Chương 81: Anolm

"You look better," Elica said, nodding approvingly.

"A good night's... whatever it is you do instead of sleeping?"

"I just spent eight hours doing the most intense brooding you've ever heard of," I chuckled.

"Larianne would be proud," Elica said, and dashed for the showers. All right. Someone tried to kill me on Oneday afternoon. I'm going to assume that was when they had their first opportunity. And, that they decided to kill me over the weekend. Either something I did, or something they learned. Well, I hope that whoever came at me understood that they've kicked over a hornet's nest. Because going forward, Natalie Harigold does not hold still and wait for things to happen.

I did not waste another moment, I conjured black leather and silk as a gown and jacket, and I teleported myself to the front doors. There's someone I need to get hold of before any more time goes by. I don't want to take a chance she'll slip by me, so I staked out the exit and waited, seething. It took almost half an hour for her to walk out the doors. I was sitting cross-legged on empty air, and I dropped to the ground before approaching. As usual she did not look happy to see me.

"Hello Gala," I said, with a grin that crackled full of malice and promise.

"Let's talk. I'd like to put in an order." I stepped close, folded a hand around her elbow and walked with her towards the dining hall. I had longer legs, and I used them just enough that she had to stretch her stride to match me. It put me in control of our speed, with her trying to match me. It's a childish and low-grade psychological power play, but a shocking amount of what makes the world go around is stupid childish power plays.

Gala Kralcit, the scrivener I was keeping on retainer after she sucker-punched me in front of the Byeview Boys, was still flinching. She was still convinced that I'm biding my time to get vengeance. I like that she thinks this.

"Um, all right?" she said.

"You've looked up those numbers I asked you to check out?"

"Yes," she said.

"It's... a lot of money, really. And I'm just a first-year student, I shouldn't be-""You're a first-year student at Hearstcliff Academy, which means you're at least the equal of most guild-qualified people running their own shops," I pointed out.

"Now, I didn't come here to argue the modesty out of you. I want you to compose something that can alert me when food or drink is poisoned around me. I've been told by an expert recently that I'd be really easy to poison, and I don't want to find myself worrying about that every time I'm hungry or thirsty, and now that the idea is in my head it's just bugging me. And later I'll have other projects."

"Ah, all right," she said hesitantly.

"But, just finding poisons in food is an extremely well-researched field, it's one of the most common scrivenings sold. You don't need me for this, you can just swing by a shop!" I could, but I want to have you stitched closer, little Gala Kralcit. I want you to get used to having me around. Build trust, build communication. The needle passes back and forth. Out loud, instead, I said "I'm going to be bringing you more and more complicated work as we go.

But today, you prove you can do solid work, and you will know that I have proof you do solid work. We start small and build."

"I'll need supplies, though, all I have are academic inks and-""I'll speak to my contacts at Tawes Dome Bank about giving you a draw on my account," I said smoothly.

"I understand that two or three golden coats is enough to stock most supplies?" She balked at spending that much money, but my hand kept her moving along the gravel pathway, making up for her slowed step. That was a lot of money for most families. It's enough to set up a new business, enough to represent a very serious debt. But my standards for amounts of money is a little skewed. I was not going to tell her how much money I had sunk into Kurumi's investment fund, it would just make her sad.

"Er, yes," she said instead.

"I could do that." And now you owe me and I owe you, I thought merrily. We discussed the necessary steps for her to do her shopping on my loan, and then developing the piece I wanted and delivering it. She eased somewhat, but at no time did she meet my eyes. Funny, because people usually have a hard time avoiding them. Blue and gold in a frame of white, most people's gaze gravitates to mine whether they want it to or not, just sliding off all that chilly paleness to find the bright colors at the center.

But Gala studiously avoided my face entirely. I turned her loose when we got to the dining hall, and I went to pick up a breakfast of warm buttered bread, yogurt and hard-boiled egg. I had nearly finished it all when the other girls showed up. Elica had gotten herself some special dispensation, favors from the kitchen staff, and today they snuck her a helping of roasted guinea fowl, peach cobbler, and spinach greens. It really did smell good.

But we'd had an argument the other day about whether she was more spoiled by her noble station than I was, and I'm too stubborn to give up any points. Vancy and Larianne had gotten much the same as I had taken.

"Wow, you look a lot better today," Vancy said, grinning.

"Guess a good night's sleep did you some good!" Larianne was giving me a much more searching gaze.

"Hmm. You've got some new plan." Elica slid her tray onto the table and slid her butt onto the seat. She looked at me, and then nodded.

"She's got that murder-plotting look again, but mixed with patiently biding." I scoffed.

"Oh, come on, I'm not that transparent!" I took the last bite of my bread roll and started washing down with juice. Elica and Larianne gave each other a neutral but communicative look. I could read the moment as should we tell her?, but I'm pretty sure they were just doing that to mess with me. Pretty sure. Vancy just looked a little uncomfortable.

"Anyway," I said to get the momentum back where it belonged, with me, "I'm gonna find who tried to kill me and I'm gonna wreck their whole shop. I don't feel like this is over. I've got a plan already, and unfortunately I'm going to have to leave breakfast early. I'll see you all for lunch, yes?"

"You'd better, Yheta doesn't come around unless you're here," Elica said with annoyance. Some day I need to figure out what's going on with that. How is she this into him, and aware of his interest in me, and not jealous at all? I stood up and headed across the cafeteria. I had a tray to drop off, and a love interest to ask for a favor. The tray was the easy part. Bam, done.

Now, walking over to a strange table, passing by all these eyes, and stopping next to one particular person while trying not to blush myself to death.

"Hi Thumper," I said. It was awkward standing next to her. Her table was full of fencing jocks, all taller than me, with that swaggering bravado that they shared. No empty seats, and it was hard to stand here while they all sat. So, I crafted steel and formed an elegantly-curved chair to sit in next to her, molded to look like a throne of swords all twisted into shape. There, that's way too ostentatious to get embarrassed about.

You cannot be ashamed of getting attention if you dictate the terms by which people are paying attention to you.

"Whoa," she said, taking in my iron throne.

"What's up Na- Lady Harigold?"

"You got offended that I tried to use your first name, so you're not allowed to 'lady' me," I said.

"Natalie, always, all right?"

"Uh, yeah. What's up?"

"I need your help," I said.

"Right now, yes or no."

"Yes," she said with no hesitation. She stood up and shoved a truly impossible amount of bacon into her mouth. I stood and dispelled the chair, and then curved void to fashion the glowing white doorway.

"With me," I said, gesturing her to follow. Okay, so one of the things about the featureless white void is that there is no such thing as space there. Which is to say, no space in between things. Everything within is in contact with everything else, that's why I never have trouble reaching for anything in there. If I put my arm in blind, I have to figure out which of the books touching me is the one I want, and grab that one. So, uh, sharing a teleport with someone can sometimes be surprisingly intimate.

"Oh," Thumper said.

"Uh, tight fit."

"Phrasing," I muttered, and opened the exit door. But with these blinding lights, nobody can tell if I'm blushing. I led her out of the endless light and onto a parquet floor, waxed to a high shine that could not compare to where we had just been. The walls here were painted plaster, hung with portraits of elderly men and women who all looked very uncomfortable. But, like, that professional kind of uncomfortable that people reserve for Very Serious Business. I led the way down the hall towards a particular door.

"Where are we?" Thumper asked.

"Registrar's office," I said.

"One of the few places that would already be warded against my methods, so I can't appear inside the office. Dean Skiff and I don't get along well, and he's been very rude about it. I need your keys to open this door." I stopped us in front of a wooden door with brass fittings. Both the wood and brass looked slightly tarnished with age.

"Sure," she said, pulling out her keyring.

"We're not gonna get caught?" She flipped through the jangling brass charms, looking for the one with a sigil matching the lock here.

"The faculty cafeteria just started serving," I said.

"Elica gets her breakfast at the same time. Guinea fowl and peach cobbler today. So they're all at breakfast."

"Nifty," Thumper said, and pulled her keyring near the door. One of them lit up slightly, and she sorted it aside to try in the lock.

"So what are we doing in here? Pranking the dean?"

"Excellent idea and we are definitely going to do that soon," I said.

"But for now, we're looking for the housing paperwork for Nux Gysmo, Brumn Hardted and Tagk Frannem." She had the lock open and I stepped inside, and started going through the filing cabinets for three particular files. There was a lot here, but it was well-organized. I could move straight to the things I needed.

"Why?"

"So we can find out which of them has a next-of-kin or an emergency contact in Hearstcliff," I said.

"None of them is from Hearster Duchy, so it should be a short list. Yesterday, shortly after you and I chatted, someone tried to very rudely kill me. So I'm pretty sure that this is going to come back to the boys everyone thinks I murdered. I want to find who stabbed me so I can educate them on their etiquette."

"Yeeeaah," she said.

"That was you? I remember a lot of screaming all at once. It almost made me lose my concentration. Poor Chasper, he got distracted and I did not."

"That was me getting attacked, yeah," I said.

"Hmm. Nothing on Frannem. No local contacts at all. I'll check Gysmo next." Thumper nodded.

"That's the one that lived, right? Went loony from what he saw, though?"

"Either from something he saw, or something was done to him," I said.

"It could be torture that didn't leave any physical marks. Whatever it was, they apparently wanted to leave a witness alive to spread the word of what had happened, but they accidentally broke their witness too badly and now he's only rarely articulate." The taller girl was nodding.

"Yeah. My team spends a lot of time near the healers, sometimes we overhear stuff. And sometimes people like to brag about their jobs to impress me." She buffed her fingernails on her blouse, making a big show of overdone vanity.

"I am the captain of the fencing team. I'm a pretty big deal around here." I laughed at her pantomime, and then set down the file.

"Well, lots of interesting stuff about Gysmo but the only kind of interesting I'm interested in today is the kind that has a Hearstcliff address or some connection that would have local knowledge. So, gotta hope that Hardted has the answers." I grabbed a third file and started flipping through it.

"How the hell do you read so fast?" she asked me, leaning over my shoulder.

"Cheat codes," I said.

"Channeling levin energy. It accelerates my thinking, and with that my reading speed. I was hoping to get out of here quickly, since it would look bad to get caught here, so I'm going quickly. You know when we're done here, I'm gonna owe you another favor."

"Nah, we're fine," Thumper said, waving nonchalantly.

"I am afraid I must insist," I said.

"I spent a minute fixing a boiler, and now you're interrupting your breakfast and risking your team captain's position to help me, no questions asked." She scoffed.

"I'm ahead by, at most, a half a favor." I closed the folder.

"Sounds good to me. I owe you a half a favor, and when I do you'll owe me half a favor back. And so on." She waggled her eyebrows.

"Oh, already planning something long-term?" [Quest Checkpoint Complete. Advancement: The Access] I flushed hard.

"Let's lock up and get out of here." Funny, this did not advance my quest of An Eye For An Eye For Et Cetera.

"Did you find what you needed?" she asked as we headed for the hall.

"Yeah, I found Brumn Hardted's cousin." I dropped Thumper off at her homeroom and then left to arrive at my own. Quarl was busy with homework so I just sat back and took it easy. For something to do I pulled out the workbooks that were supposed to last all semester for Geography and Literature classes and started filling them out. It was just idle stuff, help the time go past, and I only got about a week ahead in both classes during that hour. Similarly I just let Math class be math-oriented.

I didn't push anything regarding our end-of-the-year project or the dungeon-crawling we would do, or about all the money we had invested. I was laying low. Inconspicuous. Until science class, that is. I walked into the room, and waited for Ryichsur to start his lecture, then I gave him a wave and peaced out through a void portal. I appeared again over the city, and I was already changing clothes as I flew for the address I had memorized.

I made one high pass to scope it out, channeling owl's essence to sharpen my senses. I spotted someone with a family resemblance. Anolm Hardted, cousin to Brumn. And Anolm was in the process of moving house, all of his worldly belongings going onto the back of several large wagons. This was someone in the process of abandoning his whole life here. Good enough for me. I dove like a falcon. I was wearing a black leather duster, boots, and motorcycle leathers when I touched down.

A hood pulled down low over my face with a gauzy black veil to hide my eyes, hair and complexion. Elbow gloves, steel buckles, I went out of my way to be intimidating and mysterious.

"Anolm Hardted," I barked out when my boots thudded to the pavement.

"I think you've got something to answer for."

"Shit-gods!" he yelped out and leaped away, dropping the case in his hands, and he turned and staggered and stumbled and he ended up leaning back against the wall, his back pressed to the stonework.

"What the eff?!" he blurted, staring. I stood, arms crossed, glaring.

"You've got somewhere to go, Anolm?" I sneered.

"And maybe you did not want anyone to interrupt you?"

"Oh shit it's you," he whimpered.

"The princess. I thought you'd come around!"

"I'm not her," I said mysteriously.

"But I was sent."

"You sure?" he said, squinting my way.

"Cuz you sound posh like her. I was at her trial a few years ago an' she sounded just -""Fine, yes, it's me," I gave up. Why do I bother? Ever?

"And now you wanted to make your escape before I found you, is that it?" He groaned, sagging.

"Woulda been too much to ask, eh? I'm never been lucky like that. So now I guess you'll want what you're owed, eh?"

"At least that," I said, stepping forward, fingers flexing. He sighed, and slumped forward, back to his feet.

"Now, I don't keep that much on me, obviously," he said.

"And I don't think you'll want collateral. But I can write out a promissory note, it'll be backed by the Kinghand banks and- what?" he stared at me, confused by my reaction. I had stopped, so baffled that he could see it even through the veil. And now he's baffled at my bafflement.

"Money?" I said.

"Yeah?" he replied.

"I reckon an even split, since you did the legwork but I had the paperwork?" I paused, and thought, and shook my head.

"Maybe we got off on the wrong note. Explain what you mean, as if we've just met for the first time." He looked at me oddly.

"You killed my cousin and now I'm rich, yeah? I mean, not like posh rich, but definitely move-out-of-Old-Town rich. And now you want a cut because it was you what done it?" I held up a hand.

"I've never heard of you before today. Why are you rich?" Anolm relaxed a lot more when he realized I wasn't here to take his money away.

"When you killed Kudder, everything he was holding as collateral went back to my family. And when you killed Csynt, Brumn's da, then all the money that Csynt had went to his next-a-kin, Brumn. I had an insurance policy on the kid because bad things can happen in Hearstcliff to kids what don't know when to cross the street, ya know? But before I could get nobody to do it, you karked him yourself and now I've got the holdings, the investments, the inheritance, and the insurance!

I'm gonna take baths in milk an' honey cuz I had those paperworks, and cuz the kid's dead!"

"And you didn't try to kill me for revenge," I finished, disappointed.

"Wha? Nah!... but I 'spect you'll want that cut, now that you know," he said ruefully. I was tempted to take the money just because I resented the way this guy was profiting off so much misery. But I wasn't going to feel better about me profiting off so much misery either. And, I was really disappointed. I wanted to have this fucking mystery solved. Now I gotta head back to class, and try to figure out what comes next. Gotta be more trees I can shake for clues.