Chapter 103
Ardan was sitting in a not-especially-comfortable armchair in a secluded corner of the storage room, twirling a pencil between his fingers, and reading his own grimoire. Before him were the thin threads of miniature handwriting that contained encoded calculations. The first thing Lord Aversky had taught him upon enlisting his aid for the development of strategic magic had been the ability to encrypt his calculations.
Any notes that could potentially fall into the hands of an enemy of the Empire, or even a personal adversary of the mage, were required to be subjected to scrupulous, individual encryption. This was a rather universal and generally accepted rule. And it was also why, a year and a half later, Ardan still hadn’t been able to decrypt the grimoire of Gleb Davos. And, for that matter, his attempts to decipher Driba’s notes weren’t getting anywhere, either. It also didn’t help that Ardan didn’t have even a tenth of the expertise that old Driba and Linda Day had possessed.
The mage who’d ignited three Stars, all of them in the third triad (she’d also presumably had some sort of artifact that had imbued her offensive spell with the power of several Yellow Star rays, if such a thing was even possible), had clearly possessed knowledge of chimerology, Star Anatomy, and biology far deeper and broader than Ardi’s own.
But all of those were thoughts for tomorrow. Right now, since he’d received permission to take a break from Captain Ponskih, the young man was occupied with his own research. It was a small act of escapism meant to distract him from the preparations for the ambassadors’ round table, which was to take place that very same evening. Then they’d take a break for a day, and, at last, the finale of the Congress would come—the treaty signing and the dinner at the Palace of the Kings of the Past that would be attended by His Imperial Majesty.
Ardi was still struggling with the concept of his Ice Dolls spell that he was considering renaming to Ice Beasts, even if it was a bit on the nose. More specifically, he was trying to figure out whether a new kind of runic link—a transmutational one—could even be configured. In recent months, the young man had come to the conclusion that, in order for a transmutational runic link to even work, the seal itself had to be conceived as a multidimensional structure.
“For mages with two Stars, the seal would be two-dimensional, since they cannot add the element of duration to it,” Ardan reminded himself, continuing to spin his pencil. “For mages of three Stars and above, the seal would be three-dimensional, because they can sustain its effects over a defined period. What does this tell me?”
That the seal was scalable. In modern Star Magic, this postulate lay at the foundation of the multiple-seal structure. He’d seen examples of this in Edward’s battle against the Aean’Hane elf, or the duel between Mshisty and the Selkadian Heavy Knight. But what if one tried to scale it not by attaching an additional seal to the structure, but by adding... a new space to the seal itself?
The fundamental problem of runic link transmutation lay in the impossibility of transmitting data from one matrix of runic arrays to another. No matter what calculations occurred in one section, no matter what parameters the function accepted or what results it returned—the final product remained unchanged.
In other words, Ardan had confirmed the foundational distinction between the art of the Aean’Hane and Star Magic through his own calculations. If the magic of Names allowed one to manipulate Ley—metaphorically speaking—like fresh clay, then Star Magic treated that same Ley as metal.
It was still capable of changing, but only when enormous amounts of energy were used. That was precisely why “three-dimensional” seals were accessible only from the Blue Star onward. And only the bearers of the last two Stars could wield something like Edward’s or Mshisty’s magic.
And so, Ardi had at last formulated his central problem: the transmission of information by means of the Ley. In a remarkable way, it echoed Lord Aversky’s own research. He, too, had been trying to develop the most sought-after invention of modern Star Magic—a method for transmitting information at a distance.
And one must not forget that Edward—may the Eternal Angels receive him—had always been a war mage. Not a Star Engineer. And yet, most of his fame and fortune had come from a revolutionary Star Engineering invention—the training grounds. Amusingly, he had called them “a byproduct of his true research” until the very end.
Of course, Lord Aversky had been, in every sense of the word, a genius. And Ardi, however perceptive or even clever he might sometimes be, could not claim such a title. But what if Edward had arrived at the same conclusions, and the grimoire he had bequeathed to Ardan along with the “Stables” was also a “byproduct?”
“Information transmission...” Ardan repeated and lightly bit the tip of his tongue.
Transmitting information from one block of calculations to another was very nearly impossible in Star Magic. That was because, in this case, mathematics did not reflect reality, but merely expressed it in a form that was comprehensible to the brain. In other words: the numbers had to be put somewhere.
Without a container, the attempt to transmit information from one node of a seal to another looked like someone trying to pour water from one barrel into another... just like that. By asking it politely to move through the air. Or maybe by staring at it really hard. It basically became anything other than physically carrying it over in a ladle, a cup, a cupped palm—even a hat, if need be.
The Aean’Hane were capable of such a thing, but not Star Mages. A seal was a strict structure that required containers for the transmission of information. The simplest of these containers were runic connections. They were a simple chain that formed into flows of the Ley. And slightly more complex, intended for transmitting greater quantities of information, were the runic arrays. More complex still, intended for the heaviest loads, were the arrays of runic compounds.
And so, in order to expand the transport capabilities of the container rather than the cargo itself, one needed to add wheels, convenient handles, and smooth out the corners somehow—all of which was described through matrices, functions, movement vectors... Sometimes, even graphs were involved, but only for the most universally-titanic constructions like the ones built by an Manish’s company.
“But what if the container wasn’t just a part of the seal, but the entire seal itself?” Ardi muttered under his breath, continuing to trace ever-new calculations with his pencil. “What if the seal wasn’t a finished product, but merely a discrete space of calculations?”
Something similar was used in multi-seal structures. However, in their case, seals were embedded one within another so that runic bridges could construct something akin to a “conveyor belt.”
But Ardi’s thinking went further. Or perhaps a little sideways. Or maybe down. Or up.
In other words, he was returning to where he’d started.
To the concept of additional space. Not attaching one seal to another, but... supplementing. It was like choosing to not build a village comprised of separate cottages, but an entire multistory building. It would have lifts and staircases instead of paths and little fences.
In metaphorical terms, it all appeared rather logical and even—with some allowances— sensible. But written down on a page, where raw numbers held dominion, the picture was not nearly so rosy.
“Even if I find a way to transmit information from one space to another,” Ardi circled the final range of the equation’s answers several times, “where do I find enough energy to bind two or more spaces into one...”
Despite agonizing over the calculations, despite trying to reduce the structure to the barest threshold values where even one more simplification would cause the whole construction to collapse, he still...
Even the most elementary modifications of Spark, which consumed only a single red ray, when deployed in a multi-space Ley configuration with the addition of a degree of unknown free parameters, acquired the properties of a spell that would consume not one red ray, but twelve! And even accumulators wouldn’t help there, because they merely replenished a mage’s reserves without allowing them to go beyond the limits of their capabilities.
This method seemed like a good fit for stationary magic and generators whose power was limited, in theory, only by the purity and volume of the Ertalain crystals powering them. Well, that and such trifles as the reliability of the combustion chamber, the cross-section thickness of the Ley-cables, the wear and tear of common unit assemblies, the fuel quality, and a great deal more. However, in theoretical calculations, these were irrelevant.
Ardan was trying to prove that it was possible to deploy additional spaces within a single seal—not stage a Star Magic revolution tomorrow at two o’clock, right after lunch. And the possibility did seem to exist. At any rate, the calculations that had occupied him for the past four months showed, across a degree of parameter freedom approaching infinity, that the construction was stable.
Additional spaces within a seal were possible! Ardi knew this for certain. Or rather, he had just learned it...
Several questions arose at once. The first was: how did one create these spaces? The second: how did one build a link between the new spaces to transmit information? And the third: where did one find enough energy to even create such a structure, let alone maintain its integrity?
And even if generators could help with the third question, the first two...
“Even assuming that, by some miracle, I find the answer to the first question,” Ardan rubbed his forehead with his fingers, occasionally tapping his pencil against the bridge of his nose, “then how, by the Sleeping Spirits, do I transmit information between them?” Ardi realized something just then. “I’m going in circles! I was just thinking that the problem was creation, not transmission...”
But such wanderings of the mind were entirely warranted. Even though Ardi had at last—mere hours before the ambassadors’ round table, in a cramped, dimly-lit storage room—calculated the theoretical possibility of transmutational runic links, he had... immediately run headfirst into not one, not two, but three questions lying beyond the boundaries of modern Star Magic.
Ardi exhaled and, after tucking his pencil into the special clip-on sleeve attached to his grimoire’s cover, he hung it back on its chains.
“Multiple seal spaces,” he repeated, smiling slightly. “I wonder if an essay on such a topic be enough to get me into the Magister program?”
“It’s a poor mage that doesn’t dream of becoming an Archmage, eh, Ard?”
Ardan slowly turned his head toward the exit. There, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest, was Captain Aloaeiol.
“And how long have you been here?” Ardi asked, tensing slightly.
The mutant didn’t answer him immediately.
“Long enough to catch something about containers,” the captain shrugged casually.
She was likely lying. Without the slightest bit of guilt, too. It was part of her job, after all.
Oh, Sleeping Spirits! What would his forest friends and mentors say if they learned that he’d spent nearly half an hour in a room with another person and noticed nothing?
“Don’t worry, Corporal,” Captain Aloaeiol walked over to him and sank into the neighboring armchair. “That’s exactly what we were created for.”
“To spy on other people’s research?” Ardi narrowed his eyes at her.
Aloaeiol merely waved a hand.
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand me, Corporal,” she crossed her legs and leaned back against the soft cushion. “The Empire needed mutants to contain the Aean’Hane and those Star Mages who... let’s say... decided that they were more important and, most dangerously, more sovereign than the Crown, society at large, the chain of command, and so on.”
Ardi had already guessed as much. After all, people like Lord Aversky or Baron Mshisty were not exactly plentiful. There weren’t enough of them for the entire Empire, and their training cost far more and was not nearly as scalable as the production of mutants. And yes, the word “production” did sound horrific in this context.
Still, they’d killed two birds with one stone. They’d tried to study the properties of the Aean’Hane while simultaneously creating a group of soldiers capable of upholding the rule of law in the Empire. The kind of law that was above the simple principle of: whoever has more Stars is right.
“Why are you here?” Ardan asked at last.
Captain Aloaeiol merely arched her right eyebrow, feigning complete ignorance of what was being discussed.
“I have a bit of free time right now, Captain,” Ardi shifted forward slightly, retrieving his staff that had been leaning against the armchair. “And I doubt that you swapped shifts with Captain Parela just to keep me company for a few minutes.”
The mutant pinned him with her orange gaze for a time, then sighed and spread her hands out.
“What can I do against the sharp mind of an investigator,” the captain smiled, not even bothering to conceal her pretense. “I have a proposal for you, Ard.”
Without a second’s hesitation, Ardi immediately replied:
“No.”
“I…” Aloaeiol opened her mouth and promptly closed it again. “You didn’t even hear me out.”
“And I don’t intend to,” Ardan shook his head. “Whatever you propose, it will somehow involve us leaving the hotel. And the Colonel has made it rather transparently clear that doing so would be categorically inadvisable for me.”
“You’ve apparently forgotten the nature of my abilities. No one will notice our little excursion,” Aloaeiol didn’t bother denying the obvious or assuring him that they would not need to leave the warm confines of the Crown Hotel.
“I remember your abilities perfectly well, Captain,” Ardi assured her. “And I also remember the nature of your relationship with Lieutenant Kornosskiy. And the fact that you were attached to our investigation. I even think you asked for it. After all, if you were to make some substantial contributions, you might earn enough leverage to get Yonatan transferred back to the capital.”
Aloaeiol blinked silently for several moments. He absently noted that she had rather long eyelashes. Then she grimaced as though she’d eaten an entire basket of Kargaam lemons.
“An Investigator indeed...” The woman stated in a tone that sharply contrasted with the deceptive youthfulness of her face. Ardi reminded himself once more that he was speaking with a woman who was older than Mshisty. Considerably older. “We have a direct lead on whoever recruited Linda Day. The ‘Sea Breeze’ bar and its songstress... what’s her name?”
“Liaelira,” Ardi answered, recalling Arkar’s words.
“There,” Aloaeiol nodded. “We don’t have much time left to play all our cards, Ardi.”
“Only my friends get to call me that.”
“And here I thought that we’d already done too much together to remain mere ‘colleagues,’” the mutant smiled far too sweetly.
Ardan planted his staff between his legs and leaned his shoulder against it.
“Nearly two years ago, I was warned not to trust anyone in the Metropolis, Captain Aloaeiol,” the young man said slowly. “I didn’t immediately understand what that meant. But over time, I’ve learned to distinguish mutually-beneficial proposals from situations where someone wants to use me for their own ends.”
Ardi didn’t specify that Peter Oglanov, who’d once led the Guard Corps’ detectives, had contributed the most to his “education.” Oglanov had taken him to the Irigov estate, where the young man had come face to face with Gleb Davos’ brother, Semyon Davos. He’d basically used him as bait. And after very nearly ending his journey among the dreams of the Sleeping Spirits, Ardi had gotten a lot wiser.
For a time, he and Aloaeiol engaged in a staring contest, until the captain raised both hands in surrender.
“All right, you’ve convinced me,” the captain said in a tone that was more businesslike than cold. “What do you want in return?”
“In return for what, exactly?”
“In return for us heading to the Firstborn Quarter right now, locating the ‘Sea Breeze’ bar, and interrogating the singer Liaelira once we find her.”
Aloaeiol fell silent again, then gave him a thin smile.
“I’m not sure I can offer you anything, Ard,” the mutant admitted. “As I understand it, a Yellow Star military accumulator won’t tempt you sufficiently, even though mages apparently need them, and as for everything else... You have enough money without me, I daresay. Sharing a bed would be too vulgar for both of us. So, that leaves only one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
Aloaeiol looked into his eyes, and the smile on her face shifted from thin to knowing. It was the kind of smile that can only appear on the face of a woman who has left behind an entire succession of decades that had been filled with everything that the smile now reflected.
“Your heart, Ard,” the mutant answered. “Not even the capital, the Black House, or the Grand have managed to carve enough holes in it yet. You’re hiding here, in this storage room, burying your head in your formulas and calculations, just so you don’t have to think about anything else.”
Ardi said nothing. The person sitting before him wasn’t an investigator. She was a mutant. An operative. One of the Daggers—something like the Cloaks for the Cloaks themselves. They were the only ones to whom the “glory” of the Black House’s best days still clung. Even so, none of this negated the vast life experience Captain Aloaeiol possessed. It was the kind of experience Ardi couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“I saw the photographs too, Ard,” the captain continued. “And just like you, I can’t find peace. You’re right. I’ll be glad if my participation in your and Pnev’s investigation helps Yonatan, but... I simply don’t want them to haunt my dreams, Corporal. And I think you want them to stop haunting yours as well.”
Ardi turned away. He could have lied. To himself most of all. He could have lied and said that Aloaeiol was wrong. That for the past several nights, he hadn’t been waking up and lying for long stretches of time with his eyes open, staring blindly up at the ceiling and trying to find answers there to a question far heavier than those that had tormented him only recently.
Transmutational runic links, multiple seal spaces, and all the rest paled before that simple question… How twisted and wrong was the soul of someone who could do such a thing to the truly helpless and...
Ardi had tried to banish these heavy thoughts, but they hadn’t yielded to his willpower, nor his attempts to distract himself with anything less than a series of truly demanding calculations.
Aloaeiol was right.
The young man was hiding in the pages of his own grimoire. He was avoiding something that wasn’t even lying in wait on the other side of the door leading into the corridors of the Crown Hotel, but literally inside his own mind. In a matter of weeks, he would have to immerse himself in studying those paper tombstones marking hundreds of small graves…
“They’re so beautiful, Mr. Wizard.”
“Who?”
“The Angels…”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re manipulating me,” Ardan said through gritted teeth.
“It doesn’t,” Aloaeiol agreed readily. “But in time, Corporal, you’ll come to understand that sometimes, you must do what you believe is right, regardless of anything else. Everyone around you will have different views on the same question, and you will have to believe yourself, without leaning on their judgments. This is, after all...” The captain glanced at the young man’s grimoire that was swaying on its jingling chains. “...not mathematics, Corporal. And not Star Magic. You can’t sum up all the judgments, subtract your own, and find the truth. No. Sometimes, you must simply do what you must.”
“And damn the consequences?” Ardan asked with a slightly sad smile.
Aloaeiol nodded.
“You do know that was the Dark Lord’s favorite saying, Captain?” Ardi asked, rising to his feet. “’Do what you must, and damn the consequences.’”
“There’s no need to draw unnecessary parallels, Corporal,” Aloaeiol also stood and approached Ardi. “What the Dark Lord and your great-grandfather did... History was written by the victors. Had they won, your own people would have celebrated them as liberators and heroes.”
“Half my people,” Ardan corrected her. “The other half are Galessians.”
The captain merely shrugged.
“As you say,” was her only response. “I’ll warn you right away: Milar won’t be coming with us.”
“Because he’ll be covering for us in case your illusion tricks don’t work, or because he doesn’t know about this?”
For the first time since they’d met, Aloaeiol averted her gaze before answering him. Not out of “embarrassment,” or because she was pondering something. No—she did exactly what any Firstborn would do if they knew they were dealing with a Speaker.
“The latter,” she answered, and was about to open the door when Ardan grabbed her by the shoulder.
They both froze.
“The last man who put his hands on me lost them,” the captain said casually, like she was discussing the weather.
“You don’t trust Milar?” Ardan asked, clearly surprised.
He felt Aloaeiol tense.
“I don’t trust anyone, Corporal,” she said and jerked her shoulder.
She did so hard enough to break free of a strong man’s grip. It would’ve even been enough to break free of Ardi’s after he’d been weakened due to half a year of using concoctions to sleep less. But it was not enough to shake off the Ardan who’d spent the time since then working with the kettlebells Tess had given him, eating properly, and sometimes even getting enough sleep.
“If we start a contest of strength, Matabar, you’ll find yourself in an awkward position,” the captain said, considerably sharper now. “Let go. Don’t make me... make you. I don’t like being touched.”
Ardan let out a brief exhale and released her.
“Then you can go to the ‘Sea Breeze’ on your own,” the young man said.
The mutant whipped around so sharply that, for a second, Ardi thought that she was going to outright punch him. But Aloaeiol didn’t allow herself to follow through with that impulse.
“What do you know about how Yonatan was sent into exile?”
“Only that he was investigating a case involving an organization of Star Mages conducting research that was in violation of the Al’Zafir Pact.”
Aloaeiol nodded.
“For half a year, corpses were vanishing from cemeteries. Then living people began to disappear as well. They were often apprentices in research laboratories,” the captain leaned her back against the wall and once more looked straight into Ardan’s eyes. It was as though she were inviting him to enter her thoughts. “Yonatan found the connection between them. The same transport company serviced all the laboratories. He pulled on the thread and traced it to an underground research center attempting to reanimate the dead.”
“Zombies,” Ardan breathed. “Living biological puppets.”
“Yes, but those bastards were trying to make them more complex,” the captain shivered slightly. “Less distinguishable from humans, and with a greater range of functions. They wanted them to be able to perform more than just the most basic tasks. The result, naturally, was a massive quantity of failed products, with which they staged underground fights.”
“Fights?” Ardan echoed.
“That’s right,” the captain confirmed. “The Guard Corps, the Second Chancery, and the Army were all too busy at the time with the Narikhman and their Angel Dust laboratories and underground tenement houses. So, your colleagues had their fun however they could. They raked in the exes. Gathered the poor for their bloody shows. Even made up the zombies so they looked like real people fighting to the death.”
Ardan shivered slightly. What Aloaeiol was describing sounded somewhat deranged. Yes, Star Mages were always lacking enough exes for their research, but financing one’s studies in such a manner... was rather creative. And perhaps Ardi was suffering from a professional deformation not only because he was an investigator, but because he was a Star Mage as well.
As long as people weren’t suffering, he...
Ah, right.
Aloaeiol had said that apprentices had been disappearing as well. In that case, the offending researchers ought to have been brought to trial and sent to either the gallows or the labor camps according to the severity of their crimes.
“But what does any of this have to do with Milar?”
“Just listen,” Aloaeiol said, clearly annoyed. “Yonatan and his operatives unraveled the entire mess. But they couldn’t take the mages on their own. Their laboratory was in an old sewer, and literal hordes of zombies were standing between them and it. Dagdag’s subsequent report stated that we destroyed no fewer than four hundred undead.”
Ardan barely stopped himself from whistling. Thanks to his access to restricted literature, he had managed—at least adequately—to study the subject of creating elementary undead. He had even borrowed several ideas for his own Ice Beasts.
In any case, several hundred zombies, even failed ones, represented years of labor and very nearly over a thousand exes spent on Ertalain alone.
“By then, Milar was already a well-known investigator, and he was sent along with Ursky and Arnson to reinforce them.”
“As were you and another dozen operatives,” Ardan still didn’t understand what Aloaeiol was trying to tell him. “I know this part of the story.”
“And nothing strikes you as odd about that?” The captain narrowed her eyes at him.
“What do you mean?”
Aloaeiol snorted.
“Some investigator...” She said sarcastically. “It was a fully-completed investigation. All the evidence had been gathered. Along with witnesses. Physical proof. The full set. All that was left was to take the bastards. And then, magically, several months of work go to waste because...”
The mutant let a very pointed pause fill the air.
“I know that the mages who violated the Pact blew up their laboratory and themselves along with it.”
“Yes,” the captain nodded again. “And we failed to stop them only because we were saving Milar, who had managed to find himself surrounded by several dozen zombies. I quite literally ripped his backside out of the jaws of one of the undead. Did you know that?”
“No,” Ardan admitted. “Though I’m not surprised that Milar didn’t mention it. He’s rather sensitive about the integrity of his... seating arrangements. That sounded stupid, to be honest. In my head, it was funnier.”
“This is no joke, Corporal,” Aloaeiol hissed. “Don’t you see the connection?”
Ardan thought about it for a second.
“No,” the young man answered calmly.
“Efaaha’e,” Aloaeiol muttered in the Fae tongue, beginning to lose her composure. Ardan hadn’t seen her like this before. “Just before the operation, Milar’s wife, Elvira, lost a child. And they removed her uterus as well.”
Ardan felt goosebumps race down his spine.
“That is unseemly, Captain—sharing such details of other people’s private lives.”
“To hell with your proprieties, boy!” The captain snapped. “You still don’t see the connection?”
“What connection, Captain?” Ardi noticed that a growl was creeping into his tone. Milar being accused like this was definitely irritating him, even if he wasn’t quite angry just yet. “Several years ago, my partner was having personal problems and made a mistake during an operation for which Yonatan was responsible. So far, the only connection I can see is that you don’t like the fact that your lover suffered because of that error, rather than Milar.”
Aloaeiol raised her hand to strike him, but after several moments, she lowered it.
“She should have died.”
“Who?”
“Elvira, Ard. Elvira,” the captain snapped. “I read the report. The situation was dire. She had internal bleeding and some inflammation that had caused complications. Everything was pointing to the fact that, along with the premature child, Captain Pnev’s wife would also be joining the Eternal Angels unless she received the best care possible. But because of the constant bloody operations connected to the Narikhman, the Second Chancery’s doctors simply didn’t have enough time to save everyone. They would not have been able to save Elvira.”
“Then praise the Face of Light that it didn’t turn out that way.”
“And why didn’t it turn out that way, Corporal? Why?” Aloaeiol moved so close to Ardan that she had to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact with him. “Where did a simple captain find the means to transfer his wife to the Tears of the Martyrs Hospital, where elven healers and the finest surgeons fought for her life for several days? Because that is precisely what the archival records can attest to: he somehow managed to pay for that to happen.”
Ardan’s eyes widened in surprise...
“You... You read Milar’s archival records? But all information concerning the lives and activities of Second Chancery personnel is strictly classified! No one would have…”
Ardi caught himself. Captain Aloaeiol’s abilities would have been rather helpful in ensuring she could access such files.
“If there’d been a trail of corruption, then your own colleagues among the Daggers would’ve found the same traces you did when reviewing the case,” Ardan pressed on. “And according to regulations, given everything you’ve just described, such a review would definitely have been conducted. And what did it find? You read that too, correct?”
“I did,” Aloaeiol didn’t deny it. “My ‘colleagues’ found that Milar had independently financed Elvira’s treatment. All three hundred and seventeen exes.”
Three hundred exes and change... It was an enormous, nearly-impossible-to-acquire sum for nine out of ten inhabitants of the Empire.
“I’m sure he took a loan from a bank,” Ardan shrugged, immediately finding a logical explanation for the appearance of such a significant number of exes in the equation.
“He did.”
“Then all your accusations are based solely on the fact that-”
“They’re based on the fact that Elvira,” Captain Aloaeiol interrupted him, “was operated on… on the fourteenth day of the Month of Fires. And the loan from the Bornovitz and Tonskih Bank was issued to Milar on the fifteenth!”
In all fairness, Ardan had never even heard of a bank by that name. But realistically speaking, there weren’t many financial institutions willing to give several hundred exes to a civil servant on short notice.
“And oh wow, what a miracle,” Captain Aloaeiol continued. “Literally a few months later, Captain Pnev and his unit found one of the largest Angel Dust production laboratories, for which he received the rank of First-Class Investigator, a personal commendation from the Emperor, and a rather substantial bonus. Substantial enough to not only cover the bank loan, but also… I know it’s a trifle, Ard, but bear with me… A down payment—at the Imperial Bank, mind you—on a home in the Central District. He even enrolled his children in good schools before His Imperial Majesty’s reform that made it so the children of Cloaks now attend the same schools as the scions of noble blood, free of charge. And he was able to fully restore his wife’s health.”
The captain fell silent and stepped back. Ardan, meanwhile, was looking at the woman before him with new eyes. She hadn’t lied when she’d said that, in all the world, only two people had ever cared about Captain Aloaeiol. And if she was willing to defy the orders of the Colonel and His Excellency the Prime Minister to avenge a friend, then... What was Captain Aloaeiol willing to do for the one she loved?
“Mistakes occur even in government documents, Aloaeiol,” Ardan said a touch more quietly and calmly. “I’m sure the Daggers checked the bank and found no evidence besmirching Milar’s name.”
“They didn’t find any,” Aloaeiol confirmed. “Because the clerk who made the error related to the bank cheque was dismissed for his blunder.”
“Was he interrogated?”
“They couldn’t interrogate him, Ard. They couldn’t,” the captain said venomously. “By the time Milar came under review, the clerk—a young man of nineteen, nearly your age—was dead. An apparent accident. His tram broke down, and he decided to continue on foot, but was struck by an automobile. He flipped over the railing and drowned in the Niewa.”
“A young clerk and an error in the documentation don’t sound inherently contradictory, Captain,” Ardan shook his head. “Rather, it’s quite the opposite—they confirm the organic nature of an inaccuracy in the equa-”
“This is not your mathematics, Ard!” Aloaeiol interrupted him again, very nearly echoing Milar’s own words. “This is life!”
“That’s all the more reason to not be hasty. None of this makes it seem like Milar has betrayed us!” Ardan threw his hands up. “I understand that it may be unfair that Yonatan suffered for Milar’s blunder, but that’s no reason to twist everything as though the issue is... is...”
Ardan waved his hands again, unable to find the right word.
Both of them stared into each other’s eyes without looking away.
“Taken separately, Corporal, perhaps it’s not,” the mutant said, suddenly calming down and speaking considerably more quietly and slowly than before. “But taken together, it looks too suspicious to ignore.”
“And that’s exactly what the other Daggers did. They investigated things. They found nothing.” Ardan was mostly uneasy rather than upset about this conversation, and he didn’t know why, exactly.
Aloaeiol smirked.
“You’re a clever boy, Snow Wolf,” she said the last two words in the Fae tongue. “How often has Milar’s presence in the investigation helped the overall cause? How often has something moved forward not because of you, but because of him? And how often have his decisions, rather than yours, propelled you forward?”
Ardan paused for a second, then immediately waved away his own thoughts.
“That’s data manipulation, Aloaeiol,” Ardan answered firmly. “You can twist anything any way you like. Milar and I work as a pair. And one way or another, we share ideas and shape something from them together.”
“Something where-”
“Where a mortal isn’t of much use, you’re right,” Ardi felt another surge of irritation. “But it wasn’t you who faced the claws of chimeras, Star-born werewolves, and the spells of other mages beside me. It wasn’t you who agreed without a second thought to visit the Homeless Fae. It wasn’t you who stayed in the grotto with the demon.”
“Exactly, Ard. Exactly,” Aloaeiol nodded with a triumphant smile. “You said it yourself. Milar is mortal. And yet, he survived everything you just listed? Don’t you find that strange?”
Ardan measured Aloaeiol from top to bottom with a cool stare and, turning around, returned to the armchair, where he settled in comfortably and opened his grimoire.
“You don’t even hear yourself, Captain,” Ardi answered. “According to your logic, I should have stood back and watched each time someone tried to kill Milar? Why? To test the theory that we’re both alive because someone doesn’t want us dead, not because we fought hard to survive?”
“There’s no ‘us’ or ‘we’ there, Ard,” the captain objected. “It’s just him. Milar.”
“Nonsense,” the young man waved it off. “He was wounded recently.”
“Was he? And pray tell, who exactly wounded him?”
Ardan opened his mouth but ended up not answering the question.
“Oh my, Mr. Investigator—what a surprise it is that Milar was wounded in a scuffle with thugs pumped full of alchemy and who have no connection whatsoever to your investigation,” Aloaeiol said with an entire truckload of sarcasm. “Astonishing. Someone probably forgot to tell them that they should avoid damaging the precious mole burrowing right under our noses!”
Ardi looked up at the mutant. She seemed ready to start breathing fire at this point.
“The night you helped Milar and me—you weren’t actually watching me, were you?”
“I was beginning to worry that you are completely blind, Ard. Yes, you’re right. I wasn’t watching you. I was watching Milar.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Ardan nodded.
“Based on everything you’ve just listed, Aloaeiol, only one conclusion can be drawn. You use every fact that supports your theory, while rejecting any that contradict it,” the young man produced his pencil from its holder and lightly moistened the graphite with his tongue. “That is the most common beginner’s error in any scientific inquiry.”
“Stop speaking to me using Edward’s words. You’re not him.”
“So, you visited Lord Aversky as well?”
“Yes,” Aloaeiol admitted. “And he told me the same thing you have. Almost word for word.”
“Then I don’t see-”
“And then he died,” the captain continued. “He died, and Milar survived. Another coincidence? That’s quite a lot of them for a mortal to be involved in, don’t you think, Speaker?”
“What I think is that I can’t tell whether I’m speaking with a human mutant or an elf from the High Forest right now,” Ardan said dryly. “Don’t forget where the Firstborn’s arrogance toward humans led.”
“It’s not your place to lecture me, boy.”
“And it’s not yours to use me in your attempts to vindicate Yonatan and slander Milar. I thought you genuinely wanted to help with the investigation. For Esvaialaal’s sake, or even the tortured children’s. But you’re simply...” Ardan didn’t want to use this phrase, but could find no better one. “…playing your own game. Sorry, but I have no intention of taking part in it. Find another way to prove your utterly unfounded hypothesis.”
“You’re simply blind-”
Ardan barely stopped himself from shouting.
“Sleeping Spirits, Aloaeiol! I could easily twist things exactly the same way! It’s elementary variable shuffling!” Ardan slashed the air with his pencil like it was a saber. “You participated in that same operation and chose not to complete it successfully, but to save Milar instead. As a result, your lover is exiled. Then your friend, who was working undercover, died. There is no longer anyone in the capital who could share any unique information about you. That’s already several coincidences! You’re assigned to guard Loon, but you sabotage that by your absence and by trying to recruit me into that same sabotage! And on top of that, you’re attempting to frame one of the Colonel’s trusted operatives! And that’s just what I know about your life—and I’ve known you for barely more than a week! There’s also the fact that you can create illusions that can deceive even the Witch’s Gaze.”
“You recently admitted that suspecting me of being the mole was absurd.”
“Yes! Just as absurd as suspecting Milar!”
Aloaeiol looked at Ardan with pity.
“You need to grow up, Snow Wolf. Stop being a pup.”
Ardan felt the same wave of anger rolling over him that had made him answer the Selkado ambassador’s insults, but this time, he caught it before it crested.
The young man confined himself to a simple observation:
“You and Yonatan were both created by his father,” Ardan said calmly and quietly. He already sounded like he’d lost interest in this conversation. “Everyone knows that Lieutenant Kornosskiy suffers from a serious defect that manifests itself as extreme paranoia. It’s logical to assume that you’re the same.”
Ardan had spoken those final words to no one. Aloaeiol had vanished. She’d simply evaporated like she’d used magic. And Ardi... Ardi returned to his calculations. Only now, he had to fend off not only the images of mutilated children, but his memories of the past year as well.
Damn.
It was no surprise at all that Yonatan and Aloaeiol had found each other! They were two peas in a psychopathic pod.