to give him a small reward for his help. She also briefly mentioned acquiring a new class. However, most of the letter was taken up by her recounting of the night of the warg attack, details about Nick and Sophie, and almost begging for information on them.

She mentioned that she would have waited for the letter to arrive so she could get a teleport, but was worried that the letter would take too long, so she went with the cheaper option of the boat trip instead, just in case. It seemed that her worries had been unfounded, as the date on the letter was only a week prior, but Elise empathized with her thought process.

When Penelope finished reading through the letter, she gave a deep sigh of relief.

“She should be back in two days,” said Robert. “Her ship will arrive in Valta, but I’ve already prepared transportation back here, so she will be home very soon after. Do you want to stay at our estate until then? That way you can see her as soon as you get back. I know she’ll be glad to see you.”

“That would be-” started Penelope, before stopping and glancing at Maia.

“I don’t mind,” said Maia, shrugging.

Elise didn’t move, hoping that Penelope would take that as a sign of approval.

“That would be great,” continued Penelope.

“Excellent,” said Robert. “Did you have something else you needed?”

“Yes,” said Maia, before Penelope could answer. “We are currently on our way to get Nick, Bianca’s fiance.”

“Oh, you know where he is?” said Robert, looking excited.

“We do,” said Maia. “But we can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” he asked, looking confused.

Yeah, why not? Elise wondered.

She understood the idea of keeping their mission secret, so as not to alert the Blood Syndicate, but they couldn’t exactly keep it secret forever. According to Hans, Nick was probably in a position of some renown in the Syndicate. It wasn’t like they’d be able to keep it secret forever. Wouldn’t it be better to let Robert know so they could get the backing of a powerful organization, as well as more support?

“Not unconditionally, at least.”

Is she… trying to sell this information to him?

Elise almost got angry, and she could feel Penelope doing the same until Maia continued.

“It’s too dangerous,” she continued. “Even your entire company might not be able to handle the consequences.”

Robert’s face paled. “What do you mean?”

“First, what kind of privacy wards do you have on this office?”

“The best money can buy,” he said. “What is it? What’s so dangerous that you need to know that?”

“Before I say any more, I need to make it absolutely clear that if you tell anyone else this information, you will have to deal with the consequences on your own.”

“I understand.”

“Nick is being held at the main headquarters of the Blood Syndicate.”

“...Fuck.”