Post Tenebras Lux

Diaboli Negotium

Two days had passed since Anne had gone missing, and Aelin noticed Sebastian's increased irritability. Her and Ominis could barely speak to him without setting him off, so she tried not to be the one to start a conversation with him.

Ominis still hadn't heard back from Marvolo, and Evangeline hadn't been seen since Anne's disappearance. They worked on a plan to either trick Marvolo into showing his cards, or manipulate Evangeline into giving them information. Too bad neither of them could even be contacted.

Ominis and Aelin sat at breakfast with Sebastian, who was in a particularly volatile mood that morning.

"Aelin...that shadow magic you learned...can you manipulate the shadows and use them for investigation purposes?" Ominis asked.

Sebastian scoffed before Aelin could reply. "Oh, so we're condoning the use of shadow magic now, Mr. Don't-use-dark-magic?"

Aelin glared at him, but ignored his statement and replied to Ominis. "Well, I've never tried it before. Maybe there's something in the spellbook about it. I can check."

Ominis simply nodded.

There was a lingering silence before Sebastian spoke up a second time. "We've been sitting around for too long. Anne is still missing, and we have no idea what we're going to do to get her back."

"We can't just run in without a plan, Sebastian."

Aelin nodded in agreement. "Ominis is right, Seb. It's too risky to rush into anything."

"Well sitting here on our asses isn't productive." Sebastian spat.

She was used to Sebastian speaking to her with total disdain due to their entanglement when she first returned, but she didn't expect him to take that same tone with her now.

Aelin's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but then abruptly closed it.

She silently stood from her seat and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Sebastian asked.

"To be productive." She said sharply.

Aelin walked away, leaving Sebastian and Ominis in the Great Hall.

~~~

Aelin went back to her room and pulled the shadow arts book out from under her bed. She started at the beginning, reading over each page to look for some kind of spell to help them. She had all day to search since it was a Sunday, so she remained in her room with her face glued to the spellbook.

Before she knew it, it was well into the early hours of the morning, and she hadn't found a single helpful piece of information.

Feeling frustrated and exhausted, she shoved the book back under her bed and tried to get some sleep.

Due to her lack of sleep, she opted to skip classes for the day. She wrote a quick note to Ominis to inform him that she wouldn't be around and asking him to let their professors know that she was under the weather. She considered sending the note to Sebastian first, but after his recent behavior, she decided that Ominis was a better pick.

Aelin fully understood Sebastian's anxiety over the disappearance of his twin. But he had no right to take his anger out on her and Ominis. She didn't even want to think about how much worse his comments would have gotten had she not walked out of the Great Hall when she did. She knew Sebastian too well, and knew that he never thought about how the words he spoke in anger impacted others until it was too late.

So she would avoid her so-called best friend for now. She knew she was capable of spitting the same nature of venom back at him when provoked, and didn't want to make things even worse. Once they got Anne back, things would go back to normal.