Thor almost ran into Loki as he turned onto the landing at the top of the stairs leading down from the royal quarters. Loki appeared to be carefully creeping his way up the stairs while clutching onto the railing with both hands as if his life depended on it. His stance still managed to waiver despite his efforts, and he almost toppled backwards the moment Thor saw him. Thor lunged to stabilize him. "Loki! Wh- why aren't you in the Healing Chambers?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "I was. But now I'm trying to stay awake while Eir and Mother are both sleeping, and that's wraither difficult to do whilst laying in a bed with nothing to keep me occupied. Turns out it's also difficult in the Library once your rearing componions start nodding off."

Thor stared at him. His words were slurred and oddly accented, as if he had been drinking to excess, though Thor was certain that was not the case. "I thought Eir said sleep was the most important part of mind medicine? When we first brought you back here, I mean."

Loki grinned crookedly. "It is, when no one's trying to kill you in your sleep. I am not so fortuna as that, though."

Thor sighed and hugged his brother. "You can't just stay awake forever, Loki," he said.

"I know," Loki said. "I have to make it through today though, and maybe tonight. Unless of course you happen to catch whomever is doing this before then. That... would be wonderful."

"I'm trying," Thor told him.

"I know," Loki said.

Thor would have liked to just stay with Loki for the morning. That would have been a disservice to his brother, though. "I should get down to the barracks. But I can get you to your room first. I assume that's where you're going?"

Loki nodded. "I really need to wash up. I feel disgusting after two bouts of... well, whatever this is. Mysteries convulsive fits and internal blooding."

Thor winced and stepped to the side, still supporting Loki as his brother started stumbling up the steps again. "Does anyone know you're up here?"

"You do. Heimdall, if he cares to."

"Hmph. Then as soon as I've got you to your room, I'll tell Mother what you're up to."

"She's probably still resting. She was with me until almost midnight."

"And she would cut off my ears if I let anything happen to you right now, particularly when it is within my power to avert potential catastrophe simply by briefly waking her up."

"...That's fair." They walked a few more slow steps. "Do you think you'll catch them, Thor?" Loki asked, almost whispering. Thor looked at him quickly. Even with everything that had happened, he had never heard Loki sound so afraid.

"Definitely," Thor said fiercely. "I swear it." He hadn't brought Loki back from Midgard just to let him die. By all his strength, all his sires, by the Norns and by the very branches of Yggdrasill, he was going to fix this.

Loki smiled. "If you swear it, I believe it, Thunderer."

Vor started talking the instant he had settled himself in front of Hogunn's desk. "You asked me here about poor Loki of course. Yes, I heard all about it. No, not because I know anything particularly about it, but just because that's the only thing anybody is talking or even thinking about, you ken? No, not even the sorcerers know. You say it's magical? How interesting... By the Norns, bleeding into his head? Oh my, all that sounds terrible. No, I can't say I've ever come across an enchantment that does that. Dreadful. As for what I think of Loki, I'd say we got along fairly well. I minded my own business and he minded his. We didn't overlap very much after he graduated. He liked research, while I just loved teaching, until about two hundred years ago when I retired.

"Oh, you want to wrap this up quickly? I'm sorry. Well, the last few nights were much like any other for me. My wife and I have a drink at sunset and then go to bed and sleep until dawn. Not much more to it. We like the quiet life, you see." He suddenly broke off his stream of consciousness and squinted at Hogunn, seeming rather startled. "Er, sorry. Yes, I'll be quiet for a moment."

"...I never said a word."

"Oh. Ah. I do apologize for that. I thought you had. It's a force of habit. I'm going deaf in my old age, and it annoys my wife no end when I can't hear her so I just listen to thoughts instead, since telepathy was one of my specialties. I don't get out of the house except to go to the College on occasion, so I forget it's not, well, normal. I'll stop."

Hogunn shook his head. He couldn't imagine going around casually listening to other people's ruminations, though there was something to be said for minimizing the need for him to talk. At least old Vor didn't seem to be someone they needed to keep on the suspect list, judging by his nattering. On the other hand, "Have you heard any murderous thoughts recently?"

Vor appeared amused at the question. "Anyone with the ability to do what you are thinking has been done to Loki knows better than to leave their mind open to me. There are plenty of people thinking about the how-to's and why-for's of these assassination attempts, but none that I have encountered bearing the shadow of secrecy or guilt. I am not yet so demented as to forget to report something like that."

"Pity."

Amora lounged in her chair as if she was here for an intimate social gathering rather than an interrogation. "I have no idea what kind of magic could do what you're describing. Have you asked Loralei?"

"Yes. She is cooperating with the investigation."

"...I find that incredibly hard to believe. Is there another Loralei? Perchance in the army?"

"No."

"Interesting." Amora shifted, leaning forwards to stare Fandral in the eyes. He veered back a little but found it difficult to look away. He had never liked Amora. She was extremely beautiful and had a clearly arcane charisma that fascinated most men when they first met her. And she knew it. It made her arrogant and overbearing. She had a penchant for deliberately leading on young men recently come of age and then discarding them as soon as she tired of their pleasure. Forewarned, Fandral had fortunately never fallen victim to her charms, but he had helped pick up the many pieces of the broken hearts of those who did. Amora's was a fairly heinous lifestyle in Fandral's opinion, but there was little he could do about it because she never did anything quite illegal. "Do you like my sister, Captain?" She asked sweetly. "I think you used to at any rate. Perhaps that is why she's being so cooperative. I should be very angry if you abused her...affections."

Fandral stared her down. "Where were you the night before last?" he asked, refusing to be drawn into irrelevancies, not to mention ones that could give the sly sorceress ammunition against either him or Loki.

She giggled. "Don't want to answer the question, eh?"

"Likewise, I see," Fandral said impatiently. "But if you don't cooperate, I unlike you have the ability to arrest you under suspicion of treason."

She raised an eyebrow. "It's not technically treason though, is it? Attacking Loki, I mean. He hasn't been reinstated."

"Thank you for pointing out the legal technicalities. I'm sure the Allfather will be happy to take that into consideration at your trial, if it comes to that."

She grinned. "He would, you know. He's a funny old man that way. He likes to be impartial and so doesn't let his own emotions influence him when it comes to official matters."

Fandral took a breath and leaned forwards. "Maybe you're right, but I'm the one you're talking to right now, and technicalities aside, we're still talking about attempted murder. I'm awfully busy, and tired. You're being awfully annoying and not answering any of my questions."

"You're very handsome when you're angry. I could help you let off some steam." She arched backwards suggestively as she pretended to stretch.

"I could strike you and mar that pretty face of yours. That would probably work to sooth my rage. Thanks for offering."

Her playful expression instantly soured. Amora was famously vain, even compared to Fandral. "You wouldn't dare."

He shrugged. "I shouldn't, that's true. But who's to say I wouldn't?" He paused to let his threat sink in, even though Amora probably knew it was a bluff. The army had a code of conduct that even Fandral preferred not to break, after all. "Where were you the night before last?" he repeated.

"Fine," Amora grumbled. "I had a date. A young man by the name of Canut, recently enlisted. We went to a mead hall and then a play, and then retired to my quarters for the rest of the evening." She smiled languidly. "He asked to see me again, and I might take him up on it."

"Thank you."

"I always spend the hours after dusk in a routine of calisthenics, ablutions, and prayer, followed by a few games with my nephews before rest," Bragi said. He sounded strangely deliberate with his speech, enunciating each syllable flawlessly.

"You live with your nephews?"

"No. My own children are grown and moved away closer to their mother, but my sister remarried sixty years ago. Her household is just across the street from mine, and her younger sons are old enough to chafe at the constant oversight of their mother, even if they are not yet old enough to securely live away from family."

"Could your nephews confirm your whereabouts from the hours of twenty-three to twenty-six?"

"Hmm...no. Borthira calls them back by then." Bragi smiled toothily. "You'll have to find some other way to strike me from your list of suspects, I fear."

"Alas," Volstagg said. "Do you have any particular claim to back your own innocence?"

Bragi leaned back, chair tilting onto two legs for a moment before he rocked it forwards again. "I shall tell you a story, and you may interpret it how you will. Loki began his apprenticeship at the College in the year I finished mine. I was not delayed. He was precocious. He was also something of an arrogant upstart at the time. He had only been schooled with Thor, you, and your other friends in the nobility; forgive me for saying it is clear he far surpassed you his peers academically. In fact, I would say he had never really had an intellectual peer group before joining the College. He knew a fair amount of magic for a beginner of course, and he was eloquent even then."

"I remember."

"But I was his senior, and top of nearly all the senior classes no less. I told him off several times in his first week alone for flaunting his skills in the halls. He told me off in turn for speaking up to a prince." Braggi grinned. "He knew better than to provoke me with magic, when I would have been well within my rights to defend myself in kind with decades of experience ahead of him. So we turned to verbal sparring only. His might be the silver tongue, but I think it's safe to say he was fairly surprised at my own skill in slinging insults strong enough to sting but never to the point of breaching honor. I had a strong interest in poetry even then that served me well."

"Is this going anywhere?" Volstagg interrupted.

"In good time, my friend. In a matter of weeks, our exchanges became quite the competition and well-attended by the other students who kept score and even started gambling on the matter. Neither Loki nor I could fail to notice this, of course, and it drove both of us to ever greater loquaciousness. Even some of the College graduates started coming down to the student's dining hall at lunch to listen in. Now the stage is set: I tell you I will never aspire to Loki's genius when it comes to mischief."

Bragi paused for breath, and Volstagg grunted unenthusiastically for him to continue. He had known Loki long enough to recognize when a story teller was not going to shut up if asked.

"Loki broke into my chambers in the dead of night, not two months since starting at the College. He must have begun planning for the caper much earlier, as my rooms were warded with spells far beyond the initiate curriculum, even for one so talented as Loki." Volstagg perked up. This part sounded interesting, and it was something Loki had never told him about. "I awoke with his hand on my lips and his knife glinting in the pale moonlight not two inches from my face. But he hadn't come to fight. The knife was only to ensure my silence and cooperation in my moment of surprise before he could explain himself. The reason he had come, you see, was to formalize our relationship in a way. We had been composing outrageous brags about ourselves and lurid insults about eachother, independently, but he thought our verbal jousts might go even better if we planned them. So, naturally, that's exactly what we did. He had brought his notes along, ideas for our bickering. He had reams of them. The language was brilliant, but half the jibes lay unusable because to goad me into the relevant turn of conversation would have required unnatural contrivances. But now... I shall make the point thusly. The next day, we met in the hall when he was clearly on his way out to perform his daily royal commitments at the Allfather's court. I stopped him and asked him for the time. I remember it so vividly. He looked on me with exhausted umbrage and said, 'You immortal swain, interminable student, imperishable and impoverished bore... unless hours were cups of mead, and minutes frosted cakes, clocks the voices of fair-haired minstrels, dials the signs of dancing-houses, and the blessed sun itself a returnéd Valkyr in silver armor thirsty for the touch of a man - any man - I see no reason why you should be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.'" Bragi smiled reminiscently.

"I guess you had to be there," Volstagg said, not particularly impressed. Bragi was almost as fat as he was, and rather plain. The insult the man had repeated with such delight wasn't particularly creative except in its use of language, but he supposed if Bragi was a poet, elegance of language was the object.

"The College does not keep a set schedule because some of the Masters' experiments distort local times anyways. It can be a fairly leisurely place, since few students maintain other rigorous scholarly or occupational commitments. Everyone there would have known the only reason for me to accost the prince to ask the hour would be to irritate him and call attention to his much more regimented schedule." Bragi explained, although Volstagg didn't think that made the account any more interesting. "Anyways, our rivalry continued right up until a terrific shouting match at my graduation, at which point we finally revealed our months of collaboration. We apologized to eachother, very dramatically, and Loki gave a pretty speech congratulating me and the handful of other students to take the graduate exam that year."

After a moment of silence, Volstagg decided Bragi had finished his story, finally. "So... are you saying you're not guilty because of your long friendship with Loki built on a foundation of mutual love of braggadocious anecdotes and large vocabularies?"

"Well, we've hardly spoken in centuries so it's hard to qualify our relationship as a 'long friendship,' but more or less, yes."

Volstagg dropped his head into his hands, praying for patience. He had only asked one real question so far. He had a growing fear he was going to end up interviewing this man all day, and learn nothing but twaddle. "What do you know about the attacks on Loki to date?" he asked without looking up.

"Well, I have heard a great deal, all of it rife with speculation. I shall tell you first about the rumors I have heard about the poisonings since I anticipate that is what you are most interested in. Then I can offer my own scant conclusions, although -"

"Would it help if I first set the record straight on what has definitely happened so we can skip all the irrelevant rumors?"

..."I suppose that is reasonable," Bragi said somewhat sullenly.

"What do you think of Loki?"

"Hmm, haven't seen him in ages," Hodr deadpanned. Sif blinked. Hodr was blind and had been as long as she could remember. Everyone knew that. Hodr grinned. "Sorry. I couldn't resist. That's my go-to joke. Loki never liked it much either. It wasn't clever enough for him."

Sif snorted. "Moving on, would you think of yourself as a friend of Loki's?"

Hodr's easy smile broadened. "Am I a friend to him? I dearly hope so, but it was always hard to know with him. He absolutely was to me, one of my greatest."

Sif raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

His smile faded. "It was terrible to lose him, more terrible still to think he may never again be all that he was."

"You speak from the heart," Sif said in surprise, setting down her pen.

Hodr smiled again, sadly. "Loki was one of the most capable and versatile magicians I have ever known in my long service, and more importantly one of the most generous. The gift he gave to me was something few could, and even fewer would."

"Tell me about it," Sif said, intrigued. It was very interesting, listening to Loki's old colleagues talk about him.

Hodr smiled, beard puffing out proudly. "He gave me my vision back."

Sif stared at the man's cloudy eyes, wondering if he was just a little insane after four millennia of too much magic. "He did, did he?"

Hodr laughed. "Not what I meant. Loki's telepathic abilities are unparalleled, or were. My affliction is somewhat...unique. In the normal course of events, a sorcerer who loses his eyes can simply use a scrying spell and get by perfectly well with his mind-sight. Scrying spells, actually all kinds of divination, work better in the blind than they do in the sighted, because the Third Eye is unclouded. Even the Allfather does it with his blind eye, you know, at least when he needs to. I tried to do one better and cast a permanent scrying spell on myself to expand my vision to rival Heimdall's after my own eyes were injured." He shrugged. "I was successful in theory but not in practice. Heimdall's vision works because his ability developed as a child in tandem with his brain. Mine didn't. I do in fact see everything there is, but I cannot make heads or tails of it. I can't even do standard visual divinations anymore. It was a personal and professional catastrophe." He waved a hand. "Loki couldn't fix that, but he could do a mind meld with more precision than anyone else I know. It took us a few years to figure out the specifics, but for the past five centuries he has visited me on my name day every year, taken hold of my mind, and allowed me to see my wife and children out of his eyes for a few hours, while he stared blindly at the universe at large in all its chaotic glory. It wasn't easy and took a lot out of him, but he never asked me anything in return."

Sif smiled faintly. "I never knew that about him." She had never known rather a lot of things about Loki, it had emerged.

"He is a man of mystery, even to his friends."

"Truly. Thank you for telling me that." Sif picked up her pen again. "What do you know about what's happened to Loki recently?"

"No more than Karnilla has chosen to share with the College, which was not particularly encouraging."

"Would it surprise you to hear the most recent attacks were magical in nature?"

Hodr coughed. "Well, no, not since you've been exclusively questioning sorcerers yesterday and today. I would have been surprised yesterday though. I won't say everyone likes Loki as much as I do, but I would not have thought anyone hated him. We sorcerers all knew him fairly well, and are better positioned to sympathize with him, I think. We are in many ways a world apart from the rest of Asgard."

"Okay... let me ask you this then. Loki told Thor he thinks the spell might be some kind of mind magic. Who in the College might be capable of such an attack?"

Hodr pursed his lips. "I like not speaking against my colleagues, but... Loki certainly could have in his prime. Amora and her sister Loralei. I might be able, depending on the demands of the spell. Vor. The Archsorceress... really anyone with a Mastery in mind magic should be under consideration even if it isn't their specialty, so that's about a third of the College. Theoretically, it could also be done by someone less skilled if they possessed a properly designed and enchanted device, but I've never come across such a thing on the market."

"Wait, you can make telepathic weaponry? How have I never heard of this as an officer in the army?"

"Well, it's technically possible to make such a thing, but as I've said I've never encountered one in person, only design schematics kept for research purposes in the College Archives, which are secured. The only one I might have even heard of in the field is the staff Loki reportedly carried on Midgard, but even that is debatable. Half the College thought it was probably just a conduit for Loki's own considerable telepathic abilities, while the other half thought there may have been more to it..."

Sif jotted down notes frantically as Hodr rambled on about his own pet theories about Loki's staff. Sif hadn't thought twice about the dratted thing after Thor mentioned it to her, but this was bad news if there was a whole other potential avenue of inquiry to open up. Perhaps even more importantly, Hodr might think a telepathic weapon an interesting theory, but in Sif's experience, if a new kind of weapon could be thought of, it would soon be made. If Loki's state was anything to judge by, it would be a terrifying, untraceable weapon in a more routine assassination. One that the vast majority of the population would be uniquely vulnerable to, lacking Loki's training in magical defense... the military really should talk to the sorcerers more often, or have the officers take some of the basic magical theory classes...

"No, I don't have an alibi, but Thor, even you should know it couldn't possibly be me."

"Really? Why?"

Baldr raised an eyebrow. "You do realize I never actually passed the graduate sorcerer's exam to become a full member of the College, don't you?"

"Er, no. You didn't?"

Baldr shook his head. "I passed the written but not the practical. My magical affinity is like yours, Thor. Exceptionally one-dimensional. Ask me to do something using energies in the visible light spectrum and absolutely, I can do it. But ask me to do literally anything else...and I'm still a novice. My power when it comes to light proved an insurmountable impediment to learning any of the other disciplines beyond the basics."

"But they still let you teach there?" Thor asked, interested despite himself. "How does that work?"

"I know the theory inside out for all the disciplines even if I can't do most of it." He grinned. "My written score actually beat out both Loki and Loralei, though neither of them know it. So I teach theory to the novices, and I teach a seminar in the manipulation of light. You only need an honorary membership for that. That's the same reason the Queen is able to teach a few classes still after renouncing her own full membership."

"Okay... in theory, do you have any idea how someone could use magic to use Loki's own nervous system against him?"

Baldr blinked. "Is that what's happening?"

Thor shrugged. "I don't really know, but that's our current hypothesis, last I heard from Eir."

"Well, in theory, yes, I might be able to figure out the principles and methods needed to construct such a spell, if that was the goal. I've never tried to design something like that, though, so it would probably take me six months to work out all the math before sending it to the experimental stage, which as I said would presumably need someone else to actually perform."

"So you're saying you don't know of any spell that works that way?"

"Of course I don't. If you don't have the ability to do a certain type of magic, then you don't have the right to learn the advanced repertoire. Only the full members have full access."

The hierarchy and structure of the College of Sorcery was proving very confusing to Thor, which was a problem because with every interview, the importance of understanding it was also growing more apparent. "Let me get this straight. If you wanted to, you could probably, er, design a spell to do whatever you wanted it to based on your knowledge of magical theory, even if you personally wouldn't be able to cast it, correct?"

"Correct."

"But you can't just glance through a spellbook of things you don't have the ability to do, personally."

"It's not permitted, at least not within the walls of the College."

"What's stopping you?"

Baldr raised an eyebrow and looked at him as if he were just a little stupid. "My honor."

At long last, Loki was feeling clean after no less than two cold water showers, three hours soaking in a hot bath, then another shorter soak in a cold bath to get rid of his heat-exacerbated headache, not to mention carefully steaming his nose and sinuses to loosen the disgusting blood clots he had finally, finally successfully rinsed into the sink. His mouth was likewise purged with liberal amounts of stinging aerowater chased with mint tea. He dabbed some of Fandral's healing cream over the scar on his scalp, rubbing the excess into his hands and wrists. He wasn't sure it was making any difference, but he appreciated the thoughtfulness no end, so he kept using it. He scowled at his reflection and willed his damp hair to straighten and arrange itself a little more favorably. He had to catch himself on the sink as he did. The tiny expenditure of energy was enough to knock him off-balance again at the moment. He scowled harder as he pulled on the clean clothes he had selected at random from his wardrobe on the way to the bathroom. The colors didn't particularly match, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Nothing he could do at the moment would hide the fact that he was sickly and weak, waiting and dreading to be preyed upon once more. At least his vision had cleared over the course of the morning, and his balance had now improved enough he hadn't fallen while toweling dry.

He walked back out of the bathroom to find Frigga dozing in a chair by his window. She didn't wake even as he drew close. He felt his jaw clench, seeing the dark circles under her eyes and the low ebb of her aura. She had truly sapped her own strength, healing him. Lady Eir would likely be in a similar condition still, having worked hard to salvage his life and mental facilities two nights in a row. Loki glanced longingly towards his bed, but his feet turned towards the door.

If he wanted to survive the next attack, his saviors needed more and better rest beforehand. He paused only to write a quick note for his mother and munch on some cold breakfast meats left on a tray near her chair (after checking for more poison) before leaving his suite and heading towards the Library. If he wanted to do more than survive, he needed to figure out how to stop what was happening to him, and quickly. There was only so long he could remain relatively untouched by whatever evil pursued him. Eventually, his assailant would succeed in pulling him down and down despite the valiant efforts of his closest friends and family. He didn't doubt Thor's determination, or his parents', or Eir's, or Fandral's, or Sif's, Hogunn's, Volstagg's... not even Heimdall, General Aldrif, or even Loralei... but eventually if today was anything to go by, it wouldn't be worth resisting anymore. He would be a drooling invalid, permanently, or dead.

Loki couldn't afford to wait for Thor or anyone else to save him. He didn't plan to rest until either his attacker was identified, he knew how to fend them off, or he physically couldn't go on.

Author's note: If the deja vu is annoying you too much, rest assured you're not wrong: I did appropriate and modify a quote from Shakespeare's Henry IV for this chapter.

Also, amicus curiae is a legal term for "friend of the court," basically friendly informants, which is potentially most of the people in this chapter (although legally speaking, they are all suspects or persons of interest, I suppose, since this is still the equivalent of a police investigation, not a court case just yet). The most common use I know for an amicus curiae is in providing amicus briefs - neutral expert opinion, like a scientist explaining the relevant physics the court might need to interpret a law.