Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

52. Elaine and Minerva

Thankfully, the hallway of their dormitory was relatively empty, save for a few students—none that Fearne recognized from her homeroom class—stepping tiredly to their room or some faces poking past their door frames to see what all the commotion was about. Fearne paid them no mind, though. She sat with her back pressed against the wall and legs hunched to her breast, her arms bandaiding around them.

To her left, she could make out Kliff speaking with two men whom she usually saw manning the front desk. She overheard snippets of their conversation, words such as "vandalization" and "culprits" standing out amongst Kliff's rapid yet composed explanation. 

One of the men—who was the more vocal of the two and had asked the most questions—requested that Kliff elaborate more on the incident while the other hurriedly jotted down lines of scribbles in the notepad he was holding.

Meanwhile, in front of her, Custas was busy trying to scrub off the crimson paint smeared on the door, much to no avail. "Dammit!" he grunted, frustratedly wiping the damp rag round and around in a circular formation. "When I find the guys who did this, I am really...going to make fireboy teach them a lesson." 

Custas had succeeded at rubbing off the paint fifteen minutes prior, but as the door vanished in a puff of white smoke only to reappear shortly after, the paint, that word, was right where it had been as if nothing had ever happened to it.

Fearne had reflexively flinched the first time it had happened. It was like that sundering phrase—halfbreed—was teasing her, mocking the fact that, no matter how hard she tried or pleaded to Aeris, this was a truth she could never escape from. A truth that Glyph Academy had absorbed. She didn't know how her life would change going into the future, just as she feared that more incidents such as these would be repeated in due course.

She hadn't told her mothers; that probably wouldn't have been the best call to make. Given how overprotective they were, she could picture them storming through the academy's entrance doors and proceeding to strangle the life out of any and every student in their way. They might be Medical Mages, but they were still Professional Sorcerers, mages that shouldn't be crossed.

The creaking of wood alerted Fearne of Kliff's approach. There was a look of dissatisfaction burned on his face. "Well, I just finished reporting the whole thing," he grunted. "They haven't seen anything, neither did the two on the shift before them. Whoever did this, they're a crafty bastard." Another curse from Custas caused Kliff to stare at him with irritation. "Give it a rest, will you? The paint's obviously enchanted to some capacity. It'll take more than a rag and a bucket of water to snub it out for good."

"Oh, well, excuse me for trying!" Custas snapped, stepping off the stool he'd found in a storage room and throwing the rag into a pail beside him with a plop! "We can't keep it looking like this! It's humiliating!"

"I've already taken care of that," Kliff sighed. "Those two just now are on their way to fetch an enchanting specialist at the Gray Cage. Should return within an hour or so. He'll be able to erase this, as well as he might be able to detect who was responsible for this mockery." Kliff stepped closer to the door with a hand held to his lower jaw. "Hmm, it's crassly made, which tells me that our culprit was in a hurry, probably fearful of getting caught in the act."

Custas rolled his eyes. "Meaning?"

"Meaning," Kliff continued flatly, "that the odds of them being a student have just increased significantly. Perhaps they're even in this very dormitory."

"None of that crap matters if we can't find them," Custas grunted, scratching the nape of his neck. "Hey, Fearne. Where the heck did Elaine run off to?"

"Yeah," Kliff said, turning to face her with a quizzical stare. "Haven't seen her since dinner."

"Oh, well, she...she said she had to go take care of something important," Fearne said hastily. "I'm sure she'll be back any minute."