"Feeling sleepy already? You must have had a long day," Fiana spoke tenderly, as always, but showed no signs of sending Theodore to bed.

"Not particularly. Same old, same old," Theodore replied, lying as he continued to put on the appearance of sluggishness.

"Is that so? Still, it must be boring for you, being stuck here day in and day out. What did you use to do for fun before you came here?"

Had he not known any better, it sounded as if Fiana was merely making small talks with her line of questioning. However, Theodore realized that she was merely trying to slowly have him drop his guard by asking seemingly inconsequential, but personal, questions. It was all to get him to gradually open up and be more inclined to answer the real questions later down the line.

"Well, I can't say that it was for fun, exactly, but I used to run out into the hills a great deal. It's mostly to find places to practice magic without being found out."

Theodore did think he needed to keep his practicing of magic a secret before coming to Lancea. It would have been more suspicious for him to be this skilled if he hadn't had any practice prior. Besides, while it wasn't exactly common, it wasn't unheard of for children to possess a high affinity with Aether, especially those with traces of elven bloodlines. Lastly, it was likely that Fiana had heard about the possibility of him being a reincarnator. Considering these factors, it would have been more suspicious to try and hide his experience with magic and risk tipping off Fiana that her drug might not be working as intended.

"You began practicing at such a young age? Did you have someone teach you?"

"I didn't have anyone teach me. I just sort of knew how to do it for as long as I could remember."

"I see. That does make sense, I suppose. Unless they have some special circumstances, most don't have your sort of proficiency when it comes to Aether manipulation at such a young age. Perhaps you have a trace of elven blood inside of you."

From her words, it would seem that Fiana had not heard about Theodore's circumstances. It didn't seem like Kalman bothered to tell her, or perhaps she wasn't supposed to know. Either way, it was probably more convenient for all parties involved if she didn't know. When it came to secrets, the fewer in the know the better.

"Maybe. I never met my parents, so I wouldn't know for sure."

"Were you an orphan?"

"I was. Someone left me as a baby in front of the temple in Eastcliff and I lived there until Annaliese took me here."

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"I see..."

Listening to his story, Fiana can't help but feel the pangs of guilt in her chest. For a mage, she was considered soft, too soft. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why she became a master alchemist. Other than the fact that her father was an alchemist as well, alchemy was a more overlooked field of magic and even then was barely even considered proper magic. It was an art just useful enough to earn the bare minimum respect from the mages of other fields. In the city of Lancea, being overlooked wasn't a good prospect for mages trying to get anywhere in their rise to power, but in contrast, it was a rather safe position to be in if one knew how to stay away from trouble.

"I wasn't lonely though," sensing weakness in his opponent, Theodore continued. "There were other kids there as well and the two clergywomen taking care of us were nice. One of them died a while ago though."

"It sounds like you grew up in a nice place. What about here? You must be feeling rather lonely being here all by yourself."

"I'm not *that* lonely. I have you. And Albatross swings by every day as well. It's not quite like back home, but it's not too bad."

"That's good to know. Though, I can't help but wonder, what do you usually do while I'm gone, other than the assignments I give you, that is."

"There's not much to do really, I-" All of a sudden, Theodore felt a wave of dizziness and his head began to feel rather light. He could sense that something was wrong, but for some reason, the feeling was not being registered fully by his mind as a strong sense of drowsiness began to set in. "I usually read whatever Albatross brings me and practice some magic. Other than that, I suppose brewing tea counts as something."

Something was amiss, Theodore could feel it and yet, he could not muster up the sense of alertness that he ought to have. More than that, he was relaxed. In fact, he hadn't felt so relaxed since he arrived in this city.

"What kind of magic practice did you do exactly?"

"Nothing special, just moving things around and such..."

"Really, that's all? Come on, you can tell me. I may not look like it, but I'm pretty good at other fields too, not just alchemy. I might be able to help you improve faster. I mean, you want to reach the rank of master as soon as possible, right? I can help with that you know, but only if you tell me."

"I... I guess I practice a little healing magic as well..."

Theodore's tongue was coming loose at Fiana's coercion, the words floating in his head gradually slipping out of his lips. Theodore had vaguely felt that the answer he gave was beginning to divert from the script he had prepared beforehand, yet, he was unable to form a coherent enough thought to fully understand the blunder he was making.

Were he able to put together a coherent thought, Theodore would have realized that he had made his mistake the moment he entered the kitchen. That was because the substance he detected in the tea was not a drug that was to be ingested, but one that poisoned through the air. The oily substance, by rising with the steam of the tea, was breathed in by him and had slowly begun to take effect as he continued to remain in the kitchen filled with the light aroma of tea leaves and the airborne drug.

As for Fiana, being an alchemist, she was used to dealing with such substances and had developed resistance to them. Compared to Theodore whose ten-year-old body had not experienced any exposure to such things, Fiana was practically unaffected.

"And what about the making of behavioral matrices? Were you practicing that as well?"

Finally, Fiana arrived at the question she truly wanted to ask, something that would confirm her suspicions once and for all.

With his mind muddled, Theodore opened his mouth without much thought and gave his answer.

***

End of Chapter 66

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