«You don’t have to do that,» Ibery quickly interrupted. «It’s… not that important.»
Zorian took in her appearance one more time. Yup, she had definitely been crying before coming here. Besides, her choice of words was conspicuous — she said that he didn’t have to do it, not that he shouldn’t, and that it wasn’t that important, not that it wasn’t.
«It’s not really a problem,» he assured her. «The main reason I refused in the first place is because it was Fortov who asked, not because it was so difficult to do. Just tell me where to find you when I’m done.»
«Um, I’d like to come with you, if it’s not a problem,» she said hesitantly. «I’d like to see how the cure is made. Just in case.»
Zorian paused. That was… potentially problematic. After all, the alchemical workshop would be closed down this late in the evening, and he would have to employ some, uh, unorthodox methods of gaining access. But what the hell, it wasn’t like she would remember this in the next restart.
Thus they set off towards Zorian’s apartment. Of course, having Ibery looking over his shoulder wasn’t enough, so when he had finally reached his room he found another familiar person waiting for him. Specifically, Zach.
He wasn’t terribly surprised to see Zach waiting for him, to be honest. The boy had been getting steadily more nervous during their practice sessions as the summer festival approached, no doubt unnerved by the impeding invasion. Not that he ever told Zorian about the invasion — Zach was stubbornly tight-lipped about that, regardless of how much Zorian tried to goad him into blurting out something. Over the last few days, his fellow time traveler had questioned him about his plans for the summer festival several times, not-so-subtly implying that staying inside his room would be a bad idea. As Zorian still remembered quite vividly how one of the ‘flares’ flattened his entire apartment building when the invasion started, he was inclined to agree with Zach on that one. Unfortunately, Zach seemed to have trouble believing that Zorian was in agreement with him on that point. No doubt he came specifically to make sure (again) that Zorian was going to attend the dance. Zorian wondered, for god knows what time, just what happened between Zach and his previous incarnations to produce this kind of impression. Had he really been that stubborn before the time loop?
He walked up to Zach, who was sitting on the floor next to his door, completely oblivious to his surroundings while he concentrated on something on his palm. No, now that he got closer he could see it was actually something above his palm. A pencil, lazily spinning in the air above Zach’s palm. Apparently Zach knew the pen spinning exercise too, and was currently practicing it while he waited. Zorian had a strong urge to throw a marble at Zach’s forehead and demand that he starts over, but decided against it.
Mostly because he didn’t have any marbles on his person at the moment.
«Hello Zach,» Zorian said, startling Zach out of his reverie. «Are you waiting for me?»
«Yeah,» confirmed Zach. He opened his mouth to say something else but then noticed Ibery trailing behind Zorian and snapped his mouth shut. «Err, am I interrupting something?»
«No, not really,» Zorian sighed. «I just came to grab some alchemical supplies and then I’ll go make something for miss Ambercomb here. What did you want with me?»
«Eh, it can wait a while,» Zach said dismissively. «What are you making? Maybe I can help — I’m pretty good at alchemy.»
«Is there anything you’re not good at?» asked Zorian with a snort.
«You’d be surprised,» mumbled Zach.
Ibery watched their interaction in silence, but Zach was a fairly sociable person, so by the time Zorian returned from his room with a box of supplies the two of them were engaged in lively conversation. Mostly about Ibery’s current condition.
«Man, I didn’t know your brother is such a jerk, Zorian,» Zach remarked. «No wonder you turned out to be such a… uh…»
He trailed off when Zorian raised his eyebrow at him, daring him to finish that sentence. Ibery’s reaction was more vocal.
«He’s not a jerk!» she protested. «He didn’t mean for this to happen.»
«He should have fixed it, though,» Zach insisted. «Intentionally or not, it was his fault. He shouldn’t have dumped his responsibility on his little brother like this.»
«Nobody forced Zorian to do anything,» Ibery said. «He’s doing this out of his own free will. Right, Zorian?»
«Right,» agreed Zorian. «I’m doing this because I want to.»
He actually agreed with Zach, but chose not to say so. If he had learned anything about Ibery from spending an entire revert around her it was that she had a massive crush on Fortov. No good could come from bad mouthing him in front of her. Besides, if he was to be honest with himself, Zorian had to admit he was incapable of being objective about Fortov. There was too much bad blood between the two of them.
Thankfully, the two of them quickly agreed to disagree on the topic and a comfortable silence descended on the group. Well, it was comfortable for Zorian — apparently Zach didn’t agree.
«Hey Zorian,» Zach said. «Why are we going towards the academy proper?»
«So I can access the alchemical workshop, of course,» said Zorian. He knew what Zach was getting at, of course, but he was still hoping to get away without revealing one of his most closely guarded tricks.
No such luck.
«But all the workshops are closed this late in the evening,» remarked Zach.
«Ah!» Ibery exclaimed. «He’s right! They closed down two hours ago!»
«It won’t be a problem,» Zorian assured them. «So long as we clean up after ourselves, no one will know we were there.»
«But the door is locked,» pointed out Zach.
Zorian sighed. «Not to magic, it isn’t.»
«You know unlocking spells?» asked Zach in a surprised tone.
Zorian understood his surprise — unlocking spells were restricted magic, due to their obvious abuse potential. Unless you possessed a special license, even knowing how to cast them was a crime. Not a particularly serious crime, but a crime nonetheless.
Perhaps it was good, then, that Zorian didn’t know a single unlocking spell.
«No, I don’t,» said Zorian. «But it’s just a simple mechanical lock. I’ll just manipulate the tumblers telekinetically. Piece of cake.»
They gave him a blank look. Like most people, they had no idea how locks actually worked, and how easy it was to bypass most of them. Zorian, due to his somewhat colorful childhood, did. In fact, he could pick your average lock without using magic at all — it was just a lot slower than his little magic trick and required him to carry around a set of lock picks.
He stopped in front of the door leading into the alchemical workshop and tried the handle. Like Zach said, it was locked. Shrugging, Zorian placed his palm over the keyhole and closed his eyes. He could feel Zach and Ibery cluster around him to get a better look at what he was doing, and did his best to block them out. He needed total concentration for this.
He had developed this particular trick back in his second year, after he got bored of refining the standard shaping exercises they were given. It involved flooding the locking mechanism with his mana, using the resulting mana field as a sort of ‘touch sight’ to get a feel for the lock, and then carefully moving the tumblers into proper position so he could neutralize the lock. It took him months of stubborn practice, but by now he was good enough at it to unlock most doors in 30 seconds or less.