Saving the school would have been easier as a cafeteria worker

Olivia, or Emily currently, carefully wiped down the counter. Her actions were methodical as she made sure no new splotches marred its oak surface. There was little she could do about the existing stains, but none would be added under her watch.

Running her fingertips across it, she frowned as her pads caught on some stickiness. She dampened the cloth and went over it again. Magic flowed into her limbs as she exerted more pressure on the smudge, and she took care not to overdo it and fracture the wood.

Tables and chairs she could replace, but the bar's countertop would require hiring a carpenter, and given her occupation as a Federation agent, the fewer people around her workplace, the better.

She glanced at the louts who graced the establishment that employed her. A few noticed her gaze, breaking off from their spirited conversations to raise their bottles or mugs in her direction.

Emily nodded affably, waving a finger to indicate she'd received their request for more rounds. A brilliant smile graced her face. Part of it was because that was who Emily was, but a hint of Olivia shone through.

When she first arrived, the bar goers would crowd around her, belching orders with their rancid breath. Some even had the gall to get handsy with her. Now? They waited their turn, respected her space, and even somewhat cleaned up after themselves. The last point was a work in progress.

And all it took was volunteering some of the rowdier bunch to participate in some light redecorating. She was sure they saw breaking chairs over their heads differently, but they either fell in line or left.

They'd brought it on themselves, really, not understanding what the word 'no' meant. She would never have had to deal with this back home.

At the same time, she acknowledged they were not entirely at fault. Their society was primitive, more often than not relying on fists over reason. Personally, she blamed the institution of nobility. They guarded their power too fiercely, stifling those underneath them.

She couldn't imagine the trajectory of her life had she been born here. Well, she could. Life would have begun in a small village, surrounded by people toiling the land the same way their grandparents had. Perhaps one day, after being truly fed up, she would have traveled to a city to get work. Maybe ingratiate herself to a respectable merchant? She'd have to use her appearance to get a foot in the door, but it was just another tool in her belt. It wouldn't take long to prove herself more than a pretty smile, and she would steadily increase her standing…

Emily shook her head, dashing away the silly thoughts. The smudge was gone now, and she turned around, reaching for two mugs and a bottle. Filling the mugs with what she had on tap, she placed all three drinks on a tray and glided out to her patrons.

Quick words were exchanged, a few good-natured laughs were given, and then she returned with her tray laden with empty mugs and bottles. She rinsed the bottles, setting them to the side.

They weren't as cost-effective as purchasing from the barrel, but they provided much-needed variety to her menu. The rates also weren't too bad as long as she prevented their destruction.

A task that got easier by the day.

She hummed as she washed, mentally tallying the day's take. Strictly speaking, it mattered little. The establishment was a front for Federation operations, and even if she had managed to nearly triple its profits, she'd not see a penny of it.

It was professional pride that dictated her actions. If there was a job to do, she was going to contribute her best to it. It certainly didn't help that she couldn't do her actual job.

Olivia turned back to the shelves behind her, pretending to order their contents as she huffed unhappily.

That boy…

He was infuriating to deal with. Time and time again, she questioned what she had been thinking when she accepted the post.

Red tinted her cheeks, and she suddenly felt a little warm. No, she knew exactly what had happened. Olivia, the twenty-four-year-old career soldier, had been booted from her spot in the driver's seat and had been replaced by Olivia, the fifteen-year-old student, who had a poster of The Ravager on her wall growing up. The image he presented now couldn't be further divorced from his time in the Constellation, but there wasn't a man or woman in the Federation who wouldn't know that face.

When she learned he'd handpicked her, her vocabulary had been reduced to a single word: yes.

Had she known what she was getting into, perhaps she would have done more due diligence.

A derisive sigh left her lips.

Who was she kidding? Even if the request hadn't come from The Ravager, or Albert, as he preferred to be called now, she would have accepted.

The opportunity was too great. To be of aid to the champions who kept the horrors at bay? What citizen would say no? She knew of none. Her childhood had been filled with stories of how the Constellation defended them. How they beat back the Empire, the demons, and even the Waste itself.

Now, she was among their circles. Dead gods—she regularly ate lunch with THE Gerald, the man in charge of Prodigy's schedule. With a swipe of a tablet, he could decide the fate of… well, it would be easier to list whose fate he couldn't impact.

Not that he would. Avoiding that type of abuse of power was the entire purpose of his, their, existence. It was what made their society wholly superior to their neighbors.

It was a solemn duty, and one she would be glad to shoulder if it weren't for her charge.

Difficult did not begin to describe how dealing with Callum was. Albert's telling of him had been of a mischievous but ultimately well-natured boy. He might have been that way under the watchful eye of the man who'd held the line against a Hand in the Battle of Fordland, but with her?

She'd be on medical leave by year's end.

It was aggravating because, overall, he followed orders—but in a manner of his choosing. At first, she thought it was a communication issue on her end, that she wasn't being clear enough in defining mission parameters. By the third week, she'd amassed enough data points to decisively conclude he was just a little shit.

A little shit that could slice through a Category 4 demon like one would a common vegetable.

Not only was that a dangerous combination, but it was in her job description to navigate it. In their few months together, that was what she had been trying to do. However, building trust was a gradual process, meant to occur over years. They had still been in the stage of testing each other's limits when the Board had handed down this assignment.

Her father always told her it was a soldier's duty to execute orders and a commander's to ensure they had the tools to do so. With that in mind, she had been filled with a mixture of elation and apprehension when she conveyed the Board's wishes.

Then the little shit had thrown a wrench into things by denying deployment. If that wasn't bad enough, she almost lost her life in an attempt to reason with him.

Handlers were classified as non-combatants, but you didn't get selected for the position without being able to defend yourself. She was no exception, and once upon a time, she had pride in that ability.

Standing beside what felt like a bottomless well intent on swallowing her whole shattered those delusions. There was no warning—one moment she was speaking of his mother, and the next, she was staring into oblivion. Reading reports, watching videos, and documenting sensor data were incomparable to the experience of standing next to… that.

Olivia had never put stock into the rumors around his mother, Harbinger. They were endless and redundant. The Fourth slaughtered the Gabino family. The Fourth wiped out the town of Endberry. The Fourth murdered a newly enlisted soldier over a mistaken coffee order.

It was a facade. Olivia didn't deny her lethality or intensity, but the Federation would not allow someone like that to roam their halls freely. Aegis would have put her down long ago if that were the case.

Despite this, at that moment, one rumor vividly stuck out to her.

The Fourth killed all her previous handlers.

It was nonsense, the work of drunk recruits or a particularly sadistic intern in the image department. Her lack of a handler was a testament to the trust she had earned—and a reflection of the absence of a suitable replacement, nothing more.

Be that as it may, Albert's presence that day was a reassurance. He bought her the time needed to regain her composure. Unfortunately, it was short-lived, as she soon found out no one had ever trained the boy.

She was his handler, or meant to be, and no one thought it wise to mention that? It was utter insanity, incompetence to the highest degree, but the Board would not have given them the task if they did not think them capable.

That assumption, that belief, took a blow after speaking to her nominal peer, Gerald, who attested that the approach to Callum had been hands-off. The rank and file with access to him were deterred from interacting with him by the knowledge of his mother. Prodigy made attempts, but her own temperament made her ill-suited for it—while Albert was even worse in that regard.

He might have been a hero, her hero, but that didn't make his status as a child soldier disappear.

Things only deteriorated as she was handed further details of their assignment, or the lack thereof. It was like the pair of them were being shuttled away for some reason, but she didn't know why.

It left an ominous feeling in her stomach, but orders were orders, and she'd fulfill them to the best of her abilities. Never mind the fact that their current circumstances precluded her from conducting her most basic of tasks. How was she meant to keep Callum in line when he spent the majority of his days on campus?

It wasn't a question she had answers to, and she half expected she'd need to infiltrate the campus herself to make contact.

Callum proactively reaching out was a promising start. However, learning he'd begun to scope out the campus and identify points for observation was downright confounding. It completely upended her perception of him, and she was half convinced the little shit was doing it just to mess with her.

The coming weeks were tumultuous, to say the least. Given the situation, she couldn't rightly fault him for dealing with the noble the way he had, though it left them in a delicate position. She had done her best to hammer that into him.

And what did he do with that information? He woke up the whole city with a level of manifestation she didn't know was possible.

How in the world was she meant to write that in a report? The only reprieve she was offered was not having to pen it until she reached the safety of her homeland. She tried to ignore the fact that it felt like she was putting off her homework, something she used to chide her old schoolmates about.

Emily turned back to the counter, resuming her normal work. She kept busy, and eventually, a familiar mop of curly black hair entered the establishment. He stopped to greet some of the other regulars before taking his post at the counter and sliding a few coins her way.

"The usual, Lenny?" she asked with a smile, reaching below the counter and producing a specially marked bottle.

Her colleague, Lennard, nodded and took the bottle with more gusto than usual. He popped the cap, taking a swig. He set it down with a thud, his lips twitching with dissatisfaction as he inspected the label.

That was odd behavior. He should have known both that she wouldn't serve him actual alcohol and that she'd swap out the label so that it looked like she did. She knew that any agent embedded this deep would be trained to neutralize poisons—but there was no reason to subject him to unnecessary strain.

Through the scowl on his face, he must have disagreed with that tonight.

"Tough day?" she asked with concern, forming a pout.

He was late, having been meant to drop by two days ago. Knowing the mess Callum had left them to pick up, she didn't take his absence to heart.

"You could say that," he mumbled, eyeing the bottles behind her with a bit too much intensity. "A friend set me up on a date."

Emily leaned against the bar, studying his face. There were bags under his eyes, and his blue eyes appeared duller than normal.

"Uh-huh," she said, batting her eyelashes. "Tell me more?"

The friend must have been one of her countrymen, and the date a contact.

Olivia stole a glance at the door. Whatever he learned must not have been good, but it also wasn't to the extent that she'd have to fight off a squad of knights. Otherwise, he would have signaled her accordingly.

"It was a blind date," he began, shifting in his stool uncomfortably. "It wasn't meant to be, but the friend who set me up didn't give me much notice."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

An impromptu meeting then. It must have been a spur-of-the-moment thing, seizing an opportunity that presented itself.

"Didn't go so well then?" Emily prodded, her voice laden with pity.

Lennard exhaled, taking another swig of his non-alcoholic beverage. He closed his eyes, as if imagining it was otherwise.

"Better than I could have hoped," he said in a hollow voice, tracing circles with his finger on the counter.

The action drew her scrutiny, but it wasn't any code she knew. He wasn't being very forthcoming, which was a positive sign that it was nothing serious.

"No sparks then?" she mused, going back to the dishes. She'd already washed them once, but it wouldn't hurt to give them another pass.

"I thought there might be when she dropped by my work unannounced."

Her shoulders stiffened just the slightest, and she raised a hand to her mouth, doing a poor job of hiding a giggle.

"Love can be like that," she said in a wistful voice.

Sparks were code for a fight, so he'd nearly gotten into one. Lennard's cover was that of an enforcer for a local gang. If there had almost been an altercation, then the contact was a rival or official.

"Was she pretty?" one of the bar-goers heckled, eager for gossip.

Lennard hid a pained expression by downing the bottle, slamming it against the bar top.

"I couldn't say," he answered, wiping his face with his sleeve. "I'll take another."

She smoothly granted his request, serving him the same brew before going back to cleaning.

Subterfuge then. The contact had either hidden their face or identity. That was troubling, and she was beginning to see why he was worked up.

"Bring er to the bar!" another said. "We'll be the judge of er."

Olivia shot him a glare, and the offender withered in his seat while his fellows admonished him.

"I could never," Lennard said, working on the new bottle. "As much as she might like that."

Definitely an authority figure. She resisted the urge to ask if he checked to make sure he didn't have a tail.

"You still haven't said what the problem is," she lightly chided, quirking an eyebrow.

Lennard's lips pressed thin as his fingers drummed along the bottle. He took a sip before responding.

"Parents wouldn't approve."

That was a loaded statement, and her mind worked overtime. Parents were his command, or the Federation as a whole. If that was the case, the 'friend' wasn't one of his colleagues. No, it would have to be someone outside of his usual circle. Someone willing to set up a meeting with an official from the Empire while bypassing the approval procedure.

"Oh my," she said sweetly, displaying her brilliant smile. "That friend reminds me of that troublesome little brother of mine."

Lennard downed the bottle without breaking eye contact.

The wooden mug she had been cleaning splintered, and she was glad it occurred behind the bar. Any hardworking barmaid could break a chair over a man's head. Most didn't in fear of reprisals, but her background was in special operations.

Specifically, she audited Federation-chartered companies and ensured there was no foreign collusion occurring. She followed paper trails and people. Getting a room full of disgruntled workers to lay their woes on the 'new girl' was a specialty of hers.

With those skills, she'd cultivated a strong image of the girl next door. Anyone who dared lay a hand on her would have to contend with the rest of the bar. That persona would crack if her skill in augmentation were to be known, and she discreetly tossed the pieces of the mug away.

No further words were exchanged with the man. Any doublespeak shared between them would invite rampant speculation on her part, and tapping out a code would be agonizingly slow.

Instead, she played the part she was given. Nursing drinks, sharing jokes, even flirting a bit with some of the more well-behaved customers.

One by one, they filtered out, and when the door shut on the last, Emily's smile dropped.

"Explain," Olivia ordered, brokering no argument.

Lennard stood straighter in a manner indicating he was speaking to a superior. She wasn't in his chain of command, but as far as he was aware, she was the handler of a Constellation member and soft-ranked everyone in the field.

It was, of course, a lie. Callum was not an official Constellation member. His age and parentage made things sensitive, but prior to her arrival, there had been a timetable created. He was meant to be gradually exposed to the public over the course of a few years and then be elevated in tandem with a to-be-determined grand event.

Those plans were on hold until his character improved, but his promotion was inevitable. The Federation needed protectors, and as rough as he was, Callum fit the bill.

The star in his possession must have been lent to him by Prodigy or Mask. It still carried with it the authority of a Constellation member, and so she didn't correct Lennard's misinterpretation.

"A Justiciar made contact with me. Callum directed her to enlist me in uncovering more about Petro Lucerna's business dealings."

Generally speaking, murdering their charges was a last resort—only to be taken when they deemed them a threat to the Federation.

However, did it count if they could regrow their head?

"I see," she said, her fingernails threatening to carve into the counter. "Did she suspect anything?"

She genuinely wondered what went through his head when he decided to send a Justiciar to meet with an undercover Federation agent. Were things not tenuous enough for them? Perhaps they should cut through the preamble and mail their agent files to the relevant imperial authorities. That ought to liven things up to her charge's standards.

"Yes," Lennard replied uneasily. "She had too many questions about him to pass off as idle curiosity. I did my best to play around it and told her he fell in with my group for a time before he was made a noble."

All things considered, that was acceptable. Orphans were prime recruitment fodder for gangs. She'd just need to inform Callum on the amendment to their background story.

"She ended up using my criminal history to blackmail me into helping her," he said, the mirth in his voice telling her he'd intended as such. "I spent the whole weekend running around the city with her in tow. It was exhausting, but I think I distracted her enough."

Olivia's tension eased somewhat. Working with professionals had its benefits.

"Only thing," Lennard continued, his face turning contemplative. "The uproar he caused a few nights ago gave us an opportunity. I implied we were investigating it, and the scary masked lady behind me didn't refute that. It gave us access that a Justiciar without a mandate would usually struggle to get."

Would it be that difficult? From what she knew, Justiciars were liberal in their interpretation of mandates.

"Did you leverage it for your own investigation?" she asked tersely.

Callum had provided him with the names of dealers in the school. Involving the Justicar in that would be risky. While she wouldn't support it, she would concede if Lennard had already acted.

"Petro had connections to Infinita Nox," Lennard said, not answering her question outright. "We knew this because of the Whistling Death's presence during…" he trailed off, and she waved off his concern. She was a soldier and wouldn't let a kidnapping get in the way of performing her duties. "So they worked together, but how deep was their cooperation? Deeper than we thought. The Whistling Death survived as long as he did by being careful. He chose easy jobs and never stuck around long. Petro's work satisfies one of those conditions, but we dug up convoluted records that point to recurring payments to him over the course of years. He was on retainer."

That was more than a little intriguing. A barony, even a wealthy one, shouldn't have been able to support that type of expenditure, and that was assuming Petro had free rein over the house's finances. The rate must have been drastically reduced, but that would only occur if Petro had something to offer in return.

"Services rendered," she whispered, jumping to a conclusion.

Lennard confirmed her thoughts with an eager nod.

"The whorehouses were our break," Lennard replied, using a crude name for what was more politely called a gentleman's club. "The place was on the up and up, but that had less to do with his good nature and more to do with avoiding any undue attention. He used it to entertain business partners, and while we couldn't find anything on paper, we did get confessions from some of the girls. Petro Lucerna was a cog in what looks to be a cross-continent smuggling ring."

Her brow shot up. Moving anything across the continent required sophisticated logistics. It was nearly monopolized by nations. There was one notable exception, Infinita Nox.

If true, the string Lennard was tugging on was liable to strangle him.

"They're smugglers for hire," she stated, trusting he would know who she was referring to. "You're suggesting they're involved in the plot implicating the Academy?"

The organization had little to gain by destroying it, or the city attached. He would need more to convince her of complicity.

"I can't say for sure," he backtracked a tad before his lips quirked into a smile. "But do you know who is one of the regulars there?"

"Don't be coy," she ordered briskly.

He stiffened at the reminder of who he was talking to before proceeding.

"Multiple girls corroborated a person fitting the description of Elizabeth Velmora visiting. A woman from the outside is a rare sight for them." The leanings of a noble girl were none of her concern, but she would agree that it was a strange coincidence that one of the three names provided by Callum ended up near a criminal smuggling operation.

"And the others?" she asked, referencing the other two potential conspirators.

Lennard shook his head, a frown coming over him.

"Romero visits the city often, but many students do. We haven't seen the other set foot off campus."

That didn't mean he hadn't, only that they didn't observe it. It was a matter of limited resources—there weren't many, and maintaining their covers required large time investments.

Someone on campus would be best suited to watch them, but that someone had run off to the Waste to engage in one of his campaigns of mass destruction.

And he'd done that without asking, because why would he?

The little shit.

"Does your team have anything else to report?" she asked, willing her frustration away. It wouldn't be constructive at the moment.

Lennard's face twisted in a way that she didn't find reassuring. She crossed her arms, glowering at him.

"Things are running normally, but there are competing priorities that require most of their attention." He shifted closer, speaking in a low voice despite this area being secure. "I was originally the only one working on this full time. The only reason the others are looking into it now is because of the star."

That was disquieting. Albert himself had secured support for this mission, and now said support was implying their aid was a new development.

"What are you suggesting?" She didn't rebuke him because they both knew he was tiptoeing around dangerous subjects. "Whatever it is will stay with me and my charge; your name won't be mentioned."

He'd have to take it on faith, but it was the most she could offer.

Lennard's stool creaked under him, and he laid both arms on the counter, bracing himself.

"A few months ago we got the word to start looking into it. It was an all-hands-on-deck situation. Then they started scaling it back, assigning new priorities. They even ruled out the school as a whole. Eventually, they said it was a false alarm. Captain left me on it out of caution, but I was the only one taking it seriously."

The timeline didn't make sense. She should have been notified of these developments well in advance of her deployment.

"To the best of your ability, who do you think gave the orders?"

Field agents wouldn't know for certain, but they weren't mindless drones. If things were as weird as he described, one of them was liable to get curious.

"That's the part I'm having trouble wrapping my head around. The captain couldn't trace the first one all the way, but it went up high in the chain. High enough that she's reasonably certain it came from the top itself. The same could be said for the rest of them until we get to the one detailing the school itself. That came entirely from outside our department—the Office of Foreign Affairs, who received it from the Empire's side. They flagged the encounter due to a change in the representative on the Empire's side. They had the required documents certifying their ability to speak for the Empire, but we usually get warnings before they change personnel. Whoever they were, they moved like a Finger."

Olivia worked through it. He was suggesting the Board issued the original command but then retracted it? No, there was the denial and approval part he mentioned. It could have been benign, something like a form being filled out incorrectly, or it could have been malignant. The involvement of a Finger wasn't alarming, but the apparent switch in contacts was.

She didn't like this.

"Reliability?" she questioned. Finding out part of the orders came from outside of the department must not have been easy, and it gave her a great deal of skepticism.

He didn't throw his hands up or shrug, but he did slouch, the air leaving his lungs in a drawn-out sigh.

"Captain called in favors to get it, but who can really say? We intelligence folk are squirrelly."

If anything, that further convinced her. There was no bluster on their part, only what they knew.

Olivia pressed her back against the shelves behind her. She would have liked to say this was above her pay grade, but such distinctions didn't exist for her role.

Still, the fact was that she wasn't being paid nearly enough to deal with this. Had she been of lower character, she'd have embezzled funds from her charge. It wasn't like he'd miss a zero or two at the end of his balance; he hadn't even known it existed.

Which was enraging to think about.

"Is that all?"

She dearly hoped it was. There was enough to think of as is.

Heedless of her thoughts, Lennard opened his mouth again.

"That Justiciar warned me the Blessed Order was sending a contingent to the city."

She didn't react to the news, having surmised it days ago. The Whistling Death had been one of their numbers; hunting him would be a priority for them.

"Burn the cloak," she ordered, knowing the man was holding it for Callum.

His jaw tightened, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable.

"I don't think he'd like that."

She didn't care. The kid was legally an adult now; he'd have to learn to deal with not getting his way.

"Besides," Lenard argued. "It came in handy, didn't it?"

Handy? That stunt he pulled could have ruined everything; it might still. Her indignation must have leaked onto her face, because he raised his hands in surrender.

"I know, it's bad, but not only did it allow me more access to the city, but the Empire will send in reinforcements to defend against Callum's alter ego. That would lessen the damage if they get a summoning off."

Olivia moved to protest, only to have her jaw hang open. To her horror, she realized he was right.

"Do you think he planned it that way?" Lenard's musings chipped away at her psyche, and she fought not to recoil from the assault. "He downplayed his work with Prodigy, but working with her at all must mean he's pretty smart. Makes me want to dig into that Klechin more."

With the competence Lennard had shown, it had been easy to overlook that he initially supported Callum's wild impersonation plan. Now his idiocy was on full display.

Prodigy was a genius. No one would dispute that, but a planner? No, she was driven by her whims, and the only reason she didn't careen off the road was thanks to Gerald nudging the wheel now and then. His words, not hers.

Oracle was the only real planner among them. Perhaps Mask as well, but it was difficult to tell if there was any sense to the chaos left in their wake.

Oh, hells. She'd completely disregarded Mask's influence on the boy. Could this be their doing?

One thing was certain: she needed to set Lennard straight on his perception of her charge. His misunderstandings were understandable. Doubting a Constellation member, or near enough one, wasn't something they were taught. It came to her only after repeated exposure, and she frequently forgot that lesson whenever she met one face-to-face.

Her mouth parted, yet no words were exchanged as Lennard vaulted over the counter. He lowered himself to the ground, hiding behind the bar while she plastered a smile on her face and gathered her rag.

Someone powerful had landed outside. She could feel their presence burning, and she resisted the urge to do anything drastic.

Decisions on whether to fight or run died as the door promptly swung open. A shade of red caught her eye; it was the color of Callum's hair.

This wasn't Callum.

"Lady Ardere," she forced gleefulness into her voice. "It's a pleasure to see you again!"

She reviewed her job description again. It said nothing of dealing with noble brats.

The young woman's eyes roamed, poorly concealing disapproval on her face. Olivia had done her best with the place, but the starting point had been low.

With a straight back and high chin, the noble paced forward. Her crimson eyes landed on Emily, who smiled warmly in response.

Alice Ardere was a complication. However, Olivia had cracked harder nuts in her time.

"It took effort to find you," Alice said with a frown. Her shoulders were rigid, and her hair was frayed by noble standards. "It is late, the weekend is almost spent, and my brother has yet to return. Have you any news on him?"

The girl was on edge; that much was clear. Luckily, there was a cure for that.

"Only that he went on a club trip," she said, referencing what his letter told her. "I wouldn't worry too much."

She had when she first started, but since then, she'd watched him be fired into the deepest part of the Waste and walk back with a grin on his face. He'd be fine.

Olivia set two glasses on the counter and opened the back cabinet, reaching for their most expensive bottle. Without asking, she filled both.

"Care for a drink?"

She pushed one forward, seeing Alice's frown deepen. In the confines of her mind, the girl was likely berating Emily for her forwardness and lack of propriety. However, Emily was not a servant. She didn't know about proper etiquette for interacting with nobles. All she was trying to do was be nice.

Emily took her own glass, taking it to her lips before suddenly halting, staring at Alice's untouched cup with bashfulness.

Slowly, mechanically even, Alice reached for hers. She took a small sip, just enough to be polite, and set it down. Olivia matched her, tasting the burning liquid on her tongue. She prepared her magic to neutralize it and was about to swallow when Alice responded.

"Were you aware he was traveling with the royal family?" The alcohol numbed her mouth as it sat unmoving. "I believe Callum might be in a romantic relationship with the second princess."

Olivia spat her drink out.