Hilarious waited impatiently for me to speak, his teeth grinding as he tapped his fingers loudly against his wooden desk. I started with the most pressing matter when I deemed him irritated enough. “First, have you ever encountered a mage with my magic before?”
Hilarious looked at Caesar, then to a book sitting on his desk before sighing. “I cannot say with 100% certainty, as Caesar has only been working analyzing magic for the last year or so.” His hand moved to cup his chin as he debated how much to tell me. “However, we’ve encountered a number of unique magic types, including one that claimed to be able to read people’s fortunes.”
I leaned back in the chair, surprised he’d bothered to answer. His eyes were cold and calculative, and he looked at me expectantly.
Still leaning back, I moved my left knee onto the chair and crossed my arms. I slid my hands up my sleeves, placing my palm against the handle of the knife. I was careful to avoid revealing my weapon, fingers skating along the back edge of the sheath. Leveraging my body, I rocked on the chair's back legs, staring at the ceiling but paying attention to Hilarious’ movements.
“I wasn’t lying earlier when I said I don’t know much,” I prefaced. “But I do know a little more than what I mentioned yesterday.” It was what he wanted to hear. The tapping of his pencil finally stopped, and I was provided with his full attention. “It all started with strange feelings when I was a child, which warned of an upcoming unfortunate event. Of course, all I knew then was that I’d wake up feeling like ants were crawling up my spine, and then something bad would happen. It wasn’t until recently that this escalated into dreams of the future.”
Hilarious went to write something down on his paper. I continued speaking as he scribbled, and I started to rock the chair casually back and forwards. “Even more recently, I discovered I could view real-time–”
In novels, no one ever expected you to attack mid-sentence.
As the front legs hit the ground, I pushed off the chair with my left foot, leaping across the desk with a thump, sending the chair careening backward into Caesar, and drawing the knife in one smooth motion. There was a clatter from behind me as it slammed into him, but I was focused on the surprised man inches from my face. I snatched the gem with my left hand, yanking it hard against Hliarious’ neck. He caught himself on the corner of the desk, dropping the nearly weaponized pencil in his hand. The chair crashed into a wall behind me as I cut through the taunt chain and commanded, “Caesar, freeze!”
The chain snapped at the same instant Caesar froze inches from my back, the heat licking at my skin through my clothes. In front of me, the panicked Hilarious was recovering quickly, bracing himself on the floor with his hand still on the desk. I threw myself to the side, swiping a scroll off the desk with my knife hand as he shoved it forward. It whisked by me, missed me by mere centimeters. He followed through with the motion to lunge at me, and I dodged behind the frozen Caesar.
“Caesar, stop him!” I ordered, shoving the scroll in my shirt and knicking myself accidentally with the knife as I sprinted towards the servant’s entrance. I didn’t bother looking back. Gem in one hand, knife in the other, I bolted through the door, slamming it shut behind me.
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My boots pounded against the stone floor as I sprinted through the quarters, my arms pumping and my legs burning with adrenaline. A hysterical laugh escaped my mouth. I’d done it! It’d went far more smoothly than I’d dared to hope.
The servants, not knowing what was happening, pressed themselves against the wall as I whooshed by them, the drag fluttering their clothes and hair. I unapologetically knocked what they held out of their hands when possible, leaving chaos in my wake. There were shouts of alarm everywhere, but no one stopped me.
Hilarious was the type to have mostly chimeras in his guard, the type to feel unsafe unless everyone close to him was unable to disobey orders. The number of human guards, if any, was likely minuscule. Any chimera guards I encountered, I ordered away. I met no human guards.
Panting, I skid to a halt near the entrance to the prison. The keys wouldn’t be in prison itself…. I scanned the walls and the closest doors. The door adjacent to the cell entryway was thicker than the others and was slightly ajar. Gripping the gem tightly in my left hand, I gently kicked it open, peering behind the door. No one was there.
A few swords rested on a bench on the far wall of the small room, shields lining the side walls. The keyring I was looking for hung on a hook to my left, and I snatched it off with the pinky of my knife-holding hand, unwilling to loosen my grip on the far more precious gem or the knife.
The door to the prison itself was unlocked, and I flung it open, jogging into the prison. The only movement was two shadowed figures in the far cell. Octavia and Aurora. The cell I’d been in was empty.
“Hayden! You’re back!” Octavia exclaimed, waving. The keys jangled as I jogged up to her cell. There was a click and a groan as I unlocked the door, pushing it open. Upon closer inspection of me, catching my breath, she frowned.
“Weren’t you–”
I cut her off, hands resting on my knees as I spoke with what remained of my breath. “What happened to the others?”
She huffed, irritated. “Well, Rude was taken when you were. Manius was taken around midday yesterday, and Titus sometime yesterday evening.”
I recalled the burn marks and the burnt smell in the mage’s office and straightened, the smell lingering in my nostrils. “Oh.”
“Oh? What do you mean ‘oh’? And why are you back? You don’t look like a chimera–Is there something wrong?”
Catching sight of the knife in my hand, she backed up slowly.
I took a deep breath and flipped the knife so the blade rested against my wrist. Meeting Octavia’s eyes, I offered her the hilt. “I don’t have time to explain. We need to leave now.”
“Get out of here? Hayden, this is our last hope.” she gestured to Aurora and herself. “If I don’t become a chimera–”
“If you don’t leave now, you’ll die now. That’s what happened to Manius and Titus.“
A hand reached up to cover her face in horror. “No! You’re lying! You just don’t want us to–”
I withdrew the offered knife, moving past her to pick up Aurora. “I told you, we don’t have time for this!”
Octavia blocked me, her eyes wild and frantic. “No!”
“Octavia–” I attempted to move past her again.
Octavia jumped, Aurora’s hand snatching her foot. Aurora’s delicate voice rose up from her spot on the floor. “Octavia, we should go with him.”
“But–”
Aurora looked up at her with wide, pleading eyes. “Please.”
Octavia broke. “Fine.” She moved to pick Aurora up, but I blocked her, once again offering the knife.
“I’ll carry her. I have a feeling you can use this better than I can.”
She picked the knife up gently from my offered hand, careful not to brush the blade against my flesh. “You’d better have a good explanation for this.”
She guarded the door as I used the remnants of the knife’s leather strap to attach the gem to my wrist, tugging on it to ensure its security. Satisfied, I hoisted Aurora onto my back, and she wrapped her delicate arms around my neck for balance. She balanced herself unobtrusively on my back, worryingly light. As quickly as we dared, we left the prison the way we’d come.