Though he looked calm, I could sense something bubbling beneath the surface. It wasn’t anger... Rejection, maybe? Hurt? In any case, I must have been to blame. My memories of him were completely intact... right? The more I thought about it, the more it felt like something important was missing.
Ferdinand turned on his heel, about to return to his hidden room. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab him—to ask what I’d done wrong—but instead just watched as he took his leave.
I squeezed my eyes shut as Angelica took me in her arms.
Once again, I awoke to the most wretched pain. I muttered a few curses at the divine power swelling in my chest, then asked Gretia to help me change. We would perform our large-scale healing immediately after dinner.
Time seemed to pass in an instant, and it wasn’t long before I arrived at the hall containing Alexandria’s foundation. Ferdinand was carrying me. We’d entered through a door in the aub’s room that only the aub’s key could open.
“I thought only the aub was supposed to come here...” I said.
“You are correct, but I cannot leave you on your own when we are about to drain your mana. I also hold the key we used to get here—the one I took from Detlinde. If not even that convinces you, then you would do well to remember that, at least in terms of mana, I am the current aub of Ahrensbach, not you.”
Indeed, that peculiarity and my divine power were the reason I couldn’t carry out my duties as aub. Only by performing our large-scale magic with the foundation as its center would we both drain my mana and redye me.
“Ferdinand, have you not considered taking the role of Aub Alexandria?” I asked, kneeling before the white branch that had already been put in place. “You could make the laboratory of your dreams.”
“There is no need. You have already agreed to make it for me, have you not?”
“Yes, but you could turn Alexandria into a city of research!” I exclaimed. “What happened to your ambition? Your desires? It feels like I’ve become the new Lord of Evil...”
“Is that so?” Ferdinand replied, his lips curling in a nefarious smirk. “My desires have a greater hold on me now than ever before.”
“Wait... Are you scheming to take over my city?! To bring all the books in the world to one place so you can add them to your collection?! How dastardly!”
“Do not project your own ridiculous desires on me.”
Huh? But... doesn’t everyone dream of conquering all the libraries in the world...?
“Ridiculous” or not, I wouldn’t be deterred. As one of my first acts as the new Aub Alexandria, I would ask Eglantine for transcriptions of everything being moved from the palace library to the Royal Academy.
“To achieve what I desire, I must first rid you of that divine mana,” Ferdinand said. “Let us begin.”
I realized then that he had made the last of our preparations while we spoke. I touched the plate-shaped feystone, which shone with rainbow light, and channeled my mana into it. Liquid rose from its surface until it resembled a water mirror.
The water stopped just before it could run over, and Erwaermen’s pure-white branch turned a rainbow of colors. Once it was fully dyed, a pillar of omni-elemental light shot up toward the ceiling.
That light should turn into a circle that covers all of Alexandria, but...
Inside the foundation’s hall, there was no way for us to check. Or so I thought. The water began to waver, and a view of the outside appeared on its surface. Had the light passed all the way through the castle?
“Ferdinand, this is—”
“Focus. The circle is not yet complete.”
“Right.”
The mirror went from showing a mass of nobles in the castle, raising and waving their schtappes, to the brightly lit Noble’s Quarter, the commoners’ lower city, and the pitch-dark ocean. The latter was only dark at first, of course; the rainbow light soon reached its surface, revealing an expanse of swaying waves.
I was starting to wonder how far the light would take us when it arrived at the border gate nearest to the country gate. Strahl and the other knights stationed there were gawking straight at us.
“They must see the magic circle being drawn in the sky...” Ferdinand mused. “Their expressions are rather foolish.”
“Were I in their shoes, I’d probably look even dumber.”
“Indeed.”
Could you at least pretend to disagree?
The water mirror passed the awestruck knights to show us Erwaermen’s branch sitting inside the border gate. Then it returned to the sky. The heat within me faded a little as the circle continued to stretch across Alexandria, draining more of my mana in the process.
“Where is it going this time?” I asked.
“To the Dunkelfelger border gate, most likely. It is closer than the others.”
Eckhart and several other guards were stationed there. Would we see them stare at us with funny looks on their faces? I certainly hoped so, but they weren’t the only ones at the gate; Dunkelfelger’s knights had rushed to the forefront of the group and were enthusiastically thrusting their fingers up at the sky. Eckhart was doing his best to stop them from touching Erwaermen’s branch.
Aah... Of all the gates, this one might be the hardest to protect. Godspeed, Eckhart.
I couldn’t help but laugh as the light moved on to the next gate. More of my mana was sucked out, and the hunger I was feeling transformed into starvation. My head started to spin.
“We must be approaching Old Werkestock,” I said, trying not to think about my health.
“Most likely. Laurenz and the others are protecting that branch. It will not be particularly exciting.”
“Can we expect to see knights from Old Werkestock?”
Ferdinand shook his head. “I closed the gate when placing Erwaermen’s branch. You will reopen it with Lord Trauerqual after the Archduke Conference, when he has been made the new Aub Werkestock.”
In hindsight, closing the gate made perfect sense. Some of Old Werkestock’s nobles had participated in the invasion of Ehrenfest, and those who had supported Georgine and Detlinde had gleefully obstructed Ferdinand while spreading unpleasant rumors about him.
Oh, it’s Laurenz.
He and several other knights were in a dark, barely lit room, standing in a protective circle around their branch of Erwaermen. As they looked up at us, their faces showed not jaw-dropping shock but admiration.
“No particularly embarrassing faces this time...” I sighed.
“The area around their gate has little in the way of obstructions. They must have an excellent view of the circle spreading across the sky.”
“Ah! One of the knights just started praying! I guess Hartmut’s lessons went a little too far...”
“They did not go far enough, in my opinion.”
No, no. This is plenty...
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, another branch appeared in the mirror, and the light returned to shooting through the sky. My mana was sucked out again, and the heat causing me so much discomfort vanished. It felt less like my fever had gone down and more like my mana was running so low that my body couldn’t produce any warmth at all.
But I can’t stop now.
We soon arrived at Frenbeltag’s border gate, where Matthias and some other guards were stationed. There were knights from Frenbeltag there too, but we weren’t welcomed with the same crazed enthusiasm we’d seen from Dunkelfelger. Instead, they stared up at the sky as if overwhelmed.
“That’s rare...” I said. “Matthias actually looks... proud.” Ever since the incident with his father, he’d spent his time frowning or wearing some other bitter, tortured expression.
“If you wish to see it become the norm, then become someone he can feel proud to serve.”
“Mm... That sounds tough. I don’t want him to be miserable, but I plan to devote all my time to overseeing my library and reading books. Um, all my time not spent carrying out my duties, of course.”
“Good grief...” Ferdinand uttered with a wry smile. “You never change, do you?” He turned to look at me, then took in a sharp breath. I was in such an awful state that not even he could mask his concern.
“We’re nearly done,” I said, stopping him when he reached out to check my temperature. Ehrenfest’s border gate was especially close to Frenbeltag’s, and it appeared in the water mirror before long. Cornelius was stationed there, to my understanding.
“Grandfather...?”
To my surprise, Bonifatius was at the gate. He had picked up Cornelius—an adult male and a knight at that—and was now swinging him about. It couldn’t have been as easy as he was making it look.
“I contacted Sylvester around noon,” Ferdinand explained, exasperated. “Bonifatius declared that he would watch our work from the border gate, since he was unable to attend the Royal Academy’s transference ceremony. I did not expect him to arrive in time. If nothing else, we were right to station Cornelius there; Bonifatius seems much too excited, and nobody else would have been able to contain him.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a scratchy croak. My dizziness got worse, and my breathing became so shallow that I actually had to focus on inhaling enough air. My hands and feet were going numb.
“Just a little longer, Rozemyne,” Ferdinand said. He was right beside me, but it sounded as though he were all the way on the other side of the room.
My vision blurred. We were in the final stretch. The light just needed to pass back over the dark waters and return to the castle. I tried to assure Ferdinand that I was fine, but my voice revealed the truth, and my hold on the feystone plate weakened.
“Rozemyne, lean against me if you must. Just keep your hands on the plate.”
Ferdinand sat beside me, placed a hand atop both of mine, and wrapped an arm around me as my body went limp. He was normally cold to the touch but now felt burning hot. My eyelids drooped, though I still clung to consciousness.