Marissa’s expression shifted to resolve, and she sat a little straighter after that.
And I turned toward Patrick. “And you saved her in turn. No one needs to regret getting involved. But I think Sera’s right.”
“Yes, Mizuchi was obviously holding back,” Elora waved a hand dismissively. “She could have just turned into a ten story tall serpent and rolled around on us if she wanted everyone in the room dead. That was a message, as she said in the beginning. But that group isn’t usually as messy about this sort of thing.”
“You’ve mentioned ‘that group’ a couple times now.” Keras adjusted his mask. It was strange to see it on him indoors. “Who are we dealing with? Tails of Orochi? No, I suppose it’d be the Scales of Seiryu if it was Mizuchi…”
“It’s neither. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about them.”
Keras frowned. “That’s what you’re going to be vague about? I think that’s pretty critical to this discussion.”
Elora sighed, then adjusted her necklace and pulled down the high collar of her dress to expose her throat.
There was a glowing runic mark on her neck. The source of that second aura I’d seen under her dress earlier.
I’d wondered why she had two magical items in the same spot. She didn’t — this was something different.
And the rune looked an awful lot like the kind of brand that Katashi had put on my hand. The kind that I’d been told could explode if I didn’t complete a certain objective in time.
“When I say I can’t tell you, I mean I can’t tell you.”
Keras leaned closer, narrowing his eyes. “Well.” His jaw tightened. “That changes things, now doesn’t it?”
The implication was fairly obvious, but I had so many questions.
But how does it —
Cecily leaned closer. “How does the mark work? Does it respond to certain words? Or is someone listening to your conversations to remotely activate it? Oh! What if we just asked you yes or no questions?”
I blinked at Cecily.
“I can’t discuss it.” Elora adjusted her dress and necklace, covering the mark. “Now you know there are some things I can’t talk about, however, and my reason for it.”
Cecily frowned. “Could you maybe just write down what your restrictions are? Then maybe we could find a work around.”
“It won’t work,” Sheridan explained. “She can’t talk about it, but I understand the general theory. Brands like that are designed to read your thoughts. Attempts to deliberately circumvent the brand will result in increasing levels of danger to the person with it.”
Elora nodded and made a gesture of thanks to her sibling.
“Okay,” Keras sighed. “So you can’t tell us about them, but this was apparently non-standard. Fine. Where can we get more information?”
“Tristan,” I offered. “He seemed to know about what was going to happen.”
“But, if Tristan really is alive, he’d be in the spire, right?” Patrick asked. “And we wouldn’t know where?”
“The latter portion is indeed a concern,” Elora replied. “I can get us inside, but I always used a Wayfarer to contact him once we arrived. That Wayfarer is now dead. It might be possible to locate him with a Diviner, but my Diviner is also dead.”
I winced at that, remembering what had happened when Saffron attacked. “I may be able to contact him if we get inside.”
“A ‘maybe’ isn’t good enough in this case. Even if you could get him a message, he may not be able to reply. Given how things have gone, I suspect he is no longer in the position he once was.” Elora replied.
“And that position is…?” Sera asked.
“I can’t talk about it.” Elora motioned to her neck.
Sera grunted in irritation. “Fine. Then we need a Diviner.”
“Even if you had one, I wouldn’t be interested in taking anyone into the spire right now. The situation inside has clearly changed, and that means it could be dangerous.” Elora shook her head. “Moreover, Corin described Mizuchi as having been banished. Is that right?”
“That’s the word that Vellum used,” I confirmed.
“When you banish a creature, it goes back to its home. For creatures like elementals, that means their home plane.”
“But for a spire monster,” Sheridan added, “That means their spire.”
“Meaning that Mizuchi is back home.” I nodded at the logic. “And if we go in there, she might come after us.”
“It’s a risk I wouldn’t want to take,” Elora explained, “Not unless there is no alternative. And I believe we can find several superior alternatives.”
Keras gave me an apologetic look. “You should probably just leave the country for a while.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
Elora turned to nod in agreement to Keras. “Even if Mizuchi leaves the spire again, I doubt she’ll leave Valia proper. I’ve never seen a spire monster go that far outside of their territory. Corin would likely be safer away from here.”
I shook my head. “Fleeing might save our lives, but it’s not going to actually solve anything. Other people are going to keep dying until we figure out what’s going on here.”
Sera turned toward me. “And you think we’re the best equipped to handle that? Aside from Mara, we got demolished when we tried to fight Mizuchi. And from what I hear, your fight with Saffron didn’t go much better.”
I made a noncommittal grunt in response.
“It’s not always about fighting,” Keras offered, surprising me. “But even if what you’re pursing is a diplomatic solution, you’d probably be better off waiting. Leave for a few months. Let the monsters lose your trail. In about two weeks, I should be able to get us some help.”
He gave me a meaningful look.
Meaning that he can leave the country and get equipment?
Oh, no, he’s talking about the Jaden Box.
When I’d first picked up the box, the documentation had said that it would take about two hundred days to recharge. It had been a lot less than that.
When I’d used it to try to summon Keras, I’d hoped that it might use less mana when trying to summon someone close by. That was still possible, and would require further testing, but it didn’t work in that case.
I considered his offer. “In terms of help… Could you get us someone else as powerful as you are?”
He nodded. “Potentially. Maybe more than one person, if we’re lucky enough that some of my friends are in the same place.”
That was a tempting offer, but assuming the two hundred day limit was accurate — and I couldn’t assume it was wrong — we were still more than a hundred days away.
If this mystery organization was acting now, they could do a lot of damage in that time period.
Cecily turned to me. “You should go to your mother.”
Mother?…
Something clicked in my mind.
Tristan had been trying to get me to go to Dalenos, too. That was where Mother presumably was.
Did that mean she was involved in all this?
I wasn’t sure I could handle another family member being involved in this madness.
Or was he just trying to get us both to be in a safe location?
“Uh, I like Lady Lyran and all,” Patrick offered, “But I’m not sure how that has anything to do with this?”