There was no better time to act than when Merry left for town. Unfortunately, that also meant needing to wait until the end of the week. Simple, Cyg believed, and it only took half a day before he was convinced otherwise. The wait was unbearable, especially when forced to stay inside with one's killer.

It rained on Tuesday as expected, but this time Merry had noticed Cyg’s frustration, going into the study herself instead of handing the task to her apprentice.

The witch asked, “Now, what’s gotten you so worked up?”

“Oh, uh...” Cyg froze for a second, wondering why she wasn’t at the fireplace making stew. For some reason, they had swapped places entirely! Not wanting to seem suspicious, he threw out the first half-truth that came to mind. “How come you never asked me about my Aspect?”

“Hm? That?” With genuine surprise in her voice, she answered, “You seemed like the type to squirrel away your secrets carefully, so I thought I’d wait until you were comfortable.”

He blinked, now his turn to be stunned. Figuring he had nothing to lose, Cyg asked, “Actually, what are your Aspects? Do you have three like all immortals do?”

“Ha! That’ll have to stay a secret for now; maybe if you prove yourself exceptional I'll tell,” she replied, “And if you're worrying about yourself, you might get another if you work hard.”

“W-Wait, I never said anything about that.”

“The old saying of 'age 1 for your first, age 10 for your second, and age 100 for your third' is just a guideline to show off the increasing gaps in time,” Merry went on, ignoring him, “In fact, I think I’ve seen some mages in their 50s gaining their second Aspect.”

Cyg huffed. “How do you know I only have one anyway? I could have a second and not be telling you.”

“...You could, true, but I don’t think so. Not with that reaction.”

And then he sighed. “Could’ve at least entertained the thought.”

“Since you’re so enthused, why don’t we talk about your spatial magic? What can you do with it?”

His reflex was to partially hide the truth yet again, but when he realized this was a chance to learn from the best, he grabbed a pencil from a desk and obliged. “I can swap things of similar sizes and weights, like this,” he said, performing it in front of her with another pencil a desk away, “But I have to see it, and it has to be whole objects.”

The witch, after a second of contemplation, pointed to a bookshelf. “Can you swap that?”

“The shelf? No. The smaller books, maybe.”

She then stood up and retrieved something from one of the shelves nearby—a string necklace with a little bronze ornament attached. “How about this?”

“Huh? Probably,” he answered, looking around for anything matching the ornament’s size.

“To clarify, I meant can you swap the pendant without affecting the string?”

“...I can try.” He grabbed a bit of scrap metal lying around and focused, ten whole seconds of pure concentration elapsing before something happened. As if the space around the ornament was carved out, it and the adjacent stretch of rope were replaced.

Expecting it, Merry caught the piece of metal before it hit the ground. “You cut it? Impressive brute force, I suppose.”

He awkwardly fidgeted. “Sorry, it looks like I broke it. I can fix it up if you—”

“No need,” she replied, placing everything down before putting a hand on her chin. “I think I get it now. Did you teach this yourself? It’s rough, to say the least.”

“...It isn’t as if I had anyone to give me lessons. I practiced every day before I got here, but I haven’t made any real improvement.”

“That’s no different than getting faster at running your head against a wall. You need to become familiar with how your Aspect works, how it interacts with reality. Once you figure out the details, you can learn how to push its boundaries and come up with routines to make up for whatever you lack,” she replied, “From what I can tell, you’re wrapping your mana around your target.”

“I’m doing what? I only know how to feed mana into devices, but everyone knows how to do that.”

“Just think about it the next time you practice; I can’t really help you any further. If I remember right, just using up all your mana and letting it return is a basic way of familiarizing yourself with its existence.”

Hearing that, Cyg groaned. “I know how painful mana loss is. I don’t know if I want to go through with that over and over.”

“Aren’t you glad you have two capable healers nearby to help you? Oh, I guess this isn’t something that can be healed. In that case, Alicia should stock up some henbane for you.”

“I—I see...” he replied, watching her stand up to leave the study. “Thank you for the lesson.”

The witch flashed a smile. “Of course.”

Left alone in the study, Cyg somehow felt less worried than before—being tutored by an apparent enemy sure is a novel experience. There seemed to be no reason not to take her advice too, and so he spent the rest of the rainy day in the study swapping two gems over and over until he felt chills in his body. Such was the signature first sight of mana deprivation, an early warning that they were overexerting themselves. Any farther and it would cause actual injury, requiring a day or two to recover. He danced on the edge until night, hoping he would make some kind of discovery but was ultimately disappointed.

* * *

On Wednesday, Bassy arrived with its hunting spoils, and this time Cyg didn’t fall back in shock. Instead, he eyed the chewed-up faerie, wondering what need Merry had for it. The answer he was given after asking was some vague nonsense regarding medicinal use.

Cyg and Alicia left the house later, and the former was expecting the latter to make a beeline to the creek. But after a short walk, she instead started scanning the trees for something. He watched silently as she approached one that had fallen over and was covered with peeling bark. With a small wave of her hand as if coaxing it to draw close, its layers began to unravel in rectangular strips. In very even strips, Cyg realized, for Alicia took care making sure each piece was at least a certain width and was as straight as it could be. There was no real reason he could imagine for doing so, but perhaps it was mere habit.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Then, recalling everything he’s seen her use that magic on, Cyg asked, “You can only it on dead or inanimate things?”

She remained silent for a while, eventually answering, “Theoretically, I can do it on living material like with my healing Aspect, but it’s not practical. It’s far faster and less harmful to things around me.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cyg swap two rocks around the forest floor, having gotten bored with exchanging things in his hands. “Seen any progress on your magic?”

“Nope,” he replied, “I still don’t understand what my mana’s doing—it’s all instinctive, but it’s only been a day and half. Don’t worry, I won’t cripple myself the day before our plan.” Then, he suddenly remembered to ask, “By the way, why can’t you refill the mana source with the faerie? If it can use magic, it should have plenty of mana flowing through it, right?”

All living things are connected to the Outer Sea, its mana permeating the thin barrier of reality through their souls. Communing with an Aspect of the Sea requires a strong connection, inherently implying the ability to hold more of its overflowing energies or letting it flow in at a faster rate. Therefore, an extraordinarily magical creature like a faerie—even if Cyg had only read about them in books—would have more mana.

“...I could, but I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s small, and if I salvage the entire thing I’ll maybe get a reset and half with it. If I recall correctly, it’s more that they refill mana at an incredible rate. Oh, and Merry’s watching it like a hawk, so if someone’s doing any stealing it’d be you.” The elf pondered something for a moment. “...But Bassy’s blood would probably be enough. Hmm, let me see, I wonder if I can guess how much volume there is...” She seemed to lose herself in her thoughts, Cyg saw, no doubt performing some absurd mental math.

“Now, that’s an idea!” he exclaimed, and then the energy fled from him after the slightest consideration. “There’s no way we can kill a basilisk. The thing chewed me in half last time, and you don’t have any offensive Aspects.”

She raised a finger. “And, Bassy’s a good girl! Completely undeserving of any murder plot.”

Crossing his arms to that, Cyg replied, “I think if she killed me once, I only have the right to return the favor.”

Alicia sighed. “If you say so.” By now, she was carving runes while leaning against a tree, draping over her arm the rectangular strips of bark as she finished them.

“Oh, I recognize that pattern; it’s the lantern ignition thing, right?”

“It is,” the apprentice replied, “So you were paying attention after all.” The strips were lifted into the air and sliced into equal bits, one forming a core and another going around it, then a third enveloping it all together as the outer layer. She held with both hands the resulting fist-sized ball and chucked it over to the thief. “Don’t pour any mana into it. Not right now, anyway.”

He caught it, surprised that this was the finished product. “No saltpeter or anything, just runes, huh? It does make sense if you could make it all out of wood, you’d rather do that.”

“You can also push in more mana to adjust how many splinters get into you, in case you ever need to use it close range.”

“This is nastier than I thought. I wonder if it’ll do anything against basilisk scales.” He spun it around, finding multiple spots clearly marked to be injected with mana, all of them marked with an increasing number of notches. “Are these timers?” When Cyg turned them around and compared one another, he discovered that they were startlingly similar to one another—the apprentice had gotten this down to a formula.

“One, three, five, ten, and thirty seconds, respectively,” she replied, “You can also shoot it straight into the center for immediate activation. It’s not keyed into your mana since the wood’s own lingering mana would interfere, but it could be possible with metal. Obviously, wood is much easier to find and work with.”

“...What happens if Merry fires her mana into one while I’m holding it?”

Grimacing, Alicia replied, “Exactly as you’d expect.”

* * *

The rest of the day had little of note, and it was the same with the rest of the week.

The guard with the glimmer snake bite arrived and vanished overnight just as before. The thief half-hoped that Merry would change her mind about any possible betrayal given the conversation they had over magic, but something so small couldn’t have possibly done that. There was also the fact that he was actually plotting something.

On Sunday, Merry left for town as expected. They waited a while for Bassy to wander away from her favorite spot next to the house to go wander in the woods, and when the coast was clear, they headed southwest.

“Why there?” Cyg asked, a sack slung over a shoulder.

“Terrain is flatter, so it should be easier to move around there.”

At first, Cyg wanted to hurry, and Alicia tried to argue that they should conserve energy. Ultimately, she acquiesced to a slightly faster pace than a stroll. They continued on, and after only five minutes, she was completely out of breath. A bead of sweat ran down her forehead as she braced herself against a tree, a sight that unnerved Cyg.

Frowning, he asked, “Hey, are you alright?”

“Give... give me a second,” she replied, wheezing.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Okay, sorry, I was worried that she’d come back soon and I had no idea when. Let’s just take it easy.”

The elf could hardly reply, spending the effort trying to catch her breath instead.

It took far longer than Cyg estimated to reach their destination, but he saw or heard no flying witches in the sky during then, meaning there was no basis for any complaints. Lanterns had been interspersed all over the forest near the house, but at the edge of the domain where they’ve stopped, a clear ring of them marked the border of Merry’s land. And sure enough, as Alicia said, the ground here was less covered with foliage, large roots, and other devilish bumps that threatened to trip anyone who wasn’t paying attention. The trees were sparser and thinner too, a good and bad thing.

Alicia asked, “Westward?”

“That’s the plan,” Cyg replied, stepping forward.

“Wait,” she blurted out, retrieving something from her apron pocket and beckoning him over. In his hands she placed a light metal stick of some sort. “Take this.”

After a cursory check, Cyg found a little mana-loading notch at the bottom, and when he activated it, the other end glowed with heat. “Oh, it’s one of those fancy engraving pens,” he pointed out, “...Why are you giving it to me?”

“Okay firstly, it’s not fancy—it’s really basic,” the apprentice replied, raising a finger. Then two. “Secondly, you’d never know if you need to draw some runes at any time, and this'll let you do it on most surfaces.”

“That’s... probably not going to happen.”

Alicia scoffed and mumbled to herself, “You’re so underprepared it’s painful, traipsing into certain death without so much as a backup plan. What will do you if you somehow manage to make it back alive? You should’ve packed some herbs in there in case you were only wounded.”

The thief entertained the idea for a moment, but only a moment. “Yeah, no.” He went up to the barrier and felt himself brush against a film of some sort, one that wasn’t physical, and stepped through it. “Wish me luck,” he said, stepping through it.

She waved a hand. “I hope your end won’t be grisly.”

Shaking his head, Cyg mumbled, “Shouldn’t have asked for it.” To confirm Alicia’s story, he quickly rolled up the sleeve of his left shoulder to see the sigil faded. There was no saying as to what the consequences are when dying like this, but he had no desire to find out firsthand.

Cyg took off, hurrying as fast as he could around the perimeter of Merry’s domain, making sure to never actually reenter it lest he reveal his own location. He didn’t have to pay too much attention to where he was going, but he did turn around to confirm there were no pursuers; and during one such attempt, a large branch on the ground hidden by leaves almost sent him sprawling. Only slowing when Cyg felt himself running out of breath, he was soon forced to slow down, using the time to check a haphazard map from Alicia to see how far he’s gotten. She said she got it from the study but he’s certainly never seen it. One of these days he needs to rummage through all the shelves and cabinets, he muttered to himself.

So far, it was equal to about two-fifths the distance to town. He couldn’t even estimate how far less it would be if Alicia was tagging along. Putting the map away, Cyg continued down his route, the grass and earth underneath his feet transitioning into a rockier layout. At one point, he could no longer stick right up on the edge of the domain, forced to walk around a steep drop instead of trying to climb it.

It was then that Cyg checked behind him to see a shifting black blur slipping around trees, its objective clear as day. Somehow, it had tracked him down.

“I guess we can scratch escape off the list,” he grumbled.