Twilit Mage

Chapter 36: Detention

"I see."

That was all Georgiana said, her only response to Mercury's entire story. Her expression was blank, her voice unreadable. She wasn't looking at Mercury; her eyes were fixed on something only she could see, thoughts seeming to move through her head too quickly to read and grasp for anyone but her.

Mercury squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Her fingers automatically sought out the hem of her shirt. Was Georgiana judging her? Suspecting her? Was she about to jump to her feet and leave her, declaring that she'd never help someone like her?

But Georgiana didn't move from her seat, simply gazing on and on as she drummed her fingers on the library desk in front of her. Then a flash crossed her face, and her expression changed; her fingers stopped drumming and started drawing moves into the air, almost as if she was playing an invisible game of chess. "A strange constellation," she muttered at last. "Very strange...I think I can combine it into a story somewhat, or rather, several possible stories. I still need several crucial pieces to fully make sense of the story."

Mercury tensed up. "What do you think?"

"As I said, several possibilities." Georgiana continued to draw patterns into the air as she spoke, as if visualizing everything in her mind. "What they all have in common is that someone seems to want our community to hate Twilit Mages and believe they are dangerous Light Mage spies, for a reason that's up to anyone's guess."

"I figured," Mercury said with a nod. "What else?"

Georgiana sighed in a way that made it all too clear that she didn't like not knowing everything at all. "Well," she said, "this is where it becomes unclear. We do not know who does it, why, or how much. But we can safely say that Raoul Warden was linked in some way to the airport explosion– I said linked, not responsible for," she added with a pointed glance at Mercury's face. "And there is a good chance that your meeting with him was staged and no coincidence. Someone definitely wanted you and him to meet and become friends before coming to this school."

Mercury swallowed. She had considered that possibility before, of course. But hearing it from someone else still came as a slap in the face.

"But who?" she whispered. "And why?"

"That beats me. It could have been Raoul Warden himself. It could have been someone well-intentioned. Or it could have been the same person who has been trying to make you both appear suspicious." Georgiana shrugged, a gesture that didn't fit her at all. "Ask Raoul if he knows anything. If his body language tells me anything, he's definitely hiding more than he has told you."

Coming from Georgiana's mouth that sounded a hundred kinds of wrong, but Mercury restrained herself. No use lashing out at her and getting kicked out of the library or scolded by the librarian. "Okay," she forced out. "But...you don't think it was him, do you?"

"I'm trying hard not to think anything. I do know that he is a suspect, but so are several others." Georgiana closed her eyes. "Ms. Solstice especially...She has been acting very suspicious since the incident last night."

"You mean how she got nicer?"

"Nicer, more unwilling to interact with you, unable to look you in the eyes. But even during that incident...it's unfitting for an award-winning alchemist to declare you a traitor when you showed every sign of being drugged and hypnotized, don't you think?"

Mercury paused. She hadn't thought of that before, but Georgiana was right. And...

"And she hates me too," she added hastily. "I'm not sure if it's because I'm Twilit, but why else should she hate someone she never met before? So if she hates me for being Twilit and wants me to look like a spy..."