Iris wanted to skip the day, but Crestana—seeing as the protest only started after school—saw no point. Drumming up ire with the school administration would only impede their operations. They were in schooling; a simple detention would be enough to ruin their operations.

“Many of the protestors are school-age,” Crestana explained. “To hold it after school hours only makes it more appealing to people still on the fence. Besides—”

She had stopped in front of their classroom, their cursed morning homeroom now on their third teacher. “I have something I want to collect.”

Even if waiting out the day made sense, that did nothing to calm her nerves. Her feet were drumming against the floorboards, much to her teachers’ irritation, and that echoing rhythm of war drums barred any lessons from making it past her ear.

She had her priorities straight. That was her justification.

But after her second straight period of repeating those words to herself, they began to sound weird.

First, they devolved into a collection of sounds, simple movements of her mouth that made her wonder exactly why they meant what they meant. Then she began to wonder who had given those words that meaning in the first place.

Not their dictionary definition, but rather their importance to her.

What priorities? Who’s priorities? She certainly didn’t remember setting them.

Crestana had told her school was a societal requirement—one didn’t just decide not to attend outside of extreme circumstances.

A Witch didn’t simply choose not to kill people and burn cities.

Her feet drummed the floorboards even faster. She turned her eyes to her aviation watch. Big and bulky, a reminder that Elliot’s wings were somewhere in the sky when he wasn’t roosting with her. He knew he was going somewhere and wouldn’t be home for the weekend, but not much else besides that.

Spy plane, Sidos, she could make an educated guess.

On her other hand was her ring. She watched as Alis milled about somewhere in the city, his movements in the light beam dulled by distance. Like flowers following the sun or clouds floating through the sky, she’d find it had changed while she wasn't paying attention.

Working through her thoughts stopped her from grinding her teeth, at least, and took her through to the final school bell of the day.

Iris stood from her class the second she was dismissed, having already packed away her books and stationery, and headed for the door. Crestana was close behind as she checked her watch. The protest wasn’t far away, beginning at the Royal Gardens and marching through the city until the congregation reached the Capitol Building. She had asked a trio of politically enlightened seniors for the location moments before they had their protest signs confiscated.

Something about…keeping politics off school grounds. It sounded like bollocks.

“Let’s stop by our hiding spot,” Crestana muttered as they marched down Tyrren Court’s tallest balcony. She had mentioned she wanted to ‘pick up something’, and the leather drawing tube slung across her shoulder gave Iris an inkling.

“It’s been sheathed properly, so it’s not in terrible shape, but going home to collect my own will waste us too much time,” Crestana said, wading through the menagerie of forgotten things until she reached a dusty weapons rack, three swords decorating its tiers.

They were technically out of bounds, deep in the annals of Academy history. Iris couldn’t blame the staff for neglecting one or two stray weapons.

“What are you using that for?” Iris asked, looking the longsword’s blade up and down. Despite the generous afternoon glow, the blade didn't gleam like she expected. Even if it could still cut, it was far from taken care of.

“Well,” she shrugged, “Mr Harbourman has his brass knuckles, and you are…you, so why should I be the only one unarmed?”

“Because it’s a sword,” Iris said. “It’s a bit harder to conceal.”

“And one or two strings pulled meant I had my Melee Arms License early.”

She took the sword and slid it into the drawing tube, fastening the leather flap over the hilt in such a way the cross guard jutted out from the seams. ‘Good enough,’ she thought she heard Crestana say before she slung it over her shoulder.

All she could do was trust that Crestana had already weighed the blade in her hands before deciding to wield it on the battlefield.

Terror Dealers! Not Our Leaders!

We don’t ask! Take off the mask!

Even if the perpetrators were Beaks, the chant felt oddly targeted, dry humour leaving an equally wry smile across her face. Iris noticed many Beaks in the crowd had turned to simply waving their signs instead of joining in on the chorus.

It almost felt like a Spirit in itself, the large mass of shifting bodies that swelled until it met the brick walls of the flanking buildings or the police barricades redirecting traffic. It waved wood and cardboard signs above its bobbing back, each painted by hand with slogans and emblems united under a common message.

Reveal the perpetrators to the public, put them to trial, and let the public boycott their businesses.

From the little Iris heard from Marie, she knew the metropolitan police were willing to negotiate the first and second demands—sheltering those who had messed with their home turf wasn’t the intention in the first place. The third, her god-grandmother had put it best.

‘Good luck boycotting your electricity provider, grocery chain, and Magic appliance dealer all at once.’

Nonetheless, they chanted, and their voices echoed off the tall brick walls and up to Iris’s perch atop the clay tiles. She was lookout, her ground unit’s guiding light through the beast’s belly.

With little to go off, the three had no choice but to assume their mystery contact would be distinct enough for them to spot amongst the sea of bodies. It wasn’t ideal, Alis had pointed out the possibility of their target’s conspicuousness appealing to the wrong hunters.

Hence, come armed. It wasn’t a bad idea, but Iris wanted to avoid sparking a scene in such a place. Too many eyes blinded by political ire meant any event was an opportunity to spark controversy. She didn’t want to be responsible for creating another S.H.I.A.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

By the looks of things, the protestors kept peace at the forefront, knowing how ineffective their campaign against terrorism would be if they stooped to that level.

But she had been in the business long enough to know such movements never walked in unison, hands daisy-chained and frolicking.

A protest. Of all places.

Of all places indeed.

They might as well have been chanting for her father’s execution.

An armed individual with a plausible motive to cause harm: Crestana had to be careful, else they began to chant for hers as well.

“See anyone?” Crestana asked, slowly stepping with the crowd.

“No,” Alis replied, using his superior height to see between peoples’ shoulders. “It’s hard to make out much of anything.”

“Then, it’s up to Iris.”

“Correct.”

“…why weren’t they more explicit in their letter?” she complained.

“Don’t know, but they’re a scientist, not a spy. They probably didn’t know better.”

“Hm.”

The crowd was up in arms, but Crestana didn’t feel herself swept up in the anger at all, and neither did Alis. Without their intermediary present, all they had was their mission to distract themselves from each other.

He was quite tall. Crestana preferred that, although she knew it was childish. If he just dressed better, he’d end up quite handsome.

“Same as Iris, then,” she muttered under her voice box.

“Sorry?” Alis asked, his hearing keen enough to pick up the gripe amongst the hubbub.

“You should dress better!” Crestana shouted this time. “You and Iris both!”

“I’d like to,” Alis said, still craning his neck for a clue, “at least I have a justified reason.”

Crestana snorted. “I guess so,” she said, conceding and returning her attention forward.

“Your family,” Alis started as he grabbed Crestana’s shoulder and pulled her out of the way of a clump of over-eager protestors forcing their way through the crowd.

“…Thank you…,” she managed to say, the gesture leaving her more than startled.

“Anytime. Anyway, your family,” he said, not missing a beat, “I understand they were involved in this?”

She looked up to her saviour, still peering through the crowd. He seemed almost disinterested in his own line of questioning. But he was a spy; lying was what he did.

“Yes, my father was a ringleader of sorts,” she said, playing along.

“They must have been wealthy.”

“Very. Too much money for anyone to ever spend.”

“Certainly one way to put it,” he scoffed. “What was it like?”

Crestana found the chance to return said scoff. Perhaps his payment for saving her was an answer to an impossible question.

She wasn’t willing to give him the response he sought for such a simple question. There was plenty he didn’t need to know. That’s one thing that Iris only understood instinctually rather than consciously: secrets weren’t something for enemies only.

“Cold,” she said. Frustratingly simple, like trying to explain a book one loved in as few words as possible.

But Alis nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“Childhood in the army doesn’t seem so different when you use that word. Maybe I didn’t miss out on much.”

It was almost flattering to hear that from him. Of course, she had Iris, but hearing that from someone standing behind the curtain felt like an induction of sorts.

She noticed the dome roof of the Capitol Building peer over the surrounding brick apartments, sheepishly sizing up its invaders as they made their final approach.

“Now or never,” Alis rightly assessed as the procession began to pour into Capitol Square, bodies compressing and stretching to fit their new containers.

“Come on Iris,” Crestana whispered.

The chanting continued, intermingling with jeering as the procession laid eyes on police presence blocking access to the council stairs. Lightly armed, from what Crestana could make out—magic shields that caught projectiles and suspended their motion, with nausea mines and acute Aether influx inducers planted at the base of the steps.

She knew it wasn’t the police she was there to focus on but, at her height, she was out of options.

A sea of people, the perfect place for a get-together with a stranger.

“Get on my shoulders,” Alis said out of the blue.

“Sure—I mean, excuse me?”

“We don’t have time,” he hissed, crouching. “I need your head above the crowd.”

The jeers fell silent as Crestana saw through the thread holes in the crowd, a megaphone-wielding figure taking centre stage.

Crestana thoroughly swallowed her protest and climbed onto the near stranger’s shoulders, holding in a small scream as he lifted her above the waves. She was with the signs now, bobbing precariously with a near-perfect view of the world around her.

She started scanning, searching for the one keeping a low profile in an ocean of brash voices: a hood, a coat, something that in any other situation would go unnoticed.

Movement. Not exactly what she was looking for, but an anomaly nonetheless.

But something was missing. People, one after another were being pushed to one side, their shoulders yielding to a force they weren’t aware of.

Beaks seemed to catch on faster, turning as though expecting someone to barge through, but only meeting empty air. The evidence was there, but the perpetrator was nowhere to be seen.

Crestana felt a tap on her shoulder and turned, expecting to meet someone exceptionally tall.

“Oh thank gods,” she muttered, finding a clump of Iris fashioned into a crudely shaped arrow. She tapped Alis’s head, cueing him to let her down.

“Iris caught something,” she said the moment her feet hit the floor. “But there’s something moving in the crowd. I think it’s invisible.”

I think I know where this is going,” Alis grumbled, eyeing Iris’s arrow and starting in the same direction. He used his own body like an icebreaker’s bow, forcing himself through the crowd with a one-two of polite words and not-so-polite shouldering. The speech was ramping up into a crescendo and, between all the cheers, it was hard to make out much of anything.

The crowd was closing in, not so forgiving of Alis’s advances as though it had a hive mind of its own. The Spirit she couldn’t see was gliding through the crowd thanks to the illusion. Coupled with a small profile, they were nothing more than a trick of the imagination, something of little significance at the very most.

Iris’s arrow was quivering, probably noticing for herself the warp in reality closing in on their target.

It was a lost cause if things didn't speed up, their efforts only to be rewarded with whatever remnants of their client were left.

Sink. That was the only option available. The summer sun was beginning to angle which, by itself, would’ve been insufficient. But the crowd was thick, their shadows overlapped to create a second sea only Crestana was wary of.

Move through the crowd like something of no consequence. She had to sink.

The world around her inverted; shadows grew longer where there was no space, projecting themselves arrogantly onto the sky and almost shrouding the sunlight. People were ghastly, their now pale white skin unable to hide any flaws or impurities. She could see the dirt, the secrets, the way forward.

Crestana began to step ahead, with no choice but to pace herself and keep a rhythm lest she ran right back into the real world. She walked past people, jumping from one shadow to another and riding them through the narrow chasms between strangers’ shoulders.

Her feet were gliding across cobblestones she couldn’t trust, unable to shake the feeling that the only thing keeping them from degrading into quicksand was her discipline.

It felt unnatural, her heightened, defective sense of fear clashing with what was supposedly her nature.

The muffled speech cut through the veil, and the cheers drummed against the gates.

Then a scream finally pierced it, the very sound stringing her along like a lasso back into the real world. She began to run, her right hand instinctively finding the hilt of her sword in anticipation as she burst out into a small enclave, sunlight finally reaching the ground.

The colour flashed back into her world, and the pool of liquid seeping into the cobblestone’s seams glowed a ghastly blue.

Crestana tried to calm herself. She’d seen a dead body before.

No. This one was still dying.

She ran over and kneeled beside the Spirit, their trailing coat torn open by a single vertical cut. Something heavy had come down hard, cleaving apart their wooden skin and shattering the bark into splinters.

The liquid Aether spilling from them was their lifeblood, like sap from a tree, draining away their strength faster than a doctor could ever hope to reach them.

She frantically searched the clearing for a detached voice box and found it at the foot of a distressed girl not much older than her.

“Give it here!” Crestana shouted. “Voicebox!”

The shouting seemed to go nowhere, only sending the girl spiralling further. A stranger nearby managed to hold onto their senses, kicking the voice box towards her. Crestana picked it off the floor and pressed it against the Spirit’s arm.

“Who did this to you?” she hissed. “Why did they kill you?”

Static was all the voice box could interpret, interrupted by soft spluttering that dashed her hopes as fast as they restored them.

“It…hurts….”

Crestana had the honour of pronouncing him dead, the last whisps of Aether parting from his body.

She felt them circulate into her, and that disgusted her more than anything else.