Alistair thought about what Zola said during his jog the next morning. She seemed to believe, based on something she had read, that trapping someone and a card in a pocket realm was indeed possible. But not through Lionel. This meant that they actually needed to get the dungeon card from Kanda. It also meant that Kanda’s original strategy, the one in which they tried for an all-out assault on her uncle’s mansion, wouldn’t work.

Not with Kanda involved, anyway.

“And that,” Alistair had told his friends last night, echoing Ghost’s words as they played out in his head, “is where you come into play, Juno. If you are up for it. I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

Even now, Alistair couldn’t believe he had even suggested it. It went against his basic instinct to use his friend as bait, but Ghost was right. It would work. It would get them close to Felix, and all hell could break loose from there.

The problem now became getting the dungeon core card from Kanda, whom Alistair and Ghost assumed wouldn’t be willing to give it up. This was why he didn’t continue on his morning jog and instead took the steps to the Wraithen Archives to find Zola waiting for him.

She yawned. “It’s early.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“What’s with you and Juno always assuming I’m hungry? Yes, I’m thin, but you are too. We grew up this way. We don’t have the little extra fat on us like the other students do. I can go for three days without eating. I tested myself. What about you?”

“Three days sounds about right. It gets painful at the end of the second day.”

Zola offered Alistair a sad laugh. “It does. Anyway, not hungry. And we need to find out how to use that card.”

“Do you think he’ll really tell us?” Alistair asked.

“There’s no telling. Come on.” Zola led Alistair into the Wraithen Archives, and through a door at the back. They entered a hallway lined with books and crumpled manuscripts that needed to be cataloged. From there it was into a different corridor, one that resembled the depths of the Underhall with its bricked walls and floors. “Yes, in case you’re wondering, this is part of the Underhall.”

“So don’t tickle it, got it.”

Simply saying this triggered a sound that echoed all around them.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuuuuuummmmmm…

“Moving on,” Zola said with alarm as she sent a message to Alistair.

Zola: It can hear you, you know! Let’s not encourage the Underhall, lest we end up in some random room half a mile beneath the campus with no way out but to fondle.

Alistair: Understood. Sorry.

Zola: It’s fine.

“Right this way,” she said as if they weren’t having a conversation over Spectral Text.

They two reached a room with two tables, where books were spread out and open in the middle. There were spools of leather, and a parchment stretcher with a strong wooden frame to prevent the sheets of parchment from curling. Zola ran her hand across organizing folders made of bone, which sat next to scraping knives, quills, ink pots, a small clay cup filled with feathers, a wooden press, and other stitching supplies.

“I haven’t learned to do it yet,” Zola said proudly, “but this is one of the places where we repair manuscripts. I’m certainly interested. And before you ask, of course, there are cards that help. But sometimes doing things by hand is better. And according to Lorcan, the best archivists learn to do everything before they take on cards that assist them in the tasks. Anyway, we’re almost there.”

Ghost: This job sounds boring. But sometimes, boring is nice. You could really work on your hand-eye coordination doing something like this, which would help with certain kinds of stealth attacks. This would also be a great place for you to start putting together my memoir, a rough draft, if you will.

Alistair: I’ll get right on that…

Ghost: I was joking. I’m very well aware that the memory of me will be lost to time. And in a way, that is fitting. It’s fitting because of the code that I once took, and the life that I once led. Not everyone should be famous or remembered, although it is something that many desire.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Alistair didn’t know what to tell the assassin.

Lately, Ghost had been speaking to him in this different way, not quite emotional, but certainly with an underlying hint of melancholy. It was the same way Alistair imagined an old man would speak as he came to peace with the fact that he would soon die.

And rather than say anything, rather than dig just a bit deeper to see what Ghost really meant, Alistair closed the door to this conversation and tossed away the key. Compartmentalization wasn’t a term he was familiar with, but it was something Alistair actively practiced when it came to dealing with the assassin in his head and the murder that often followed him.

“And we are here,” Zola said as they passed under an arch doorway and reached a room that was entirely painted red aside from the ceiling, which featured the image of a man seated on a throne. The man was small, yet he wore elaborate gold clothing that matched a small crown on his head, one that had a jewel where his third eye should be.

“This is it?”

“Yep. Just need to move these.” Zola placed a pair of cushions on the ground. She patted the one next to her. “Sit.”

“Okay,” Alistair said as he followed her instructions. Once he was seated, Zola instructed him to stretch his legs out and look up at the painting. “Okay,” Alistair said, not certain of where this was going.

After moving into the same position, her palms propping her up, Zola spoke: “Tarnis. We are to have a conversation.”

For a moment, nothing happened.

But then Alistair saw the faint tendrils of Resonant Mana through his Gem Gaze skill. The wisps of mana traveled to the center of the painting above, and the man seated on the throne came alive. He yawned, and scowled at the two of them. “Two orphans decide to worship at the throne of Tarnis. Not expected, but not unexpected, if we’re being honest. Now, what the hell do you want? Or did you come here to mock me? If so, you may leave now!”

“No, we came here because we are worried,” Zola said, going with the Ghost-approved lie she had devised last night, the one that had the assassin reminding Alistair just how crucial she was to their group.

“What could you be worried about?”

“The older girl that was with us took the dungeon core card, as you all agreed upon,” Zola said. “We are curious as to how it works. We want to make sure that she uses it correctly so she doesn’t get trapped or something, and then we have to deal with that. You know, with the administration. They are so bitchy these days.”

“Ugh, tell me about it. I’m so sick of the administration holding everyone’s hands. Students should suffer from their mistakes. They should learn to think on their feet, and experience what happens when they make the wrong decision. Too much coddling around here. I keep telling them that, but no one listens to me. No one cares what old Tarnis has to say. You two should’ve seen how much better we were then your class.”

“I’m sure that is the case,” Zola said.

Ghost: It’s working. I had a feeling it would, but I’m still surprised to see Tarnis take the bait. What an idiot. And of course everyone thinks their class was better than the new class. That’s what we tell ourselves to mask our own insecurities.

Alistair: Are you better than the newer assassins?

Ghost: Of course, I am!

Zola continued: “We want to understand how to use the card so if she uses it, we can either reverse what she has done, or rescue our friend from whatever dungeon she may have created. We also want to know, and this may be a stranger question, if there is a way to take someone’s card while they are incapacitated. Not dead. Nothing like that. But we are thinking about using a sleep spell on her and taking the card.”

“You mean stealing a card?”

“Sure, you could frame it in that way.”

“There is a card extraction tool, but you wouldn’t be able to get one easily. They are abolished because they can be used to torture a battledeck mage. As an orphan, you’ve lived a hard and shitty life, and you probably know the things that are abolished are actually obtainable if you know the right person. So the question would be, do you know the right person? If you do, then getting her card will be easy if you can put her to sleep. How long do you have to figure all this out?” he asked Zola.

“Today. We have today. We are supposed to meet with her tonight.”

“Dammit. Fine. I can’t believe I’m going to actually help you here but do you remember the bard who once sang to you all in Lumina? Annie was her name.”

“Yes?”

“She’s a fence in her freetime. If anyone knows where a contraption like that would be, it would be her. But it won’t be cheap.”

“And you think she would have a card that would help someone fall asleep?” Alistair asked.

“How would I know? I thought you already had the card.”

Zola: Finnian got something like that recently, a forbidden card, obviously. I’ll borrow it from him.

Alistair: How did he get it?

Zola: He did a quest while we were on our little dungeon excursion. Finnian obtained it then.

Zola spoke again: “I have a slumbering card. That part isn’t an issue. Where would we find Annie?”

“I can’t help you there,” Tarnis said. “But maybe you should look for her at the last place you saw her. Seems like a good idea to me.”

Zola: Lumina. The restaurant.

Alistair: We can skip class and go there for lunch.

Zola: I hate skipping class, but I agree.

Alistair: And Juno?

Zola: Is he even up yet?

“We’ll look for her,” Zola told Tarnis. “Now, tell us what you can about the dungeon core card. How they operate, how one uses it, and what we can expect. And thank you, truly. We’d be lost without your dedicated research and guidance.”

“Yes, you certainly would…”