Just after midnight, Dellen and Miss Thornbrook stood on the outer west side of the wall that enclosed the grounds of The Order of the Red Truth.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” She said, even as she handed him a robe that, while not quite the right shade of red, was at least red and, just as importantly, a robe. They had purchased it from another market stall before continuing their walk to the order.

He still felt nervous, but he was determined to continue. “I’m sure.” Dellen pulled the robe over his head, it felt about the same as the robes he had worn during his time with the order. Bringing his right hand up to his shoulder, he pulled the hood forward.

“That’s not very practical for climbing.”

“Nothing about this is practical,” Gilgamesh grumbled.

Miss Thornbrook gave him another nod and held out her hand, in which was one of the buttons they had purchased. It was hot enough that the air around it was distorting. Dellen put his hand beneath hers and pushed up with a gentle magnetic field. The iron button lifted out of Miss Thornbrook’s hand and hovered in the air. She pulled away her hand, leaving the iron a few inches above Dellen’s palm.

Dellen split his attention between the button and the rock, then he used a lateral magnetic field to push the button into a groove in the stone. The softened iron conformed to the shape of the stone, deforming a little around the edges. They pushed in four more buttons into the wall before Dellen embedded three into the ground.

“What are those for?” Gilgamesh asked.

“I need these for landing,” Dellen said, pretending to explain to Miss Thornbrook.

“So I had assumed.”

He gave the buttons in the ground a few minutes to cool before continuing.

Dellen created a magnetic field that pushed off of the three buttons in the ground, sending him straight up. It was a new, for him, application of Electrical Aether, he’d used magnetic fields to give himself handholds while climbing, but never to hover. He bobbed in the air, not quite stable, the fields felt slippery, hard to anchor to him, and they kept wanting to skirt around the iron on the ground, trying to slide away and around.

His forehead grew damp, and the magnetic field slipped out from under him, slamming him into the ground. Dellen groaned, “We need a change of plan.”

“Oh?”

“I need more time to practice balancing like that. Pulling is easier than balancing. Let’s get to the top of the wall, put a few buttons in place, and I can use them to ease myself down.”

“Most people would abandon a plan like this after a serious wrinkle,” Gilgamesh said.

Miss Thornbrook nodded her understanding and handed him the bag of buttons after palming a few.

“What are these for?” Dellen asked.

“You never know when a tool might be useful, with your affinity you should be carrying things like these all the time.”

“Thank you,” he said, putting the bag in his pocket and putting it out of his mind.

“Ready?” Miss Thornbrook asked, holding out a hand to help him up.

“Ready.”

No sooner had the words left Dellen’s lips than she grabbed him around the waist and launched the two of them into the air. A breath later, they landed atop the wall. Miss Thornbrook wasted no time heating a handful of buttons and pushing them into the stone. “Good luck,” she said before jumping back down out side the wall.

Gilgamesh floated up next to Dellen, “You need to hurry.”

Dellen sent Electrical Aether to his palms and jump off the side of the wall with his back to the building within. Air ruffled his hood and pushed up his robes from below. Electrical Aether spawned a pair of magnetic fields in his hands, and he sought out the newly-placed iron atop the wall.

His fall slowed.

Dellen’s boots hit the ground and dug into the grass.

“Sure you can get back up?” Gilgamesh asked once he had floated down to within a few feet of Dellen.

“Starting to wish I’d brought something practical, like a rope,” Dellen muttered. He had been so focused on what he could do with his Aether, that he had not taken an extra few minutes to consider whether he needed to use Aether at all.

He checked his hood and his robes. Despite his hurried landing, both were tidy enough to pass muster in the night. He had only been outside the tower grounds twice before, once on his walk in before he had received his mask, and again the night he had met Ingraham.

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“Where to?”

“This way, I think,” Dellen said, pointing along the wall, away from the entrance gate. The trees around him were a few feet out from the wall, he presumed it was to stop their roots from damaging the foundation, but there was a small chance it was to make it easier to watch for uninvited interlopers, like him.

He walked just inside the tree line, intent on continuing parallel with the wall, making himself just that little bit harder to see. The foliage on the ground was thin, it felt planned. It was hard to see in the dark, but there was a full canopy above, blocking most of the stars. Beneath the canopy where Dellen walked, it felt almost manicured, not quite as tidy as an ornamental estate, but with very few bushes and little in the way of detritus.

Dellen realized that the grounds were not shaped, but they were tidied, much as they were on the roof where he had done his raking. He also did not see or hear anyone.

“I don’t see anyone,” Gilgamesh said.

“Why don’t you scout ahead?”

“Why?”

“Because no one can see you,” Dellen could not quite keep the exasperation out of his voice.

“What if there’s someone like Lady Lockridge?”

“You heard Miss Thornbrook, that’s very uncommon, not only would they have to have two affinities, but the second affinity would have to be for Chronometric Aether, which I’m pretty sure is very rare. Now stop arguing and see if you can find anyone for me to accost!”

Still grumbling, Gilgamesh flew ahead.

Dellen made an effort to make as little noise as possible as he moved through the near dark. Every step seemed a little bit louder than it needed to be, then a twig snapped under his boot, and he froze. Gilgamesh found him a few minutes later.

“I can’t find anyone out here, except a few red-robed lunatics by the gate.”

“They aren’t lunatics, they’re just a bit odd, well, very odd, let’s not forget that most of them probably aren’t here of their own volition,” Dellen said, feeling an odd need to defend them.

“What if we go in?”

“In? In where?”

“Into the building,” Gilgamesh replied.

“Why don’t you go into the building and tell me what you find?”

“Because I can’t open the door, and there are no open windows.”

Dellen looked at him skeptically, “There are no open windows for the first seventy feet of the building?”

“There are no open windows on the first three floors,” Gilgamesh answered, it’s too dark for me to see all the way up, and it will take a long time for me to go window to window, now are we going to sneak into the building, or not?”

“You said this plan was risky when I was just supposed to stalk around the garden and look for some discontent initiate in a mask!” Dellen hissed back at him, still trying to keep his voice low.

“I did,” Gilgamesh agreed, “But we’re here now, and we need to find a mask, and let’s be fair, you never seem to have a huge problem with dying. If you get discovered and can’t run away, pick a fight with someone who can break you.”

“Now look at who is being too casual with death,” Dellen said with what he felt was warranted irritation.

Gilgamesh was quiet for a few seconds while Dellen considered his options, he could spend the rest of the night looking for someone like Ingraham, or he could go further in. He did not want to go further in, he suspected that Ingraham had only spoken to him because they were outside of the building, where being overheard was unlikely. Inside, Dellen would have to find a way to start a conversation with an initiate, and somehow feel them out.

“Do you know anything about the internal layout?”

“Of course,” Dellen said with some asperity, “I lived in there, I had a room in there.”

“A room? On your own, or did you share it?”

“I think we all had rooms on our own. The idea was to isolate, not fraternize.”

“What if we went back to your room? Would your mask be there?”

Dellen scrunched his face, “Maybe? There was a robe and a mask waiting for me there on my first day.” He paused while he remembered being guided to his room for the first time. “Maybe, I don’t see how they could have known I was coming beforehand. I was bought early in the auction, and was sent here before it finished.”

“Let’s try to reach your room then, maybe we’ll get lucky, and there will be a mask just waiting for you.”

“It’s possible,” Dellen said, stretching out the last word, his stomach felt twisted with unease.

“I’ll be right there with you,” Gilgamesh said, in an approximation of a comforting statement.

Fighting the feeling of discomfort, Dellen, trudged through the trees toward the Order of the Red Truth. Gilgamesh flew ahead. They approached the main door to the building, and Dellen hunched, bowing his shoulders a bit, trying to aim his face down, anything to make it less obvious that there was no mask beneath his hood.

Gilgamesh turned back at him, and snapped, “Stand up straight, you look guilty as if you’re expecting to be caught doing something wrong! You want anyone looking in your direction to mistake you for someone higher ranking who has a right to be walking about unescorted.

Shoulders tense, Dellen pulled himself upright.

“Much, better, you can tilt your head forward ever so slightly,” Gilgamesh allowed, “But no more than that.”

Dellen did his best to stand straight.

“Good, just like that, now come on, before you lose your nerve.”

Irritation rose up in him, and he wondered if Gilgamesh was trying to annoy him on purpose, to keep from feeling nervous. Dellen walked to the main doors and pushed. The main doors were large and heavy, easily eleven feet tall at their center arch and perhaps eight feet tall to the sides.

They scraped over the stone as he swung them in just enough to step inside.

The light inside was dim, the entrance corridor was lit with lamps, Dellen could sense the Electrical Aether in them, but they were low, as he would have expected late at night.

“I think you should run now.” Gilgamesh said, “There seem to be some red robes running toward this door from the main gate.” His voice was almost annoyingly calm.

Dellen pushed the door shut and pulled a thick wooden bar into place before turning to sprint. He knew the way to the room where he had slept from the main entrance, he needed to go down a level, but otherwise, it was close. All he needed was for the halls to be empty. Pulse pounding in his ears, boots slapping on the stone, he raced for the stairwell. He rounded the first corner and heard a boom against the entrance doors.

“Someone strong just slammed into the door you locked,” Gilgamesh said, as though Dellen could not have heard the boom on his own.

“Yes,” Dellen said between breaths.

“How much further to your room?”

The stairwell loomed ahead, Dellen’s feet slapped on the stone, “Close,” he panted out. Down the stairs, around the curve, and out onto the floor where he had slept, Dellen ran. He just needed to stay ahead of them for another five or ten seconds. The corridor branched and he ran right, before finding his door and bolting inside.