Alice watched the su with Leona. They had travelled to the New ti and were hiking through one of the UNN’s great national parks, a forest with trees twice as wide as Leona was tall. The Goddess suddenly fell to her knees and threw up. “Are you alright?” Alice grabbed at the woman’s shoulders. This was the fifth time this hour.

  “Yes.” Alice said, her dress dirtied with pine needles. There was a differen her voice this time, the four times before, Leona was simply suffering. Now, her voice was steady as if she had set her mind. “tact Alsaria, I’ve worked it out.”

  Sara Daganhoff, Duchess Daganhoff as she was known ba the headquarters, got off the train at Arcadia. On one hand, there was some pride in the fact she was entrusted with this task, oher, how exactly was she supposed to find four sorcerers here? If there ever was a magi worth a grain of salt, there would be some way to tie him back to Arcadia, the pce had a popution of almost four million. It wasn’t so much a capital city for the magical world, as it was the eion, a school that had grown into a pound, then into a microstate and now a reised authority over its own piece of cy.

  Sara checked her notes o time as the final passengers disembarked from the blue and yellow Epan unity train. She had everything publicly accessible on Arcadia and everything privately accessible on Anassa; Arascus had even told her what sort of wihe woman liked to drink with her meals. Sara shook her head and marched from the grand train station.

  It was an odd building, the inal was obviously old. It had the tall walls of ly carved stohe pilrs and the statues that were in fashion a tury ago, and theher half of the building was a sheet of gss, held up by dark steel beams. Sara took a few mio look it, she was here a t journalist, she might as well look the part.

  Eventually, the fusion of tradition and modernity started to grate on her. One, she could take, this ungodly mix was simply awful to the eyes. A pilrs held up modern walkways of gss, statues of heroes from the Great War wore capes of fgs that didn’t eve back then. A circur portion that once would have held a circur clock was repced with a moderangur timetable. She sed her ticket a past the gates.

  Why did she even buy tickets? There wasn’t a guard in sight. She chuckled at that stupid thought. Of course there wouldn’t be guards about, what sort of criminal would be stupid enough to try and pull anything iion of mages?

  Sara saw her own refle in one of the gss panels and ed the creases from her clothes. White shirt, brown jacket over it, a skirt, tall boots, dark hair tied bato a tail. She even wore the hat of an airheaded journalist, the notebook in her hands, trio of pens in her chest pocket and backpaly added to the image. Sara took a breath a off towards the various guilds that resided in Arcadia.

  How difficult would the four students be to find? All Sara had was sketches drawn by Iliyal, of course an elf like him would turn to out to be artist, and a name: Eliza. The idiot did not even ask them for full names, he was so damn honourable he didn’t even ask Fer for them.

  What a cretin.

  Sara took a breath and thought for a moment how easy it would be if Leona was on her side. She would most likely stumble across the four in her first five minutes here. Now… Now though, where was she supposed to go? Eliza wasn’t a rare name in the slightest, every try in Epa had some form of Eliza about…

  She took a few long looks around and decided to start scouting. Journalist… journalist… maybe iigator was better? No… That would attract attention, iigators followed trouble, journalists followed their whims.

  Sara came across a group of students almost immediately, they were everywhere here. In pin uniforms with capes bearing their various school insignia. The colours were supposedly what kind of magic they specialized in, red for fire, blue for water, the usual. “Hello!” Sara said cheerfully. If there was ohing w under Iliyal had done for her, it was killed whatever sort of natural cheer she had. Arascus had only reinforced that idea.

  “Hello.” The students said oddly. It was a trio of young boys. Boys were good, these ones could not be any older than sixteen. Eveer, that meant they were inexperienced when it came to women and Sara had always sidered herself a charmer. “I…” The lead student, a tall boy with long hair. Sara batted her eyeshes.

  “I’m here on a story.” Sara said. “I’m from the Norjesk Rikkast.” Norje was one of the lesser known tries in Epa, not like the giants of Rancais and Doschia, it only had five million people across the whole try.

  “Oh.” The boy said awkwardly, a blush rising into his cheeks as Sara brushed her arm past him. A touch here, a giggle there and men would melt.

  “We’re doing a report on Arcadia, it’s all very hush-hush, you know.” Sara said with angle. “So I’d rather my story not get leaked out.”

  “No worries whatsoever!” One of the boys said.

  “Could I take for you an interview? I’ve not…” Sara gave them a stupid smile. Iliyal and Arascus would have seen through it immediately but they weren’t men, one was an a elf, the od. If she ever mao bend Iliyal, she would sider herself equal to the Goddess of Love. “Well, to be ho with you, they just sort of sent me off here to see the sites and write about, we want to get into the history of Arcadia.”

  “I know a café nearby!” The shortest of the three boys said with far too muthusiasm. Sara had caught them hook, line and sinker.

  “That would be great!”

  Leona fell ain. “Are you hurt?” Alice burst out. They were camping in the soce of nature.

  “Here.” The Goddess brought out her own phone as she rolled onto her side through heavy breathes. “Ring Essa, tell her to go to Anassa right now. And to stay there.”

  Sara finished her coffee and blew the three boys a kiss. They turned crimson and almost ran out of the café. Some things that only she could do: They had told her all about Arcadia, the locations of the various schools and even knew some of the best in the school. There was some Fleur Ambelee who arently the school beauty, although she was untouchable by the likes of them. Another youth called Lyca Myklos who she was to avoid. The boy was uable in the arena and he frequently liked t fights out of it too.

  More importantly, one of the boys had given her his map. His phone number was written down on the back, then scratched out, then written again. How bold of him. She sipped the rest of her coffee. Coffee was always good, especially when someone else paid for it, and stared at the map. What a find! It had everything!

  The various administrative buildings, the schools, the arenas, the live-magic exercise areas. She might visit them ter if she had the time. And it had the hidden gem of them all, Essa’s Gardens and the building that y within it: The Divine Library.

  Iliyal had mentio before, and if Iliyal had mentio, that meant it could be a lead. Sara stood up, pulled out her notepad, scrawled some miseous information as a cover, a off.

  “What do you want?” Anassa said to Essa.

  “I ’t visit my sister?”

  “You’re the sibling who sold the family name.”

  “It’s a pleasure as always Ana.”

  Sara sat in Essa’s Divine Gardens and swung her feet off a bench. Apparently it had been blessed by Goddess Essa, of Magic, four hundred years ago. How very iing. Sara scratched it down on her notepad as she watched the Divine Library.

  It was an old building, pletely of a different style thahing else she had seen. High peaked towers and tless windows, all dark stone and without aering it. Sara wondered why no oered or left the building, if it was a Divine Library, shouldn’t it be getting used all the time? What sort of knowledge did it hold? Sara sighed as the sun started to go down. The park cleared, there were no guards, not a soul as Arcadia quietened down for the night.

  For all the talk of mages, Sara was not impressed with them whatsoever. She had seeuation at other pces of education with students partying day and night, with music bring from every window, with every substan Erda being taken out in the open. She had frequently recruited members there too, there was no one more susceptible to the cause than a student with a life aimless, a mind intelligent and a heart passionate.

  And then Sara had visited Arcadia. Here, the girls quietly talked about the lectures, the boys blushed and turned away when Sara so much as g them. All talk was of theory and philosophy and morality and the thing they all most enjoyed doing was sitting in their sad little dorms and reading their sad little books. She had visited one of the live-magic grounds and watched from a distance, even that, ohe awe of seeing magi real life had passed, was a sad dispy.

  It had merely been a lesson were a bunch of hydromancy students were learning on how to make water rise from the ground and then l it again. Sara sighed and decided that for all the talk of power, of swallowing cities into the earth, ref mountains and turnis into jungles, mages were very b.

  And so she sat and waited. She looked around as the sky turned purple in the brilliant su. She sat and waited as a gardener came, waved his finger and a bush sprouted flowers. He didn’t so much as cast a look at her. She sat and waited as the gardener left. She sat, she waited, and she decided she was doting and waiting.

  Sara sat up and marched to the door of the Divine Library. If it was locked, that would answer her question but she simply would not believe that these bookworms would not venture here. She looked around, there was no one around, aed the door. It swung open.

  Sara stepped in, she knew she had a foolish grin but why hide it? It was this easy? Were these mages stupid? Did all the books make their minds sloould they…

  Sara’s grin fell of her face immediately.

  Standing past the tless bookshelves, oop of a wide, red-carpeted staircase that could have been lifted from a pace, where two women. They were obviously unhappy with each other and they were tall. The only other person Sara had seen of a simir height was Arascus. The thought entered her mind immediately as the two women turned and cast freezing gres at Sara.

  Divines.