“I knew it!” Emma shouted as she paced around the room in a loose shirt and shorts. “No one gets into a position like that that young and not have some sort of body count.” Jose had expected her to be more impartial in suggesting one of the Elder’s was plotting to take over the Vessel, but he wasn’t aware of her gut feeling about her.

“Emma, can we look at this objectively for a moment? Your partner just accused an Elder of treason. Without any proof.” Jose waited for her to grasp the severity of the situation. She gave him a narrow, sideways glance.

“I know you’re not going to lie or joke about something like this. If you had any concrete evidence, you’d have handed it to me by now.” Emma walked over to her journal and opened to a fresh page. “What have you found out so far?”

Jose doubled back through his thoughts, “Carmina’s the one that overheard the initial plot. We were approached by her since we didn’t look like we were affiliated with anyone else.”

“And what are her reasons for listening in? Is Carmina trustworthy?” Emma didn’t mince her words.

“I think the issue’s personal. Isabella’s been expanding her reach down in Barnacle Bay and she’s not thrilled about it. And yeah, she’s trustworthy. If she didn’t let me know about the rule change, I would have been blindsided in that first fight.”

“The fight with the two blondies and the other Archivist.”

“Yeah. They teamed up on me, coordinated. Adding on to that, she ran herself ragged during our final event.”

Emma looked like she wanted to add something but shook her head, “So Carmina overhears the rule changes and she has a grudge on the Elder. You get teamed up, suggesting some level of organization. Do you know how many are on her side?”

“No,” Jose kicked himself when a thought popped into his head, “And I don’t know if the guy that might be in the know would be willing to give up that info to me after I broke his leg.”

“So we have a successful merchant organizing an unknown number of conspirators towards what, getting a hold of the forge in the Vessel?”

“She’d have the financial authority to take over by that point. Because of a Chariot fleet at her disposal or the economic opportunity that the forge can promise to the citizens, I doubt they’d complain much over the take over.” Going over the potential plan from the Elders perspective, Jose felt she was more inclined to view the acquisition of the Vessel as an asset to be acquired non-violently. Threats of violence with the fleet were icing on the cake.

“Her authority would be challenged by the other Elders.” Emma provided a counterpoint.

“Yeah, but she’s in the most lucrative position in the bunch. If Carmina’s info is accurate, her inroads with the guts of the Vessel run deep and her connections topside’ll force any aligned business to work with her if she claimed ownership of Ileah.”

“And Elder Nero would be hard pressed to send in the Vanguard to quell dissidents. The community’s small enough that morale would play a pivotal role in sending our colony into chaos.” Emma scratched her chin and considered the angles of the situation. “Who else knows about the situation?”

“You, Me, Lysa, and the Del Mars.” Jose said.

“Does Lysa plan to tell Nora about this?” Emma asked.

“She’s going through a lot at the moment. I doubt she’d want to put any more pressure on Nora than she has to.” And they have Ollie to think about. It’d be better for Nora to have plausible deniability if any of them were targeted by the Elder.

“If you see Lysa, tell her I’m always here for her if she needs an ear.”

“I’m sure she knows. We talked it out some at the meeting today I think she’s better but Lysa has a good way of holding onto that stuff.”

“Kinda like a certain someone…” He saw that smirk and her knowing look and couldn’t help but smile back.

“That was different and you know it.” He pulled in closer, his arms wrapping around her waist.

“Oh I’m sure it was mi amor. I doubt you’d be a pain in the ass on purpose.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and he could feel her warm breath tickle the hairs on his neck. Her journal swayed from end to end on his back.

“We have to figure this situation out mi tesoro.”

“We will. Just, let me hold you like this.” She kissed the side of his neck once, twice, then whispered, “I love seeing you become the man I knew you’d be.”

“I couldn’t be half the man I am without you there.” He raised his arms from her waist to the mid of her back and embraced her, their chests wound tight as he started spinning her around the room.

“Jose, stop!” Emma yelped and giggled as the two of them spun around until Jose couldn’t bear the dizziness and tumbled onto the couch.

“You asshole.” She said quietly, her whole body on top of his as they rested on the couch. He couldn’t get a quip in, the taste of her warm lips on his stealing any words he might have used. The two stared at one another for eternity before she smiled and rolled off of him, “Now we can get back on track.”

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It took Jose a moment to recollect himself, his heart pounding with anticipation, skin and lips on fire with the touch of her. She really was his treasure.

He took a deep breath, “Where were we?”

“We were planning out how to stop an Elder from taking over the Vessel.” She went back to jotting down notes, the lingering passion between them apparent in the way they looked at one another. Now was the time for planning, however.

“The only way she can get onto the expedition to acquire the forge is to infiltrate our team with the remaining spots available. It’s why I pushed our team to interview potential candidates and give us time to perform some cursory evaluation on their background before we add them.” Jose explained.

“What’s stopping her from sending a boat of her own people out to the Vessel later? She’s a merchant, I’m sure she can procure a boat of some kind.” Emma inquired.

“Optics? It’d be strange to have our public expedition of 10 come back with a different looking boat and people who weren’t on the expedition say they retrieved the forge. It’d suggest foul play or imply some fuckery to the citizens and the Elders from a distance. I doubt she wants to delegitimize her takeover like that.” Jose answered. It also meant that her sending mercenaries was out of the question too. He feared that she’d be able to procure a Caravan for the job but realized the level of danger they’d be putting themselves through that Jose’s own colony required volunteers for would scare any potential adventurer away from the task.

Emma looked over her notes and nodded, “I think she’s got more tricks up her sleeve than we know of. If she’s willing to invest this much on the takeover plot, then she’d be smart enough to have a contingency plan here.” She scribbled out a question mark on her page and drew a few circles around it. “I need to investigate things here.”

Jose paused, “Don’t you have work to be worried about?”

Emma shook her head, “The Vanguard cleared our anchoring spot and the surrounding area in preparation for your expedition. We’re currently on standby until the expedition returns or we leave you behind.” Huh. He wished he could take advantage of their shared time off.

“What do you plan to do then? I’d like to be in the loop of what you plan to do before you do something rash.”

Emma pouted but pressed onward, “While you’re conducting your interviews, I’m going to dig into the whereabouts of each volunteer that lost. I’ll give her enough credit in assuming she’d tie up loose ends one way or another. I can start with that archivist and the two blondes and move on from there.” She closed her journal and placed it on the stand next to the couch. “Now are you going to follow me in here or am I gonna have to drag you in for a good time?”

Jose dropped his train of thought and dumbly walked after her.

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“It’s time you started learning magic.” Jose had been studying languages at home in preparation for this moment. His mother had given him a pile of books to pour through and an education all their own for the arduous task of becoming an Arcanist.

“I’ll take you to school with the rest of the kids but when you come home, there’ll be more lessons waiting for you.” She warned him of the work it would take but he didn’t mind it. She was a good teacher. Patient with him then. It was easy for him to pick up different languages and gestures. He liked the different dances the Vespians did when signaling their affections or displeasure with someone else. He enjoyed the guttural barks of the Ursan, a language his mother had to teach him because there were no books she had on hand for their kind. The breathy hisses and of the Dead Tongue left his skin prickly and on edge. He didn’t like the way the sentences made him feel, the way his chest felt as he emphasized each syllable with the weight of his Soul.

“Mijo, never stop learning these languages. Living or dead, there is power with each tongue you adopt.” She emphasized the importance over and over, unsure if he was properly grasping the severity of becoming intimate with a language and its usage.

He wasn’t, not exactly. He was curious and the words became familiar to him like old friends, like the worlds he dreamed of visiting far and away in his many picture books.

They’d been at things for a year and a half now. He was seven when she handed him the Grimoire, its depiction of a swirling storm with an eye at the storm's center, a ship on the verge of tumbling beneath the waves. The lettering was inscrutable at first, and then his heart was alight when the runic symbols shifted to reveal the title of the book, Misgivings of the Depths, Vol I.

Jose yelped, barely able to contain his excitement. He turned up to his mother and saw she was sharing in his joy.

“You can’t escape what you are, mijo.” His heart sank, the room around him growing dark as the wooden floorboards peeled and the walls crept with filth. “I wasted my time with you and-”

Jose woke up in the darkness, caked in sweat with the world around him as serene as can be. Emma was resting on his chest next to him, surprisingly quiet in their unlit bed room.

It was just a nightmare. He shimmied out of bed, laying a pillow where his body was that Emma could hold, and walked out of the house into the cold embrace of the late night air. His Grimoire was tightly clenched , the cover incapable of giving into any of his feeble strength to bend or twist the binding.

He went behind their home and sat down on the ground, his book sitting in between his lap. The last time it’d been opened was when Ollie got a hold of it. How much further had that boy read than Jose? He skimmed through the pages and saw little finger smudges where dust had once been. Even under years of neglect and abandonment, these pages still moved seamlessly as when he was young.

He knew the page he was looking for. The Grimoire knew too, practically jubilant as it shifted in anticipation to the last spell he learned.

The Sundering Storm.

His skin crackled with electricity and his chest tightened with the weight of that roiling storm chiseled within him. It yearned to be unleashed and howled in his ears for him to do so, to release the fury that fed him out onto the picturesque landscape.

His mother had stopped him at this page. “You can learn the rest of it when you master the Storm.” She had told him. He placed his finger at the tip of the page and drew in a deep breath.

He was growing. His partner loved him for moving forward. His team needed him to move forward. Lysa would kick him if he didn’t. It was a different weight on his shoulders, a burden he wanted to bear and did so when he turned to the next page and sunk into that curiosity of his youth. The runic arcane language was welcoming. It shifted and glimmered as he read past line after line, inviting him with the same level of warmth as it did all those years ago.

Jose’s eyes scanned through the pages as quickly as he could, his Soul decoding each phrase, each gesture, each passage with the ease of a morning jog. If he remembered correctly, a volume contained eight to twelve spells. Would he be able to learn the rest of it in time for the expedition?

Probably not. Not safely anyway. And he wouldn’t risk the chance of a spell backfiring on the rest of the group if he molded the spell incorrectly.

He could think about this later. Jose read his Grimoire under the stars, each sentence unveiled a puzzle piece to the full picture of the next spell he was becoming acquainted with. Its soft voice and fleeting observations of the waves approaching the shore told him the next spell would not howl at him like the last.

He looked forward to learning its name.