Only minutes later, I found myself staring at a horrifying and gruesome scene.

The still, bloodied form of Wisp.

After Crook, Sylvia, and I had left the plaza accompanied by the SED Agents, the three of us who were Nocturnes had made a beeline for the rooftop we had originally departed from. Our former, and perhaps still, enemies had followed along silently, appearing to guess where we were coming from.

After all, they had been given the chance to collect their own dead before we’d left. The SED operative who I was suspecting had been the one to fight Wisp had the tact to not follow us up here, instead hanging back down on street level with their own dead comrade and the unconscious one Dusk had taken out.

Even though I had been expecting the sight of Wisp’s body, it still knocked the breath out of me. The rooftop was ruined, and the overhang that we had been doing our reconnaissance under had been torn down completely, laying in heaps of splinters and scattered every which way. I don’t know how the battle with the SED agent had gone, but it looked to have been a quick one. I’m not sure Wisp even had the opportunity to fight back before she’d been jumped. It looked to me that after having been…stabbed several times, she’d crawled her way over to rest against the door to the lower floors, and then simply…bled out. Her head was hanging over her chest, and her mask was starting to fall off her face.

I…I’m not sure how willing to work with the SED agents I was, after seeing something like this. There had been an implicit agreement among Crook, Sylvia, and I in the moments after leaving the plaza that there was more going on underneath the surface of Elderwyck than we knew, and it involved SED in some way. There had been talk of ‘factions’ and how SED had been hounding Rhiannon in particular for months now, and we needed to know what was going on. Dusk, or rather Liora, had essentially sacrificed herself on the possibility that we could solve this mystery.

I didn’t want to waste that opportunity, but right now all I wanted to do was turn around and tear out the throat of the two silently watching SED Agents.

That is, until something completely unexpected happened.

Under our disbelieving eyes, the ‘corpse’ of Wisp abruptly took a deep gasping breath before coughing up a mouthful of blood. I saw one unmasked eye crack open and look around deliriously before settling on both us, and the SED agents at our back. “Am I hallucinatin’,” A hoarse, confused voice escaped the apparently not dead woman. “Or are there SED behind you?”

I ignored her babbling, veritably teleporting to Wisp's side as I began to focus extremely hard on the task ahead. Once I had skidded to my knees in front of her, I began to rapidly withdraw supplies from my pouch. I vaguely noticed that Crook and Sylvia had joined me, but I almost completely disregarded them. I may not know Crook very well, but I did know that Sylvia had limited ability when it came to performing first aid. I, on the other hand, had an omnidisciplinary Profession capable of battlefield surgery.

I had more important things to do than pay attention to anyone else but Wisp.

I ripped off the mask of the delirious woman and began pouring a variety of different potions I had on me down her throat. Once that was done, I spoke to my companions without looking at them. “Hold her down,” I said curtly. Without further prompting, Crook and Sylvia complied, grabbing the delirious Wisp by the shoulders firmly.

Taking off my gloves, I reached out and laid my bare hands against the bloodied figure of Wisp as she struggled weakly. Focusing, I fell into my Aetherial Melding trance.

And got to work.

Ten minutes of tense melding later, I relaxed out of my trance and sighed, sitting back on my hands.

God, it had been a while since I’d had to do something like this. As far back as Addersfield, I’d say. My Aetherial first aid was sloppy, and very draining on me. But it worked.

Wisp would survive, at the very least until we could get her to a real Healer. She’d passed back out halfway through my treatment, but she was stable now, and no longer losing blood at a risky pace. Crook and Sylvia hadn’t needed to hold her down after the other Agent had lost consciousness, and had taken to guarding the two of us. When I looked up again, I saw Crook in the middle of a staring match with the SED Agents, while Sylvia had lifted her mask to smile down at me in pride.

“Well done,” She said quietly, laying a hand on my shoulder and squeezing. I could see relief thick in her gaze that we hadn’t lost anyone in what had turned out to be a pointless conflict. I lay my own hand on top of hers, and returned the squeeze with a tired smile. After a moment, I used her hand to leverage myself to my feet with a groan. After both the fighting and the impromptu surgery, I was feeling pretty worn out.

“Crook,” I said quietly, causing said Agent to turn her head slightly in my direction. I noticed that she didn’t completely take her eyes off of the SED group, though. “I need you to carry her.”

After a moment, Crook nodded slightly and then stepped back to gather the comatose form of Wisp in her arms. As she did so, I stepped forward, drawing the attention of the SED operatives. I was feeling much, much more charitable towards them now that I knew Wisp hadn’t been killed by the guy down on the street.

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We just had to see if they were feeling the same way, as I knew that the person Wisp had shot was very, very dead. Last I’d seen, their head was only hanging on by a thread of sinew.

“Now what?” I said bluntly, doing my best to focus through my exhaustion. I was the best option we had between the three of us to negotiate with members of the rival spy organization. For the moment, at least. Sylvia was just too…awkward with strangers, while Crook struck me as someone with a grudge. The buck stopped with me, for now. I couldn’t wait to pass this whole situation on at the first opportunity.

The SED member that had protested their leader surrendering themselves stepped forward. “I am Number Seventeen, and this is Number Forty-Five,” They said, their voice obscured by the enchantment of their illusionary mask. “At this point, we…request the opportunity to speak with your leader, in order to discuss the next step.”

I crossed my arms, the exposure of my face to people I’d just been fighting making me itch. I made sure to keep my expression flat. “And what do you see those next steps as?”

Seventeen and Forty-Five exchanged glances before Seventeen spoke again. “Am I correct in assuming that neither of us is content with allowing our respective comrades to remain with that…woman?”

“Obviously,” Crook growled at the SED Agents. Forty-Five turned their head to look at her, but didn’t speak. They did, however, give the impression of mutual animosity.

Sometimes, you could just feel these things.

Meanwhile, I frowned, but nodded. Glancing to the side, I approached the edge of the building we were talking on. Looking out over it at the garden and plaza we had just escaped from, I could see no trace of Rhiannon or her apparent Solstice’s Flame hirelings. They must have vacated the area as quickly as we had.

Or at least, they wanted us to think that. By setting up this entire apparent trap for the SED forces, Rhiannon had displayed a level of planning, subtly, and forethought that I didn’t normally associate with the nobility. While the woman may have reminded me of Magnus, she was clearly not quite as maniacally dim as my former ‘master’ had been.

She was an actual threat, it seemed.

I let out a slow breath. “It’s not my call to make,” I eventually said, before turning around and looking at my companions. “Crook, you should go get Wisp looked at. You know where to take her,” I said, alluding to the Healer’s clinic the Division had ties to. The same one that Hook had been treated at following his injuries in the mausoleum. “Whisper and I can handle this.”

Crook almost looked like she was going to protest the ad hoc order I’d all but given out. And I didn’t blame her for that. Sylvia and I were much more junior Agents than she was, after all. But Crook seemed pragmatic enough to realize we had no choice in the matter. I may have stabilized Wisp, but she still needed real Healing. She nodded curtly, and then turned and made a running leap to land on another nearby rooftop. In moments, the dark of the night had swallowed her and her precious cargo.

I turned my eyes to Sylvia then. “You…should call this in,” I said, referencing the communication coins obliquely. No way in hell was I going to be directly mentioning a Division secret in front of SED Agents.

Sylvia studied me for a moment, before nodding and turning to face the doorway to the lower floors of this building. No longer caring about subtlety, she drew her sword and sliced the chain and lock holding it closed before opening it and stepping inside.

I sighed, now that I was alone with the SED Agents. I know I should be concerned about that, considering they were our nominal enemies.

But after the shit show that tonight had turned into, I couldn’t give less of a fuck.

Either they’d stab in the back, or they wouldn’t.

Whatever.

I kept my eyes on them at the very least, as we stood around in awkward silence while Sylvia went through the laborious process of messaging Headquarters. It typically took a few minutes of flipping to translate a complex situation like this.

About five minutes of all three of us standing around silently, the door opened and Sylvia stepped out. She nodded at me. “They’ve been informed.”

Moments later, I could feel my own independent confirmation of that fact. My location coin strapped to the inside of my right arm started jerking in place rapidly. Looked like it had been linked up with a number of different other coins.

Backup seemed to be on the way.

“Looks like you’ll get a meeting,” I said shortly, cutting my eyes back over to Seventeen. They just nodded silently, before leaning over and whispering something to Forty-Five, too quietly for us to hear. After a moment, he nodded and then abruptly stepped over the other side of the building to the street below. Before I could even really ask what was going on, he had returned with the other SED member who had been waiting down there.

Accompanying them was the newly reawakened person I had been fighting, as well the corpse of the person slain by Wisp. I got the impression of a dirty glance from the Agent I’d frankly been losing against, but they didn’t speak themselves.

Seventeen inclined their head at the two new arrivals, first to my opponent, and then the one who had nearly killed Wisp. “Twenty-Two, and Thirty-Nine,” They said, half in acknowledgment, half in introduction.

Welp.

Now it was twice as awkward up here. Not only that, but now Sylvia and I were outnumbered two to one.

How wonderful.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait around long to be saved from the situation.

Abruptly, five people landed on the rooftop, coming to our rescue in record time. All five of them were Nocturne Agents, some of whom I recognized, and some of whom I didn’t. However, there was a very surprising face among them.

Hook.

Ever since we’d started operating in Elderwyck, I had never seen our commander out in the field taking on a mission. I knew he had to have been doing things on his own beyond just coordinating the Division, considering the personal investigation he was undertaking. But I had never seen or heard of him accompanying any other members.

However, here he was.

And he looked pissed.

The air grew heavy with the power of his projected Mana as the dwarf took one heavy step forward. The stone of the rooftop fractured from the force of his advance, as he directed a furious gaze on everyone gathered here, particularly the SED Agents. And then he did something I had only seen the most powerful do.

He projected his own ‘Mantle’, that mysterious demonstration of might I’d seen from Grey and Honoka on occasion. Only, instead of the world darkening more than it already was, it grew sharper.

It was…hard to explain. It was like every puff of air, even the breeze on the wind, sprouted razor blades. They weren’t cutting at me, no. Instead, it was almost like the very air around me was ever so slightly…shaving against my very spirit. It wasn’t taking anything away with every pass of the invisible blade. Just…making me aware of the implication of a threat.

It was profoundly, incredibly uncomfortable.

I shivered, and I noticed I wasn’t the only one.

“What,” Hook growled. “Is this I hear about Dusk being captured?”