FWFW 3 - 63

The morning after Olivia’s hunt through the depths of the academy, she was the first to rise, having tossed and turned and slept very little. Her mind kept racing through the myriad troubling thoughts at its disposal. Why couldn’t she get to the killer before he fled? Was he truly running, or was he hiding? Would he strike again? Why were his targets closer and closer to Olivia? Hadn’t he been at it while she was away? So why kill someone in her hallway and then attempt to strike her and Adaida directly?

When her mind was chasing after the unanswered questions regarding the killer, it was trying to wring some sense from her feelings about Bronwyn and Adaida. While she couldn’t make sense of her heart, she had no trouble coming up with plenty of guilt. She kept running through her mind how she’d speak to Bronwyn, tell her about Adaida and try to solve her torn feelings based on how Bronwyn responded. None of the imagined conversations went well—Bronwyn was fiery. She was emotional. She did everything with her heart in the open for all to see. Olivia felt like a snake.

She heaved out a heavy sigh and threw her blankets off. The air in her room was chilly, and she saw that one of the bay windows was open a crack. Rald liked cool, fresh air while he slept, preferring to snuggle in his covers than to have to kick them off, as he put it. Olivia tiptoed on the cold planks to the bathroom, where she took a few minutes to get cleaned up and dressed. As she’d promised Alyss, she wore her crown, and its weight was comforting.

When Olivia left the bathroom, mildly surprised that none of her cohort had come in while she’d been getting cleaned up, she found them all clustered around Adaida near the two sofas. “Hey, Liv,” Adaida said, her face rather wan, but a true smile on her face, one that was reflected in her big, amber eyes.

Olivia took a step closer, glancing nervously at Shani and Veena, the two sitting closest to Adaida, and said, “Are you feeling better? How are the fingers?”

Adaida held up the hand in question and wiggled her fingers. “They work! Thanks to you, Liv. My ring finger is a little numb, right down the center, it’s kind of strange, but Nurse Tyliste said that it’ll clear up as I gain more levels, especially if I advance my race at all.”

“That’s great, Adaida. Are you going to classes today?” Olivia took a step closer, wanting to take her hand, to look closely at the scars, to kiss them, even. She hesitated, though, and lingered at the periphery, looking over Rald’s shoulder as Adaida spoke.

“No, I think I’m going to stay in the dorm today. The nurse wrote me a pass, and I’m going to take advantage. Maybe you could . . . “ Adaida was cut off as the door to the hallway burst open and the sound of dogs barking echoed through the dorm room. Oylla-dak stood there, eyes squinted in irritation, and then she touched the door, and the noise stopped as a cloud of woodsmoke rose into the air.

“Olivia, you need to come with me.” Oylla’s voice didn’t brook argument, and the urgency of her words sent a shiver down Olivia’s spine as she hurried toward her.

“What is it? Is it the killer?”

“You all stay here,” Oylla said, and Olivia realized that her entire cohort, including Adaida, had followed her to the door.

“What’s happened?” Rald asked, and Olivia had to smile at his protective tone—he’d spoken with a much deeper note than he usually did.

“I’ll go with Olivia,” Adaida said.

“No, you won’t. Every one of you will stay here. This cohort is on lockdown. So much as poke your heads through that door, and I’ll have you expelled. Am I clear?” Olivia had never seen such anger in Oylla’s eyes, even when she’d stormed into the infirmary the night before, and she took a step back.

“What’s going on, Professor?” She asked, putting some steel of her own into her voice.

“The time for explaining will come. Now follow me.” She turned and strode out into the hallway with a swirl of her black robes.

Olivia turned to her friends and shrugged. “I’ll tell you guys what’s going on when I get back. Be careful, and stay together!” She spared one last look into Adaida’s eyes, then she followed after Oylla. The professor had already started walking down the hallway, and Olivia hurried to catch up. “Can’t you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Olivia,” Oylla said, her voice catching slightly, “something terrible has happened.” She shook her head, clearly struggling with what she had to say, and turned down a corridor Olivia hadn’t traversed before—it led to the part of the academy where some of the professors and graduate students had private rooms.

“Professor, you’re freaking me out!” Olivia hissed, grabbing the tall Shadeni’s arm above the elbow and pulling her to a stop, forcing her to face her. To Olivia’s horror, there were tears in the powerful woman’s eyes, their blue-black depths and glittering star-like lights obscured by the pools of salty liquid.

“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Oylla said, shaking her head and reaching out to take Olivia’s hands. “I don’t want you to see this, but the inspector thinks it's important. He thinks there’s a message for you in it. Obviously, he’s right, but I still don’t want you to see it.”

“See what, professor?” Olivia pressed.

“There’s been another murder, and this one will hit you hard, Olivia. I’m so sorry. I wish I could spare you from it. I wish I could cancel the semester and, when everything’s over, and we all come back, tell you that Professor ap’Rall has gone on sabbatical. I thought about that, you know? I almost did it.” Her hands were warm and gentle, and as the shock of her words finally resonated in Olivia’s mind, she sagged backward, and Oylla had to fight to hold her up, moving one hand from her wrists to her waist.

“Alyss . . .” Olivia felt the hot tears pouring down her cheeks, and, though a part of her wanted to collapse and cry for real, another part of her noted that the tears weren’t just hot—they were like boiled water that turned to vapor nearly as soon as they left her eyes. She focused on that heat and how it came from her center, near her Core. She allowed it to flow through the rest of her, and soon, Oylla was letting go of her and taking several steps back—Olivia was alight with blue, flickering flames that radiated away from her, making the air shimmer.

She looked at Oylla, and the fury blazing in her eyes caused the professor to take another step back. “Where?” Olivia’s voice was harsh, distant, reverberating strangely like it was echoing on itself. Oylla-dak thought it sounded like the voice of a fire.

“Follow me, Olivia, but please, don’t burn the school down.” She strode down the hallway, took a turn, and stopped before the third door where two black-robed professors Olivia didn’t know stood watch. They stepped away when they saw Oylla coming. Olivia struggled to rein in her flames, tried to quell the heat that wanted to explode out of her, burning everything to cinders. By the time she stood before the door at Oylla’s shoulder, she’d managed to reduce her aura to palely flickering flames along her shoulders and crown.

Oylla looked back at her and said, “I’m sorry for this, Olivia. Please only look at it as long as you must—see if the message means anything to you, and then we’ll get out.” Olivia didn’t respond, and Oylla nodded, turning to open the door. Olivia’s nostrils were immediately hit with the coppery scent of blood and the unpleasant odor of exposed bowels. Oliva didn’t realize she was doing it, but she cast Elemental Form, taking on the form of fire, and suddenly the smells were just a distant itch in her nose and easily ignored. Everything took on a sepia tone, and it was with that filter, that bit of distance between herself and reality, that Olivia took in the scene of her favorite professor’s murder.

Alyss didn’t have extravagant quarters. Inside the door, on the hardwood floors, a round woven rug greeted visitors. A couch sat across from a comfortable, overstuffed leather chair and a small wooden coffee table stacked with books sat between them. Bookshelves lined the room, and Olivia could see Alyss’s bedroom through an open archway. She walked forward onto the rug and, with Oylla beside her, walked over so that she could see into it.

Alyss was in her room, all over it—entrails, fine bits of flesh, and splattered blood coated every surface except the wall behind the bed. Alyss’s head was intact, sitting in the center of the bed, and one of her pale blue arms was carefully placed next to it. The fingers of her hand were arranged so that they pointed to the wall where a bloody message, in the absurd form of an acrostic poem, had been scrawled on the white plaster. Olivia took a ragged breath, her lungs sounding like a fire being blown by a bellows as she read it:

O - obedient

L - love,

I - in

V - vain,

I - I

A - ache

“What the hell?” she hissed. The message didn’t mean anything to her. Obedient love? The only thought that kept repeating in her mind was that she’d been anything but “obedient” with her love. “In vain, I ache?” she hissed. Then she stepped forward to the bed and gently smoothed Alyss’s forehead, squashing the flames in her hand with an effort of will. “Poor Alyss. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I don’t know what this means, but I’ll figure it out, and I’ll bring whoever did it to justice.”

“Just so,” said a familiar voice, and Olivia whirled to see that Inspector Carlu had come into the room, standing behind Oylla with a strangely out-of-place smile. Olivia thought it looked almost smug. She noticed that Oylla looked surprised to see the inspector also and that her eyes bore more than a hint of irritation.

“Don’t sneak up on people, Carlu,” She said, then stepped forward, reaching toward Olivia but stopping short of touching her flaming arm. “Olivia, let’s get out of here. You’ve seen what the killer left for you, and now you can mull it over in a place far removed from this.” Olivia nodded and started to walk out of the room.

Olivia didn’t want to remember Alyss that way, and so she didn’t look at her again, didn’t look at the mess of the room, hiding behind the odd tint in the light caused by her Elemental Form. Still, she mulled over the bizarre poem and wondered what it had to do with Alyss. It was undeniable now, to her, to Oylla, to anyone, that the killer was somehow involved with her, that he wanted something from her or wanted to punish her somehow.

As soon as they entered the hallway, Olivia concentrated on her memory of the killer’s sickly, cold Energy and cast her Hunt Energy spell. She wanted to hope that it would work and believe that she’d be able to track down the killer, but she wasn’t surprised when the winds swirled into being, several individual magenta gusts wafting back and forth in front of her, and then promptly died out. “Damn it,” she said.

“You tried to track his Energy?” Oylla asked.

“Yes.”

“I was going to suggest it.” Oylla frowned when she realized the inspector had followed them out of the room. “Carlu, shouldn’t you be inspecting the crime scene?”

“Oh, I have, Professor. I was hoping to interview Miss Bennet.”

“You’ll have to hope for something else. Olivia will be with me for the day. Perhaps I’ll read your questions to her if you write them up. Come, Olivia,” Oylla said, again reaching for Olivia’s arm but pulling her hand back from the flames. “You could drop that form now, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Olivia said and did so. She felt distant, felt like she was outside herself. Everything seemed somehow fake or fabricated, even herself. When she felt her normal aspect return and her vision clarified with the full spectrum of color, she allowed Oylla to guide her down the hallway away from the crime, and the only thought that kept playing through her mind was that this couldn’t be real—nothing felt real, even herself.