Dellen eyed the ball lightning and briefly contemplated escalating the situation further before discarding the idea.

Miss Thornbrook took a different approach, “Why? What is it that you think you’re going to do to me?”

The ball lightning leaped toward her with a crackle, and Miss Thornbrook let it slam into her face. Then she wrinkled her nose like she needed to sneeze before taking in a breath. “Was there anything else?”

Cordelia and the woman she had brought back both looked at Miss Thornbrook with paling faces and widened eyes. Cordelia’s mouth opened and closed several times before she managed to get out an “Ahh,” that trailed off into silence.

When her companion spoke again, she was abruptly more polite, “You said you wanted to see Thaddeus?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Miss Thornbrook replied, still smiling.

“This is highly unusual, but we can make an exception, though you understand if it’s just for you.”

Miss Thornbrook raised an eyebrow and let an irritated expression spill onto her face.

“Never mind, we can make it for all of you,” came a hurried follow-up.

“Splendid, lead the way. Also, do be a dear and share your name, I do so hate to be strangers.”

“Imogen,” she said with a face only slightly more friendly than if she had bitten into rotten fruit.

“Imogen, lovely name,” Miss Thornbrook said.

Cordelia and Imogen turned and led them just through the glass archway into an inner courtyard and then immediately turned back to the building to what Dellen realized was a hidden entrance. The glass looked like it should have made a hidden entrance impossible, but with the clever placement of mirrors, they had created a hidden stairwell.

The stairwell was narrow, with a worn stone floor and walls that bore the signs of recent washing. Their guides kept looking back at Miss Thornbrook, and then turning forward as though they expected her to erupt in violence at any moment.

Dellen let that be his cue for how to behave, this was an organization based on violence. They descended thirty feet before coming to a hallway lit by glowing sconces. Aether Lights leant the corridor a warmer appearance than would have been given by cold stone alone. There were small metal points sticking out of the walls. Under normal circumstances, he would have considered them to be some kind of a design oddity, here, he suspected they could be used to deploy lightning against unwanted guests.

A finger brushed against the surface of one told him that it was free of Aether, but otherwise did little to disprove his theory.

Eliza looked cautious but confident, while Finnegan managed to look excited. The tunnel came to an end and split, going both left and right. Cordelia led them right through another short corridor that still had the spikes lining the walls, the corridor joined with another, and a sharp turn to the left brought them to a room filled with men and women throwing Electrical Aether.

“Is this a practice room?” Finnegan asked.

“Yes,” Cordelia said.

Dellen’s first instinct was to consider the corridors opening onto a practice room to be an odd design choice, but as he turned it over in his mind, he realized that in the case of conflict, it was probably one of the rooms least likely to house unwary Aetherforged.

A squat man released a series of short lightning bolts accompanied by controlled thunderclaps. Over a dozen men and women appeared to be practicing practical applications of magnetism, between juggling metal balls, scaling sheer walls, and in one case, levitating. Dellen’s feet continued forward, but his neck swiveled watching a woman sitting cross-legged in the air three feet above the floor.

“Is she… flying?” Eliza asked, her last word coming out in a hush.

“Balanced magnetic forces,” Imogen said, “Basic application of Aether.”

“Useful though,” Dellen said, more to himself than to anyone else. He was going to need to practice that. There was a distinct appeal to the idea of simply floating in the air.

They kept walking toward the far end of the room until a figure wreathed in lightning interrupted them. “Lord Northcote?” Lightning faded away, revealing their features. Thaddeus loomed tall, features showing the steelskin Dellen remembered, but more.

“They forged you,” Dellen said.

“Second Trinity,” Thaddeus said, his eyes narrowed, “Have you brought yourself up to Second Trinity as well?”

“You did,” Dellen said, trying to keep his voice nonchalant while implying that he could achieve anything that Thaddeus could.

“I have been practicing with Aether for centuries,” he grimaced, “Though the syndicate makes me feel as though we were children playing with toys in the dark. There’s so much to learn.” A wistful, longing tone invaded the end of his sentence.

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Thaddeus’s attention diverged from Dellen to Eliza and Finnegan, “I recognize both of them, though it pains me that even they have been forged, First Trinity?” At the confirmatory nods, he sighed, “I almost feel as though all of our time trying to practice the Aetheric Arts was wasted.” Then his gaze slid to Miss Thornbrook, “And who is this?” His tone took on cautious suspicion, “Did she buy you?”

“I did not, though if I had, should you not have been directing all of your questions to me?” Miss Thornbrook said, sounding faintly amused.

“What of the rest of the fleet?” Dellen asked, “What happened to the ships? What happened to your people?”

Thaddeus grimaced again, “Taken, handled like children. Back… home we were a force, I was a force, out here? I stepped forward to discipline our attackers, and the next thing I knew, I was in a dark cell with my hands chained together.

For the first time, Dellen noticed that Thaddeus still bore manacles around his wrists. “They still have you wearing those?”

The grimace vanished, and Thaddeus just looked irritated, “Until I have the magnetic control to force them off.”

Gilgamesh whistled, “If he gets that wrong do you think he might rip his hands off?”

“Are your people here safe?” Miss Thornbrook asked.

Thaddeus blinked at her, “Safe, yes, I suppose so, I think they might even be happier here. I worry about the others.” His nostrils flared, “They sold us.”

“Do you want to help me find the rest of your fleet?”

“That would mean leaving the Thunderstrike Syndicate,” Thaddeus said, “I thought you understood, I can’t leave, none of us can leave.”

Dellen looked at Imogen, who responded to his unspoken question, “He’s a new recruit, you don’t get to leave until you prove yourself to the syndicate, and win eleven matches.”

“Could we just… take him with us?” Dellen asked Miss Thornbrook.

She didn’t hesitate before shaking her head, “He isn’t being mistreated, in fact, if anything, he appears to enjoy this environment, his only reservation is that there are others he is worried for.” Both Imogen and Cordelia perceptibly relaxed upon hearing her words.

“What about the others?” Dellen said, feeling like whatever they might have accomplished at the Thunderstrike Syndicate was slipping away. “This is their freedom too, don’t we need to at least speak to them?” He asked Miss Thornbrook.

“Do you know where the other members of your,” she turned from Thaddeus to Dellen, “The Aetheric Cultivators was it?”

He nodded.

“Do you know where the rest of your cultivators are who were bought?” She kept her voice level, though it did twist with distaste on the word ‘bought.’

Thaddeus left, and came back a few minutes later with eight more Aetherforged, all of whom had been brought to the First Trinity, and none of whom wanted to leave.

“Are you sure you won’t come with us?” Dellen asked.

Thaddeus shook his head, “It would require incredible violence to liberate me, and why? You’re already free,” Thaddeus said to Dellen, “Can you find the others? Can you make sure they’re safe? I don’t think I’m going to see the sun again for another year, at the very least.” Thaddeus Valtair, a man Dellen had first met and seen as a proud and powerful individual, was begging for his help.

Dellen’s mouth hung open before he managed to reply, “Yes.”

He felt a pulse ripple from the right side of his chest.

“What was that?” Gilgamesh asked, his voice sharp and shocked.

Dellen did not spare the time to answer, there was nothing to see, but he felt like the air around him was warping. Then the moment passed.

“You have seen Thaddeus,” Imogen said, “Can we consider your time here done?”

Miss Thornbrook considered Thaddeus before giving the two women before her a slow nod, “I suppose we can, thank you for accommodating the whims of a curious guest.”

A tendon strained on the side of Imogen’s neck, and her jaw looked tight, but all she said was, “Cordelia, please escort our… guests out.”

“Wait!” Eliza said, “Before we go,” she turned to Thaddeus, “Could you give me the names of everyone in the fleet?”

Thaddeus gave Eliza a quick nod, and listed off names which she recorded.

“Thank you, dear,” Miss Thornbrook said, turning and retracing their steps back.

“What now?” Gilgamesh asked, “I thought Thaddeus would take this over once we found him. Is he just leaving all of this to you?”

Dellen felt that Thaddeus had indeed left all of the work very much to him.

“What about the others,” he asked Miss Thornbrook, “Don’t we need his help with the others?”

Miss Thornbrook gave him a gentle smile, “I feel that you have not quite adapted to the world, what need do I have for help from an Aetherforged of the Second Trinity? I assist others, it is rare that I am the one in need of assistance.” She frowned, “I’m not as concerned by those purchased,” again she showed her distaste, “By the Society of Illuminated Minds, or even the Iron Fist Society, though that is a silly name, but the Aetheric Covenant and The Order of the Red Truth have me worried.”

“Why the Order?” Dellen asked, he could see Eliza and Finnegan listening intently.

“The order is the only local group that is just a chapter, they have branches in most major cities. Even Evergale, they are… inoffensive in many ways,” she said, still walking ahead of Cordelia, leading them to the stairs, “Their initiates or members, when you encounter them, tend to be polite, if frequently silent, however, they wear masks at all times.”

Dellen had known all of that.

“How would you feel,” she continued, “If you were brought into this, for you, new world, kept with people who held to silence, almost like a deity, and forced you to wear masks which kept you separated from others? They wear them, I believe, to isolate the members of their order.”

“That sounds… unpleasant,” Finnegan said.

“It is, and it would be. Making it worse, once their members reach between Third and Fourth Trinity they shuffle them to new cities in an effort to ensure that their only connection is to the institution as opposed to each other.”

“That’s the group that had you, right?” Gilgamesh asked.

Dellen nodded, still listening to Miss Thornbrook.

“They will be trickier to approach,” she said, “I suspect they might bar their gates to anyone, even me, even if they knew that I could burn my way right through them.” Cordelia was close enough to the group that she flinched at those words. “It’s a difficult problem to solve.”

“Why go through the gates?” Finnegan asked.

“Pardon?” Miss Thornbrook said, leading them up the stairs.

“Why go through the gates at all? When you brought us here, you shrugged off a lightning bolt.”

“Ball lightning,” she corrected him.

“Ball lightning, like it wasn’t there at all. Do you need to go through the gate? Could you just go over a wall and walk through, looking for the unforged, and leave again if they want to stay?”

“I can’t imagine they would want to stay,” Miss Thornbrook said, but she did not dismiss everything Finnegan had said. “Still, I could walk in and shrug off the attacks of most.” She walked them out of the stairwell, through the glass door, and across the lightning burnt field that led to the syndicate.

“How hard would it be to get a mask, or well, several masks?” Eliza asked.