Algernon Black

(Chapter 114) Sensical Confusion

Devane lifted himself from the cot with a groan of painful effort. To his surprise, he wasn't dead and his surgery wound wasn't a completely botched job. But remaining alive at the moment might not be such a commendable feat until he figured out who tried to kill him in the first place, and who switched his transportation stone with the bomb. Devane checked his rings, and to the middle one where a secret emergency transportation stone was encased inside a space stone to take him to Etilia, though he feared that might also be a bomb. Either way, he needed to return home and see that things were in order; he just didn't know if he was capable of calling enough magic to activate the stone in his current state.

"You're alive," Jared noted in a contrastingly chirper mood than the advisor.

"To my great surprise," Devane grumbled, "And more than a few people's dismay."

"Well, not mine." Jared smiled, setting down a bundle of wood he had collected for the hearth. "And anyway it's not like you have to be fully recovered to give me the coordinates, right?"

Devane took a noticeable pause, which Jared didn't miss. "Right?" He repeated.

"I have to get back to Etilia," Devane returned with no room for argument.

"Then go," Jared said like it was obvious. "But after you give me the coordinates." Devane gave Jared the courtesy of a look but remained intently quiet.

"You can't seriously be going back on your word?" Jared asked, almost yelling from the injustice.

"Your search is more likely than anything a complete waste of time anyway," Devane declared, trying to test his current strength by seeing if he could lift himself out of the bed, which he promptly and painfully found that he could not. "And in the very rare chance it's not, you risk bringing far more danger into this world than I'm willing to allow." Devane declared, gritting his teeth through the agonizing stitch in his side.

"Then kill me." Jared fumed. "Because coordinates or not, I won't stop searching until I find it."

"Thanks for the permission, but I wasn't waiting on it to kill you," Devane returned, firing a warning from his side-eye.

Jared glared back at him. "I can't believe this. After everything I've helped you with, you're going to betray me like this?"

"The six months is coming up soon anyway," Devane reasoned, "Once it's over, you and your sisters can go back to hiding." The advisor didn't take any joy in reneging their deal, but he had to be pragmatic with his time, now more than ever.

"You know how unsafe that will be!" Jared fumed, "We're so vulnerable that way, and I don't know who or how many enemies will come searching for her after she leaves that school! Not to mentions the monsters already inside of it. " Devane watched Jared become more unhinged the more his mind ran wild with the possibilities of his sister's peril and grew guilty for the part he played in it. "But if I can find the King's Diary I might just be able to save her once and for all. This could be my once chance to free her from her fate." Jared pulled at his hair, his voice a choking squeal from his frenzied desperation. "Don't you know what that's like to have someone you want to protect?"

"Yes," Devane revealed. "I do." The advisor tested his body once more, finding movement painful but operable. "And I've kept them alive and safe much longer than you have with your sister."

Intense rage overwhelmed Jared as he stormed out of the hut before he acted on that anger in a way that could never be forgiven. He pulled at his hair, while the blind man sipped his tea and grinned knowingly to himself.

Devane sighed as he felt a new pair of eyes on him. He turned to his side where he caught the stare of a little girl who could not have been more than ten with two freshly made braids in her light brown hair.

Oira's face flushed white when she got caught staring but to her credit, she didn't run away.

"Is there something I can do for you?" Devane asked like he was talking with an adult.

Oira mustered her courage and asked. "Did you say you're from Etilia?"

Devane nodded but eyed the child skeptically.

"So does that mean you know the prince?" Oira asked, clutching the tips of her braids excitedly.

Devane looked her over confused as to why she would ask such a seemingly strange thing, though he thought perhaps it was common for little girls to wonder about the princes of the world. "Yes."

Oira's face lit up. "Really!" She shouted, with so much enthusiasm her braids nearly stood up. "I met the prince! He was so kind, and he helped save everyone!"

"If that's the kind of person you met, we're not talking about the same prince," Devane said, thinking kind and Loy were never used in the same sentence.

"No!" Oira adamantly defended. "He was a prince! And he was a great fighter with his necklace that became this long weapon, and he saved me and my friends!"

Devane's eyes shot open. "What exactly did this person do?"

"He rescued me and my friends," Oira said, keeping up her passionate rant as she stepped closer to Devane with complete certainty. "When the bad men came to our village and took us and forced us to learn magic," She spoke with as much determination as a grown man could muster. "But he saved us and brought us home and he promised he would save the future! And his friend gave me this compass and I followed it here because I want to protect the future too!"

Devane recoiled back in disbelief, before slightly grinning, thinking that perhaps Loy was traveling in the right direction after all.

The advisor put a hand on top of the child's head and Oira immediately paused like a kitten that got pulled up by the scruff of its neck.

"Then do your best," Devane said, smiling down at her.

Oira touched the top of her head where she could still feel the warmth of Devane's hand, and as she did the advisor noticed the compass at her chest with the etched outline of a bird on the metal.

"This was the compass they gave you?" Devane inquired. Oira nodded her head. "Open it for me," He commanded, and as she did Devane's face was instantly lit up in a magic operation of swirling bright colors. At the center of the compass was a needle pointed in the direction behind him. The advisor unfolded the map of the world encased in one of his other rings. The coordinate he had marked down months ago wasn't far off at all, and the needle pointed in the same direction. Devane's analysis bounced between the two, growing only more confused the more sense things seemed to make.