Lucky Rabbit

Pandy had spent hours poring over zone maps from Gacha Love, including the ones for Condor, but she had no idea what to expect when they arrived at Falconet. Thaniel had fallen asleep some time ago, lulled by the movement of the carriage, and probably trying to escape Lian’s incessant quizzing. This left Pandy and Lian effectively alone together, but besides a few steely-eyed glances, Lian just focused on reading his book.

Today, it was Healers of the Dawn: Elemental Cleansing, a tome which made even Pandy yawn. The author was a firm believer that Light was the best form of magic, and the book was filled with supercilious comments about what other mages - and especially those unlucky few without magic - owed the only healers who could cure spiritual wounds and illnesses caused by Dark magic.

Without Light mages, the author claimed, the kingdom, and perhaps the world, would have fallen to demons and undead long ago. This completely ignored the fact that hundreds or thousands of other mages - including Dark mages - had been on the front lines of more than one war, giving their lives to protect the common citizens. Given the speed with which Lian was turning the pages, he’d either read the book several times already, or agreed with Pandy’s opinion of the work.

As Pandy tried to decide whether she should pretend to sleep or just give in and stare out the window, the constant sound of the earth passing beneath the wheels of the carriage changed, and her decision was made. Shifting over to Thaniel’s other leg, she braced her front paws on the sill of the small window and stared outside.

Each time she’d done this before, she saw trees and fields, broken only by the occasional fence or farmhouse off in the distance. Cows, goats, and chickens watched them pass with palpable indifference, but a few dogs had chased them, barking with great enthusiasm. Only once had they passed another carriage, and they’d gone around a few slow-moving farm wagons hauling hay or produce to wherever hay and produce went.

Now, however, buildings sprang up around them, not yet standing in tight quarters, but already beginning to tuck in their elbows so they didn’t knock over their neighbor’s tea. Most of the buildings looked like shop-fronts, but each was at least two stories tall, and flowerpots in upper-level windows and laundry lines strung between buildings said that the shopkeepers probably lived up there.

After a quarter mile or so, these tidy stores gave way to a mixture of cramped houses and small stands without the residence overhead. People were everywhere, bustling from home to work, or chatting in front of houses that were almost as small as Pandy’s old apartment. Still, the streets were clean, and no one looked overly dirty or frightened, so if there was a slum in the city, this wasn’t it. There were only a few streets actually mapped out in Gacha Love, and none of these matched Pandy’s memory of those places, either. Which made sense, really, since all of those places were near Condor, which was close to the center of the city.

Beneath her paws, she felt Thaniel’s leg move, and she barely managed to avoid being dumped on the floor when he shifted, then yawned. “Lian? Are we there?” he asked, before noticing Pandy desperately clinging to the windowsill. Small hands clasped her ribs, but to her relief the boy didn’t try to pull her back. Instead, he leaned forward until his nose pressed against the window. “Is this Knightmere?”

Lian moved behind them, but neither Pandy nor Thaniel turned to look at him. They were too fascinated by the increasingly large buildings around them. Pandy was fairly certain they’d entered an industrial area, though the smoke that billowed up from the expansive, often windowless buildings was a pure, clean white, without the black or gray particles that would have stained the sky in her own world. Magic was a wonderful thing.

“This is where many of the things we take for granted are made,” Lian said, confirming Pandy’s guess. “Fabrics, furniture, paper, rope, glass, even low-grade magical devices like tubes that can suck dirt into disposable bags, and boxes that can capture images to be viewed later. Many common mages find work here, using innate magic that can be cast without the help of elementals.”

“Why don’t they have elementals?” Thaniel asked, turning to glance back at Lian.

Lian made a noncommittal noise. “First, you must know how to summon an elemental, and then it has to choose to serve you. The simplest elementals will work for almost anyone, so long as that person offers them something they want, but for high-level magery, you need high-level elementals, and they are very selective.”

Thaniel was quiet for a while, though Pandy was fairly certain this wasn’t actually new information to him. “What happens if someone can’t get a high-level elemental?”

Lian sighed softly, then patted Thaniel awkwardly on the shoulder. “I was worried about the same thing when I started school. It will be fine, though. Once your magic has been revealed, you’ll learn exactly how to summon the right elementals, and how to get them to stay with you. Father and Mother were both powerful mages, so I’m sure you’ll be able to draw a third-tier elemental at least.”

Thaniel’s fingers tightened around Pandy, though it wasn’t painful. “Daddy didn’t have an elemental.”

“He…did,” Lian answered, sounding reluctant. When Pandy looked back at him, she saw that he was looking out of the opposite window, but she could see a bit of his reflection. His eyes were dark, his mouth pinched, and he looked almost haunted. “Legal Dark mages are only allowed first and second tier elementals. That’s part of their oath to the crown. Third tier Dark elementals are considered too dangerous, so no one is even taught how to summon them, much less bind them.”

“Did Mommy have a third tier elemental?” Thaniel asked, and Pandy could see much of the tension in Lian’s shoulders drain away. The older boy turned back to Thaniel, meeting Pandy’s eyes before she could turn back to the window. His brows lifted, but he didn’t glare as he would have only a few weeks ago.

“You don’t remember?” Lian asked.

Thaniel abandoned the window, which only showed one blocky, looming building after another. He frowned as he tried to think. “Was it a girl?”

Lian smiled, and it actually looked genuine for once. “A Flarewing. Fourth tier. Their mere presence prevents illness and things like harmful molds, and they can reveal demonic influence. Mother’s was named Flit.”

Thaniel shook his head, releasing Pandy to press one hand to the spot where scar tissue lay beneath his shirt and jacket. “Did Flit…die?”

Smile fading, Lian stretched out his own hand, as if he would pull Thaniel’s hand away, but stopped before touching his brother. “Elementals rarely die, but when their master or mistress passes on, they’re freed from their bond. When Mother- Flit hasn’t been seen since the accident.”

Thaniel’s lips shaped into a soundless ‘oh’, but the conversation ended there when the carriage jerked rather abruptly to a halt. Horses whinnied outside, and the three passengers could hear the sound of hooves stamping on stone in annoyance. Lian held up a hand to halt Thaniel’s questions, then opened the door and leaned out to call to the driver. “What’s going on?”

There was suddenly a fair amount of noise outside, including several raised voices, but Pandy’s long ears were able to pick out, “-wagon. Can’t…past…wait.”

“Can’t you go around?” Lian asked, opening the door further so he could stand up and look down the street.

There was a lull in the shouting, and this time the driver’s answer was clear. “This’s the main road. The others aren’t meant for passenger vehicles. We’d just get stuck behind someone picking up cargo. We could have turned back at Elderbloom Crescent, but-” Even more voices were raised in anger outside, and Pandy flinched at some of the words that were being thrown about. If she’d had hands, she would have put them over Thaniel’s ears, but a glance upward revealed that it was too late, since his eyes were huge and shining with interest.

“Curse it,” Lian muttered as he sat back down and pulled the door shut. “Someone tried to bring an overloaded wagon through here, even though this road is meant for carriages and coaches. Of course it was going too slowly, and someone tried to go around, which resulted in a collision. Now there are crates of broken pottery covering the road. It’ll take hours to clear, unless someone gets a halfway decent Earth mage down here.”

Thaniel bit his lip. “We don’t have that long, do we? You have to get to Kestrel before dark.”

Lian tapped his fingers on the cover of his thick book for several seconds, then nodded sharply. “I hate to do it, but we’ll have to ask for help.” He lifted his fingers, murmuring something too quietly for even Pandy to understand. A spark appeared, balancing on the end of his forefinger, and Lian blew on it gently, making it brighten noticeably.

“Find Edgar and bring him here,” Lian said, enunciating carefully. If Pandy actually breathed, she would have stopped, and her mind locked up at the name. Fortunately Thaniel had no such problem.

“Who’s Edgar?” he asked, staring as Lian opened the door so the little spark could fly out.

Lian’s mouth pinched. “The least annoying of a group of idiots,” he told his brother, then quickly added, “but don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Pandy had a pretty good idea who that ‘group of idiots’ was, since Killian had canonically been good friends with the four male love interests up until his brother died. So, now-ish. But since Thaniel was still alive, presumably Lian’s friendship with the four had survived as well, which meant Edgar had to be that Edgar: Edgar Ashford, Lord Ashford, eldest son of Marquess Ashford, and arguably the best-looking of an extremely handsome quartet.

They sat in the carriage while people shouted, horses whinnied, and more carriages piled up behind them, adding to the cacophony. Several times they could hear posh-sounding people berating the drivers of the overturned vehicles, but no one seemed willing to actually help, at least as far as Pandy could tell, given that her view  was mainly limited to the side of the building next to which they’d stopped.

Lian returned to reading his book, but Thaniel couldn’t seem to sit still. He switched from one bench to the other several times, and even opened his door before Lian sharply told him to close it again. “Just sit down and wait,” Lian finally said, after several such migrations and an attempt to see if the window opened. It did not.

“But I want to see,” Thaniel said, batting the thick black lashes that surrounded his brilliant blue eyes. How a child with such blond hair came to have those lashes, Pandy didn’t know, but it was just another example of the unfairness of the universe. Or perhaps the unfairness of the graphic artists who designed the characters in Gacha Love.

Though, was there an image of Nathaniel Conroy on a server somewhere, created to be utterly angelic, but never actually used in the game? There was an art book that Pandy had never managed to get her hands on, though a few of the images were available online. The book itself was a limited edition that had been given out to a lucky few at the Consumer Electronics Show when Gacha Love was unveiled. It was entirely possible that Thaniel’s picture was in it somewhere.

Lian drew in a long breath through his nose, then blew it out slowly between pursed lips. “We’ll be on our way as soon as-”

A sharp rap on the door was followed by someone opening it. The little spark entered, circling Lian’s head twice before he put up his hand and it alit on his forefinger. He blew on it again, and it brightened, then vanished when Lian murmured something beneath his breath.

A head poked in through the door, and Pandy nearly swooned. Edgar wasn’t as chiseled and polished as he would become in three years, but there were the rich, wavy chestnut hair, the melting brown eyes, and, best of all, the round glasses that transformed him from merely handsome to stunning. Pandy would never understand what it was about wire and glass that could have such an effect, but it was very real, and Edgar had it in spades. Of course, he was also currently fourteen years old, so Pandy firmly put all thoughts of his future appearance from her mind.

Those brown eyes quickly skimmed over Thaniel and Pandy, then landed on Lian. Edgar’s straight, serious brows rose, and he said in an almost accusatory tone, “What in the world happened here, Killian, and what do you expect me to do about it?”

Lian’s blue eyes narrowed in response, but he said, “I’m calling in the favor you owe me for helping you in Combat Arts last year. I’m taking my little brother to Falconet, and I won’t make it back to Condor in time for dinner at this rate.”

Edgar softened slightly. “I heard about your father. I believe I even sent you a letter, though I never received a response.” This time only one brow lifted, and Lian actually shifted beneath his friend’s gaze.

“Things were…hectic,” Lian said finally. “Now are you going to help, or not?”

Edgar folded his arms across his chest, but, seeing that Lian had nothing further to add, finally said, “I’ll help, but this will leave me short for the rest of the semester.”

Lian snorted. “Short for you is an abundance for anyone else.”

Edgar’s fingers tapped on his upper arm. “And?”

“And…thank you,” Lian said reluctantly, making Edgar grin so broadly that Pandy almost blanched beneath the brilliance of it. How could someone’s teeth be so perfectly straight and white?

“That’s more like it. Now wait just a moment, and I’ll take care of everything,” Edgar said, stepping back and letting the door close.

Thaniel stared at the space where the other boy had been as renewed shouting rose outside. Then there was a sudden shift in the energy of the voices, and several of the people who had been standing around, watching the mayhem as if they wished they had some popcorn to eat, suddenly hurried forward, vanishing from sight.

“Does he have some kind of powerful elemental?” Thaniel whispered, eyes huge as the sounds outside became abruptly focused and organized.

“No,” Lian said, settling back against the bench and lifting his book in front of his face. “Something better. Edgar has money.”