“So, is it true, Sasha? That the Azurite Demon is your intern for a day?”
“For a place where mystery is all but worshipped, gossip travels awfully fast around here.”
Nobody would be able to tell they were underground. The hewn stone walls were completely concealed behind elaborate wooden walls. Converting a subterranean refuge into something resembling the interior of a Victorian mansion was, in the opinion of the young man, the epitome of pointless opulence. Thus, he hated himself for finding it comfortable and—dare he say it?—homely.
“Well, yes, that is indeed the case. She said she was interested, and who am I to say no to free help?”
“As usual, you are so stupidly reckless it makes me regret being acquainted with you.”
The young lady,
Luviagelita Edelfelt, then laughed; not her usual high-class-lady laughter, but something more abrupt and bark-like. It reminded him of a hyena.
“Then again, a worthless magus like you will not lose much without your magic circuits.”
“You wound my fragile heart, my teasing hound, Luviagelita.”
Alexander von Schlüβelstein, the young head of the Clock Tower’s Office of Genealogy, placidly smiled while the elegant woman’s “ohohoho~” resounded in the underground passage. His position he inherited from his defunct father, who also inherited it from his father. As the duties of his office were unrelated to the pursue of the magical arts, his talent (or lack thereof) as a magus was of no relevance to his worthiness as an office head. Nonetheless, in the Association, magical prowess is prestige, and the current head of von Schlüβelstein had little of either.
Together they walked into the Office of Genealogy, the humble lair that was Alexander’s passion. Piles of books, scrolls, notebooks and folders stacked in irregular and dreadfully unstable towers all but buried all hints of walls and furniture in this haphazard room. While most director’s offices were rich in paraphernalia such as pieces of artwork or magical relics, Alexander’s office was a temple to paper.
“This place is an unsightly mess as always…”
Of course, Luvia’s attention quickly fell upon the person calmly seated on what she could only recognize as a sofa from previous experience.
“Ah, you’re back,” the seated woman, a few years younger than the two arrivals, jumped to her feet upon catching sight of the two. Her hand reflexively reached for the nearest pile of documents, wobbling ominously in reaction to her sudden motion.
“Sir, I have collated all the files from Estonia as you requested. They are on your desk.”
“Ooh, how efficient, Lady Wojnicz,” Alexander said with a lighthearted tone that brought a grimace to Luvia’s face. “Thank you, thank you~”
“My, please, just Beatrix.”
The smile on
Beatrix Wojnicz’s face matched Alexander’s in lightheartedness.
“This is disgusting.”
Alexander laughed as his right hand combed his black hair.
“You’re speaking your feelings, Luviagelita.”
The Finnish beauty rolled her eyes. The head of von Schlüβelstein was her earliest acquaintance in the world of magecraft, and the alliance between their families a historical fact.
“So? What brings the lady Wojnicz to this hovel?” Luvia attacked as she made her way to sit on the edge of Alexander’s wide desk. The man in question had moved to a corner of the room, where a kitchenette starkly (and dangerously) contrasted with the rest of the scenery.
“I could ask the same of Miss Edelfelt,” calmly replied the Slav while settling back on the sofa. She turned her body to face the office head and took out a large sketchbook and a pencil. Moments later, she was already at work.
“Business,” said Luvia bluntly, and Alexander chuckled at that.
“It’s always business with you, Luviagelita. At least stay for coffee.”
“I refuse to drink that mud you call coffee.”
“My, now you’ve made me curious.”
In the end, Luvia ended up staying, mostly because Alexander would not give her the documents she wanted otherwise, but she also wanted to see the look on Beatrix’s face upon tasting Alexander’s eldritch brew. In the meantime, the younger magus did explain herself.
“Well, doesn’t either of you find it strange?” says Beatrix as her fingers dart across the sketchbook. “We join here to share resources and improve the quality of our research, but we do not share our results or achievements. We protect our ambitions and developments as our highest secrets, but we monitor everybody else and constantly keep careful checks on each other.”
She glances around the endless piles of books and folders.
“Our existences are draped in mystery, yet this very office aims to keep a record of every living and dead magus. Don’t you find that incredibly interesting?”
Luvia’s grimace deepened with every word. Even if she knew what she would find there, she still turned to look at her old acquaintance and, indeed, there was a big grin there.
“She’s a female you.”
“Isn’t it great?”
She wanted to
gandr him.
“My, my.” It was the kind of expression and tone that would normally be accompanied by a hand on the cheek, but Beatrix’s hands were busy at work, drawing without pause or rest.
“In all honesty, when I came here I was hoping I could help organize this place a little, but I can’t really tell where anything goes.”
“Everything’s already in its proper place,” declared Alexander while keeping an eye on the boiling brew. “There is an order to the madness.”
He got odd looks from both women, and the experienced man wisely chose silence over pride.
“And, well, there is also that I think our families have things in common.”
Alexander nodded.
“I can see that.”
He received a disarming smile for those words, the likes of which a weak-minded guy could misunderstand for attraction.
Luvia, on the other hand, said nothing. She was one of the strong, so she did not insult them by trying to understand their feelings as the weak.
“And it is so interesting to meet someone here who knows about me and my family.”
To that the young man could only shrug.
“It is kind of my job to know that.”
Arranged marriages, apprenticeship contracts, adoptions of children from magus families, resolution of claims on treasures, estate, territories and Second Ownerships; such were the kind of matters in which Alexander’s office held sway.
There was a lot of silence from Luvia after that, while the German and the Lithuanian talked at length about the magus families in the latter’s homeland. If she weren’t aware that Beatrix was drawing, Luvia would have thought the younger girl was taking notes on her territorial rivals, or perhaps that was just Luvia projecting herself on the other girl. It’s what she would do, after all.
And it was precisely because she was not part of the conversation that she could notice.
The girl, Beatrix, never looked down at her drawing. Her sight was fixated on the man she was chatting with. Yet, her hand never stopped. Was she witnessing Beatrix Wojnicz’s ultimate talent? Or was she, perhaps…?
“Wojnicz. By any chance, are you drawing Sa—um, Alexander?”
Beatrix blinked in an awkward manner, as if taken completely off-guard. For the first time since Luvia started watching, the drawer looked down at her work, if only for a moment, before looking back at Luvia with her usual, placid smile.
“My, I wonder?”
It must be repeated: Luvia belonged among the strong. This does not refer solely to her prowess in magecraft. She was young, but she had dwelled among the murky shell games of magi from a very early age.
Beatrix Wojnicz was not good enough.
Luvia knew Alexander would not notice, because he liked to believe in the good will of others. It was an admirable trait, and it successfully charmed that insufferable (Luvia’s opinion) fiancée of his, but in the Clock Tower, it could be a liability.
Luviagelita Edelfelt knew better. So, she could tell the exact moment Beatrix’s honest friendliness and geniality was replaced with pretend cordiality.
Now, Alexander von Schlüβelstein was, in Luvia’s words, an overly positive idiot, but he could also read the cues from his oldest acquaintance well enough. And that was when his greatest attribute could come into play: Alexander is a very natural person, almost to a childlike degree.
“Really? I wanna see, I wanna see!”
Luviagelita sauntered far more casually while Alexander deftly walked through the self-made disaster that he called office to stand behind the sofa. Naturally, everybody in the room understood
it would have been too suspicious to hide the drawing at this point. But it seemed Beatrix was not even paying attention to them.
So, they saw the drawing, and they frowned.
“That’s…I’m not sure what that is, but that’s not me.”
Luvia had to agree. So, what was it? And why was Beatrix studying it so intently? What did she see in that drawing that they couldn’t?
“…a purpose-built connection…?”
It was fragment of a sentence, something that barely escaped Beatrix’s lips in her deep concentration, but it was enough to freeze the other two on the spot.
For a change, Alexander proved faster than Luviagelita, grabbing the wrist attached to the Nordic lady’s poised right hand. They exchanged equally alarmed looks on their faces, and Luvia’s dark intent clashed against Alexander’s urge for restraint. And perhaps it was the killing intent boiling behind her that brought Beatrix out of her concentration. Quickly noticing the other two people were outside her field of view, Beatrix alarmedly turned her head, and she was met by Alexander’s brimming curiosity and Luviagelita’s aristocratic sternness.
Beatrix’s own expression relaxed into that disarming smile of hers. Of course, by now everybody knew
everybody else was also wearing a mask.
“My,” she murmured. “My, my. You are quite fascinating people, the two of you,” Beatrix declared as she put away her sketchbook and elegantly rose to a standing position. “Very interesting, yes.”
She offered her hand, which Alexander took and shook gently.
“If you ever need assistance putting this place in order, please do call me. I like this kind of work.”
“I’ll remember that. Just so you know, I can be quite the taskmaster,” replied the office head, adding a wink for good measure.
“My, I can imagine.”
Naturally, the two women did not shake hands.
“Let us meet over tea some other time, Miss Edelfelt. Or, mayhap, over proper coffee.”
“You pretend aristocrats are way too picky over nothing,” declared Alexander, who had already moved away to lean on his desk and enjoy his brew.
“You fail as a man for trying to serve sewage for coffee to a dame.”
Beatrix laughed with honest delight.
“My, Miss Edelfelt is rather harsh on her friends.”
“I demand from others no more no less than I demand from myself.”
“My.”
Luviagelita did not return the smile. It felt more honest, but she still felt she was being mocked in some way she could not quite catch.
“Very well, have a pleasant day.”
“Wait,” interrupted the one man in the room right as Beatrix broke through the doorframe. He was not looking at her, instead serving a second cup of coffee matching his own.
“That ‘Azurite’ of yours…it comes from the pigment, doesn’t it?”
Luvia stared at her own acquaintance as if she expected him to burst into flames at any moment. When Alexander finally looked up, challenging the young woman with a face projecting cool assurance, he found himself profoundly examined by clear blue eyes.
With a teasing smile, Beatrix brought a single index finger to her lips in a shushing gesture.
“It is poor manners to ask a lady’s magical secrets, von Schlüβelstein.”
Alexander conceded an apologetic grin which was utterly ignored. Beatrix departed, and the other woman watched her departing figure like a hawk. Once she was well away, Luviagelita all but pounced on the cup and gulped its hot contents in an instant.
“Puagh!” vocally complained the beautiful woman before inelegantly wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist.
“Luvia, what did just happen? Did she just figure out—”
“Don’t worry. Even if she somehow figured out the secret of your magecraft, I’ll take care of it. That’s my job.”
Hearing those words, Alexander brought out a key to unlock the one secure drawer in his desk. He handed Luvia a Manila envelope with the wax seal of his eight-hundred-years-old family.
“So? Did you figure out ‘Azurite’?” inquired the smirking woman. This was no longer a friendly conversation, and the expression on Luvia’s face was that of a huntress who has found prey.
“I did my part,” the smaller male replied, gesturing towards the envelope. “You’re the genius. You draw the conclusions. But are you really sure I’m a target?”
“Of course you are. Your office supposedly does not involve itself on the families’ magecraft, but everybody knows you don’t need to inquire overtly to figure out a secret or two. The Office of Genealogy is allowed to exist only because it is convenient.”
“Ouch.”
“If anything, you should feel flattered they’re taking you seriously as a threat. These Wojniczs fear you already know enough to figure out the secret of their magecraft, and that little stunt of yours just now all but validate them. If what we suspect is true, and that drawing of hers somehow showed her our trump card, then they’ll have every reason to target you.”
“Ow,” lamely complained the man when he was smacked on the head a few times with the envelope.
“Seriously, Sasha, you always fail when you try to be masculine. Stop trying.”
“Your affection is truly heartwarming, my merciless hound, Luviagelita.” He released a deep sigh, all but slumping on his seat.
“That’s right,” said Luvia with uncharacteristic cheer, as if his words were a form of praise.
“That’s how it is.” Her free hand patted the envelope like one would a thoroughbred.
“You are the keystone on which I’ll build my legacy in the Association, and I am the hound that bites the necks of your enemies. That’s how it’s always been, how our families have survived in this nest of vipers for generations.”
Alexander’s smirk could not get anywhere near close to matching the viciousness in Luvia’s. He was just not that kind of person. If anything, his exuded the warm affection of an old friend.
“Looks like it’s up to us to teach that little vixen how things are done in this Clock Tower, Sasha.”
Originally Posted by FSF 5, Chapter 14: Gold and Lions I
Though abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
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