To be honest, Ed didn’t know how he’d missed it. It was obvious now that he thought about it. In the mall with the laws, Liah’s freeze of the classroom. Maybe he’d just been in denial.

The sunrise cast long shadows into the room through the trees and Ed noticed a fly crawl up over the sill. Serah’d probably opened it to let in the breeze. To be honest, it felt rather refreshing.

He reached out with his aura and gently enveloped the fly. Helig had described this as one of the earliest forms of magic. It took off towards the light and Ed could sort of feel it, wriggling around in his grasp.

If he looked for it, he could sort of sense all the other life in the room too. Infinitely small sparks, seeped into pretty much everything. And of course, like some sort of blazing bonfire; Serah, as she dutifully swept up the ashes into a small dustpan.

He squeezed his aura and the fly dropped like a rock to the desk it’d been hovering over. He thought back to the mall, and the drive, and even the classrooms. He still wasn’t sure how he’d never noticed it before. But every single ordinary human, without what he was pretty sure was a single exception, had felt pretty much exactly like this, if not smaller. Like specks of dust, if it wasn’t hit by a light, he wouldn’t even have known it was there.

He let the fly go, and it sort of stumbled a little before rather haphazardly flying away. It was now buzzing around the light again.

“These are no longer sanitary to consume, I will dispose of them in a locked box.”

“Yeah,” His stomach churned, and despite having nothing since yesterday's breakfast, Ed was glad he’d handed that pretzel over. He chuckled. “But come on, ashes? Not sure how I’d manage that even if I wanted to.” He folded up his cover sheet and handed it over. “Pretty sure some got stuck in here too."

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“You would mix it with water, and consume it over the course of a few days.” Serah pulled what looked like a small safe out from under her desk.

“Funny place to keep a safe.”

She dumped what appeared to be a large pile of marked sticky notes, a notebook, and a short canister of more of those glass coins from before into a plastic grocery bag she’d apparently prepared, before stuffing the ashes and sheet into the safe and tucking it all back under her desk.

“Tamtilus thinks of it as a joke.” She said as if that explained everything. She seemed to think for a second. “In the case of a breach, they would still get what is inside, but imagining them waste an hour cracking it open is something he finds very funny.”

“And by them you mean the church?” He pushed. It was important to start this here. “It was those guys who actually did it, wasn’t it. You know the whole, killed my aunt thing.”

Right when she was about to open her mouth he continued. “I mean, it wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. See, they kill my aunt, I get all buthurt, the only side who stands to gain is whoever’s opposite to them and that would be Mr. Garry I think, so I then conclude it’s him. Mages seem pretty rare so for a single bullet they gain a potentially ally ten twenty years down the line.” He picked up his books from where they’d fallen off the floor. “But see, I’m smart like that,” He tapped his head. “Got it all figured out.”

In reality he could see at least a handful of other options but it was important to at least pretend to be on their side. While he still wasn’t sure of the reason for this, even if she was just captured somewhere with her teeth pulled, the reality was he was just like that fly. The one from before was still buzzing around the light. Totally oblivious to pretty much everything.

“I do not understand.” Serah stared at him blankly. Not that she had any other expressions he supposed. “You are buthurt?”