"Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest."
– The Bible
Knuckles urgently crunched against wood. The monotonous sound invaded Faowri's sleep, taking the distorted form of familiar, booted footsteps strolling across the front hall, belonging to a person she would always rush down the stairs to meet before he ever had chance to ascend.
But her eyes flickered open to the dismal sight of a sagging ceiling and splintered floorboards, and she realised she wasn't at home. Faowri rolled onto her side beneath her cloak, yesterday's chaos trickling back into her head as she clutched it around her and tried to tuck her bare feet under the warm material. Every part of her tired mind and aching body resented the rude awakening, protesting that she'd only just climbed into bed, for the love of the gods!
She tried to ignore the persistent knocking, but it wouldn't go away. Faowri puffed out a gusty sigh, blindly fumbling over the edge of her makeshift bed for the pocket watch, and flinching back with a disorientated gasp as her fingers touched cold liquid. Squinting at the ceiling confirmed it; the heavens had opened, and her room, of all rooms, had a leak.
With an infuriated exhalation, Faowri rolled to her hands and knees, briefly entangled in her cloak as she struggled to rise. Post-waking grumpiness aside, if the visitor continued to knock that way, they'd wake her companions, who seemed to need their sleep more than she did. The pervasive reek of sodden wood and creeping damp caused her to shudder, and Faowri filed a mental note to change rooms as soon as she was given half a chance; a cold or cough right now wouldn't do anyone any favours.
The answer to why the dripping of the leak hadn't awakened her already was in her damp hat – she'd left it under the vicinity of the ceiling crack and had to tip a small reservoir of water out of its curled brim before she could place it in its usual fashion on her head. Immediately, the dull, soft thud of the perpetual drip striking the floorboards resounded in her room. Bloody weather . . .
And the drumming of the rain was even heavier in the corridor – it sounded like quite the downpour. She'd have to check for more leaks in Kijo and Eril's rooms . . .
Faowri padded down the hallway, clutching the cloak about her in a vague attempt at retaining some dignity before realising that she didn't actually care that much. Her hair was tousled, her lack of sleep was no doubt visible on her face, her clothes were creased from sleeping in them, and her thick, "industrial" red mage-uniform tights were laddered. Laddered! But, nonetheless, all she did was smooth her skirt down, before giving the door a tremendous yank to free it from its damp-induced immobility.
The street beyond was infinitely grey, blurred by the sheeting, blackened rain falling from clouds sick with the smoke of the city's near-destruction. Her coat-enshrouded visitor didn't wait for an invitation and promptly darted past her into the hallway to escape a continual drenching.
"There's enough rain to rival Burmecia out there," he muttered, scraping back his hood to reveal the boyish, mischievous face of Justin. Faowri arched an eyebrow, pushing the door closed behind him as he made a show of shaking out his sopping hair, wet despite his hood.
If the youth had come to try and rally her onto his 'rebellion', Faowri would stand none of it. She'd given him a once over already for a punch to the jaw he'd received yesterday – punishment for bad-mouthing an Alexandrian guard . . . to her face. While his gall was commendable, it certainly wasn't indicative of his intelligence.
She snapped a finger to attention before he could fully open his mouth.
"This had better not be about your 'Vigilantes' resistance, Justin. Now is not the time for a rebellion, or for waking me up when I've had a scant few hours' sleep. Whatever it is, keep your voice down, please. I've a patient in the next room."
Justin's brown eyes rolled at the premature admonishment. Faowri expected he'd been a rebel at heart even before the invasion.
"I actually came to give you a friendly piece of advice, you know."
"Oh? And what" – the red mage interrupted herself with a yawn – "might that advice be?"
The young man leaned invasively close, wagging a finger in a mockery of her previous berating. "You and the other red mage you have here need to watch your backs, very closely."
Faowri stared at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "How did you know I had a red mage as a patient?"
"I asked another red mage. Who consequently asked me to pass this message on to you, Faowri. And I did it even in this downpour!" Justin tilted his head, glaring fiercely at the door as though he could see beyond it into the devastated street. "When we get Lindblum back . . ."
He was going to go off on another of his freedom speech tangents, Faowri thought with an inward groan, leaning forward to commandingly touch his shoulder and regretting it when her gloveless hand came back soaking wet. She rubbed it against her skirt as he blinked at her.
"Stay on track, Justin. What is this message? Why should Eril and I watch our backs?"
The youth shrugged, a frown twisting his mouth and his gaze wandering back to the door with seemingly unfounded suspicion. "Apparently red mages have been going missing in Lindblum since yesterday. Have you met with many of your friends?"
A twinge of anxiety pinched Faowri's belly, and she clasped the heel of her wet palm to her temple, kneading it against the incoherence of her thoughts. She really needed more sleep before she tackled a problem like this . . . but, even though tiredness dogged her memory, the unmistakeable shortage of her colleagues had been an undercurrent to her concerns throughout the day. Mostly when she'd been trying to find help . . .
"It was Sheridan who told me," Justin continued, regarding her intently. "He said that you aren't safe anymore, and that other mages he's convened with since the beginning of this can no longer be found. He wants to meet with you soon, with as many others as he can find. I have to take a message back."
"Sheridan?" An extremely serious red mage, Sheridan nonetheless wouldn't cry a warning like this without good reason. Those guards she'd bumped into on the way back from the Industrial District yesterday . . . they'd mentioned their prejudice against red mages. Faowri thought it was entirely likely that the Alexandrian army wouldn't appreciate black-magic capable opposition, even if they weren't opposition or hadn't thrown any fire yet!
Another yawn squeezed its way from Faowri's throat, and she moved a hand apologetically over her mouth. "Sheridan will know what he's talking about. You'll have to tell him that we should meet here. Eril can't be moved, but he should still be in on this. It's his right to know, as well as ours'."
Justin nodded, peering down the hallway and noting the number of doors embedded in each wall. "This place seems bigger than where Sheridan is, anyway. And the folk here are more submissive than down the other end of this district." His sneer conveyed his disdain for such an attitude. "After yesterday's incident, I've noticed the Alexandrians have found this street pretty quiet. It shouldn't be too hard for them to make their way here."
"You really think the Alexandrians would do us harm?" Faowri couldn't quite swallow that, for all their misdeeds. Mages had always been under the protection their profession afforded them, because any ill behaviour was dealt with inside the respective Order.
"Maybe. Maybe not." Justin shrugged, rubbing a hand against his pale cheek. "Sheridan only said that he'd been asked for urgently by a few white mages. Apparently they've seen their supporting red mages carted away. Perhaps that's all they're doing, but . . . not really worth the risk of finding out, is it?"
Faowri teased her fingers through the limp white strands framing her face, coiling them around a digit. "It's a bit hard to hide in this place right now, Justin. The places we're posted in might not be recorded, but the white mages we're likely to be supporting will be simple enough to locate."
"Why not ditch the uniforms, then?"
He was awarded with a glare so fierce that he might as well have asked for a sexual favour.
"Just a suggestion, Faowri . . ."
"You'll not find a red mage cowardly enough to get out of his or her uniform," she berated, the wagging finger returning to its favoured position close to his nose. "We've done nothing wrong, and so we will not hide. You should head back, then, and tell Sheridan to meet here."
Justin rolled his eyes, slinking back towards the door with a long-suffering sigh as he dragged his hood back over his head. "What time?"
Her eyes casting back down the corridor before returning to him, Faowri ran her tongue over her lips. "Tell them, noon."
"Noon? It'd probably be easier to get here when it's dark –"
"If things are as bad as Sheridan must think for him to call this meeting at all, Justin," Faowri murmured solemnly, "we might not have that long."
The rain was dismal.
Heavy and monotonous, it seemed to cushion the room against the outside, enveloping him in a muffled, muted cage. Eril would have appreciated it, but he was too apathetic to care.
Nothing but emptiness had followed his grief-stricken outburst the previous night. Eril endured the pervasive ache of muscle and bone in gutted silence, relying entirely on his carers' ministrations for support, as he felt no motivation to help himself.
There was little point in living, he'd already decided, if Cera was not around to share the experience with him. Faowri was right; what chance was there that she'd survived if no one could find her? She was probably crushed beneath the debris of the Industrial District, or smouldering in one of the many funeral pyres that had been erected since yesterday . . .
No. No, that wasn't right. Eril had survived . . . and he had nothing to lose by believing in her safety. What if she could feel that he'd given up somehow? What if that very surrender killed her?
He'd never be able to stand the guilt. He didn't care what the chances were – she had to be alive! Wouldn't he know if she'd died? They were close enough, intrinsically bonded, that he'd surely know!
For the first time that morning, Eril stirred, fingering the cold, twisted metal that hadn't moved from his hands since Faowri had given the spectacles to him. The rose-coloured lenses, fractured though they were, seemed the only objects in the room to remain untainted by its empty greyness.
Eril clutched the source of colour tightly to his stomach, squeezing his eyes closed and shutting his senses off from the rippling thuds of rain above and the metallic drumming of water into containers Faowri had placed under ceiling leaks. He needed to think, properly.
Cera couldn't be dead. Or at least, she could be, but he didn't think so. He simply couldn't believe that. What would he do if she was? Red mages rarely worked alone, but he wouldn't be able to cope with a different partner, a replacement. He'd simply have to work alone.
But if Alexandria . . .
Beyond the renewed ache of potential loss in his guts, Eril realised just how much hated Alexandria. It was his home, and yet as of this very moment, he disowned it. How could he ever ally himself with its selfish, greedy queen? An army willing to support the slaughter of countless innocent citizens, simply out of loyalty? As much as he thought about it, he could not get his head around the sheer volume of immorality that had been practised in Alexandria, as though its magnitude formed a moral vacuum so alien that his mind couldn't penetrate it. Eril couldn't comprehend the motive, or the reality of it all; he only knew that he condemned it.
That raw, simmering hatred, born in a moment of clear understanding of his own moral values, went against everything he practised as a red mage. Two sides to everything, fence-sitting, always prepared to hear argument and counter-argument and present unbiased aid . . .
What 'other side' was there to Alexandria? Where was the fence to sit upon when the battlefield consisted only of villains and victims? What possible counter-argument could there be against the condemnation of a merciless, needless invasion?
Whether hidden or gone entirely, Eril knew that his neutral mindset, the one he had used to help settle innumerable arguments in the past, was presently unreachable. And if he couldn't find it, there was little point in being a red mage anymore. He'd lost everything – Cera, talent, career, any faith he'd ever had in the simple but bold idea that justice would prevail.
Surely it was impossible for so much to disappear! The mage drew back the twisted frame spokes of the glasses, testing the fragility of the lens shards before gingerly sliding them over his own eyes. He had a narrower head than Cera, but the metal was so warped it hardly mattered, and where the lenses had not broken, his grey room was abruptly consumed by a pinkish tint.
Wasn't there an idiom about rose-coloured glasses? Optimists were said to wear them constantly, and Eril was aware of the scorn directed at such people in these cynical times. Cera had b . . . was still an optimist, but she wasn't naïve or in denial; she never pretended things were going to be all right. Instead, she took downfalls in her stride, optimistically filing them under experience rather than disaster. Certainly, her bright attitude towards potential ends had given him so much strength when they had worked together . . .
Eril tore the spectacles from his face. Before another wave of grief could wear away at his mental endurance, the door of his room creaked open to reveal a pale-faced Kijo, casting expressionless eyes over him in the moment it took edge into the space beyond.
"Good morning. I thought you might be awake by now."
The curt greeting came as no surprise, and as unenthusiastic as it sounded, Eril was grateful for the intrusion. He was thinking too much since Faowri's announcement, and it would only make him worse.
"Are you feeling any better?"
Kijo spoke the question boredly, as though aware how meaningless it was but compelled by duty to use it. The red mage responded with a brief shake of his head, rolling his tired gaze upon his companion.
"Are you?"
"Considering that Faowri just bit my head off for careless behaviour, not too bad." Quirking his mouth into a restrained smile, he pressed his gloved hand to the clean bandage at his temple, demonstrating that it wasn't as terrible a wound as it might have appeared. "I'm just lucky she was half asleep when she decided to tell me off."
"Where is she?"
"Sleeping, still." Kijo shrugged, habitually weaving left and right as he walked to avoid stepping on Nuisance, who bobbed between his feet. "She seems to need the rest, but she did say we'd have visitors, so I'll have to rouse her soon."
Blinking in surprise, Eril's eyes avidly followed the white mage as he sank to the bench with a sigh, drawing up the hood of his shawl to cushion his head against the wall.
"Visitors?"
"Hmm. The remaining red mages, or so I could gather from her hurried and drowsy explanation."
"Explanation of what?"
Kijo shot a disgusted look at Eril for his incomprehension, which faded at the mage's clear bewilderment. "She hasn't told you yet?"
"Told me what?"
One eyebrow arched, Kijo massaged his temple with one hand and Nuis' invasive head with the other as he spoke. "That the Alexandrian soldiers seem to be 'removing' red mages from Lindblum as some kind of perceived threat. The remainder of your colleagues will be meeting here to discuss a plan of action."
"Removing?" Eril gasped out the word in shock, wriggling his shoulders in an attempt to drag himself to attention.
"Not killing, of course." Waving that idea aside, the white mage wrinkled his nose. "That would be too obvious, and Queen Brahne wouldn't want every red mage on the continent after her head. No, they've just been taken away. Where to, I don't know, and wouldn't like to guess –"
"When did this start happening?"
Eril had risen up against the bed head, his eyes wide and glistening at a startled Kijo.
"I . . . I don't know. I presume yesterday –"
"Then it could have started before Faowri had chance to look all over Lindblum, right?"
Folding his arms, Kijo fixed Eril with a frown. "You're thinking of your friend? You think she was taken?"
Eril nodded furiously, ignoring the pain his frenzied movements caused. "Why not? Faowri couldn't find her anywhere; perhaps Cera had been 'removed' before Faowri had chance to find her! More so, if she'd been in the care of red mages and they were taken too, no one would have known about her –"
"Don't . . . you don't know that for sure, Eril." Kijo rose from his seat, shaking his head uncertainly at the enthused red mage. "Don't get your hopes up too far. They'll only have further to fall if you're disappointed."
He knew Kijo was right, but Eril tried not to consider that he might be disappointed. The news, however potentially risky for himself and his remaining colleagues, lent more support to the possibility that Cera might be alive. Just like her, too, to be the optimistic slant on ultimately pessimistic news.
"By the way . . ." Kijo paused at the door, casting a concerned glance back at his patient and lowering his voice to a bare whisper. "No sign of that black mage yet. I'm keeping one ear open for it."
Eril had almost forgotten about the renegade puppet, so consumed by his own worries, but he nodded with some relief. "I hope it stays that way. Let me know if it changes."
"I'll do that."
The white mage's exit was marked by his fluttering, chirruping chicobo, taking with her the last of the noise in the room. Filled with fresh optimism, Eril sank back into his bed covers, eyes closing in the additional hope of some restful sleep.
One thought kept him momentarily awake before it was suffused by dreams – even if Cera had been taken, her safety still depended upon the mercy of Alexandria.
"Sheridan!"
Professional courtesy flying out of the metaphorical window, Faowri couldn't help but meet her old mentor with a relieved embrace. The stoic man stiffly returned it, but his appreciation of her affection was evident in the lightening of his deep-set russet eyes.
"Glad to see you made it safely," she grinned, quickly stepping back to permit him and his horde through into the corridor.
"Glad to see you're still here, Faowri," he countered with a nod, gesturing back towards the red mages who quickly escaped broad daylight. She counted only six, all wearing extra cloaks to defend against the rain and simultaneously aid their subterfuge, and failed to suppress her disappointment at such a low turnout, even though it would probably allow them some room to breathe in the already small house.
Sheridan, sharp as ever, noted her frown and touched a reassuring hand to her shoulder, casting a suspicious glance back out into the rain before drawing the door closed behind the group. With the oppressive hammering of the rain subdued by the barrier, the depressing drip of water into her makeshift leak-catchers became prominent in the sudden muted hush.
"Eril's in there, along with our white mage" Faowri directed abruptly, pointing towards the appropriate door. "There should be enough room for us all, just about, if you don't mind being packed in like sardines."
"You're with a white mage?" an older female mage asked, her small eyes widening atop her long nose as she peered down it Faowri. "Didn't Sheridan tell you it's most dangerous to be with a registered white mage right now?"
"I figured that out for myself, thank you, but Eril is ill and, as he's a red mage, it's dangerous to leave him." The briefest of glances was cast back at Sheridan, but Faowri's words were forceful regardless of the barely-discernible request for confirmation. "Whatever we decide to do includes him as well."
A fidgeting young woman, clearly a new mage with her hair only tinged by telltale white, tugged nervously at the fingers of her gloves. "How badly hurt is he?"
Faowri could see that she wanted to dispute Eril joining their plans if he might be a burden, and opened her mouth to snap a condemnation, but as ever, Sheridan beat her to it with a much calmer version of the same reprimand.
"We cannot abandon our own, now, when we are in such danger. Come," he concluded, waving a long-fingered hand towards the appropriate door. "We must discuss this matter in depth."
Holding any further queries for now, the red mages filed with dismayed mutterings about size into Eril's room. Faowri listened to a few good-natured queries about her patient's health – she'd propped him up against the bed head before opening the door to her 'guests', comfortably surrounded by pillows and more dignity than lying like an invalid would grant him, and conveniently making room for more to be seated at the bed's end.
But she caught Sheridan's arm before she entered herself.
"Why so few?" Faowri whispered urgently, blue eyes evenly meeting her past mentor's. "Are they all that could be found?"
Sheridan nodded glumly, gesturing for her to enter. "I'll explain once we're comfortable."
Devastated by such a low number, she hung and shook her head even as she followed his advice. "I don't think we have time to get comfortable . . ."
Squeezing in against the low cabinet and almost overturning its basket of medicinal supplies in the process, Faowri settled with a sigh, sucking in her belly to permit Sheridan to close the door. The room was indeed a tight squeeze, but sufficient for a short meeting – and Faowri didn't think they could risk a longer one.
Sheridan glanced his acknowledgement at Eril and Kijo, who had settled on the bed beside the red mage and was now trapped between two of them. Her patient, Faowri noticed, didn't seem ready to participate in this discussion, but his eyes were clear and wide, eagerly awaiting results. This news had probably given him more hope concerning Cera, which she prayed wasn't misplaced.
"I'll begin," Sheridan said in his deep, rich voice, interrupting her from irrelevant thoughts, "with what I know. White mages have seen Alexandrian soldiers arresting and removing red mages to an unknown location. Their motive appears to be that they perceive us as a threat of some kind, with our practise of black magic."
"But removed to where?"
The desperate query came from a male mage who looked about Faowri's age, his dragoon's fur a dark brown and an odd contrast to his short mass of pale hair. She knew him as Davin and had passed him a weak smile as she'd settled, recognising his dark features in the room's lamplight. Unusual enough for the few Burmecians included in their Order to persist in their red mage duties in these times, Faowri thought. It wasn't the fact that they were generally less adept as a race at managing the teetering counter-forces of black and white magic than humans; there were obvious exceptions, like Davin, who proved their worth at the skill. But Burmecians currently harboured excess pride and resentment over their recent tragedies. The bias was considered inappropriate for the Red Order, and indeed, many of the species had 'taken leave', and been granted it without question. Clearly, it had been all hands on deck when Lindblum had been attacked, regardless of political stance.
Sheridan frowned uncertainly in reply, offering a shrug as an answer.
"Our informant has told us that a lot of Alexandrian airships have been coming and going. They've occupied those sections of Lindblum, as you know. Since our comrades are nowhere in the city, and are unlikely to be held in the castle itself, I suspect they're no longer in Lindblum."
"Taken back to Alexandria, perhaps?" a younger, roguish man leaning languidly against the wall asked with a rolling shrug.
Sheridan conceded with a frown. "Perhaps, Fersan, but we can't be sure. Or for what purpose they'd be taken, though the gods know they have enough prison-space there to cater for both Orders in their entirety. I managed to send a message by moogle earlier to the head of the Order, but we can't wait on his response. We have to make a move now. I think it would be best if we fled. . ."
"And how, exactly," the skinniest mage of the lot demanded, his twig-like limbs waving in disgust, "can we do that? The gates are all guarded, and the airships are off-limits. I barely made it here without being caught by those bloody guards. I think we should stay in Lindblum and lay low –"
The short man beside him jabbed an elbow into his bony ribs, complimenting it with a look that suggested his insanity. "I'm not staying in this place. You can stay if you want, Machel, but I'm getting out of here with my neck intact, thank you very much."
Machel scowled, folding his arms and hunching his shoulders. "Ridiculous. Genner, the resistance is growing, this situation probably won't last all that long and I have it on good faith that Regent Cid has already put plans into motion regarding Alexandria!"
"Resistance?" Faowri found herself laughing aloud, shaking her head in the disgruntled mage's direction. "If you mean Justin's little band of teenage rebels, I think you'll find the wait will be a long one before they get anywhere. And the only direction they're going anyway is one that will get them all killed."
"Faowri . . ." Sheridan mumbled in low warning, clearly recognising her scornful tone. She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"I'm sorry, Sheridan, but you are completely right. I don't know how, either, but the only place we're going if we stay here, is wherever those other mages have been carted off to. And I don't fancy joining them."
"The lady speaks sense, Machel," Fersan, the most relaxed member of their group laughed, "so shut up and listen, would you? I'll bet Sheridan has something up his sleeve."
Faowri recognised that indolent drawl as belonging to the middle classes of Treno, and shot the man a surprised look. He was directing a wink at her in the same moment and she unaccountably blushed, diverting her gaze before she had chance to study him in full. Inappropriate timing, indeed!
"I don't know how," she persisted, "but I certainly know where. We can go back to Treno. I'm dying to see if Brahne's got her greedy sights set on it next, but somehow I doubt it. It's hardly a unified national threat like Lindblum, Burmecia and Cleyra could have been."
"But what about the other red mages?" Eril piped up from the bed, fingering anxiously at the edge of his blanket. "How are we going to help them?"
"We'll decide that when we're safe ourselves," Sheridan told him, firmly but reassuringly. He was perceptive enough to realise that Eril was sensitive on the issue right now. "And I think Faowri's idea is a good one."
From his heavy belt pouch, the man drew a damp, tattered parchment, unfolding it with due care in case the water tore its fabric further. It opened out into a water-streaked map of the Mist Continent, and he held it against his chest as he pointed to Lindblum in south-western corner.
"Treno's quite a distance, but if we set a fast pace we can make it in a day, a day and a half. We'll cross the Eunorus Plains," and his finger traced a path across the deep valley between Lindblum and the mountain range north of it, "and head to South Gate. From there we can ride the cable car up to the Treno trail. Sound plausible?"
Machel snorted. "Yes, if you forget to count the heavily-guarded Hunter's Gate, or the sheer cliff wall we'd have to scale down to reach the Eunorus Plains once we were through that. Not a good idea to spend so much time travelling through thick Mist, either . . ."
"Gawds, do you ever gripe!" Fersan hissed beneath his breath, falling short of another insult at Sheridan's warning glance.
"I can't do much for the last complaint, but the first two are solved." The older mage skilfully rolled up his map, directing a small smile at the group. "We're not leaving through Hunter's Gate. We're leaving through Dragon's Gate."
Even Fersan had an appreciative whistle for the magnitude of that undertaking.
"Justin and his teenage rebels, as you so aptly called them, Faowri, are more competent than they seem and plenty eager to help us in this dire situation."
Faowri raised an uncertain eyebrow at that announcement, but listened with due respect for Sheridan's intelligence as he continued.
"Justin has a close friend in the Alexandrian army whom he has persuaded to help us. She's arranged it so that she'll be manning the air cabs this evening, and that means we'll be able to reach Lindblum Castle." Sheridan paused, holding up his hand to command full attention. "Once we're in there, Regent Cid will help us get down to Dragon's Gate."
The old female mage cleared her throat loudly. "You mean to say he knows what's going on? That he's in on this grand escape plan of yours?"
Nodding, Sheridan relaxed slightly against the door. "That's correct. I've been contacting him since this morning via moogle mail. Everything will be arranged by this evening. He said that the harbour is bustling, manned by Alexandrians soldiers, but they've neglected Dragon's Gate in their industry. I'm not guaranteeing it will be easy, but it is possible. Under cover of night, probable."
Faowri had been decided the moment Sheridan had announced a plan – he knew what he was doing. He'd been the one to teach her to know what she was doing, and she had absolute faith in him. In the following silence, she listened and observed the other mages' reactions, watching the mixture of hope and despair on each face.
"The plan has my vote," she said when no one volunteered a response, raising her hand. Eril immediately followed suit, encouraged by her firm approval, and Fersan and Davin waved in agreement only seconds later. Genner, the budding escapee, offered his support simultaneously with the two female mages'. It was only disgruntled Machel, who muttered a few despairing curses under his breath, to leave them waiting longer. Perhaps it was peer pressure, but he eventually caved in, reluctantly raising his hand like everyone else.
"You must consider, Machel," Sheridan said in support, "that there isn't much of an alternative. I'm surprised we've evaded them so far. We won't last much longer in Lindblum."
"Then there are nine of us," Faowri interrupted the unnecessary reassurance with just the right touch of scorn, crushing Machel's low complaints. "Quite a large number, I suppose."
Her gaze fell upon Kijo, sitting between Eril and Davin with a snoozing chicobo nestled in his lap. He locked eye contact with her evenly, blinking before abruptly announcing in a no-nonsense tone of voice:
"I'm coming with you."
"You're needed here, man," Sheridan frowned, immediately dismissing the idea.
"No, you need me more than Lindblum does." Kijo ruffled Nuisance's forehead feathers, never shifting his gaze from Sheridan. "With a witness from the White Order, you'll be able to approach Queen Brahne to make an official complaint, on behalf of both heads of the Orders. It would have more bearing than a single Order gripe."
"Gripe!" Machel spat, half-lunging at Kijo for his insensitivity. "Our Order is being grossly mistreated –"
"If you don't approach Brahne with as much authority as possible, she will treat it as a gripe, I assure you. Have you somehow missed her display of arrogance so far?"
Machel retreated, throwing a protesting look in Sheridan's direction, but the older mage was rubbing his chin in serious consideration of the idea. Slowly, he began to nod his head.
"Very well, white mage. It's a fair proposition, though I hesitate to guess at any other motive you might possess . . ." He turned back to the red mage majority of the gathering, raising his thick eyebrows in concern. "Following this meeting we must split into smaller groups. I will get further plans to you, probably lend Justin and his companions again as messenger boys, but we cannot stay together like this. We won't meet again until I give the order. Is that understood?"
"Ten, then," Fersan announced in a cheerful voice as the others nodded assent. "Nice, round number to start with. And round numbers are always a good omen."