Doing something mildly terrible once in a while really does lift the spirits. Ais suppressed her laughter as she left the Brave Men's Bar.
She'd initially chosen to act boldly because women working in these rougher areas tended to be strong and direct — especially women like herself, who had no real option of blending in. But after actually experiencing it, she had to admit: watching Ian want to hit her but not quite dare was satisfying.
Even more satisfying was having the standing to be bold. Sequence 7 was already rare among unaffiliated Extraordinaries, and a Sequence 7 Witch — one who effectively had several spare lives compared to most — was rarer still.
Even a Sequence 6 Extraordinary would find capturing a Witch difficult, unless they were something like a Pleasure Witch with specific knowledge of Witch capabilities and counter-measures. And this was Beklund. As a Witch with no fear of attracting official Extraordinaries, Ais felt confident that even a Sequence 5 Extraordinary trying to kill her — unless they were themselves a Sequence 5 Witch — would find her a difficult target to dispose of.
And a Sequence 5 Extraordinary was at minimum a Red Glove team captain. In an area this rough, an Extraordinary of that caliber had no reason to be living in squalor.
She stepped into the shadows, divined first that putting the newly-acquired gun into a mirror wouldn't bring danger to Ian, then confirmed that Ian's earlier statement about not wanting to provoke the police had been sincere.
Ian appears to be keeping to the rules so far. Ais used a spell to slide the rectangular gun case into a mirror slightly wider than the case, then walked toward the East District. Maybe she'd encounter a few people who weren't keeping to the rules and could make a little extra.
She was now under the church's eyes — she couldn't pocket large sums of dirty money the way she once had. But the Watchers presumably wouldn't mind her "picking up" a few pounds here and there to supplement her income.
This time, luck didn't cooperate. The East District was also simply enormous — larger than two Moens combined. After an hour of searching one corner of it, Ais gave up and headed home.
"Bustling cities vary endlessly, but the lives of the poor are all the same."
That was Ais's only thought as she left the East District.
Passing the Brave Men's Bar on the way, she thought of the ongoing rat-baiting game inside and casually located the spot where they disposed of the dead rats. She didn't hesitate — froze several carcasses with ice, bundled them in the cheap grey jacket she was wearing, and took them along.
Under cover of nightfall, Ais quietly returned to her own house without attracting attention.
She didn't turn the lights on. She went directly to the basement and continued her Witch's dark magic experiments with the rat carcasses and the last wild-rage herb she still had.
As she'd anticipated: creating a rat animated dead required very little material. Just one-third of a single wild-rage herb's worth of powder.
When she placed two rat carcasses together and released the animation spell simultaneously, their partially-transitioning spiritual energies began resonating with and merging into each other. One carcass succeeded in becoming a stronger animated dead while the other was stripped of all spiritual energy.
And as one body rose, the wild-rage herb powder on both bodies still had some left over.
"So this is why so many dark magic spells specify multiple corpses. Not only is the result better — the material cost actually decreases, because more resentment and unwillingness at death means the spiritual energy activates more readily.
Thinking about it that way, battlefields and mass graves with a high density of death would naturally produce stronger-than-average undead that rise on their own — which makes complete sense."
Ais was turning this over while gifting the charging animated dead rat with a black flame.
But the more she thought, the more curious she became: why did the dark magic arts in the Witch potion all specify human subjects? Surely it could at least mention that animals were a viable substitute.
Even if animal deaths produced less powerful emotion — less resentment and unwillingness — that shortfall could be compensated by quantity. And the risk of killing ten people was incomparably greater than the risk of killing twenty animals.
"It's not as if any of these spells specifically require intelligent subjects. Unless it's just that using animals isn't considered sufficiently evil? That would be embarrassingly edgy."
While disposing of the rat carcasses, Ais muttered in bafflement.
The next day, four days having passed since the West District gathering, Ais ate breakfast and went to the West District.
She spent a while catching up with her best friend, then headed to the Femi house and continued learning Ancient Hermes and other foundational occult subjects from Leel.
She then discovered with some amusement that the letter she'd sent Leel yesterday afternoon had still not arrived — the era's communication efficiency had given her an unexpected lesson. She simply repeated the contents in person.
Since Ancient Hermes was substantial, and most Extraordinaries typically needed four or five months to master it, Ais — who was only doing advance preparation — wasn't in any hurry. She drifted to other questions periodically. And since Ais herself had considerable spells and occult knowledge from the Witch potion, the dynamic between them was less purely teacher-and-student and more like two researchers with different areas of expertise discussing and learning from each other.
After staying for lunch at the Femi house, Ais — feeling enriched — headed out to a different West District–Queen's District border street for her second visit to the Extraordinary gathering.
The setup remained essentially the same as before: the organizer sat beside the board and said nothing; attendants moved around conveying requests.
Nothing on the board merited attention. After noting her request for light-drawing dust, Ais began attempting to strike up conversation with other participants. She hadn't had the disposition for it last time.
She quickly discovered that not everyone here was a Seer — many participants actually knew less than she did. Two people had been studying a piece of parchment purportedly inscribed with a powerful spell for a long time, trying to figure out why it wasn't working — only to realize the spell's required casting material wasn't even listed.
"And there's no sign of the Emperor's diary this time. By the way — could I forge some of his diary entries and sell them?"
Bored from wandering, Ais had this sudden idea. The margins on Extraordinary goods were excellent — a single page of the Emperor's diary fetched 5 pounds.
Perhaps because Ais had been circling around too conspicuously, the gathering's silent organizer had already looked her way several times. She finally settled onto a sofa and began seriously considering the forgery scheme.
By four o'clock when the gathering ended, she'd come away with nothing. A typical outcome — there were fewer than twenty Extraordinaries in attendance.
Outside, boarding a carriage, Ais continued thinking about how to make the forged diary entries more convincing.
She got out near Green Park — thinking to stop by and learn more from Leel and maybe stay for dinner — and had barely taken a few steps when something felt off. Something was watching her. The sensation was fleeting, but Ais was certain it didn't belong to any of the ordinary people around her.
"Someone has me under surveillance?"
Alert immediately, she changed direction quietly and walked away from the Femi house. While walking, she produced a coin and, using the new method Leel had taught her, ran a quick divination.
"Someone is following me."
After the seventh silent repetition, Ais tossed the coin and caught it cleanly.
Heads up — yes. She was definitely being followed.
Author's Note (this chapter):And a Sequence 5 Extraordinary, even among the Red Gloves, was at minimum a team captain. In an area this rough, an Extraordinary of that caliber had no reason to be living in squalor.
Is Grinder at Sequence 3 by this point?: Sharon digesting Marionette should have been fast, right? ·