When we got to Raul’s both of us only got a milkshake, I got a chocolate one and Liz chose the cookies n’ cream.

“Are you looking forward to the inscription test? It’s getting pretty close.” Liz asked me between purposefully obnoxious slurps of her drink.

“Not particularly. If anything I’m a bit nervous.”

“Ah—yeah. Eh, don’t fuckin’ worry about it. You’ll make it.”

I immediately saw through the layered meaning. Liz knew I wasn’t nervous about the test itself, but rather the ceremony. I would be going into it with less than the minimum recommended time for recovering from my last one. It was pretty likely that I would be getting a serious case of strain for a few months at least. I had heard that there were methods of reducing the risks from it, but I didn't know any of them.

I sat there swirling my straw in my milkshake thinking as my phone buzzed. No, the doctor's phone went off I realized as I felt mine in my other pocket. Liz looked up from her phone for a moment as I pulled it out.

It was a messaging app with a message from the man of the hour that we were searching for.

Project going well. Need more volunteers soon.

I stared at the notification for several moments before pulling open the settings menu and setting it to airplane mode. I read my way through the messages, getting a feel for the relationship between these two.

It was transactional with a rhythm to it. The guy would ask for volunteers and the doctor would provide ETA. They would meet then rinse repeat. It was treated like any other business.

I realized I was bouncing my leg and forced it to stop.

I passed Liz the phone, messaging app was still open. She grabbed it as it occurred to me she was still wearing the mana bracelet I had given her. I don’t remember her wearing it on the way here.

She looked through it just as silently as I did. I saw a scowl on her face as anger bubbled up. She closed her eyes and took steadying breaths.

After a deep exhale, she slid the phone across the table.

“I think we should deal with that later,” She said blankly.

“Mhm,” I said biting my lip, “I’ll try to see if he’ll meet up for a drop-off sometime later this week?”

“Yeah, sure. That works. Gonna leave us with a bit of an empty tank though.”

“Hm?” I said looking at Liz as my brow furrowed.

“Besides our Inscription test coming up, next week we got that other thing with Ms. Windshitter. After both of those, was the start of the Academy entrance exam season. I’ll have a bit of time for recovery but Northridge has one of the earliest starting periods. You still need to finish your project, don'tcha?”

I cursed. It slipped my mind for a moment. I felt that sinking feeling in my stomach; the one that tells you your walking a tightrope that you cannot fall off of.

There was going to be no room for missteps, I didn’t have to maneuver perfectly, but I would have to be pretty damned close to it.

I took several breaths, focusing on the sensation of air filling my lungs and leaving them. I looked at Liz, who was silently watching me as she swirled her milkshake.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll figure it out.

________________________________________________________________

As Liz and I headed home that night, I sent the text off, trying to arrange a meeting for 3 days from now. I went to text Ella as I lay down but she ended up texting me first:

Wanna hang out?

Sure, was about to see if you wanted to work on the artifice some more tomorrow lol

That works! Btw can you stop by and pick me up for it?

Np

________________________________________________________________

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I headed down to Ella’s place to pick her up as soon as I woke up. I met her in the alleyway door again. She came out with a large backpack this time and smiled as she shut the door. We chatted for a bit as we made our way back.

I couldn’t help but notice that something was still off with Ella though. Her head was on a swivel. She stared at everyone we passed with narrowed eyes and a guarded posture. I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t quite sure how to approach the issue.

I decided not to press the issue while we were in public and waited until we were back at my place. We got back before Liz woke up.

“Hey, you doing okay?” I asked as we made our way up the stairs.

“Well… I’ll be alright; just a bit on edge lately. How about you? I know you’ve been busy.”

I noticed the deflection, the downplaying. It was a playbook I knew well.

“Yeah, haven’t had much time to work on the design since you last came over, I do have two ballistic vests coming in the mail that we should be able to rip into. They’re only rated for knives since that’s all that is legal on the commercial market for some reason, but that should be good enough for at least one use if our runes work as effectively as we hope.”

“Actually, that's great, I was worried that I’d have a bunch of conflicting designs!” she said as she pulled a large notebook from her backpack.

Inside were dozens of iterative designs for how to lay the wards.

I slowly combed my way through getting Ella's input into the thought process for various wards.

There was a notable flaw though in the vast majority of them: poor utilization of three-dimensional space.

It was actually a common issue with warders. Most traditional warders work in two dimensions or at least as close to that as they can. Old school rituals come to mind like the inscription ceremony.

My mind wandered for a moment wondering about the ceremony's origin. It was probably lost to time or the blank period but it was worth researching later.

I refocused, eying the designs Ella made. None of them would quite work, but they laid a good groundwork for what would be the final design.

The hard part was finalizing the placement of the mana gems. I would just place them dead center—one in the front and one in the back—with a contact pad installed for ease of activation so it wouldn't break contact.

As I flipped through the notepad, writing bits and pieces of the design with Ella's input. That was until I noticed one in the middle of it with a radically different design. I tried reading the wards but didn't fully recognize them. It has something to do with a stored state. It tried to do… something with a recorded image. Almost the entire design was used up by

"Ella, what's this?"

"Ah nothing, I was trying to see if I could have it so the suit could repair light damage. Assuming the deflection works as intended, most damage shouldn't be that bad, if it could fix minor damage…" she petered off and flashed me a grin, "Well, I couldn't figure out how to get it to work anyways, I tested it with a clay carving and it didn’t work."

Something about that fired up an engine inside me. I felt the gears start spinning.

I felt…excited.

I saw the outline of the idea, and I could feel in my gut most of the necessary parts were there in the design already. It'd be a puzzle piece I would I have to work out.

"Hey, can you draw the wards flat for me so I can see how they would connect typically? Like for a ritual ward array?” I asked as I passed the notebook back to her.

“Sure,” Ella said and immediately flipped to a clean page in order to redraw the array. As she did that, I felt the phone in my left pocket buzz. It was the doctor’s. I ignored it for now.

I watched as Ella worked her way through the wards asking questions to better understand them.

One piece of paper turned into a half dozen, as she ripped them out, better defining the edges of the runes and wards and creating a spread on the table. There were a few small issues, but they shouldn’t cause any of it to outright fail, just some inefficiencies. Some of these inefficiencies could cause failure in real-world scenarios, but not the small test she did so I didn’t point them out. Besides, I couldn’t be too strict because I didn’t have the ward knowledge for most of these wards anyway.

As she neared the end, I finally noticed the critical issue, “You’re focus rune is wrong,” I stated simply.

She glanced over at me then looked at her focus rune again and then pinched the bridge of her nose as I chuckled.

“I put the focus rune used in rituals for focusing on an object centered in it. What’s the artifice one look like again? I can’t remember it.”

I drew the rune for her, having the shape of this particular one burned into my brain.

“Wait, so now this should work no? It has everything it needs,” she said, excitement dripping from her voice.

“Well, no. There are several other issues that probably would ruin it and we would still have to find a way to embed it into the vest while not allowing it to intersect with the other enhancement. This is something we should be able to figure out quickly though.”

She sighed, “Well at least it's a good start?”

“Oh, It’s a great start.”

____________________________________________________________________________

We spent hours revamping the design and implementing this extra rune. I would have to add another mana gem to the vest for both providing the repair ward with a regular supply of mana and even using it as an emergency power source for the main protection runes. That was the plan that we both finalized before I walked Ella home.

It was late when I started walking her back so I made sure to escort her the entire way. Her mood was better than when I brought her here which was good. She didn’t seem as wary, having lost herself in the minutiae of the project.

I watched as she headed back inside and promised that we would meet back up sometime soon.

She went all smiles, not the faux-sultry one that she had given when giving me that business card all along but something that was far more relaxed and genuine.

I found that until the door closed behind her, I didn’t have the heart to mention that we were being followed.