Getting back to the Academy took most of half an hour. That was thirty minutes, in which Alice had nowhere to go, but inside of her own head. Thirty minutes, of going over it again and again.
His face had been completely calm, when he fit his palm to the hand print on the wall. Even with Hadley’s warning, she could never have imagined that kind of cavalier attitude towards his own life. He hadn't even tried to explain to her what he wanted to do. He had just done it. Like it wasn't even a big deal, throwing his life away for a maybe, turning his life over to some anonymous villain.
It was selfish of him, to risk his own life for this. It might look like confidence, but it felt like a delusion. If he was wrong, what then? He could have eliminated their only chance to fix this, and Alice would have blamed herself. She did blame herself, for not seeing it. For allowing him to go as far as to put his hand on that wall. If he had called his magic, for even just a second. If she hadn't stopped him, when she did. She should have known, of course. That was the worst part. Hadley had warned her, and she knew enough of the Soul Eater story to realize that he did this sort of thing, and she should have anticipated it.
She blamed Hadley, too. It wasn't fair to put this responsibility on her. To put Luka Lavrin's life in her hands.
By the time she reached the Academy, she had decided to be angry at all of them, all at once. It was simpler than trying to decide who held the most blame. Besides, nothing had happened. They were going to find another way. So it was fine.
Her fingers had just closed around the iron gate, when the thought struck her like lightning, sudden and paralyzing.
"No," she whispered.
She called Luka, telling herself she was wrong. She wanted to trust him, to think that he didn't really want to infect himself. He had even presented them with another option, and Hadley had—
"No."
Luka didn’t pick up, even when she called him a second and a third time.
It was pointless to call Hadley, when she was this close to his office. She pushed the gate open, and ran across the courtyard.
She made herself stop in the hallway outside his office, to compose herself, but she was still breathless when she grabbed the door handle and found it locked. She knocked, just in case, but there was no response. She pulled out her phone again, hoping against hope that she had missed some sort of word from Luka, but of course there was nothing. With every passing moment, she became more sure he really had infected himself, because why else would he be avoiding her?
She called Hadley, but of course he didn’t pick up either.
The moment Luka had made the decision to infect himself, he had gone rogue. She knew where he lived, but there was no way it was going to be that easy to track him down.
There had been some sort of clue in the spell, but using that to find him would be desperate. Luka was important, for the future of those infected students, for the Academy, but she wasn’t ready to throw her own life away for him.
It wasn’t like he had stopped working the case. He had just decided to do it alone.
She didn’t know whether to pace the hallway, or sink down on the floor. Her phone was still in her hand, but it didn’t feel like she had any moves left. She would have to wait for Hadley, hope he could fix this mess.
Exhaustion diluted the anger with every second that ticked by, until she eventually sat down. Her fingers traced the silver lines of metal inlaid between the wooden planks, while her mind wandered.
She couldn’t just dismiss Luka. She had taken on a responsibility, when she accepted to apprentice with him, and she did care. She wanted to help him. She wanted to save him.
What could she do?
She still wondered at the question of motive, even though she still lacked so many pieces to get it to click. The bad guy had set up a trap at Mutiny, which was supposed to be a safe space, and had infected someone who shouldn’t have even been there — not just four months after enrolling in the Academy. It didn’t add up. She imagined, that anyone who knew about Mutiny had needed it at some point in their life. They wouldn’t disrespect it. If they hadn’t been introduced to Mutiny, because they were dissatisfied with the Academy, then how did they find it? Luka might know, but she wasn’t familiar enough with Mutiny to make any conclusions.
She sighed. It was pointless, as was waiting for Hadley.
She pushed herself up, and headed for the exit. When she turned the corner, she nearly crashed into him. Her hand instinctively reached out, and clutched his shoulder. She pulled back, nearly stumbling, but he caught her.
“Alice?"
She steadied herself, and took two steps back, out of his reach.
“Mage Thomas.” The anger gathered itself back together, and rose above the exhaustion. She nearly made the decision to push past him, to try and figure this out herself, somehow.
“Did you tell Luka that there was a chance with the Oracles?”
“No,” he said, suspicion narrowing his eyes. “I told him Constance wouldn’t change her mind.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “That makes sense.” Her voice felt steady, even though she didn’t feel calm at all.
When Hadley had gone straight to Constance Van Aller, Alice thought they were close. She thought he had some sway with her. She could understand following protocol, but not like this. Maybe, if he had gone through the person overseeing the Oracles, instead of the highest authority, exceptions could be made.
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The Van Allers weren’t just Council, they were practically royalty. They had led the Council for generations, and from what Alice had heard, it wasn’t all nepotism. They really were that good. Well-bred, well-trained and exceptionally powerful mages, raised for one purpose.
At least until Constance and Marten had a son, who disappeared from the Academy. Someone probably knew why, but no one dared spread the word. If anyone could bend the rules, it would be the Van Allers, but they never would, because perceptions were more important.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Hadley asked.
“Nothing.” She was desperate to get out, even as she was desperate for his help. “I’ll figure it out.”
She tried to push past him, but he stepped into her path, and the hallway was narrow enough that she was trapped.
“Why don’t we go into my office?”
The relief of having control taken away from her, unraveled something inside her chest. She wanted to hold on to her anger, to her disappointment, and let them be the walls that kept her from breaking. She worried, as she followed him back down the hall, that she couldn’t keep her fears in check.
Hadley unlocked the door, and settled down behind his desk. Familiar, but no longer safe.
“Where were you?” Alice asked, as she took her own seat.
“In a meeting,” Hadley said. "Believe it or not, but you're not my only responsibility."
"Maybe we should be," Alice murmured.
It was easier to blame him, to feel abandoned, than to admit that the person she was really angry with was herself. If she allowed herself to feel it, the burden of the case, Luka, everything, would push her to the ground and kick her teeth in.
“Excuse me?”
Alice looked up. He didn’t understand, not yet, but he wasn’t so worried that he couldn’t also be offended. “Sorry. That’s not fair. You warned me. I guess I should have listened.”
He took a slow breath, and softened on the exhale. “Tell he what happened.”
“You know what happened, don’t you? You know what he’s capable of.”
“I don’t understand, Alice. What did he do?”
She really should just tell him, get it over with, but she couldn’t get the words out.
“He thinks it’s personal. Did you find any evidence, that he might be right?”
“No. None.” He paused, almost as if waiting for her to continue, but she wasn’t ready. When enough seconds had passed, that his patience couldn’t take it anymore, he continued. “I really was the only one involved in recruiting him, but I asked around, just in case anyone had heard anything. In case anyone had taken an interest in him, but there’s nothing. Of course, whoever is doing this isn’t Academy, and we don’t know what kind of relationship he has with the Rogues.”
Alice gathered her hands together, one thumb slowly stroking the other. “He said no Rogues hate him enough to want him dead, but of course he thinks it’s about getting his attention, so he wouldn’t know who it is.”
“It’s possible,” Hadley allowed, but she wasn’t sure he meant it. If no one had pushed Hadley to hire him, how could they be sure he would?
“Alice,” he nudged, gently.
She nodded. She didn’t look at him. “Matt seemed to confirm that Mutiny was the origin, so we went. We think we found the spell, and that activating it would reveal a clue. I stopped him, but then…”
“You stopped him?” Hadley asked, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying, but he had to. All the information was there, unless he didn’t want to understand.
Alice took a breath. “Then he called you, and he said there was another way. He told me he would go home, that I should come here, see if I could help somehow. I know I shouldn’t have believed him, but I didn’t think he wanted to do it. I thought he would at least want to try finding an alternative. I was so determined to prove I was on his side, that I guess I forgot to be on my own side.”
“So you weren’t there?”
“What?”
“You weren’t there, when you think he infected himself. You don’t know for sure.”
Her nails dug into her skin. “No, I do know. Call him.”
His phone was on the table. He reached over, and swiped his fingers across the screen, then the tone rang out. He had put in on speaker, so they could both listen, as it rang out. Luka didn’t even decline the call, and it felt like it took forever, before it went to voicemail.
“Damn it,” he muttered, and hung up.
“You didn’t see him,” Alice said. “He didn’t even hesitate.”
“No, I can imagine.” He picked up his phone, and it looked like he was typing something. “You know, when the Soul Eater was unleashed, him and Abel were the only ones running towards the Academy, while it was being evacuated. This is exactly the kind of thing he would do.” He sounded distant, distracted.
She was afraid to break the silence that followed, but she couldn’t stand the way it surrounded her. “What should I have done? Tell me what I did wrong.”
He looked up from his phone. He clicked the screen off, before dropping it back on the table. His eyebrows tilted in sympathy.
“Nothing, Alice. I never meant to give you the impression that you could stop him from being reckless. I only meant for you to tell me, so I can try to do some damage control.”
“But this… He’s dying, and we don’t know where he is. We don’t know where the clue led him, or if he’s walked right into a trap.”
Hadley’s smile was weak, but it meant something that he thought that was funny. “Back then, I always thought I was protecting him from himself, but he never actually listened to me. He just stopped telling me what he was going to do. Luka doesn’t want to die. He never did. If anything, Luka sees his mortality as a challenge. He’s confident that he can win, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now. I’m not as worried about that part, as I am about what he’s prepared to do next, especially if he’s wrong.”
“What happened?” Alice asked, not quite able to ignore the opening. “With the Soul Eater?”
“Well. He won, didn’t he? That should be more important than the things we lost.”
“I heard someone died,” she ventured, carefully.
Hadley nodded. “Abel.”
The name did something to him. She could see it in his eyes, when the moment passed, and he returned fully to the present. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to remember that part of the past, and it was probably for the best. She needed to let go of her misplaced curiosity, and get back to the reality of the situation. She just hadn’t expected Hadley to offer any piece of the past, let alone that much of it.
“So, what happens now?”
Hadley sighed. “I guess we have to track him down.”
“How?”
There was a pause, while he glanced at his phone. If Luka had been the one he had texted earlier, she doubted there was any response. He wouldn’t answer Hadley before her. He owed her, most of all.
“The Oracles.”
“What?” She rose from the chair. “No. Don’t tell me you got access.”
“No,” he said. “I didn’t. But this is different.”
Luka had infected himself, because they couldn’t get access to the Oracles. He was risking his life, because Hadley had to follow the rules, and now…
She didn’t want to argue the point, because they were going to find Luka, but she struggled to ignore the part where this could have all been avoided, if he had been willing to break the rules earlier.
“How is this different?”
Hadley was rising from his chair. He hadn’t really properly settled himself into the office, so all he needed was to slide his phone into his pocket to be ready to go. “Look,” he said. “Luka is an asset. He’s… valuable.”
“And finding the person who did this isn’t?”
“Of course it is, but that would have been a waste of resources, as long as we had Luka. Right now, we don’t.” He went to the door, and held it open for her, his keys dangling from his other hand. “Besides, unlike tracking down an unknown person, using unknown magic, at an unknown time, this will be quick. Constance doesn’t even need to know about it.”