The Teacher

Trial

Finn watched as Elizabeth finally seemed to come back to herself. The last person in the clearing to do so, and the angriest based on her facial expression. Finn contained her smile, it was a petty thought that made her cherish the memory of watching Elizabeth get broadsided by Drake's command, and it had no place here, but it was what it was. Finn made sure not to meet Elizabeth's gaze. 

Gloria, still quivering and looking pointedly away from Drake, set her hand on the book in front of her. Amahle, Pietro and Galina each gave themselves one final visible shake and then turned to stare at Elizabeth.

"At what point did you set out to begin making the Fountain of youth?" Pietro asked.

"Wait, what do I do?" Gloria asked, her eyes wide and scared.

As Elizabeth cackled madly - Finn began to grow concerned about her sanity after being hit with Drake's voice - Amahle turned to face Gloria, a look of embarrassed shock on her face. "I'm sorry, I forgot to explain this part to you. You are, essentially, the lie detector when someone won't drink the potion. If we ask you to go into more details then you can check the Chronicle for that as well."

Finn piped up from behind Gloria. "Basically you speak when spoken to for tonight." Amahle glared at Finn, and she just smiled back patiently before she spoke up. "And tonight, I'm here in case anything attacks. I'm your security tonight."

Gloria looked over her shoulder at Finn, a look of concentration on her face that Finn found inscrutable. After a moment Gloria nodded to Finn, then turned and nodded to Amahle. "Thank you, I'm sorry I interrupted."

"Answer the question then Elizabeth. When did you decide to start making the Fountain of youth?" Pietro reminded the woman on trial. Finn turned to watch her. Elizabeth had been the head of enough of these trials she knew her magic wouldn't work right now. She would even know the mechanism that blocked her, and it had nothing to do with Finn or any other single witch in the area. Elizabeth had to have known that she could end up on trial at some point, making this artifact was one of the most illegal things anyone could do. In the wrong hands the Fountain was as much a weapon of mass destruction as any missile.

As Elizabeth spluttered and denied, Amahle and Pietro working together to try to coax her into honesty, Finn spread her awareness of magic out like a blanket. There was nothing in the area by way of spells or runes or potions that had been set to a command word. Nothing remotely targeting the area, which would have been typical for an air elemental witch. Finn frowned and started listening to the conversation. Gloria seemed to be not paying attention at all as she flipped through the Chronicle in front of her.

"As I keep telling you, I understand that it looks like I was trying to make a Fountain of Youth, but there is another, similar artefact that I was trying to create. It has a completely different use and I was simply doing it to see if I could. It was a challenge to keep my mind sharp. Dementia is no joke."

Finn waited for someone to call bullshit on the woman, but no one looked to Gloria and she was frowning at the book, glancing up, and then back to the book. Finn watched Elizabeth until Gloria stepped away from the book and moved towards a spot across the circle from Elizabeth. Everyone stopped to stare, and Finn moved to guard the young woman. Gloria, for her part, was absolutely focused on the tree she was standing in front of. Finn was about to interrupt whatever trance she was in to pull her back to the trial, when she reached up and pointed at a knot in the tree just out of her reach.

"Finn, that's some sort of laser, camera, thing." Gloria rolled her hand as though she could grasp the word if she just kept trying hard enough. Finally she shook her head and looked at Finn. "Can you do something about it?"

"I don't know anything about those." Finn said. Behind her she heard Pietro move forwards. "I don't know who would."

"What's it connected to?" Pietro said and Finn stepped aside so the two younger people could take a look. After a moment they found the wires and traced those. Elizabeth railed silently against the spell that Galina held her in. Finn stayed close, hoping there wasn't much attached to the wire. She would guard, that was her job, but she didn't want to push herself harder than she had to.