Second Chance

Chapter 14

"WARNING" This chapter contains several thoughts about suicide, so I'm telling you about it in advance!

Day followed day. Morrigan stopped asking Jupiter about the progress of affairs. His answer was always the same: "Nothing new, Mog. They are marking time in one place. No wonder". Both of them tried not to talk about how really bad things were.

She only saw Squall in class. During this time, Morrigan has greatly succeeded in the Wundrous Art of Tempus. She learned to stop time, speed it up, slow it down, and no longer spent a lot of energy on it. It was almost as easy for her as controlling fire. Squall looked calm and restrained as always, but still in his movements and gaze there was sometimes a flicker of anxiety and some detachment. At such moments, it seemed that his thoughts were going far, far away, and it took some effort to bring him back to reality.

There was no news from Lucas either, and Morrigan gradually began to lose hope. She spent more time with Hawthorne and Cadence, who tried their best to distract her from bad thoughts. And sometimes she really managed to do it.

At the end of the second week, someone knocked on the door of room 85. Morrigan looked up from an old volume about the Wundersmiths of the past, which they "borrowed" from the Goblean Library.

"Come in!"

Lucas's tousled hair appeared in the doorway, he looked jubilant and a little excited.

"Hi!" - he quickly entered the room and closed the door behind him. - "I have news! While I really don't know if they will be useful and successful or not, but we won't know until we try" - he began to chatter, and Morrigan looked at him in bewilderment, not understanding what he was talking about. Although she didn't realize it, she held her breath, also feeling some excitement.

Seeing the girl's puzzled look, Lucas took a breath and explained.

"In short, I closed myself in the workshop for almost two weeks and tried to find a way to remove those strange bracelets. Besides, after that meeting in Parliament, I was able to examine them from a fairly close distance. And it seems to me that... I found a way to get rid of them. I assumed that, most likely, this invention operates on the basis of Wunder, which feeds it and thereby supports its work. The one who wears them, of course, will not be able to do anything against them, especially if this someone is a Wundersmith, since partial recharge will come directly from it. It's a brilliant idea, I have to admit" - Lucas added as he paced the Morrigan's room from side to side. - "So Maud didn't even have to give her Wunder much to keep these bracelets in good condition. It may also explain Miss Bauer's tired appearance and pallor. After all, in fact, they simply exhaust her, taking Wunder, but not to such an extent that she finally loses her strength, but enough so that she cannot resist. So that's what I'm saying all this to" - he looked at Morrigan with a burning look. - "These bracelets can be easily broken with the help of the same Wunder, but this effect should be external and quite powerful, but I think it should not be a problem for Wundersmith. Especially for Squall, I suppose".

"So you're saying that it's enough just to point the Wunder at these bracelets and they will break?" - Morrigan said.

"Yes, I believe that this will happen from excessive overload. They just might not be able to withstand such a large amount of Wunder. That's all. So to speak, one fire drives out another fire" - Lucas let out a light laugh. - "But that's just my guess. Will it work or not..." - he shrugged. - "I could have come to this sooner if I had thought about it first, and not gone straight to the workshop. I just wasted my time".

Morrigan wouldn't have been able to say what came over her later, but she jumped out of bed and rushed to hug Lucas, almost knocking him down. After a moment, Morrigan moved away from him as quickly as she hugged him, slightly embarrassed. Lucas looked just as embarrassed and flushed.