Derek left again almost immediately to head to the hospital where several of the wounded were taken.
He didn’t talk about it much, but Professor Meltlake was his aunt, and she was in terrible shape. She’d survived, but even with Sheridan’s treatment at the scene, it was uncertain how long she’d take to recover.
We moved Patrick, Marissa, and Sera to the master bedroom. Elora had her household staff drag additional beds inside. We set them up side by side.
Elora and Sheridan left together after that, assuring us that they’d make sure to have guards posted on their rooms as well.
The chances of Mizuchi coming after us to finish what she’d started were low, but we weren’t going to be foolish enough to skip taking precautions.
I didn’t trust random house guards to watch over us. Not after seeing that Elora’s staff had already been infiltrated once.
Keras agreed to take the first shift on watching over the rest of us while we slept.
I promised to take the second.
Cecily agreed to take a third watch. I didn’t intend to wake her.
I liked Cecily, but I didn’t trust her.
I would have expected to have trouble sleeping, but my exhaustion was bone deep. I wasn’t sure I’d ever overused my attunements to that extent before.
Fortunately, I was tired enough that I didn’t have any nightmares about the scars that might have resulted from that.
Keras didn’t wake me until well after dawn. He’d let me get a full night sleep.
I suspected that was probably his intention from the beginning.
Keras must have also spent the evening piecing the Dawnbringer replica back together. The blade was fully repaired when he set it down next to where Patrick was sleeping.
Everyone else woke slowly in the hours that followed.
Elora brought us to the dining room for breakfast a bit later, then dismissed her house staff.
“Eat,” she said, “Then I believe we have a great deal to discuss.”
We devoured a quick breakfast. Most of us hadn’t had a chance to eat anything the night before, and eating was an important part of recovering from both injuries and over exerting ourselves.
After that, it was time to discuss our situation.
“Is there anything to block people from listening in on this room?” Cecily asked.
“No. Just the house in general,” Elora answered.
I stood up. “Can we write on the walls?”
Elora raised an eyebrow. “If you must. I suppose this is important enough.”
I looked to Cecily. “You get silence, I’ll get anti-scrying?”
She nodded. “Right.”
We set up the appropriate wards on the walls, then checked each other’s work, just in case.
“Satisfied?” Elora asked.
“For now,” Cecily replied.
Elora looked to me, then back to Cecily. “How much does she know? How much do the rest of them know?”
“Most of them know what I know. Cecily… I’m less certain about. She seems to know about Tristan, but I don’t think she’d be aware of what happened with Saffron.”
Cecily looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Who’s Saffron?”
“I’ll explain later. Or maybe now, if it’s relevant.”
“Right,” Elora said. “That makes this somewhat easier, at least. A more important question, Cadence. Who do you trust?”
“Well, not you, certainly.”
Sheridan snickered.
I continued, “But for the most part, the people in this room already know enough about the situation that I’m comfortable sharing more. Information security is important, but I’m tired. Tired of trying to keep secrets. Tired of not knowing what’s really going on. Tired of fighting people who are a hundred times more powerful than I am.”
“A good sentiment, although I might argue that imminent danger might reinforce the need for secrecy, rather than lead us toward eschewing it.” Elora folded her hands on the table. “Nevertheless, I believe this particular situation is bad enough to warrant a cooperative response.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that we’ve fought the two most dangerous people I’ve ever encountered in the last few weeks, and that we need to coordinate to prevent that from happening again.”
Keras leaned across the table sleepily. “Don’t you mean the second and third most dangerous people?”
Elora narrowed her eyes. “I don’t even know what you are, darling. But if you’re feeling disappointed that I didn’t include you, don’t fret. I don’t count you as dangerous in the slightest for one reason.”
Keras raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Elora smiled. “It was obvious in our little spat. You either can’t — or won’t — use lethal force. Perhaps you’re under some sort of persistent enchantment?”
Keras chuckled and leaned back. “You keep thinking that.”
Elora turned away from him with a victorious smirk. “Back to the point. We need to take precautions.”
I nodded. I’d been thinking about the best way to approach this since last night. “Did you know that attack was coming? You tried to extract me a while ago.”
Elora shook her head. “I didn’t have the specifics. I just knew there would be an attack on heads of government sometime soon. I didn’t expect it this soon.”
Cecily turned to look at me with a questioning glance. I shook my head at her. She was better off not giving away her own information unless she needed to.
I wanted to know what Cecily knew, but that didn’t mean I wanted Elora to know what Cecily knew.
At the moment, Elora probably believed that Cecily had the least information out of anyone, and that meant she would not register as a threat.
I preferred to keep it that way.
“You knew there was going to be an attack on the government and you didn’t do anything about it?” Sera asked.
Elora shook her head. “I didn’t say that. Certain individuals were warned or evacuated, not just Corin.”
“You didn’t warn me.” Sheridan folded their arms.
“I didn’t think you’d be a target. I suspected they’d be hitting a council meeting. Normally, the group responsible tries to avoid collateral damage.”
“They were avoiding collateral damage,” Sera said, “At least more than they pretended to be.”
We all turned toward her.
Patrick frowned. “Uh, Sera, I don’t think sending the daughter of a god beast to a party is avoiding damage.”
Sera shook her head. “It certainly was. How closely were you watching Mizuchi?”
“Can you please not be vague, Sera?” Cecily asked. “I’m not handling this well.”
Sera frowned. “Sorry. Mizuchi was able to paralyze everyone in the room with a single spell. She only used that spell once: to deliver her speech without interruption. She obliterated the people on the stage. After that? Her attacks were more focused. She eliminated specific targets, and fought back against the people that attacked her.”
Sera paused, taking a breath. “She clearly had wide area of effect attack spells, but she never aimed them at the students. Even when she finally used her breath weapon, she directed it in a line. A shaper of her level could have made it fork, or jump to multiple targets, with ease. But she aimed it just at Marissa.
“Sure, Mara was fighting hard,” she offered, giving Marissa a nod of acknowledgement, “But if Mizuchi’s goal was to kill everyone, she could have spread out that breath attack. Or used it more than once.”
“You’re saying…if we hadn’t fought, she wouldn’t have ‘urt us at all?” Marissa sounded terribly dejected.
I stepped in. “Maybe she wouldn’t have hurt the students, sure, but when you stepped in she was just about to kill Teft and Meltlake. They were both down and bleeding. And I checked — they’re both alive. Badly hurt, but alive. You saved them both.”