Before taking a nap, Velvet looked at the top of the night stand. A strange knife was resting there.

Kartal had given it to her, and yes, it was the one Nathaniel had used. She had asked him if, since it was a murder weapon, it was supposed to be taken by them.

He had told her that in mage squirmishes, it was normal to keep spoils of victory, as long as one wasn’t afraid of antagonizing the people behind the dead mage, in this case, the Ropertti’s and the Graham’s.

Velvet decided to not touch Cornelius’ belongings, only taking the things that Siberina left, that being the knife and a deck of tarot cards.

The Tarot cards were on the coffee table, a ‘parting gift’ from Siberina. She even left the instructions, so that Velvet could understand the meaning.

Page of Wands, Page of Swords and The Tower.

Page of Wands, representing initiative and risk-taking.

Page of Swords, called the Watchman, messenger or spy.

The Tower, representing disaster.

Is all of this about Siberina? Taking a risk as a double agent to bring disaster? Or is it a past-present-future scenario? The Page of Wands usually is a mischief-maker, independent and individualist. Could it refer to myself?

“Ugh! The point of Tarot cards is that the answer is so vague it can be interpreted in so many ways, always ending up being correct!”

She had asked Kartal, but he didn’t give any ‘non vague’ answer either.

A part of her wanted to ransackle Cornelius' corpse, but she wasn’t planning on provoking a family of pride mages, they probably held grudges very well (also, by the way Kartal told her that, it seemed he was warning her against it), but gamblers… She was almost sure it wasn’t a problem.

Siberina was still alive, after all, and she had taken most of her things with her, only leaving the knife and the cards.

The knife was sheathed with some strange looking roots. Apparently, it had the ability to cut down anything that didn’t come from trees. Velvet slowly unsheathed it, taking care to not cut herself. The blade was bluish gray in color, with wood grains in circular shapes.

She poked it with her nail. It’s not like it was similar to wood, it was made of wood.

“For being a pointy plank, you were quite the trouble, you know?” From Siberina’s familiar, she knew its name was Sinoe’s Baslard, and it was made from some wood taken from hell.

It should be buried in high nutrition soil after ten days out, for at least for a full month, before being used again. Also, it had to be watered. Like a plant. Apparently, it had still five days of use.

“So you are useless for most of your life? You good for nothing, couldn’t you pick this month to hibernate?.” She kept on insulting the blade, even when it was technically innocent.

“I’m going to use you to clean fish.”

“How much do you even cos-” Someone started knocking on the door. It was a soft knock, almost shy.

Ah. She sheathed the blade again, putting it under the pillow.

“Niko, come in.”

A few paper figurines (Velvet had already remade them), went to unlock the door with their combined efforts, letting the kid inside.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Niko’s eyes were red from crying, and he looked disheveled, apparently not used to dressing up on his own. Velvet bit the inner part of her cheek in pity.

“I’m sorry.” It was what she said. “You can hate and scream at me if you want.”

She knew it wasn’t her fault, since Siberina and Cornelius would have killed Nathaniel to kill Iren no matter her presence. Still, she didn’t know what to say.

“I-I don’t even know if I should hate you. No one wants to tell me what happened, they just… they just tip toe over it!”

“Because what happened was cruel. Death is cruel, but what they did…” Velvet sighed. “Do you want the full truth? I won’t decorate it. But if the truth is what you want, I will tell you.”

She understood why the other adults hid part of the truth, but she also understood the desire to know what really happened.

After all, she had dealt with something similar. And she had been more difficult to deal with than Niko.

“I want the truth.”

And so, Velvet told him the truth.

…

A few hours had passed before she was done, and Niko had run out of questions to ask.

It took him a bit of explaining to accept that the man that woke him up this morning wasn’t his brother any more.

Both of them stood in silence for a while, until Niko started speaking.

“You… you talked about waiting for something to happen that you could chase…” He looked at his tiny hands, opening and closing them. “I didn’t get what you meant by that, but now…”

“I want to become an Inquisitor.” He said, not looking at Velvet. “It wasn’t fair, what happened wasn’t fair!”

“Nathaniel didn’t do anything! And they, they! Didn’t even think twice!” A tear fell on his hand. Velvet hugged him, letting him cry on her shoulder. “It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair!”

“I know.”

…

Niko ended up falling asleep on her bed. She left him there, going out to breathe some air at the cabin Velvet had blown the windows off.

The staff had cleaned the floor, and she was pretty sure Kartal had been involved in the handling of the bodies.

“You know,” she started saying to no one in particular, “Madam Dorna was right. Mages do suck.”

“I would like to say,” Baraviodos said now, “There’s more neutral mages than bad mages.”

“What about good mages?”

“You killed two people right now to survive, how long do you think good mages last?”

“Good point. I still think I’m in the ‘good’ category. Cornelius deserved what happened to him, and Nathaniel… it was mercy at that point.”

“Does it even matter?” Now it was Hyde the one interrupting, “Does being good or bad affect your chance of reaching that person?”

“It does. It matters to me. I don’t want to become like them. If I have to reach him, at least I want it to be on my own terms.”

“Don’t become like them, then. Not going out of your way to kill harmless people is very easy.”

“Hm.” Velvet smiled, “You’re right. I can do that.”

Hyde was right, she decided. There was no rule that forced mages to become twisted, they chose that on their own, unless it was corruption.

Cornelius could have chosen to leave Iren alone, and raise his knowledge mage slowly. He could have chosen to spend the money he spent on Siberina to buy grimoires. He could have chosen to confront Iren on his own, without involving Nathaniel.

Velvet could have chosen to spend the night with Viroa and company, not rushing things. She also could have chosen to not use her paper figurines that first night, not giving away her existence as a knowledge mage to them. She could also have chosen to ignore Baraviodos, ruining their plans.

But what was done was done. Velvet wasn’t one to get hung up in the past. If she was strong enough the next time she and Siberina met, she would try to kill her. And if they never met again, it was fine too.

“What do you two think about what she told me? ‘Once you lose everything you possess, we will meet again.’”

“A bad omen, or another gamble of hers.” Said Hyde. Velvet did agree with that. She didn’t know of the gambling paradigm beforehand, but now she knew they weren’t prophets. Anything they said had a fifty percent chance of happening.

That just makes it worse… She complained inwardly.

At least, she had tomorrow to rest, before taking Niko to his family at Wishbell, and leaving to find Saliman Ramis, the Blue Python’s owner.