The Library
Afternoon on the 65th of Roalis, 2719
Ezre did not look back once he'd made the choice to turn and leave the not-Incumbent Vauquelin standing there just out of reach of the shade of Brunnhold's most prestigious library. The dark-haired student felt the magma that bubbled and churned in his stomach cool too swiftly, uncomfortably, suddenly heavy and solid, dragging down his center of gravity once he'd left the curiously familiar porven touch of the raen's entropic field behind. Chewing the inside of his cheek and ignoring the dizziness from both his casting and the Anaxi Roalis heat, he simply kept walking.
It felt wrong, for the Hoxian was as keenly aware of his failure as much as he had been of the sting of his own knife against his palm in the preparation for his ward back in the East Garden. It wouldn't hold—not for long; it was a weak thing—and all he could hope was that his rhakor held stronger. He was weak, too—sometimes more often than he wanted to admit—and Ezre didn't want his countenance to falter in Lilanee and Madeliene's presence, not with the Hessean already frustrated with his company after his return from Hox and all the emotions that had erupted with his leaving for home without her.
It was as the tall red brick of the library eclipsed the sun, as his eyes adjusted to the shift in the light, that everything as it had unfolded in the East Garden really, really sank in. He'd just kept moving through the moments as he'd been in them, unable to process all that had happened once he stepped from the hedge maze and once he'd stepped too far over a not-quite friendship with Tom Cooke:
He'd not processed that a ghost had manifested through the ordinary water in his aquamancy cup and grasped his own wrist as though it was a physical being. This ghost had spoken of an us as if there were multiple displaced spirits, conscious and aware of each other, in the same place.
He'd not processed that yet another no less powerful ghost that seemed to call the garden it's last grip on existence and sanity had more than illusory control over the growth of plant life there, manifesting as a restless darkness that might have reminded him of the professor's ghost in the Crypts but also was terrifyingly new.
He'd not processed any of the implications of just how much danger everyone was in.
Inked fingers strayed to the bright, lightweight cotton layers of his clothing, reaching into a pocket as if to make sure that the roses Tom had cut with the Guide's knife were even still there. He remembered the sticky, dark sap that was too reminiscent of the congealed blood in bodies he processed in the morgue for class. He felt the petals, exhaling a ragged breath, slowly climbing stairs in a way that left him no reason to blame the flutter of his pulse on his pace so much as the thrill of horror and resolve that clawed its way through his lithe body. Glancing down at the smudge on his fingertips once he drew his hand away, he noted his palm was still stained with the mixed blood he'd cast with, crusted in the lines of his palm, stuck beneath his short, well-trimmed nails.
Perhaps no one would notice.
Nothing was simple, and nothing would have been simple even if everyone involved had been as aware of the uneseen, of the supernatural as the Hexxos Guide was.
Even though not even a flicker of the miasma of emotions and thoughts that churned within his tattooed chest reached his unemotional expression, Ezre realized as he stepped into the cooler, stuffier air of the library—the scent of so many old pages dragging him home faster than any airship—he had no idea where they'd even agreed to meet. The weight of failure that settled upon him was as uncomfortable as the sweat that drenched the Hoxian, clinging to all of his tawny skin and pooling against the base of his spine where his thick, wide belt held the layers of his bright-dyed clothing in place.
Rosie Opkins was right there as always, not waiting for him specifically so much as simply attentive for the arrival and departure of all students visiting the library, but she didn't bother hiding her expression of distaste at the Guide's appearance as the dark-haired student hovered near her desk, just out of socially acceptable vicinity that necessitated any exchange of greetings, not meeting her gaze. It was summer break, however, and if Rosie was disappointed she couldn't ask the Hoxian if he was skipping another damned formal dinner or not, well, she didn't let it show on her face anymore than he let it show on his.
Ezre lingered for a moment, wiping his face and letting his hands reach up to retie his disheveled hair up and away from his sweating scalp, quite aware that he had no idea how to have this conversation with Lilanee alone, let alone with Madeliene present. The Hessean had seen a ghost before. She believed now. The younger Miss Gosselin would most likely think them both—what was the Estuan reference to Alioe?—moony.
He also had to explain the not-Incumbent's absence without shaming himself in the admission.
Exhaling slowly, seeking some semblance of calm in the quiet of the library despite a pair of bespectacled eyes still on him from behind the scrying desk, the tattooed ninth form turned to Miss Opkins, reluctantly stepping closer,
"Excuse me, but my friends came here to meet with a Miss Wentworth."
Rosie blinked at the Hoxian, her expression souring as if she was about to say she should have figured, but instead she tapped her fingers on her desk and tilted her head toward the stacks and stacks and stacks that contained non-fiction material,
"She's usually is between F and J, Mister Vks."
"I understand." Ezre did not choose to thank her, the reminder of Anaxi assumptions made of his person just another annoyance, nodding before he headed in the direction indicated, glancing about for a glimpse of either of the two young women he was here to find. The airy, light wash of his Clairvoyant field reached outward, searching in its own way, only to be harshly met with the frazzled bombardment of some older galdori woman's aura as she brushed past him, very much in a hurry and rather disturbed-looking. Dark eyes didn't stare, but his attention followed Miss Wentworth's fleeing form, making assumptions based on the kinds of emotions in her facial expression.
The Hexxos Guide stoped, then, standing in the middle of the aisle between several rows of stacks, and chose not to pursue the older galdor. Instead, he looked around, waiting, looking down at his wrist for a moment before shifting to look toward the small private study rooms from which she'd emerged. Lilanee and Madeliene most likely wouldn't be far from behind the woman they'd come to see.
With a slow inhale, Ezre prepared himself for the flood of words that would surely happen, pushing away the sting of guilt and the dull ache that lingered in his inked chest after exchanging too many heavy words with Tom Cooke. He wondered what happened. He wondered what she knew. He wondered how to put the pieces together, even if he had already made up his mind about his place in the ending.
