Chương 122: Chapter 119 - Like Demons

The brewery, on a typical workday, was not quiet. It never was. It boiled, steamed, rolled, filled, emptied, and grumbled with itself through wood, copper, stone, and people who had learned to move around one another without asking permission each time. Margaret stopped just inside the working floor and said nothing for several long breaths. Alric let her look. Workers moved around them in paths that were not marked but might as well have been. Casks rolled where space opened.

Stones were moved with long iron tongs or gloves. Steam rose from the boilers in steady breaths. Somewhere near the far side, Hal gave instructions with the weary authority of a man who had been given responsibility and had not yet found anyone suitable to blame for it. Margaret's gaze moved from the floor, to the benches, to the tools hanging in their proper places.

"This is very clean," she said at last.

"It is," Alric said.

"We're quite proud of that."

"It is not how most breweries think."

"No," Alric said.

"I have noticed."

"It is not perfect," Alric added.

"There are changes I want. More space. Better flow. Less carrying things through places where people also need to stand. I'd need a purpose-built building for that."

"That sounds expensive."

"It will be."

"And yet you say it calmly."

"It being expensive won't make it cheaper if I panic." He glanced across the room.

"For now, it does what the city needs it to do." Margaret considered that.

"It does a great deal," Margaret said.

"It has to."

"That is not always the same thing."

"No," Alric agreed.

"It isn't." He gestured toward the far side of the brewery.

"Come on. This is what I wanted you to see." The station sat against one wall, plain enough that anyone who did not know what it was might have mistaken it for storage equipment. Impressive things attracted questions. Useful things attracted work. Margaret stopped before it.

"That," she said slowly, "is not a heating stone."

"No."

"It is not a standard reservoir either."

"No." She glanced at him.

"You brought me to a thing you knew I would not recognise?"

"I brought you to the reason I wanted an atelier." That did not make her look more comfortable. Alric tapped the hand plate lightly with two fingers.

"Put your hand here." Margaret stared at the plate. Then at him.

"Mister Alric," she said, with great care, "when a man who has already admitted to unusual magical practices tells a mage to put her hand on an unknown device, there are several schools of thought on the correct response."

"Is one of them putting your hand on it?"

"No." He nodded and waited. She gave him a look, then placed her hand against the plate. Her reaction was immediate. She pulled back so sharply that one of the nearby workers glanced over, saw Alric, saw Margaret, and decided with visible wisdom that his business lay elsewhere. Margaret held her hand close to her chest, as if she had touched something that had spoken unexpectedly.

"What is in there?" she asked.

"A liquid that holds mana well."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the answer I have." Her eyes narrowed. Alric rubbed at the back of his neck.

"It stores mana. The brewery uses it to recharge the stones. So that we don't need a mage to stand here all day feeding stones like a miserable lamp." Margaret looked back at the station.

"You are using a liquid mana reservoir."

"I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"I didn't know what to call it."

"That would have been a good thing to ask before building one."

"In my defence, asking questions before doing things has not always saved me time." She stepped closer again. Her hand returned to the plate. This time she held it there long enough for her expression to change. First suspicion. Then concentration. Then the very particular stillness of someone who had found a number where there should not have been one.

"It is not full," she said.

"No," Alric replied.

"We used it this morning."

"How much is in there?"

"I don't have a measurement you'll like."

"I am beginning to suspect I will not like any measurement you provide."

"That's fair." Alric placed his hand on the second plate. His mana moved into the station with the familiar drag, though it was easier now than it had been. The station took it. While Alric had claimed it was liquid, it was the holy hero's sword. The sense of it changed under his hand as the vessel filled, growing denser until the pressure settled into that full, compact weight he had come to recognise. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Margaret had gone very still.

Alric removed his hand and flexed his fingers once. Margaret touched the plate again. This time she did not pull away. That was worse. Her face lost a little colour. Her eyes closed briefly. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"Can Battery fill this?"

"Yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes." She stared.

"He needs a nap afterwards," Alric added.

"But he's gotten better." Margaret looked at the station again.

"He has done this more than once?"

"Yes. He fills it every morning."

"You are using this as training?"

"No, it's the price he's happy to pay," Alric said.

"He's happy to do it. Don't look at me like that. I cover his costs. Food, room, materials where we can get them, books, all of it. He's never complained about it. Becoming a mage is his dream, after all." Margaret's stare sharpened.

"It was rough at first," he admitted.

"But he sets his own pace. I don't force him."

"Does he understand what pace means?" Margaret asked.

"Young mages often confuse eagerness with capacity. Especially when someone feeds them, houses them, and gives them a purpose."

"I watch him," Alric said at last.

"Seren watches everyone. Hal watches because he thinks all young people are idiots until proven otherwise. He's not alone with it." Margaret did not seem satisfied, but she filed the answer somewhere short of immediate condemnation.

"Can you fill it?" she asked.

"Yes. Once comfortably enough now." He paused.

"I did it twice in a day before. Needed to sleep after. It's gotten easier." Margaret stared at him. Not at the station this time. At him.

"Demons train like this," she said. Alric blinked.

"What?"

"Demons," she repeated.

"Train. Like. This." He glanced at the station, then back at her.

"By filling things with mana?"

"By draining themselves nearly empty, again and again, until the channels harden." She touched her own wrist.

"It makes your mana go hard." Alric took a moment with that.

"Hard mana sounds useful." Margaret looked at him with genuine horror.

"It is not a compliment."

"It sounded a bit like one."

"It is what you do to soldiers when you do not care how many become useless." That stopped him. She exhaled through her nose.

"You truly do not know what normal is, do you?"

"Uh… no, but I'm sure you are about to tell me," he said.

"Demons fight with magic circles. They have vast amounts of mana," Margaret said.

"It's just a theory, though, because there are demons who cast spells normally too. Is this what you are going to do to atelier members?"

"I'm not going to drain students dry," he said.

"Battery and I can handle the brewery most of the time." She nodded once.

"And where else might you need help?" Alric waved vaguely toward the far side of the brewery.

"Here and there. The brewery mostly runs. There are other things coming."

"The dis—" He stopped. Margaret's eyes sharpened immediately. Alric coughed once.

"The other project."

"The other project," she repeated.

"Yes."

"Does this other project involve more reservoirs?"

"Probably not. Just charging stones directly."

"Probably?"

"We haven't designed that part."

"That is worse than no." She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, some decision had settled behind them. Not comfort. Not trust exactly. Something more practical than either.

"I will do what I can with the atelier," she said.

"If this is your price."

"It's not a price."

"It is. You are offering rooms, protection, access to mana, materials, and work. You are also offering danger and paperwork in quantities I suspect I cannot yet measure. That is a price." Alric nodded slowly.

"Alright."

"My cousins need somewhere better," she said, more to herself than him.

"And if I refuse, someone less careful will say yes later." She glanced around the brewery once more, then back to the station.

"I will register the atelier under your name." Alric considered that.

"If paperwork wants my name that badly, it can have it." Margaret did not laugh. He had expected at least a small one. Instead, she looked tired in the way people did when the next sensible action was also the one most likely to ruin their week. Alric stepped away from the station.

"Come on. You may as well see where the atelier will actually live." The new inn sat just off the main avenue with the solid, square confidence of a place built when space had been cheaper and optimism had been allowed to use stone. The front held the old common room, kitchen, and bar. Beyond that, the building opened into a courtyard with covered walkways, lower rooms, upper rooms, and enough doors to make any sensible person wonder what Alric intended to fill them with.

The answer, unfortunately, was already beginning to form. Margaret stopped in the entrance and looked around.

"This is yours? You bought an inn?"

"Seren found it, but yes."

"That was not the question."

"It is the answer that makes me sound least responsible." Margaret's mouth pressed thin, but she moved forward. Alric led her through the courtyard.

"Lower rooms first," he said.

"Some staff housing. Some workrooms." They walked the lower floor. Margaret looked into rooms, frowned at walls, glanced at windows, measured distances without touching anything. By the time they reached the rear stairs, her expression had shifted from suspicion to reluctant calculation.

"This is too much space for one atelier," she said.

"It's also my headquarters, I guess. Let me show you the cellar." The cellar was cool and heavy with the smell of wine. Barrels filled much of the space already. Margaret stopped halfway down.

"Is that all wine?" Alric nodded. Some rooms branched off from the cellar, old staff quarters or storage rooms from the inn's earlier life. All of them were filled with barrels.

"We can use some," Alric said.

"Storage, maybe quiet study if we can sort the damp. Not living quarters unless there's no choice. I don't think students should sleep next to wine barrels unless we're trying to create a very specific sort of mage." They returned upstairs. A front room could become a teaching hall. The old private dining room could serve as an office. A room near the kitchen could hold materials if fitted with a proper lock. Margaret began pointing things out despite herself.

"I'm going to need a lot of things," Margaret said, looking over the courtyard.

"Make a list. Seren likes that sort of thing," Alric said.

"You agree very quickly," she said.

"It should be a little reassuring."

"It suggests you have not yet learned how expensive competence is." Alric thought of Stromni's copper.

"I'm learning." They reached one of the lower rooms on the east side of the courtyard. Margaret stepped inside and did not come back out immediately. It was a decent room. Better light than most of the others. A narrow window looked into the courtyard. There was enough space for a bed and a proper desk. The floorboards were worn but sound. Margaret stood in the centre of it.

"This is nicer than where I stay now," she said. There was reluctance in the admission.

"Take it," Alric said. She turned.

"No."

"You just said it's nicer."

"That was an observation."

"Good. Observe yourself living in it." She looked around the room again, and he could see the answer forming before she gave it permission.

"The students will need rooms," she said.

"They may need to share. Depends how many arrive and what Seren says we can spare. Battery stays at the brewery for now, though he can come here to study." Seren appeared at the far end of the walkway as if summoned by administrative instinct. She carried a board, two sheets of paper, and the expression of a woman who had already suspected work was being created somewhere nearby and had come to catch it in the act.

"There you are," Alric said, looking at her.

"Were you following us?"

"No. I was following the sound of future inconvenience." Margaret looked at Seren. Seren looked at Margaret. A brief understanding passed between them with the speed and solemnity of two people discovering they might be the only adults in a building.

"This room?" Seren asked. Margaret nodded. Seren made a mark on the paper. Margaret stared at it.

"You already have a list?"

"I have several," Seren said.

"This one is for rooms. There is another for furniture, another for locks, another for staff movement, and one I have titled problems Mister Alric has not admitted yet."

"That last one feels unfair," Alric said. Seren did not look up.

"It has the most space." Margaret's mouth twitched.

"We will need proper desks," Margaret said. Seren made another mark.

"How many?"

"For now? Four. Eventually more. Shelves. Locking cabinets. A teaching room. A smaller practice room. Shared student rooms if needed, but not beside the cellar."

"Agreed," Seren said, writing quickly.

"The teaching room should be near the courtyard," Margaret said.

"If something goes wrong, we want air and space. Practice work should not be near kitchens, wine, sleeping rooms, or anything Mister Alric considers temporarily acceptable." Seren paused, then wrote that down as well. Alric frowned.

"That wording feels targeted."

"It is," they said together. He looked between them. There were dangers in the world that announced themselves with teeth, fire, or a large sword. Others arrived as two competent women agreeing on procedure. The two continued. Alric realized, somewhere between the third note and the discussion of shutters, that Margaret had begun arranging the atelier as if she had already accepted charge of it. She left not long after. Alric walked her as far as the entrance, then stopped.

He offered to send his security detail with her before she touched the pin on her blouse that marked her as a mage. Margaret stepped out onto the street. For a moment she did not walk away. She looked back once at the inn, then toward the part of the city where the brewery sat.

"I have no idea what I'm getting into," she muttered, "but that has never stopped family from being family." Then she sighed.