The Lone Wanderer

Nesha was sitting quietly next to her boss as the latter negotiated with the patriarch of House Oratio, who was in turn surrounded by two of his subordinates: both at Blue. Nesha was ready to answer any questions that the Veiled Lady might have, or interject in case the woman made a mistake, though they had already discussed their line of argument at length and agreed on their strategy, so it was unlikely to be necessary.

They were currently in Semjana’s office, her maids having served the powerful mages tea and refreshments that nobody had touched yet. The Veiled Lady repeatedly thrummed her midnight blue nails on the wooden desk, patiently waiting for the Violet to consider her offer. Every now and then, she paused to straighten the creases on her black dress.

“Lady Semjana, I’m afraid that your prices are simply outrageous,” the patriarch said, not bothering to hide his displeasure.

Some might consider his reaction relatively polite, given the difference in strength and status. House Oratio wasn’t necessarily a superior force to the entire Black and White Syndicate, but the Blue in charge of a single district couldn’t be compared to the leader of any noble family, let alone one affiliated with a Great House. The fact that the patriarch had travelled all this way: temporarily leaving his province without a Violet: to negotiate with Lady Semjana in person only proved how desperate he was.

The man had gained some weight around the waist since the last time Nesha saw him, the buttons near the bottom of his shirt looking like they were about to pop. Other than that, he had remained mostly unchanged. His short black hair was of the same shade as her own, which irritated her to no end. It couldn’t be helped. Their families were distantly related, which only made the bastard’s betrayal even more difficult to swallow.

Catching herself glaring at the Violet icily, Nesha averted her gaze. She’d worked too hard… prepared too much… pulled too many strings to create this opportunity, just to waste everything by losing control of her emotions. Thankfully, the patriarch was too engrossed in the conversation to notice, though one of the Blues was giving her a nasty look. Hopefully, he would think that she had simply found the Violet’s words offensive.

Nesha had asked Lady Semjana for permission to also wear a veil in the meeting, since she couldn’t risk the patriarch recognizing her too early. Technically, only the Veiled Ladies were allowed to wear them in Twilight City, but nobody besides her boss, the Violet, and his two subordinates would see Nesha like this. She doubted that the mages of House Oratio were familiar enough with the Syndicate’s rules to notice that something was off, plus none of this would matter about an hour later.

Either way, her boss had agreed without even questioning her reason, treating her like a daughter by now.

‘I’m sorry, Lady Semjana. I’m about to cause some trouble, but I swear I’ll make it up to you.’

“Eighteen gold coins per person, per day?! We’ve never had to spend more than three to cleanse our cores!” the Violet reiterated, oblivious to Nesha’s thoughts.

The Veiled Lady shook her head, clearly unwilling to budge. “Lord Oratio, I assure you that the price is more than fair. You can’t compare the Aurora Dew to the regular elixirs that you’re used to. Not only does a mage need to consume thrice as much to see the desired results, you also have to account for the losses in production. The average alchemist is unable to retain even half of the ingredients, so a sixfold increase in cost is the bare minimum. There’s still our profit margin to consider. The only reason we’re not asking for more, is because the price of regular elixirs has gone down slightly in recent years. If you don’t want to pay it, you can always buy directly from the Guild.”

The patriarch gritted his teeth, swallowing whatever he was about to say. Everyone in the meeting knew that this wasn’t an option for House Oratio. As a vassal family of House Asclepius, they had officially been banned from trading with the alchemists.

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Nesha tuned most of the conversation out, paying just enough attention to be able to answer if Semjana asked her something. She wasn’t too interested in whatever her boss and the patriarch agreed to, since she didn’t expect the terms of their deal to ever materialize.

While Nesha had been the one to suggest that Semjana sold elixirs to Machaon, so that she could gather some intel on the White’s movements, House Oratio had no place in that arrangement. Nesha had gone through the lengths that she had to drag the bastards here for a different reason.

“I’m glad that we were able to come to an understanding, Lord Oratio…” the Veiled Lady said after some back and forth, narrowing her eyes. “Before we shake on it, there’s one final thing that I have to ask: what is your family’s current relationship with House Asclepius? Please forgive my bluntness, but as a representative of the Syndicate, I need to at least know what I’m getting into.”

The patriarch’s features twisted into a grimace as a clearly unpleasant topic was brought up, though he forced his expression back into shape the following second. “Non-existent,” he said. “I was shocked and appalled by what Lord Asclepius did, so I immediately gave the order to cut all ties with him.”

‘A lie.’ Nesha didn’t even need her bloodline to tell her that. The snake had always been too much of a coward to even consider standing up to the Great House.

Now that Machaon had openly admitted to stealing the egg from the hive, House Oratio had no choice but offer the proper lip service officially, though Nesha didn’t doubt for a second that the Violet had been given explicit permission from the White to say what he had to, in order to get Aurora Dew for his family.

What gave Nesha the urge to chuckle was how squeamish Lady Semjana still was about potentially getting on Percy’s bad side. Nesha wanted to reassure the poor woman that her boyfriend wouldn’t care about something this minor. Hell, she had already discussed her plans with him and Micky and received their agreement. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say that without revealing her identity.

As soon as the Veiled Lady heard what she wanted from the noble, she assured him that she was going to have the paperwork sent to him by the end of the month, so that they could put everything in writing. Happy with that arrangement, the mages of House Oratio left, after which Nesha also excused herself to rush after them. Catching a glimpse of their shrinking backs, she confirmed which gate they were likely planning to exit the city from.

Going the opposite way to avoid being spotted, she circled around several blocks, taking one deep breath after the other to activate her boosting arts. It was the middle of the day, so the pristine white streets and buildings of the 45th district were buzzing with activity. It was arguably a bad place to use the Dance, though she didn’t have a choice. She needed the power of the Masterful spell to overtake her targets and prepare her traps.

Hoping that the concealment runes on her equipment would hide the most important details and that the passersby would be too taken aback and have too little time to examine her properly, she sprinted toward the gate she had singled out earlier.

Countless black orbs popped into and out of existence around her, shrinking and growing randomly. To an outsider, they might have looked like isolated pockets of ambient and space mana, but she knew that they were actually connected to the dark loops visible on her skin to form a giant circuit.

A faint metallic sheen coated her body from head to toe, thin enough that it didn’t inhibit her movements in any way. It helped her draw and accumulate earth and metal mana from the air, while the indigo bolts of electricity shrouding her did the same for lightning.

The electricity incinerated her clothes almost immediately, revealing her face and the tight-fitting chainmail that covered her entire body from the neck down. Its tiny links were made of a dark alloy: the very material that she had personally invented.

Space itself stretched and twisted around her as she moved, causing her figure to bend in odd ways and each of her strides to cross dozens of metres. It hopefully blurred her features enough to make it even harder for anyone to recognize her from the forgotten wanted posters, but Nesha was under no illusion that she would be able to keep her fake identity after today.

The city’s authorities would undoubtedly be alerted about the weird spatial mage doing even weirder things within minutes, and a thorough investigation would seal her fate by sunset.

It didn’t matter.

She just had to reach her destination before her targets, prepare her traps, do what she had to do, and get the hell out of here.