Mana surged through Amy the second she processed Beatrice's words. It was mostly from shock and fright at her sudden appearance, but there was an inkling of it that instinctively began attuning to Fae and an even smaller part that went straight for her brain. That smaller part targeted her processing abilities precisely, infusing it with power, causing everything else in her vision to begin running slow; not enough to make too much of a difference, but it was definitely noticeable.
Questions filtered through her sped-up mind, Whats, Whys, and Hows rising up and down in her conscious stream of thought, in and then out as soon as they came into being. It wasn't long however before calm set in like a well-worn blanket, her judgement, impartial, and thoughts, unfeeling.
"Hello, Beatrice," Amy replied, as emotionlessly as she could. "I didn't expect you."
"I'd hope not," Beatrice laughed as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, under her hood. "I pride myself on being sneaky and you noticing me would hurt a little."
"And why were you sneaking up on me in the first place?"
"Ah, simple enough really," She smirked. "I know you're a Mage, Amy, and I would like your help."
Lightning struck through her veins, an instinct drummed into her over her years of hiding in Triesen returning in a flash as Amy's tentative calm was sent through a tumultuous storm. Mana writhed. She knows. I'm found out. I'm-
"Well, anyone who's seen you about today would know too," She added. "I've just taken some extra care to look into some things for myself."
"...Right," Amy said slowly, struggling to cope. This isn't Triesen Amy, this isn't Triesen. It's not the end of the world if everyone knows that you're a Mage. It's somewhat normal around here even. This isn't Triesen. This is Harth. This is Harth. "And... Why were you looking into me?"
"A story like that needs a nicer place than this, doesn't it?" Beatrice said, gesturing to the dank alley around them. "If you really want to stay here, you can even if I might... question some things-"
"Where?"
"A nice restaurant down the road. Love their fish. How's that sound?"
"Fine," Amy frowned, her attention elsewhere.
"I'm real cushy with the owner too so we'll get the best seats there!" She said, radiating ease and confidence. At least until she turned around, nodding at Amy to follow her, when she came face to face with a bright arrow of virid light held aloft in the air. Beatrice blanched.
"Don't approach me like this again," Amy said coolly. "It just might make me see things the wrong way. You don't want that, do you?"
"N-no, Amy," Beatrice gulped, still facing the Bolt.
"Good," She smiled grimly. The Bolt faded into mana in the air, returning to nothingness. Walking past Beatrice, still frozen still, she turned to her and said, "To the restaurant then?"
"Y-yes."
* * *
Amy jabbed her fork into her salmon, scraping off a large flake of it. Marinated in some sort of chili mixture and baked, from the first bite, putting the fork in her mouth and savouring its flavours, it tasted immaculate. As she began scraping off the next bit of it, making sure to get some of the crispy skin in it, she diverted some of her attention away to look at the lady opposite her on the table. Beatrice's cloak had been put to the side on the booths they both sat on in an out of the way corner of the restaurant. It turned out she hadn't been lying about knowing the owner and secured the lovely place almost immediately, dimly lit in a flickering and almost romantic candlelight. The food only came quicker, Amy ignoring Beatrice completely after she ordered, making it for quite the awkward silence. Until now.
"So," Amy began, chewing on her salmon. "What's your story then, my dark pursuer?"
"Umm... I-" Beatrice hummed and hawed, "It really-"
"You seem remarkably young, Beatrice," Amy smiled, studying her face intently with a bit of a glare. "You can't be much older than 18, if that. Maybe 16? Or even 15?"
"I'm- I'm 17," She admitted, blushing.
"And look at you, perusing the shadows, and cruising through alleyways. Impressive," Amy said, temporarily ignoring the hypocrisy. I'm putting on a bit of a show, okay, some exaggeration is warranted. So what if I'm not actually too much older than that either?
"I-"
"I suppose you would have to be, well, maybe not young but inexperienced to think approaching a Mage like that would rub them the wrong way, no? A lady might even think you were threatening them? Was I mistaken?"
"I- I'm..." She paused, expecting an interruption. She continued to fidget, looking at her own plate of bass in consternation.
Amy let her talk, this time.
"Sorry, for going up to you like that," Beatrice apologised, surprising Amy in the direction she was taking the conversation. "I just wanted... I think this needs the full story."
"Before you begin," Amy interrupted, politely this time, "May I do something?"
"S-sure," She replied anxiously, albeit a little less pale this time. Perhaps having time to speak has gotten her confidence back? Or is there something else I have to worry about?
Ignoring that foible of thought, Amy turned inwards and took in the sight of her mana pool. At its edges, virid Fae green could be seen, wisps of it falling in and out of attunement at her will. It all vanished however with a centring of her thoughts, as all of her attention was focused on her pool, and nothing else. The colour of Pure snapped back into place, all corruption banished and consumed.
Her Magecraft, however, went into drive at the same time, the image of the stage, the audience and its dancer taking form. Any play that might've been taking place though was instead cloaked behind a curtain of dark shadow, hiding all from view. The stage became hidden from the audience's secret interferences and prejudices and all became unknown. Except, it wasn't just unknown. So concealed and buried by those black curtains, away from the audience's and the world's grasp, the play of life, and its dancer, became lost to any sense of reality. Meaning slipped away, time and space becoming meaningless, as the mana behind the curtain transformed into Unknowable.
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It was originally meant to be a working, but a different idea sneaked into Amy's mind as she worked her magic. The Spellform of Concealing Shield returned to her pristine, rising from the depths of her mind, dragged in by a twitch of mana enhancing the brain. Mana swam out from her, filling a rapidly forming Spellform hanging in the air. This time, unlike the last, there was intent built into not just the Unknowable but the innate mana too, shaping the region of the Spell to her wishes.
With a darkening of her surroundings, as if clouds blotted out the sun to cloak everything in overcast shadow, the Spell completed.
A shaped Concealing Shield wrapped about the heads of both Amy and Beatrice, thinning in the middle, conserving the amount of volume the normal undirected Spell had. While Amy clearly saw the changes in front of her, trained to spot the sickly purple-grey tinge of Unknowable in the air, to most Mages, and the mundane Beatrice, it was as if nothing had changed. Only, the talking and conversation of that private booth became inaudible to all but themselves, and that part of the restaurant went silent.
"All done," Amy smiled, pleased.
"What did you do?" Beatrice couldn't help but ask, looking around to see if anything had changed. After all, to her, it had seemed Amy had frozen in place for a few seconds, closing her eyes, before opening them and focusing on something else she couldn't see for a bit longer. And now she was apparently done?
"I made it so our little conversation won't be heard by anyone other than ourselves," Amy revealed. "And if anyone else wishes to later find out what we did talk about, they couldn't. It would be as if we hadn't even talked in the first place... at least for this bit."
"Th-thanks..." Beatrice gulped again, growing paler again. Shame that it's a bit too dark for the difference in lighting from the Concealment to be noticeable, Amy commented internally. Otherwise, well... Maybe she would react better?
"Go on, then."
"Well, it started because..." She struggled to find the proper words, the dilemma clear on her face. Finally, she gave up, and said it straight, "We wanted to rob a museum."
Amy almost couldn't stop herself from saying something at that, but she contained her shock the best she could, letting her continue.
"Me and my friends are... we've always been somewhat poor," She gestured at her clothes, a bit dirty and grimy. "This is probably the finest shit I wear. Janice... she looked after us the best she could but she's not and doesn't want to be a mother- at least, a mother for anything other than birds. So, it started with pickpocketing. We just needed more money but we somehow ended up bigger than we expected. Our methods were better than the other kids and we formed a sort of... gang around it. We outgrew it though and started to move onto bigger things.
"It became less about the money at this point, and more about what's possible. Burglary was tough, and we lost a couple of our own to it, but I still remember... I still remember going into that museum when I was young. All the artwork, and the sculptures, and the artifacts... they were all so pretty. I know it sounds stupid," Beatrice shrunk down, somehow looking down even more than before, "But it was... enchanting. So I want to do my last job. Before I leave it all behind. I want to rob that museum for all it's worth. The only thing is that... it's a museum for magical history and stuff like that is... well-guarded.
"My normal tactics ain't cutting it when someone knows I've gotten into the building without even seeing me. It's just not possible for someone like me, someone like us all. But... well, that thing's always been on my mind, just lingering. Then... I met an interesting person at Janice's and didn't think much of it at the time. At least until I heard a report from someone in the gang. They were a part of the... unsavoury part of the gang - and you always have to have some element of it otherwise it goes wrong - and they were complaining of a Mage they'd tried it on with. A Mage that matched your description."
"I see."
"I lingered around the area personally, and it was surprisingly easy to find where you lived. All it took was for me to follow you and I found you at the Mage association. I stuck around for a while and I was about to give up when I saw you leaving. I was trailing you for a bit longer when you went into that alley. And I saw you casting that strange book Spell. That confirmed it for me that... that you were a Mage."
"And, in all your wisdom, you didn't think it- well, a bit stupid to approach me like that?" Amy couldn't help but ask. "I'm a Mage. I may look defenceless, but Mages never are if they have mana and they usually always do."
"I- I didn't really mean to threaten you," She pleaded. "It just... came out that way. I really only did want to talk to you but I can see how you'd misunderstand."
"Then what did you want? Speak your sincerest truth, Beatrice: what you wish, and what you seek," Amy commanded imperiously, leaning back and crossing her hands, her meal finished.
"I want your help in infiltrating the place," She said at last. "I don't want you to actually put yourself in danger but just help me out in finding out where to even start with the place. Magical advice, I guess."
"And what is the museum you want to rob?"
"The Post-War Museum. It's filled with relics from the remains of things destroyed in the last battles of the war, from things like trinkets to actual destroyed magical machinery. All there, and on display," Beatrice described excitedly.
"How would I be compensated then, for this aid I'd give?"
"Money. I've got enough saved up that I can give you about 10 pounds for your work," Beatrice said, unable to hide her wincing at the large number from the Apprentice Mage.
"That's... a significant sum of money for someone who says they're in fact poor."
"It's not entirely legit, and it's mostly in gems and jewellery so it's not just something I can use and give away."
"Then why are you giving all of it to me? Why not some other Mage whose more obviously involved in the shady side of things than me?"
"I've got all the money I ever wanted when I was young, and the rest is really just the gang's stockpile. With this, I'd be finally handing over the leadership of the gang to my deputy, and I'd take the vast majority of the stores with me. Everyone knows it's really mine and not the gang's so nobody would complain. They weren't the ones working their asses off for most of it. All that spare stocked money has to go somewhere, and I'd rather pay you for your good work than let it rot wherever I end up keeping it. It'll be a lot of work to sell all of it and not make it look suspicious, but I'd make it work; I always do."
"Still, why me?" Amy repeated.
"Because..." Beatrice trailed off, finally looking up and at Amy for the first time since the storytelling began. "You're clean. And not just you being uninvolved with all of, well, what I am and what I do. The other Mage contacts I know of aren't good people by any stretch of the imagination. And the things they'd demand for their work? It wouldn't just be obscene, it would be disgusting. They know they're better than us 'mortals' and they always flaunt it. Always. You though? You're just a regular Mage. And, well, you seemed nice from what I saw of you at Janice's."
"Hmm..." Amy pondered, slowly fiddling her thumbs.
"You don't have to decide now, if you don't want to," Beatrice rushed to say, looking panicked. "If... if you want to help, meet me at Janice's, next week. If I don't see you, then, no skin off your back, and I'll find another way."
Quiet trailed on for what felt like an eternity to Beatrice, as Amy contemplated on her seat, stony-faced and unreadable. She was almost tempted to start eating her food, no doubt cold and only lukewarm if she was lucky, when Amy finally did something.
Getting up from he seat, and brushing her dress, she said, "I'll meet with you next week then, the same day we met on before. I have to do my own... investigations before I agree to this.
"Thank you for the food, however," Amy grinned, grabbing her things. "I would say it was a pleasure, Beatrice, yet... to be truthful, I don't know what to think of our meeting today. Either way, enjoy the rest of your food."
And with that, she walked off. With a snap of something ethereal, barely noticeable to Beatrice, the Concealing Shield broke with it, the table seeming just a little lighter than before. Beatrice, ignoring the cold bass sitting there on her table, put her head in her hands and bit her lip hard.
"What did I just do?"
* * *
There was little light in the afternoon sky as Amy walked back home, her face still and measured. It was only when she reached the door of her room, going through and closing it behind here, did she break character.
Amy slid down the back of the door, letting her things drop to the floor. Covering her eyes with her hands, she let out a dissatisfied sigh of anything but relief.
"Oh Gods. What the Hell do I do now?"