Samantha, Adrian, and Claude were gathered in a private spot at the back end of the dorm area. Claude had pulled them aside and dragged them into the study so that he could relay some urgent news to them. Like boys who cried wolf once too often – all three were expecting nothing but spurious rumours from the academy’s biggest busybody.

“I heard something big about the guys who’ve taken over.”

“The ones who’re working for Welt?” Adrian murmured.

“I don’t know who that is, but sure.”

“What the hell are you yammering about, Claude?” Adrian said bluntly.

“I talked with two people a while ago who said they saw some of those gunmen hauling one of their mates into the abandoned block. They said he wasn’t injured – but he couldn’t move under his own strength.”

“I don’t get your point.”

“My point is that Maria might already be making her move! She must have leapt out of the bushes and kicked him in the head or something!”

Samantha sighed and covered her eyes. While that was within Maria’s power, she doubted that she would expend so much energy to knock out a single person. She didn’t waste time making a show of it.

“Why would she only knock out one person and then not try to escape?” Samantha posited, “What if he fell over and hit his head?”

“That’s highly unlikely,” Claude parried, “Maria must be trying to pick them all off, one by one, until their cordon around the campus is broken and we can all leave.”

“You know it would be faster if we went and asked her about it.”

Adrian nodded, “She’s pretty candid with the truth when you’re on her side.”

Claude was intent on keeping that from happening.

“That’s just how she likes it! She wants you all to trust her implicitly, even though she’s been doing all these crazy things. She’s violent. You can’t trust a violent person.”

Claude’s father had instilled a lot of upright values in his son. A lot of it was dubious in nature and created a judgemental type of personality that based conclusions on outward appearances or assumptions. One of them was ‘violent people’ being inherently deceptive. It made perfect sense to Claude that one could not simply trust a hardened killer.

Adrian grumbled, “Listen, it’s obvious that we all feel a little discomfort when confronted with how Maria is open to violence, but between her and those men out there – you can guess who I’m going to side with.”

Claude looked to Samantha, “You’re the closest with her. How does she feel about that?”

Samantha felt all of the eyes in the room turn to her, and suddenly it was a lot hotter under the collar than moments before...

“Maria said that she wouldn’t begrudge me no matter what I thought of her. She’s always been conscious of how amoral her actions can be. That’s why I find it so strange that she happily submits herself to them. It was strange how she pushed that responsibility onto me like I’m some kind of virtuous paragon.”

“Are you not?”

“No! I’ve been naughty before – like the time I pretended to be ill so I could sleep in for an extra half-hour. Or what about when I took the last piece of chicken from the spread when my brother only got two?”

Adrian groaned, “Not a paragon, she says.”

Samantha frowned and crossed her arms. Those were pretty bad by her measure!

Claude’s dissociation, a result of writing the revelation about Maria into Cambry’s destroyed book, was difficult for him to get over. At first, he thought that everyone was trying to make fun of him. After some fact-finding and elaboration from Samantha, he was forced to accept their version of events.

“Can we even trust her?” Claude wondered, “She’s capable of doing all of these violent things but we don’t know much about her. Where did she learn to do that? Why does she find it so easy? Did she even tell you, Sam?”

“Why wouldn’t I trust her? She’s saved my life before,” she replied tersely.

Adrian shrugged, “I appreciate that she chose to help me with my uncle, but that isn’t a good measure of trust. If even you don’t know where she learned to do that stuff – then what else is she hiding from us?”

“Hold on a second! I’m keeping some secrets from Maria too. It’s not normal for me to know every single fact about her life in the first place.”

But Samantha’s anger at their questioning faded when she recalled that she’d already warned Maria about the Goddess’ prophecy. She wasn’t actually hiding an important secret from her anymore, yet the truth of Maria’s past continued to elude her. It cut directly against what Maria told her about getting a benefit from her position.

Had Maria done that on purpose to defang her, or was it an oversight at a time when she was being emotionally open? Samantha’s face twisted into a frown. It was probably a bad idea to reveal that secret to her even if it was eating her up inside. Her trust in Maria was not being reciprocated in the same way.

On the other hand, Samantha was emotionally invested in her relationship with Maria – and her stubborn, mule-like insistence on seeing the good in everyone she met collided headfirst with the doubts expressed by Adrian and Claude. Why were they suddenly turning on her?

“Do you two have another reason for asking this out of the blue?”

Adrian grumbled, “Claude’s only interested in keeping his pet mystery going for as long as possible. I want some real answers. It’d make me feel a lot better understanding why all of this strange crap keeps happening to us.”

“I don’t think it’s realistic to blame it all on her.”

“I’m not blaming it all on her! Sometimes it seems that Maria is keeping inconvenient facts from us because she believes we’re not capable of making smart choices. I’d rather decide that type of thing for myself!”

Maria’s manipulation of information, choosing what to say and what to omit, had become a regular fixture of these incidents. Samantha shared a small part of their frustration, but she also understood where Maria was coming from. She was the one picking up a gun and dirtying her hands. She couldn’t rely on her or the others to do the same.

Samantha could get herself killed trying – and that was what Maria wanted to avoid.

But her interest in keeping her and the other students alive stretched to before she ever became friends with Samantha. If not for the sake of a girl who she was friends with, then for whom was she diving headfirst into peril? Of all the mysteries that surrounded Maria, this was the one that hovered in her mind the most.

“I will admit that she has not been... entirely forthcoming with all of what she knows. Regardless, I’m not inclined to believe that she’s our enemy. You and her had a terrible relationship before, and she still went out of her way to help.”

Adrian scratched the back of his head and looked very sheepish all of a sudden.

“It’s stupid, and it sounds insane, but I just can’t accept that Maria is trying to trick us or the like. She told me that she did have an explanation, but that I wouldn’t believe it if she told me – but she didn’t offer an alternative lie to cover it up.”

“And you believe that?”

“I’ve gotten pretty good at telling when she’s telling the truth,” Samantha revealed, “She has her tells.”

Claude cut back in, “Isn’t she one of those ‘Sturmläufer’ the papers keep chatting about?”

“One, they never existed. Two, if they did, she’d be too young to be an ex-member. Her Mother was, so maybe she was the one who taught her?” Adrian muttered.

“No, no. That cult situation was the first time they ever spoke to one another. There isn’t even a portrait of her at their manor,” Samantha contested.

Claude frowned, “So what do you propose then? Your answer has to account for the extent of her training, the fact that she’s the same age as us and that she managed to do all of this without ever being discovered by her family, servants or peers.”

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The corner went quiet as they all considered the potential answer. Samantha could feel the gears turning in her head. The pieces were coming together – but not in the way that Claude expected. This was an explanation that only made sense to her.

The answer didn’t have to make sense.

None of those factors had any bearing on Maria. Time and effort were of no consequence - because she was one of the two people in Walser who had been personally touched by the Goddess and given some kind of gift in the process. Samantha had assumed that it was her talent with nihility magic which mirrored her regenerative abilities.

What if it wasn’t? What if Maria was given more than one boon to make the events unfold as she wished? Her affinity for ‘dark’ magic was not the singular gift that she was given. The true nature of her blessing was one of knowledge. The Goddess had transformed her into a trained killer...

She didn’t need to train, work with her estranged Mother, or hide from the prying eyes of her peers and guardians. The Goddess granted her everything she needed to know. That was the only way that this could have occurred without someone finding out about it. Thinking back, Maria never said what her role in the Goddess’ plan was.

Adrian and Claude were staring at her.

“Did you figure it out?” Adrian asked.

Now the problem was explaining that without sounding like a complete lunatic.

Samantha exhaled and steeled herself; “Okay... this is going to be a long story.”

----------------------------------------

I forced Dalia to write a polite letter to the gentleman in the big house. We had to tread a fine line between sounding disarming and desperate, while still attempting to convince Darin that it was worth his time to step out and speak with her. I was good at social engineering – but it was always tough to predict how someone would react to this type of communique.

I’d never sent a written letter in my whole life before being reborn as Maria.

Dalia continued to beg for mercy while I hatched my plan. She tried every trick in the book. I deflected each attempt and reminded her that her social life would be in tatters at the snap of my finger if she kept being silly about it. All she had to do was send the letter and lure him in. I’d handle the talking.

It was a coin flip as to whether the man in charge would respond to the request for a meeting. If he was the cautious sort then he would want to keep a close eye on any and all developments on campus. If not, he’d consider it beneath him to waste time speaking with one of the students, which was why I carefully danced around that point while drafting the letter.

With that done I snuck it through to the building where they were staying and left it in an obvious place sticking out of the old post box there. It hadn’t been used for communication on campus for many years. The purpose was for faculty members to leave them in there addressed to the people inside, and the building manager would empty it and hand them out at the end of the day.

That practice fell out of favour at some point, with the teachers preferring to make the walk across the grounds to speak in person instead. That left it to gather dust and the occasional letter to a member of the staff who wasn’t on the property at the time.

Thus, I was forced to sit and wait at the designated meeting spot like I was being stood up on a date. Dalia was sitting on the bench by one of the fountains. This area was normally deserted, and the presence of armed men at the academy meant that very few dared to venture outside at all.

“Are you sure he’s going to come here?”

“No. To get what we want, we have to take a risk.”

Wasting our time wasn’t a huge risk anyway. I’d made worse bets than this before.

“He’s going to be really mad at us!” Dalia fretted.

“Then he can simply take it out on me.”

I continued to hide in my waiting spot. Five minutes after the deadline I saw her head turn towards the pathway that led into the paved plaza by the fountain. Footsteps followed, and finally, I could behold the pale face of the man who Welt had dispatched to hold us all hostage.

I stepped out of my hiding spot and approached before Dalia said something stupid.

“What’s all this about, then?” he asked.

“It’s deception. I’m the one who wants to speak with you. Dalia here was simply forced to be my bait. I highly doubt you would have agreed to come here if not for her name and seal being used on that letter.”

He looked to the mortified girl with a bemused smirk, “That true?”

Dalia withered under his stare but pressed her case regardless; “I wanted to let you know that my father is-”

“You’re Dalia Braun. Your Dad owns a manufacturing business, makes a lot of cash.”

She stammered, “T-That’s right.”

“I already know who you are and I can’t do anything for you, lass. No exceptions for any of the folk in this academy. I suggest that you get out of here and forget all about it.”

Dalia was more than happy to follow his instructions. She spun around on her heel, stumbled, and scrambled away from our patch in the garden on her hands and knees, before finally getting back up onto her feet and breaking out into a sprint. The only thing she was good for was running away.

Once I was happy that she wasn’t listening to us – I stood from my hiding spot and approached him on even ground.

“Lady Maria Walston-Carter, in the flesh! I knew there were a lot of important people at this school, but I didn’t expect to run into you.”

“I didn’t realize that my reputation preceded me.”

He chuckled, “I’m not a normal bloke. Welt had me memorize the names, faces and descriptions of every person on this campus. You’re unmistakable. It’s the ‘furrowed brow’ that does it, and the glare that could cut clean through a sheet of steel.”

I wasn’t trying to glare at him, but such a sour expression came naturally to Maria’s face. I wanted to lure him into a sense of security during this conversation. I made a show of reaching up and touching my own brow to rectify the problem.

“Apologies. Serious matters lead me to make an expression such as this...”

“You know, there’s a popular urban legend for folks in our line of business.”

“I know. The raven-haired, ruby-eyed menace who haunted the streets and eliminated anyone who got in the royal family’s way. I’ve heard it all before.”

“You’re telling me that you’re that person?”

I laughed in my typically haughty manner and shook my head; “Don’t be stupid. Those rumours predate my birth by several years. Unless you mean to suggest that I travelled back in time and started my campaign of terror beforehand.”

If I was being conspiratorial I would say that it could be a possibility with Adrian’s watch, but the fact was that Veronica was the source of those rumours. She was no more dangerous than a lot of the other WISA agents – yet the story travelled much better when it was a beautiful woman at the centre of it. Whoever said that ‘sex’ didn’t sell even in this abstract form?

“I’m nothing more than a concerned onlooker. It was rather shocking to begin my morning with an armed invasion of the academy by a group of strangers – but that would be inaccurate. I’m well aware of who you are. A friend of mine decided to meet with Welt, and a cadre of your friends arrived to intervene when they tried to arrest him.”

“They sure make you kids grow up fast these days. Shouldn’t you be worrying about schoolyard gossip instead of this morbid crap?”

“That would be preferable, yes. As you can see – circumstances dictate that I and my friends dedicate our time to fighting fires and trying to keep our bodies free from fast-moving foreign objects. You will find that I am more than mature enough to grapple with serious subjects.”

He pulled out the letter and held it aloft, “Would a mature person send a letter like this?”

“They would if they were knowingly manipulating the person on the receiving end.”

His smile faltered for a brief moment. He licked his lips and put it back into his pocket. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“I understood perfectly well when I sent that to you that your answer would be no. You have no reason to accept it, even if it were truly penned by Dalia. Welt has asked you specifically to contain both his enemies and his allies’ children, including Sir Braun. Dalia is under the illusion that this offers her special treatment.”

He exhaled in a long whistle, “You’re pretty damn sharp, lass. Alright. You’re on the money. That’s what Welt wants us to do. What about it?”

Appealing to his sense of morality or decency was a wasted effort. He was a true believer. His body was already enhanced with whatever strange technique Welt had discovered with his conspirators. He was also put in charge of the group because he could be trusted to follow orders.

Sometimes negotiation was simply not on the cards. He was already deep into the weeds on this one, and surrendering or giving up did not benefit him.

“First, I’d like to know your name. It’s rather rude of me to address you without it.”

He smiled disarmingly, “Darin.”

“Darin, I honestly don’t understand why Welt feels that this is a good idea. A great many of the students here were dumped by their parents because they did not want to deal with them.”

He found that amusing enough, “That’s one way of looking at it, but Welt says that they’d go to any lengths to keep their current succession secure. They don’t want it changing all of a sudden.”

“You have no intention of hurting anyone here, do you? This is all theatre – designed to create the illusion of menace for your intended audience.”

“I can’t say.”

“You don’t have to. I already know. The only question I have is what will you do if Welt’s plan doesn’t succeed?”

“I get it. You’re a republican, right? I heard that your Father was big into that kinda’ stuff.”

“What makes you think that I care about your ‘greater’ plans? I simply wish to ensure that none of us meet a grisly end by your hand. I have no interest in politics.”

It was a lie. I was playing into what Darin thought he knew about me. I was the very image of a spoiled little princess, the stereotypical selfish noble that he conjured up in his mind when the moment allowed. What he knew about Maria Walston-Carter was her excessive privilege and comfortable upbringing. That was an environment almost hand-built to generate a parade of selfish characters.

“You’re clearly not concerned about my wellbeing. I am holding you hostage at gunpoint. Why else would you ask?”

“The truest measure of a man is only revealed when his carefully laid plans go wrong. Welt has already demonstrated a lack of patience and temperament, and I doubt he will react any better if his larger play goes awry. What happens to you if he fails? What happens to us when you’re faced with that test?”

Darin considered my question for some time before deciding that using an illustrative example would be easier than grappling with it.

“You see my skin? A few years ago, I got told that I wouldn’t last into my forties. I was already working with Welt – and he offered to try a risky solution. I didn’t have anything to lose, so I agreed. Even now I’m on nothing but borrowed time. Ever since I was ‘cured,’ I’ve been wondering when the music stops and I drop dead like I was meant to.”

“And because of that you feel comfortable risking it all for his sake?”

He shrugged, “I want to do something big with my life before I die. I was already meant to be dead.”

And that big achievement was not likely to be becoming infamous for murdering a bunch of students on Welt’s orders.

“I suppose we do have something in common then. I’m going to ask you nicely to take your people away from the campus and wash your hands of this entire scheme.”

“No can do, little lady.”

Now to cement Maria Walston-Carter in his mind as the troublesome one to keep an eye on.

“Then I do hope that you’re ready to face the consequences. When they arrive, by all means, blame me.”

Darin laughed, “Consequences? You’re gonna’ go beg your Dad for help like all the other snot-nosed punks that come to this school.”

I remained impassive and walked away. The proof was in the doing – and I already had big plans for Darin and his merry band of goons.