“And what kept you out so late?”

“The library! Same as always!”

“Yet you didn’t have the decency to let me know before you left.”

“I didn’t realise I needed to! You know by now! I won’t go anywhere else!”

“And what if you do? I can’t trust what you say! You skipped school this afternoon!”

The Beak girl beside Alis sounded as though she were inhaling sharply through her teeth. Alis knew how voice boxes worked, but she had never heard one capable of being so expressive.

“That was my fault,” she whispered, keeping the truth out of earshot from Mrs Hardridge. Friends were friends, but even Alis would be hard-pressed to enter that fray as someone to blame.

Iris and her mother had been going back and forth, the latter reinstating her reasonable expectations and the former refuting them with reasonable arguments. He struggled to side with either, and so did Iris’s friend.

“You must be Crestana,” Alis began, the argument the unfortunate backdrop to his introduction.

“Yes,” the girl replied, facing him as her shutters raised at a gentle angle. “Crestana Mallorine, nice to meet you.”

She extended a delicate hand, and Alis took it accordingly. He’d gotten too accustomed to his civilian life; in that world, handshakes were to take one’s entire body for a ride, else it wasn’t a good handshake.

“Have they been like this for a while?” Alis asked, not recalling anything of the sort from her letters.

“No. Only recent. I’m afraid I’m quite the cause myself. I should be admonishing the behaviour, especially now I understand the repercussions…but it’s been therapeutic. Perhaps I’ve had my fun.”

Alis nodded along, unable to match her words. He could talk stiff, or stiffer—there wasn’t much else in his repertoire.

An awkward silence befell the two as mother and daughter continued at it; neither felt it was their place to break up the fighting, and neither particularly felt like doing so.

“I heard you can use Beak magic,” Crestana said.

“What else have you heard?”

“That you can use Iris’s? She only implied as much.”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I have these weapons that replicate magic for a short time.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes. Kicked up a storm when I brought them here a few years ago.”

“Did it now? I didn’t hear about it.”

“Good.”

“Want to know what storm I kicked up?”

Alis raised an eyebrow as Crestana pointed to the wood under their feet. He surmised as much from Iris’s letter, although the finer details were something for another day.

Still, gloating was certainly one way to accept one’s misfortunes, even if it wasn’t serious.

“What is she doing here anyway?!” Iris asked, pointing at Mrs Hardridge but staring squarely at Alis. He flashed a glance at her, then at her mother, both as ticked off as each other. Iris, now somewhat taller, looked closer to a teenager than she did a child. At least the almost clueless stare she had worn for most of their memories together were replaced with a slew of expressions. He had never seen her eyebrows so furrowed before.

“We…uh…Ms Hardridge met me this afternoon. She treated me to an afternoon tea, and I ordered a biscuit-base cheesecake with—”

“Skip!”

“Yes ma’am. She asked what my plans were, I said I wasn’t sure, she brought me here, and we discussed them, and then I began to talk about why I was here.”

Iris seemed to deflate—the accusatory finger sagged along with the rest of her arm, and both shoulders drooped. “And why are you here?”

Alis looked over to Mrs Hardridge, who shrugged her shoulders, arms crossed, and frowned dismissively.

“There’s a possible spy plane flying over Northern Sidos,” Alis said. “One from the Empire. I came here to deliver the proof.”

“And in doing so,” Evalyn said, picking up where he left off. “He's blown his cover at his ULEF branch.”

“I mean no offence, but you don’t seem the type to overlook something like that,” Crestana interjected.

“I’m not,” Alis admitted. “That was…basically my resignation.”

It was the face he didn’t want to see out of Iris, the confused look of disappointment he had imagined but never pinpointed. Now that it was real, it hurt ten times more.

“But now every branch thinks you’re a traitor.”

“I know.”

“So, how are you going to fight?”

“I…don’t know.”

He knew he had chosen the worst time to shatter her image of him; perhaps his impulsive decision to make sure she was all right had only made things worse. She watched him in silence, a stare pregnant with unsaid words, not the blank spectator it had once been.

“Do you want to fight?”

Evalyn finally stepped in, the aggravated tone of her voice having left through a few prior deep breaths.

“I’m going to let Alis stay in the other flat while he’s here, seeing as he’d be homeless otherwise. Crestana, feel free to move in if you’d be so obliged.”

The speech almost sounded like a military sitrep.

“I’m going to follow up on the intelligence Alis gave me, see what’s really going on there.”

“But Special Operations has that under control,” Alis said. “If they haven’t asked for your help—”

“I’m going on my own accord,” Evalyn said. “See what Vesmos is so interested in that even Geverde doesn’t know about.”

The other three had nothing to add, or rather Iris looked as though she was doing her best not to. Evalyn turned to her, but she didn’t reciprocate the gesture.

“Are you coming? You’d be a lot of help.”

Iris didn’t answer, and Mrs Hardridge took her silence the only way she could.

“Suit yourself,” she said, stepping over and embracing her daughter in a hug that felt like there was still some missing, dislodged piece wedged in the gap between them, forcing them apart.

She looked over at Alis and Crestana, giving them a light smile.

“Don’t stay out too late,” she said before her markings began to glow. She walked to the edge of the branch and stepped off. Iris wasn’t concerned by her mother’s freefall, and Alis found that reason enough to trust that Mrs Hardridge hadn’t fallen without a plan.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

That left the three of them there, but with her reunion derailed, it seemed like Iris didn’t have much of a plan moving forward.

The girl stomped over, the sound of her school shoes not much louder than the wind playing with the leaves or the hum of life below them.

She rammed into his chest, forcing him to take a step back. Arms latched themselves around him with the single-mindedness he remembered fondly, and not a hint that two and a half years had passed since the last time they’d embraced him.

His hands were in the air, unsure of where they were supposed to go, but like the pressure around his waist was pulling strings on his joints, they slowly came down atop her shoulders.

Crestana looked as though she were smiling at them, the mask betraying a remarkable expression with its precious few implements. He felt like he had gained some sort of permission he didn’t know he needed.

“Welcome back,” Iris said, her voice muffled by his clothes.

“Good to be back,” Alis answered. “You got taller.”

“Not as much as you,” she mumbled, almost annoyed.

Iris stifled a sniffle, hiding it under his coat. “You took too long.”

“You made it sound like it was wrong of me to come back.”

“No,” Iris protested. “Never.”

Remarkably few words for a reunion, less than he was expecting. But the tighter she held him, the more he felt like words would only get in the way.

He felt the last two and a half years grow colder, more distant than ever before. The thin half-truth that had kept the blurry mass of days at least worthwhile seemed to lose its veracity, like Iris's arms were squeezing them from his bloodstream.

Like it had been a poison. No, nothing so aggressive. Like a dilutant.

“Iris?” Crestana’s voice called, now from a new direction. Alis looked up first, finding her at the edge of the branch where Mrs Hardridge had stood. His heart skipped a beat, even if the girl showed no signs of following the Witch.

She turned around, and with the city to her back, Alis finally noticed how human her hair was.

“Let’s listen to your mother for once and retire early,” she said. “My Aunt is out of town at the moment, she won’t notice if I stay with you for a night or two.”

Alis felt Iris’s head nod against his shirt, and he raised a thumb’s up at his new acquaintance, who sighed and hung her head in response.

“You’re acting awfully childish, Iris!”

“Am not.”

“Are to.”

“Am not!”

“Yes, you certainly are!”

The back and forth continued longer than it had any right to, but with each pass, Iris’s smile seemed to grow wider.

Friends. What Alis had associated with the word after observing the world around him—the type of interactions, the kinds of faces, they weren’t something he shared with Iris.

The distance between them was delicate, forged of silk rather than steel.

And yet she held on so tightly. He couldn’t understand it, but even the act of trying to, felt as though it was enough to see it crumble.

Iris’s cluelessness never ceased to amaze Crestana. Even when she already knew her dear friend understood cliques better if she called them ‘belligerents’, it amazed her how effortlessly she proposed to him something that would make an ordinary girl their age squeal.

“No, I’m fine!” Alis insisted, protesting against filling the open space Iris had saved him in the spare apartment’s master bed. Crestana watched the scene unfold, at least thankful he had to have some semblance of normalcy about him. The brief snippets of him that she had managed to gather only painted a picture remarkably similar to Iris’s, and wrangling two such characters had quickly become a, thankfully mistaken, nightmare.

He bid them goodnight, heading for the door with one stolen pillow, but paused as his hand began to twist for the doorknob.

“Iris,” Alis said.

“What?” she asked, further dipping under the covers.

Alis fully turned to face her, a sullen look about him. “I was going to leave this until tomorrow morning, but I thought it might eat me alive while I try to sleep.”

“What’s going to eat you alive?” she asked as Crestana tried to determine if Iris had understood the metaphor.

“Why didn’t you say you’d go with Mrs Hardridge?”

Iris’s expression soured, and she rolled over, away from his gaze and away from Crestana. Letting the question marinate, she took her time.

“You know what I am,” she said. “I can only solve problems one way. If the world wants to rot, I’m not helping it.”

Crestana was familiar with the sentiment. The attic had fallen quiet many times after she had uttered such things.

The world was rotting. Let it all burn. As uncomfortable as those phrases made her, Crestana was reluctant to admit such to Iris directly. She knew little of Iris’s world, less than Alis, certainly less than Evalyn. There was nothing to suggest those sentiments weren’t true besides Crestana’s ill feelings towards them.

So Crestana felt no place to speak in the exchange that soon fell silent between the two friends. Iris was steadfast, and stubbornly refusing to speak despite all the warm words and stories they had shared over a lazy dinner. Alis was unwilling, perhaps unable to dispute it, despite the way he’d so easily scolded them for skimping on school.

Iris had imagined they really were friends. Sharing letters for two years would build some sort of familiarity. But in the end, words on paper were just that.

The door closed, and the aching gap severed, leaving Crestana able to breathe again.

Iris hadn’t taken a job with her mother in weeks. The more difficult ones, Crestana could understand, but even the ordinary pickpocket search or missing cat, she’d staunchly refused. She had explained it was in her right; Excala wouldn’t penalise her unless it was an order from their Council.

Still, none of it sat right with her, and it looked like she and Alis were of one mind.

She reached over, and brushed a finger against Iris’s neck, giggling as the girl’s spine crawled.

“What?” Iris mumbled.

“You’re a strange girl,” Crestana whispered, looking beyond the headboard and through the master bedroom’s window. The half-hearted moonlight trickled through from a moon nowhere in sight. Her night would be dark, and she would soon begin to sink.

“Iris?”

“Hm?”

“Can you hold my hand?”

“Is this what girls do when they sleep together?”

She chuckled at the nonsensical question, each point she’d have to clarify fluttering through her head and stopping at her voice box.

“Yes,” she finally answered, and without a word, like a faithful knight, Iris obliged.

Provenance gazed up at the giant tree from under its shadow. Attempts were made to bring light back to the blocks unfortunate enough to land underneath its canopy, but nothing in Excala’s magical arsenal seemed to rival the sun. He wasn't disappointed in their capabilities; the sun being observable didn’t make it understandable, and understanding was the foundation of an actionable concept, one that could turn into a Spirit.

Anyone could understand destruction, the concept of something ceasing to exist. The sun, ignoring the various scientific explanations, was simply a source of light more powerful than those on land. No one knew how or why, and neither did the Aether.

Or perhaps that theory of Aetherology was mistaken. The evolution of Spirits was more omnipotent than humans could fathom, and Spirits mimicking those celestial bodies were either undiscovered or dead.

Perhaps the sun was itself a Spirit, mimicking the stars it saw in the night sky.

Theory. Provenance liked theory but understood its limitations. The people living underneath the shade of the colossal tree would see the value of their properties decrease, the disappearance of their neighbours, and the slow replacement of their communities. Theory wouldn’t fell the tree nor restore their neighbourhood.

From where Provenance stood, he could spot almost ten instances of white smiles and polished masks plastered on advertising signs, the handsome men and women advertising the buildings’ vacancies.

“I hope you like your statue, Caynes,” he muttered under his breath as he continued his walk down the city street, his destination already in sight—a diner, tucked into the bottom floor of a regular city block. He imagined it suffering the same hard decisions as much of the local populous, but doing business in an establishment already on its last legs struck him as oddly convenient. The traces would turn to ash along with their business records.

Provenance purged the thoughts from his mind, not wanting to wish ill on a business with an already precarious future.

He entered with a chime and was thankfully greeted by three or four patrons, none of which he was familiar with, all of which would mask his presence.

He crossed the ageing wood floor—the saloon-style counter to his left, the booths and windows to his right—and made a straight line for the bathrooms at the other end of the establishment.

Before the amenity entrance stood a payphone nailed to the wall. An older model, with the receiver split into a separate earpiece and mouthpiece. He dropped a coin into the slot, and a set of gears softly ground past each other inside until a lever beside the dial flipped from ‘locked’ to ‘unlocked’.

He dialled the number he had scribbled onto a napkin during breakfast, and waited for the operator to pass the wire through to international.

“Hello sir, this is Yerrick from last week. Yes. No, it seems he crossed the border only last night. With your permission, sir, certainly. It can all be arranged on my end, yes. Of course. Goodbye.”

He put the phone back together and began to walk for the nearest booth, flashing a small smile at the disinterested teenager buffing the counter.

The cushion was worn, and admittedly, he would’ve felt no difference between it and a single blanket over hardwood.

He ran his shoe along the bottom edge of the opposite seat as though looking for something, until his foot hit an obstacle he could not see. He tapped it a few times, then looked out of the window.

“I heard you worked with Wesper on a job two and a half years ago in this very city. Though a lot has changed, I’d assume you know your way around decently well.”

There was no response, but he kept on talking.

“The asset I hired you to deliver to my contact in Sidos has recently fled his accommodation. I tracked him here, somewhere in this district. He’s on alert, but I know you’re good at finding people.”

A waitress interrupted his conversation with a friendly greeting. Being college-age, it seemed she could at least pretend to care about her job, unlike her younger coworker, although Provenance could blame neither. Working for crumbs in any industry was taxing.

He returned the smile, giving her the order he had already decided on the day prior as she scribbled it into her notepad. With a final show of courtesy, she left his table.

Provenance returned to his company.

“I want you to kill him. Three hundred thousand Ixa now, three hundred thousand afterwards.”

He felt two taps against his shoe, their predetermined sign for ‘yes’. Without a sound, without a word, and without a hint of movement, he felt the presence disappear, and his foot ran across the entire length of the couch.

First was lunch, then he had errands to run. Friendly chats with the last people who went against the Spirit of Destruction, those who could shed more light where Caynes had stubbornly refused to cast a shadow.