83
Sitting on his bed, back to the granite wall, Milo shuffled through the blueprints Mila and Selma had given him a few days before.
Frowning, he tried to visualize how to install them into their bodies.
Their idea was a good one, he thought.
It would resolve a lot of issues in the future if they needed to spend more time among mages in the outside world. Not that he wanted to. The more he thought about leaving the fortress, the more nervous he became.
Tania said he was a homebody.
She was right.
Still. To avoid suspicion, he might need to leave eventually. And maybe he’d have to fight beside other mages. Or his golems would. And they’d need to do so without raising too much suspicion.
One thing their search in the archives had proven was that dwarves were obsessed with hidden weapons. And not just blades.
Flamethrowers came in all sizes. So many that he regretted not registering them as pyromancers. It’d make his job easier.
It was too late now, though.
Mila might be the easiest to fake. Blasts of raw mana were almost indistinguishable from the raw mana ejected from mana rifles.
Selma was also fairly simple. The dwarves had, for a time, been deeply interested in lightning and how to manifest it. They’d stopped after pretty much every construct they built was made resistant to it.
That left Tania.
She was the challenge.
Geomancers used earth to pull out barriers or throw explosive stone blasts. Their grenades might fool mages most of the time, but she was supposed to be a rank 9, so she should have more than one trick up her sleeve.
She should also be able to manipulate stone and earth around her.
But there was nothing Milo could see which would do that.
He pursed his lips as he studied one of the blueprints, trying to remember if he had enough components to build it now or if it would go onto a list of future priorities.
His lip twisted into a wry smirk. He already had too many priorities.
The one at the forefront of his mind was to try and understand the Workshop more. It had grown with the Manufacturing Wing. And Selma and Mila had proven there was more in the archive than he could reasonably understand with a quick look himself.
What he needed was an assistant. An assistant who knew what was in there and how to use the Workshop’s capabilities in an holistic way.
He needed Fed.
That should be his first priority. But he kept getting derailed by small things.
The lack of materials was forcing him to waste time making more mods for rifles just to get the gold to buy materials. Some of which was being used to replace components he’d used to make the mods.
It was turning into a slow grind.
A knock on the door made him look up.
“Milo? Can we talk, please?”
Vesna.
He rolled his eyes and considered not answering. He really didn’t want to talk to her.
But he had no doubt one of her shadowy little mages had told her where he was. There was no hiding from her. Refusing to respond would only be petulant and childish.
“One second,” he called.
Then he rolled up the blueprints and carefully tied them up before tucking them under the bed. Not a great hiding place, but he doubted she was going to get on her hands and knees to look under his bed.
Sliding off the bed, he went to the door and opened it for her.
Milo and Vesna stood in the doorway, looking at each other. There was a static rift of distrust like another wall between their stares.
Behind her, the rank 10 mage leaned against the wall with a surly look on his face. He seemed impatient. Beside him, Selma was pressed almost shoulder-to-shoulder. She was looking down at her nails as though they were very interesting.
Milo broke the silence. “What do you want?”
“Umm...” Vesna looked down the hall. “To come in? Just me. No guards. Just me.”
“Alright.” He stepped back to let her in, then closed the door after giving Selma a nod which made her smile. “Take a seat, I guess.”
He had a small cushioned seat in the corner.
Vesna gave it a reluctant glance before she sat down. She smoothed her robes as she settled in. Appearances mattered a lot to her, he thought.
He flopped back onto his bed, deciding to recline into his pillow, with one leg up across his knee, hands behind his head.
A lazy and uncaring pose.
He was wearing only pants and a shirt, giving the impression of an uncouth and simple student.
He yawned. “Now what?”
As though he’d made an invitation for her to sleep with him, Vesna flushed brightly and wrestled with herself to suppress it. “I’m not going to play games anymore,” she said. “I want to talk about your situation.”
“My situation?” He kept staring at the ceiling. More particularly, at the vent. Behind the grille, he knew Click 3 was squatting motionlessly, recording everything.
“Yes. Your situation.” She tucked her hands together. “You’re in trouble, and you know it.”
“In trouble,” he repeated, as though it was something he hadn’t thought about. “I don’t see how. Unless they made classes mandatory, I think I’ll be fine. Ket didn’t tell me they were mandatory. Are they mandatory now?”
“You’re being obtuse.” Vesna sighed. “I know you’re not slow or stupid. Can you please do me the courtesy of treating me the same?”
He felt a little ashamed at her words, which was why she probably threw them at him.
Still, he didn’t show it.
He curled his bare toes and kept his gaze on the vent.
“Ah,” he said. “You’re talking about the Fergus thing. I don’t know why that’s so troublesome. He died while trying to steal something from the Vaults. That wasn’t my fault.”
“None of that means anything to the Paddstones,” she said.
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing that’s been for them?
It would have been better for them if Fergus had succeeded.
Then they could have returned what he’d stolen and punished him.
A light punishment, because it would have proven the Paddstones are superior to the Court’s security. But you interfered with that.”
Milo doubted the Paddstones would’ve handed back the Prime.
Which meant he doubted Vesna knew what Fergus had tried to steal.
“I did my duty,” he said casually. “Like anyone would have.”
“They want your head,” she said. “And they won’t rest until they get it.”
“You’re right.” He let himself grin. “That does seem a bit troublesome.”
“And now you have another problem.”
“I do?”
“You have me.”
“Really? You haven’t even bought me dinner yet.”
“Don’t be crass.” Vesna flushed again and rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean!”
“I don’t see why you’re a problem,” he said, curling his toes again. “I mean, you’re annoying, yes. But more like a bug than anything actually important.”
“I don’t like being compared to a bug.”
“Sorry,” he said, giving her a wave with his toes. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“No it’s not.”
“Well, it’s something like that.” He sighed. “What is it you want?”
“I’ve already told you. I want details about the core you sold.”
“And I told you I didn’t sell any core.”
“And we both know that’s a lie.” She took a deep breath.
“Milo, I know you don’t trust me. And you probably have good reason for that.
But I promise you, I don’t mean you any harm.
I don’t want to hurt you. If anything, my family is willing to protect you.
If we were any other family, we’d do things differently. ”
“Differently?” He closed his eyes. “You mean, like you’d try to kidnap me or something? Maybe use a rank 10 mage to suppress Tania long enough to drag me away?”
Her eyelids drooped as she peered at him thoughtfully. “Yes. We might have considered such things. I think you understand it’s important to have plans. But often those are for last resort and as a precaution.”
“Right.”
“Milo, you are trapped. You can’t stay in the Academy forever. Sooner or later, the Court will send you out into the world.” She kept her tone calm. “When that happens, they won’t be able to protect you. Not from the Paddstones. Nor from any other family who might want you.”
“Like yours?”
“Like mine,” she agreed tightly. “But it doesn’t have to be like that.
I wasn’t asking for you to submit to me.
Or serve me. I was asking for an alliance.
A friendship, even. I don’t understand why you’re so stubborn with me.
It’s true I bought the depleted cores partly to pressure you.
But that wasn’t the only reason. And besides that, I haven’t done anything directly against you. ”
He nodded along to her words.
Gently rocking his leg over his knee.
Thinking about the recordings he’d seen to her talking to her mages.
And of the frustration she felt with him.
Some of the things she’d promised to do to him weren’t very pleasant.
Which made her words difficult to believe. And difficult to trust.
An itch crawled between his shoulders. An itch he often felt when dealing with people. People were deceptive. They were entirely selfish. He couldn’t argue that he was any different.
But it made him suddenly think that his golems were nicer humans than the real thing.
He squinted up at his vent and smiled.
“Yet,” he said slowly. “You haven’t done anything directly against me yet.”