Saving the school would have been easier as a cafeteria worker

Cal flicked his wrist, shaking off droplets of water from the bracer he held. He could have used his magic to evaporate them—or just grabbed a kitchen dishcloth to dry it properly—but he didn't.

Instead, he marched back into the living room and beaned the magical device at a certain person's head. Benny caught it with his face, but the glimmer of a shell indicated he'd not felt the blow.

That was a pity.

"There, I washed it," Cal groused, settling down into the dining chair he'd dragged over. Its back was facing the rest of the group, and he leaned over its side with crossed arms.

Ferguson was still lying on the couch, appearing to be in a deep slumber. Rolland and Benny were taking up the two other lounge chairs, the former with the Federation field guide in his lap. The energy of the group was muted, and it felt like the first real lull they had.

"I hope he was thorough," Rolland quipped in a low tone, gently flipping a page. "But I suspect he was not."

Cal would have argued if the man wasn't speaking the truth. The extent of his cleaning was holding the piece of equipment under a running faucet for a few seconds, which was adequate to remove the blood and dirt from the metal portions of the bracer but not from the leather. That would have taken a deeper scrub, and had he been responsible for dirtying it, he would have seen it done. However, he wasn't, and that hadn't even been the grime Benny was worried about.

"Hey now," Cal cut in before either boy could speak. "Choose your words carefully. It'd be a shame if, after surviving all that, an accident were to happen now."

Rolland blinked at him, a sigh leaving his lips. A hand came up, running through his silky blonde hair that had somehow remained untangled.

"I would prefer if you stopped threatening His Highness so casually," Benny warned, momentarily forgetting the issue he had with his bracer.

With his words providing a successful distraction, Cal stoked the flames further.

"Would you prefer me to be serious?" he questioned, ending with a grin meant to convey he was joking.

"Benny, don't let the uppity child play you so fluidly," Rolland said quickly, turning a critical eye toward Cal. "And remind me never to let you meet my father or anyone of import—your tongue will one day see you burned."

Child? The prince had some nerve referring to him as that. Granted, he was right about the last part. Duke Ferrum's sister had been relatively easygoing, but he couldn't count on that with other members of the Empire's higher nobility. Staying away from them sounded swell. He only doubted in his ability to do so at this rate.

"I'm not certain it's his tongue we should be concerned with," Benny said, leaning back with a stern expression on his face. "The marquis shall be furious."

Cal fixed him with the flattest stare he could manage, showing exactly what he thought of the boy's baseless slander.

"Perhaps," Rolland openly pondered. "House Arcutien must have paid dearly for a betrothal not only to the Empire's youngest serving Finger but also to an heir. Callum lacks the position of heir, but his martial ability is… enviable. A match with him may be presented as a bargain. That, of course, precludes the cost associated with withdrawing from the original agreement."

Would it be a fantastically dumb idea to get engaged in order to stop people from discussing it? The answer was yes, and yet, the idea wasn't completely without merit.

"I'd concede to your wisdom," Benny replied, sharing a conspiratorial look with the prince. "And add that the supposed stain of a bastard would be washed away with the tales we return with."

A light entered Rolland's eyes, and that stupid smile etched its way onto his face. If there was any justice in the world, Rolland would have laugh lines before he was thirty.

"Tales? Why limit it to mere spoken word? I'll commission a play and film to be made. The story will have to be massaged for the greater populace, but love blooming in the Waste would be a compelling narrative."

Cal would have thought traveling to the hells would have prepared him for hell.

It didn't.

"I am, like, ninety percent sure you're joking." It was closer to one hundred, but he wasn't going to tempt fate. "On the off chance you're not. I'm going to be very clear here. Don't. Do. That."

He could not begin to describe the amount of shit he'd get if his secret infiltration mission ended up with an approximation of his face featured on an Empire movie screen. Was there any chance he could spin it as a psyop to influence Empire culture? No, there was no way anyone would buy that.

"Don't tell me you're still attempting to maintain a low profile," Rolland said, doing a poor job at hiding his amusement. "I'm astounded you've managed thus far; however, it's a futile task with your particular temperament."

Excuse him. Cal was perfectly capable of controlling his outbursts. Err, most of the time. When it mattered, that is.

"I wouldn't say futile. Nevertheless, I know how stifling that feels—and if there are doubts you can continue like this," Benny counselled, a pensive look on his face. "You may want to consider controlling the when."

Cal could follow the logic, and he recalled the early discussions he had with Alice about that. She was meant to decide that 'when,' and he was fine leaving the final decision to her. It wasn't like he was going to show the full breadth of his abilities either way.

"I'll take it under advisement," he conceded in an effort to have them drop it. "All fun aside, we need to have a more serious discussion—"

"Oh, I'm not sure you'd appreciate that," Rolland interjected, his face shifting to mild surprise. "Apologies, do go on."

Cal wasn't dumb enough to believe that was an accident and didn't allow the snipe to provoke any reaction from him.

"—About what we're doing in regard to." He pointed upwards. "And how we're planning to get back."

Benny glanced up, a mild frown on his face. Out of all of them, he seemed the most alert when it came to their unexpected hitchhiker. Rolland didn't look nearly as concerned.

"Shower with coin, employ a covenant breaker, and extract everything of value," he said off-handily, clearly having thought it prior. "A mercenary's loyalty is fickle; their wants, less so."

It sounded disturbingly simple, and maybe it was. Rolland was a member of the royal family, and while that hadn't helped him with arranging this little jaunt, what he described sounded plausible. Cal's only hesitation was with who the mercenary had been employed by. Farming cores in the middle of the Waste while working for someone who summoned demons and shoved them into lanterns didn't inspire confidence.

Benny's brow furrowed, and he dipped his head in deep thought. Cal assumed he shared his skepticism and was holding himself back for the prince's sake. That shortly proved not to be the case.

"The mercenaries here were skilled. They were not near the level of true elites, but they would have posed a challenge for the finest of knights. Their presence here is indicative of a larger issue, one His Highness has been working towards resolving."

That much was true. Cal's group may have cut most of them down, but that owed more to their enemies' rotten luck than any lack of skill. Rolland, Lily, and Benny were counted among the strongest of the Empire's younger generation.

The survivor wasn't anything to sniff at either. He probably managed by providing backline support, but glass magic was extraordinarily niche and would be difficult to deal with.

"Just so," Rolland agreed in a somber tone. "I harbor no illusions about the nature of man. However, there are more driven to wickedness than born to it. Those who are bereft of lawful opportunity in the Empire naturally seek it elsewhere."

Cal's eyes flicked to Benny for a moment, and a feeling of understanding passed through him. Had Rolland not intervened, and Benjamin discovered his talent on his own, he might have ended up in the tower against them. A bevy of unlikely events would have had to occur for that to pass, but it was in the realm of possibility.

"It is rather apt of us to speak of it here," Rolland continued, tapping the book while glancing across the room. "The Federation stands because they embrace what we do not. You need only look at their greatest champion to know as such."

There was no mystery about who he was referring to.

Aegis, the Federation's poster boy. The world knew him to be of humble origin, born to a pair of ordinary citizens. His story was one of perseverance and sheer will. He reached the pinnacle not through tremendous inborn ability or peerless skill, but through the dogged pursuit of a dream: to defend those who could not.

That was the slop PR sold. Cal had the inside scoop.

He had been a sickly child, born to a couple that operated a laundromat. By the time he was ten, he'd spent more time in hospitals than out. It was now known that he had issues with his immune system, but at the time, it mystified his caretakers.

During his visits, his abnormal magic reserves had been documented, along with his alarmingly low affinity. It was an odd combination, as the two rarely went hand in hand. Some might have argued that constituted a lack of natural talent, but Cal wouldn't be one of them.

He grew healthier with age, his magic naturally fortifying his body against most ailments. That didn't stop his stays, and frustration festered.

It didn't help that he was barred from practicing manifestations or augmentation while confined to a hospital bed. The former posed a danger to others and the latter to himself.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

That left one option: the bridge between both applications of magic, the shell.

One day, a child woke up in the middle of the night, alone in an infirmary he'd known all too well. He gazed out the window with longing and formed a rudimentary shell. It shouldn't have been anything of note, just another kid exploring what wonders of magic he was allowed.

A normal shell lasted until a mage ran out of magic or concentration. That could be minutes or hours. In an extreme case, it would fade once they went to bed.

The child's shell was formed decades ago, and to this day, it marked its wielder as Aegis.

Which Cal frankly thought was excessive. Aegis was fine now. The years of running magic through himself had made him one of the healthiest people on the continent. Yet one person sneezing had him running out the door, shining like a glow-in-the-dark linebacker.

It was a crippling weakness that the Federation worked hard to keep under wraps.

"Pain in the ass," Ferguson said, stretching out and making them aware of his consciousness. He scratched his beard, turning over on the couch. "Met 'em during the bridge kerfuffle."

Cal locked onto the man, wondering what he was referring to.

"I remember," Rolland acknowledged, nodding his head before turning to Cal. "I was too young to understand the scope of it at the time, but the Empire attempted to build a land bridge to one of the islands situated in the Great River. It was received poorly by our neighbors."

Ferguson barked a short laugh that turned into a hacking cough. He thumped his chest, and Benny handed him a glass of water, which he gulped down.

"That's putting it lightly," he said after recovering. "I was in charge of raising the earth, so I didn't get to scrap—but the old man did. It was his last major outing as the Right. That snake brat swam over and started causing us trouble, challenging us to bouts on the island we were building toward. There were four of us, and the rest of 'em took turns fighting. Those idiots nearly tore the rock apart trying to get him off. And I had to keep restarting because one of them kept flooding my work. I barely made it halfway before we got word the madwoman had attacked the Diet."

Aegis stalling what he assumed was two Fingers and a Hand was believable, especially if they didn't gang up on him. It was the tail end of that Cal had an issue with.

More accurately, he didn't have a problem with it. In fact, he kind of respected it.

Which felt all types of wrong.

"Father was incensed," Rolland added. "The Left's swift response prevented the worst, but in the cleanup, we found those who proposed the plan to have been gutted."

Hmmm. That wasn't her style, which left one other person responsible.

Cal pulled back, no longer leaning forward in the chair.

Awkward could not begin to describe how he felt at the moment. He did his best not to show it as he slapped the back of the chair.

"I'm going to think out loud and say, if you order people to do something you think might start a war, maybe don't be surprised if you end up dead."

He felt it was a reasonable take, but knew the risk of being seen as too sympathetic. It was hard on his part, as he'd shared a pizza with the guy/gal who killed all those nobles.

Allegedly.

"The number of nobles who see it that way is few," Benny offered, sending a meaningful look toward Rolland. "But not zero."

Cal picked up the implication but didn't comment on it.

"War was a near thing," Ferguson continued, a vacant look entering his eyes. "The host for the Conference that year was Tubern, and they worked it out there. Things still almost boiled over when they sent the bastard to negotiate."

Good old Tubern. It was unique even by Free City standards. It was the only one of its sisters located off the mainland, with the majority of their power centered around a trio of small landmasses. They'd built them into veritable fortresses and used their navy to exert control over strips of land on the continent. Edin was the only one with enough ships to contest them, and they butted heads often.

"Us bastards tend to be prickly," Cal joked, provoking a harsh gaze from Rolland. It didn't linger, but he thought that odd and spoke up. "Who are we talking about?"

Rolland swallowed, taking a deep breath. He looked to Ferguson, who seemed to sense his stare, and answered with a shrug.

"This falls under the information I'd ask you to be discreet about," Rolland said with a hint of trepidation, piquing Cal's interest. "The Second's lineage may be traced back to a bastard of one of my great uncles, who would have been regent over the Holy Enclave. Should the claim be true, it would represent a great scandal as the position requires celibacy."

Cal attempted to unpack that, finding his head to become sluggish. He took a step back, evaluating what he thought of the man himself.

The Second was an ass. An unrepentant one when it came to Cal. He needled him at every opportunity, seeking to get a rise out of him. For the life of him, Cal never understood why that had been the case.

Clarity struck him like a thunderbolt.

Yes, that was the perfect explanation. That family must be cursed. Most of them, anyway. He didn't want to paint them with a single brush.

"Why do I have the urge to strike at you?" Rolland questioned, his previous distaste melting away.

The answer was, obviously, the curse.

Sidelining his mental antics for a moment, Cal decided he wasn't going to overcomplicate this. Oracle was a jerk who had done him one solid. Cal would match his jerkiness while keeping in mind the previous consideration.

Seeing Rolland's attention on him, Cal deflected suspicion.

"I was just thinking about his moniker. Oracle is pretty fitting, isn't it?"

That was the kind of ignorant statement made by someone who didn't know Oracle was a fraud and that his name was specifically chosen to poke fun at the Holy Enclave and, by extension, the Empire.

"It ain't," Ferguson huffed. "Any member of the order could tell you the same."

Good to know, but ultimately irrelevant. An oracle didn't save the gods, and he had already encountered multiple relics since coming to the Empire. Hells, he was seated in the corpse of a god with an automaton in his pocket.

What more was there to worry about?

The padding of footsteps caused him to turn his head, and his eyes turned into slits.

"Shower's free," Lily said, rubbing a towel around her damp hair. "What are we talking about?"

Distantly, he registered someone questioning the existence of a shower, but that didn't matter. What mattered was what she was wearing.

"That's—" He swallowed his words, realizing he'd nearly slipped. "Why are you wearing that robe?"

It was the red robe that belonged to a cultist on his prior mission. The same one that should currently be draped around his bedpost.

"My clothes were filthy, and this was clean enough," she said while quirking an eyebrow toward him. "It's just a robe."

"It's—" Cal caught himself again. He knew it was a trophy, but Callum Ardere wouldn't have. To him, it was a random article of clothing. "A nice robe."

A snicker came from the side, and he was too distracted to see who it came from. That was twice now he'd almost blown his cover, and he forcibly slowed his roiling emotions.

"Really?" She seemed surprised at his statement and ran a hand along the fabric. "It's more your color than mine. You can have it when we get back, if you want."

She was offering to gift him his own robe. Had he not taken steps to calm himself, he might have gaped at her like an idiot.

He was close to demanding she put it back when something occurred to him. The face Olivia made when he walked into the bar wearing that thing would be absolutely priceless. There was something to be said for not digging himself into an even deeper hole—but what good was a shovel if you didn't use it?

"The lads were talking about you two tossing in the sheets," Ferguson supplied nonchalantly.

Cal's head snapped in his direction, annoyed that the discussion had turned full circle. His sight drifted back to Lily, who fixed the boys with an icy stare.

"You two wouldn't happen to be responsible for those pictures that keep floating around, would you?" Her tone was innocent, but there was an undercurrent that promised violence if they answered incorrectly.

She clicked her tongue as they shook their heads in unison.

"Damn, I was hoping I'd finally tracked them down." There was genuine disappointment on her face, but it faded to something inscrutable. "I'm not saying what happened, because it has nothing to do with either of you, but…" Cal very much did not like the glint in her eye. "Did he get bashful and stammer denials?"

No, he certainly did not. He refused to stoop to their level while being passive-aggressive. Which he felt was an appropriate response.

"He alluded to threatening my life," Rolland stated dryly.

Ah, right. He'd forgotten about that part.

Lily froze for a second, her eyes darting between him and the prince. It didn't hold her up for long, and she took a seat on one of the sofa arms.

"That tracks," she said, laying the towel on her lap. "I don't know if that's better or worse than when he first found out about the rumors." Her tone shifted to something akin to bemusement. "He was pouting the entire tram ride to the city, thinking it was a big deal."

Cal grasped at the connection in the back of his head. A single thought, and he could flood this body with magic. It would build before reaching the point of criticality, igniting inside him. His flesh would be torn apart, and those who survived the blast would be met with another.

And another.

It would be an unrelenting assault, the kind that allowed him to push against the combined might of two Constellation members.

He may have chosen not to act like a monster, but that didn't change the fact he was one.

And these idiots were making fun of him.

He didn't hate it.

"Lily, I'm vandalizing Evergreen's office and blaming you. Benny, I'm mixing the labels on all the spices in the clubroom. Rolland, good luck guessing, because I'm not warning you of what I have planned."

Because he didn't have one, but he was hoping the anxiety his threat caused would have the boy looking over his shoulder.

"I'll help," Lily said without clarifying which part she would be helping with. "Any plans on how we're leaving? I'm not about to trust my life to that defective relic."

Cal subtly rested a hand on his leg, feeling his pocket. He'd yet to be called out about keeping it on him.

"Are we certain it's broken?" Rolland mused, earning a sharp look from the girl.

"It is," she said definitively. "And you're lucky it didn't kill any of us."

It was a stronger reaction than Cal had expected, and he soon realized why.

She was still trying to protect him.

"I can have it taken to my people for maintenance," Basem's voice echoed from the hallway as he paced over, joining the group. "And I found her bedroom, in case you were curious. I didn't quite muster the nerve to enter, but it was interesting."

That was probably a nice way of saying it was the nest of a slob. Cal might have taken it upon himself to keep the rest of the cabin clean, but that was because he used it. Her bedroom was her problem.

"I'll take that under advisement," Rolland said with a shallow smile. "But I agree. Even the prospect of having another use it gives me pause. That leaves us with the more straightforward of solutions, following the setting sun and hoping we end up on the Empire's border."

It wasn't as dicey as he made it out to be. Leaving the Waste was much easier than entering. All they had to do was reach the point where the river sprouted and then make sure they were north of it.

"Cool," Lily said, eyeing the book on Rolland's lap. "Is that all you're taking?"

Sorry. They were taking what now?

"I was considering ripping out the power unit," Rolland admitted—far too seriously for Cal's liking. "And Benny had his eyes on the kitchen."

"The models we've imported have a higher degree of optionality," Benny said, scratching his chin. "However, the freezer reaches lower temperatures. Traveling with the entirety of it would be unwieldy, but I can cut out what I need."

Cal was not having his appliances butchered like some common beasts.

"I was going to take the hill."

All eyes turned to Ferguson, the Finger, lounging on a sofa.

"When you say hill…" Cal didn't feel the need to finish.

"That's how I move around here in the first place," Ferguson explained. "I gather the earth under me and ride it like a beast. It's quick and tosses about most beasts in the way."

Oh.

Admittedly, that sounded pretty cool. It would also be hilarious if she came back, and the cabin was straight up gone. It was the sort of thing Cal would have leaped on if he didn't claim partial ownership of the residence.

"Let's theory craft here," Cal said slowly, making sure he drew everyone's attention. "The person whose name you all avoid saying comes back and notices someone's been in her place. We're off to a bad start already. Now imagine what would happen if she noticed things missing or if the entire building was gone. Use your heads, people."

There was a moment of silence as the group processed that, and Lily was the first to act, standing up. "I'm going to put the robe back," she said, already walking toward his room.

He held a hand, stopping her.

"Keep the robe. It's not like we found it in her room. As for the rest of this," he waved a hand across the room. "Would anyone like to roll the dice of having a psychotic murderer on your ass? I somehow doubt she'd consider diplomatic immunity."

She would, actually. It might not change the outcome, but she'd devote a few fractions of a second to thinking about it.

"Lad's got a point," Ferguson said with a grimace. "Much as I'd like to give this place a proper burial, there's no sense in adding to the dead. It's also saturated with her magic; she might be able to track it."

Basem and Lily seemed to agree, but Rolland and Benny still looked to need convincing. Cal moved to do just that.

"I'll take a look at everything before we go," he said, rising and clasping his hands together. "With a few notes and a lab back at the Academy, I'll be able to replicate everything here."

One day, his mouth would stop writing checks he couldn't cash.

That day was not today.