Alistair sat with his back against the wall of his dorm room. He dipped his chin and closed his eyes. Zola got into a sleeping position near the open doorway, one hand spread into Alistair’s bedroom. She had already given Juno the card that Finnian had loaned her, just in case Kanda had more questions.
“Um, Kanda?” Juno lightly tapped his hand against her arm. “Yo, um, can you hear me?”
“You really put her to sleep,” Noctarii said, the fae hovering next to Juno. “Might need to try that on the slime. His squishes are becoming increasingly bossy—”
Alistair quickly touched his chest and Noctarii disappeared.
Ghost: Good. She would have suspected something with the fae blabbering on.
“Kanda?” Juno tried again. When this didn’t work, he simply stood there staring at her for another couple of minutes until she finally started to move. “You’re awake,” he said. “Hi.”
Kanda sat, her palm flaring with Resonant Mana aimed at Juno. “What the—”
“Don’t shoot me!” he told her, his hands up. “It was an accident. Well, it wasn’t exactly an accident, but—”
“What did you do?” She pressed herself off Alistair’s bed. “What the hell did you do, Juno?”
“It was a prank. My buddy Finn let me borrow a card that puts someone to sleep. I tried it on Zola,” he said, motioning to her, “and it spread into here as well, where it hit you and Alistair.”
Kanda glared at him. She quickly looked down to Zola, just as the other girl started to wake up.
“Where—?” Zola hopped to her feet, and stumbled backward, where she fell again. “What did you do?” she shrieked. “Juno!”
This was Alistair’s cue to wake up. He jolted just as Zola had done, Alistair doing his best to sell that he had been forced asleep. This included reaching his hand out, accurately hitting the wall as he stood with his arm, and glancing around frantically. “Wh-wh-what? What… wh-what happened?”
Ghost: Not bad, but less stuttering.
“Sorry, bro, that was me.” Juno turned to Alistair, the curly-haired boy barely able to contain a smile forming on his face. At least it was a devious one, one that Kanda misinterpreted.
“Seriously, Juno?” Kanda asked. “You think this shit is funny? We have important things to do today and you’re fucking around—”
“No! I was just trying to prank Zola, that’s all. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, everyone.”
“Let me see the card,” Kanda demanded. “You’re lucky I know who your sister is.”
“Don’t bring Melissa into this!”
“I don’t want to, Juney, trust me. Now, the card. Let me see it.”
“It’s Finnian’s. He gave it to me to use on our trip.”
Her face went pale. “He knows we’re going to the Dracolich Empire?”
“No, but I told him we were going to do some leveling in the Crown’s Forest outside of Solaria. He figured it could help. I can only use it once a day, though. Which is why I used it now.”
Kanda could barely contain her disdain for what he had just done. “Even though you have agreed to bait my uncle tonight, you waste a card like this now?”
“I said I was sorry,” Juno told Kanda. “I had a test to make sure it worked. We can still use it tomorrow once we cross the border.”
“It has barely been an hour, and you are already pressing my buttons.”
“Did I tell you I can turn into a snake now? I can’t remember—”
“Juno!” Zola said.
“Sorry…”
“Stop apologizing.” Kanda stood. “Are we going or what? Get your shit together, and let’s do this. Once we arrive in Solaria, we’ll go over our plans again.”
“You got it,” Juno said as he left Alistair’s room. Within seconds, a message came.
Juno: We totally got her. I told you it would work, Zoldee.
Zola: That barely worked.
Juno: Just keep her distracted. We don’t want her checking her status.
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Zola: Grab my bag as well. The rope is in there.
Juno: Yes, boss.
Zola: I like that nickname better than your other ones.
“What will we do when we get there?” Alistair asked Kanda, hoping to distract her. “I mean, where will we go? Should we head straight to his mansion?”
“We need to find out which mansion he is at first. And I said we would talk about this there.”
“I’m just curious.”
“We will need to get that information. Luckily, there are numerous Baronblade trainees around the city.”
“He had sixteen Baronblades, right?” Alistair asked Kanda.
“More or less, with an emphasis on less now. But he has damn near two hundred trainees on payroll. The difference between a trainee and a true Baronblade isn’t always about skill level,” she said as she approached the portal. “Well, do you want to activate it, or what?” Because of the size of Alistair’s room, Kanda stood close to him now, too close for comfort, really.
“What is it about?” Zola asked Kanda. “The difference between Baronblades and trainees, that’s what I mean.”
“Some trainees are fledgling mercenaries. Some are just waiting for a spot to open up on the main roster, and some just don’t want a full-time commitment. Being one of his actual Baronblades, though, is where the real perks come in. That would have been my late father. Not that the trainees aren’t paid well. Everyone is paid well. As shitty as my uncle is, he learned long ago to pay people more than they are worth but also to extract the ultimate punishment on them if they don’t live up to their worth. Let’s get out of here.”
The portal buzzed and Kanda stepped through it. Alistair nodded at Zola. “You’re next.”
“Juno, my bag?” Zola asked.
“You got it, boss,” he said as he entered Alistair’s dorm room with both bags. “Let me go next.” Juno stepped through the portal, followed by Zola.
Alistair was last. Just about as soon as he moved through the glowing door of Resonant Mana he found himself standing on a rooftop in the capital city, where he instantly crouched just like the others.
“Why rooftops?” Kanda asked. But then something traced across her eyes, as if she had realized the answer to her question and its relation to the assassin that lived in Alistair’s head. “I guess it’s as good of a place as any.”
“Hella cool to be on the roof if you ask me.” Juno squat-walked to the edge of the rooftop. “Hella cool.”
“Hey!” A woman with a broom shouted up at him. “What are you doing up there?”
“Just hanging out with my friends,” Juno shouted down to her.
“Dammit, Juno,” both Zola and Kanda said at the same time. The two girls exchanged glances.
Ghost: Hop down from the other side. Don’t make an ass out of us.
Rather than reply, Alistair moved to the other side of the roof, the others followed. They jumped down into an alley, and were gone before the woman with the broom could come around. Naturally, Kanda took the lead, but she didn’t walk too long before she slipped into a tavern.
She took a seat in a booth in the back, and gestured hurriedly for the others to do the same. “Hopefully, we weren’t spotted.”
“What about the old lady?” Juno asked as his eyes darted around the tavern, Juno a mixture of nervousness and excitement.
“She won’t have much to say other than the fact that she saw a couple of dumbass students on a rooftop.” Kanda waved the barmaid over. “What’s on the menu?”
The barmaid offered the four of them an uncertain grin. “We have a rabbit stew and—”
Kanda stopped her. “No stew. Just bring over some bread. Best not to have a full stomach.”
“Rabbit stew is pretty good,” Juno said after the barmaid left.
“You are aware that there could be some very real things about to happen, right?” Kanda asked him.
A message came in from Zola, meant for both Juno and Alistair.
Zola: Remember. We need to keep her distracted, so play along. We don’t want her having a moment to check her stats.
“I don’t know,” Juno said. “I could eat. What’s the problem with rabbits? Who doesn’t like a stew? What happens when you combine them both into something super scrumptious?”
Kanda’s expression tightened. “You didn’t eat at the Academy?”
“I did,” he told the older girl, “but that was like an hour or two ago.”
The bread came in a basket and the waitress placed a pitcher of water beside it.
“Let me go ahead and get the stew,” Juno told the barmaid, much to Kanda’s chagrin.
She lit into him as soon as the barmaid was gone, Juno playing along as always.
Ghost: He does play a good dope, I’ll give him that.
“What about Felix’s location?” Alistair asked once the argument between Juno and Kanda reached its breaking point, Juno now talking while munching down hunks of bread.
“We’ll get to that soon.” Kanda glanced around. “Very soon, actually.” She touched her chest and summoned Daisy, who quickly took to the shadows. “My uncle owns this place. Baronblades and trainees are allowed to have free meals here. We’re a little early for dinner, but I suspect someone will come at some point.”
“Won’t they put out an alarm of sorts?” Zola asked.
“We will reach my uncle before they are able to,” she said darkly.
Ghost: She means that she will probably hurt the trainee.
Alistair: I don’t need you interpreting everything that she says.
Ghost: Sometimes, assassins speak in tongues. Just keep distracting her. That’s what you all are doing, right?
Alistair never applied as the door opened and a woman stepped in. She didn’t look like a Baronblade upon first glance, but then he noticed the way that she stood, and that she had a certain gait about her that seemed opposing. There was also a mask tucked in the front of her belt, a dead giveaway.
Kanda followed his gaze over to the woman as she took a seat with her back against the wall in a way that would allow her to see who came through the entrance.
“That would be one of them,” Kanda said. “Daisy.”
“Yes?” the Abyssal summon asked from the shadows.
Kanda pulled off a piece of bread, examined it, and took a bite. When she was finished chewing, she spoke again: “you know what to do next,” she told her summon.
Kanda pushed away from the table and the shadows rushed forward, where they met the woman who had just taken her seat. They pooled around the seated Baronblade trainee as a shadowy tendril traveled up her shoulder and tightened over her neck.
Kanda sat in front of her, folded her hands together, and smiled as the woman struggled under the Abyssal summon’s grasp. Soon, she would have the information she needed.