Andrew Rowe - Sufficiently Advanced Magic

I knew what he meant. I shifted my attunement on.

He had a light red shroud, a standard aura for a Carnelian…until it began to brighten.

First, to orange.

Then, as the red burned entirely away, to yellow.

And, as my eyes widened, a tinge of blue mingled into the yellow, forming green.

Emerald. Derek was an Emerald.

I took in a deep breath.

For the first time, I could see why he’d been so arrogant about being able to handle the Survival Match alone. He had the strongest aura of any human I’d ever seen.

That was not as reassuring as it should have been.

I’d just seen his former partner’s name on the list of people who had gone into the tower with Vera.

Was that incident why they were feuding? Did Derek know something? Was he involved?

He hadn’t actually been one of the ones on the list to go into the tower himself…but then again, there was nothing that would have prevented him from going in just a bit earlier or later.

This was important, but I couldn’t think of an easy excuse to slip back into the archives to research him. I should have done it the moment Elora’s name had come up, but I hadn’t thought he’d be quite this closely involved.

I closed my eyes, disabling my attunement. “I can see what you mean.”

“Keep that to yourself, please. A good number of people already know, but I try not to draw too much attention.”

I nodded, my eyes reopening. I could see why keeping that degree of power secret was a big deal. It could draw a lot of unwanted attention, and given how powerful Emeralds were, I suspected they might be considered military assets.

That also raised the question of whether or not Derek was involved with whoever had been talking to Katashi before and keeping Vera’s location concealed.

I had a few options at this point and I didn’t like any of them.

I reopened my eyes. “I’ll be willing to take you along if Sera doesn’t have an objection. Let me talk to her about it privately first.”

Professor Orden folded her arms. “We don’t have time for distractions. Derek is, whether I like it or not, our best chance at completing this assignment safely.”

“We need to pick Sera up before we go confront Vera in either case. Can you teleport us to her room? I’ll make the conversation quick.”

“Fine. What dorm is she in?”

“Tortoise Female #14.” I stepped in closer, formulating the first bits of a plan.

This was going to more complicated than I hoped.

We formed a circle, and once again, my head swam as Orden teleported us.

At least I didn’t have a concussion this time.

Sera opened the door to her room. I stepped inside. The others were all standing outside the building, idly chatting. Or maybe plotting my doom. Possibly both.

I raised a finger in a gesture for Sera to be quiet, then set down my backpack and withdrew my etching rod.

As she watched with a raised eyebrow, I channeled a bit of mana into the rod and carved a noise-dampening rune into the door. A bit of gray mana, a bit of transference mana, and the rune was completed.

I didn’t bother writing more runes to set the rune to recharge. I didn’t want to waste the time or mana. I put the etching rod back, more confident now that it would be extraordinarily difficult to hear our conversation outside.

I nodded to Sera. “We can talk now.”

She folded her arms. “Can we start by discussing how much you owe me for wrecking my door?”

I chuckled. “I’ll get it fixed for you when this is all over. But we need to talk.”

Sera tilted her head to the side. “I’d gathered that from the fact that you look like you just found a group of assassins in your breakfast.”

I nodded sagely. “Delicious, but suspicious.”

Sera’s lips twisted into a half-smirk. “That rhyme was a little weak, but I’ll give you credit for effort.”

“Weak? I’d like to see you do better.”

She raised a finger to her chin. “They were vicious and ambitious, but through a turn of fate capricious, one malicious assassin proved seditious, slaying the others in my dishes. Thereafter I discovered they were delicious, and moreover, nutritious.”

…

“You win this round, Sera.”

She bowed at the waist. “Your acknowledgment is judicious.”

I rolled my eyes. “That one was a bit of a stretch. But seriously, we need to talk.”

Sera sat down on her bed next to a large backpack of her own. “Okay, so talk.”

“Teft isn’t coming. Apparently, he’s too badly hurt from exerting himself on our last little mission. They sent Derek Hartigan instead.”

Sera shrugged. “Okay.”

I blinked. “You don’t care?”

“Eh, I don’t appreciate how little information he gave me before dragging me into that whole Survival Match thing, but it was still fun. And he’s obviously a fighter. We could use someone who knows how to use a sword. No offense.”

I nodded. “None taken. That reminds me.” I unbuckled my belt, taking both scabbards off it. “I brought two. You can pick one if you want one.”

“Oh, Patrick is going to be so jealous.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“You didn’t notice? He’s been staring dreamily at your swords for months! He’s obsessed with those things.”

I winced. I really hadn’t been paying enough attention to what my friends were interested in. Now that Patrick was my retainer, I needed to make more of an effort to understand him. “Okay. I’ll definitely need to get him an enchanted sword sometime.”

I shook my head. “In the meantime, though, we’ve got more important matters to discuss. When Jin and I looked into Vera, we found out that Elora Theas — Derek’s former beau — was one of the people who went into the tower with Vera. It’s very likely she’s connected with all this nonsense, which makes it possible that Derek is also connected.”

Sera leaned over, picking up Selys-Lyann and testing the weight, then picked up my other sword and did the same. “And you’re worried he’s going to stab us in the back? Is that it?”

“Yeah. And he’s Emerald, Sera.”

She set the sword down at that, staring at me. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “Saw his shroud with my attunement. He’s been suppressing it.”

Sera’s hands clenched and unclenched in the air. It was a familiar gesture. I did the same thing when I was stressed. I hadn’t realized she shared the habit. “That makes this rather awkward.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I told him that he could come along if you were okay with it. So, we’ve got an excuse if you want to act more angry about the whole arena thing…”

She shook her head. “No. I think we should keep him close, even if we have suspicions. If we tell him off, he’s free to wreak havoc out of sight. Maybe he goes and gets rid of Vera before we even reach her. Or, if he’s connected to Tenjin’s disappearance, he could even go move Tenjin while we go in the tower — or worse…”

I nodded. “I understand the idea of keeping an eye on him, but if he turns on us in the tower, there’s really nothing we could do against an Emerald. Unless you’re holding out on me. That thing you did with Patrick was a pretty impressive trick.”

Sera grinned. “It was. We’ve been practicing for weeks. Cooperative spells are much stronger than anything we can manage alone.”

“How’d he even help you? I’ve heard of cooperative spells, but wasn’t that an ice spell?”

“Ice and air. Elementalists can cast air spells. So, he supplied the air mana, freeing me up to use all my mana for ice. We pushed as much power as we could into that one spell. But even then, that wouldn’t even be Citrine-class. We couldn’t scratch an Emerald, and I couldn’t cast that spell alone.”