Ruby's eyes fluttered open. The world seemed pleasantly hazy. She felt as though she was floating on a cloud.

"Ruby!" Yang's voice came from just a couple feet away in a choked gasp. Ruby blinked at her sister as she glanced away to call out, "Doc, she's awake!" When she turned back, Ruby saw that her face was ruddy with tear tracks.

"Aw, Yang," she said, smiling lazily, heedless of the way her words slurred. "Don' cry! Whass wrong?"

Yang's lips twisted, as if she was trying to smile but had forgotten how. "I'm… nothing, Rubes," she said hoarsely. "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Of course 'm okay!" Ruby chirped. "I'm always okay. Gotta be okay."

Yang's face crumpled. "You don't," she said. "You—you don't always have to be okay, Rubes. You really, really don't."

"You were always okay for me," Ruby said. "Now I'm leader. I gotta be okay for you, n' Blake, n' Weiss. Gotta—gotta lead." She blinked.

When she opened her eyes again, the light streaming into the infirmary hall was coming through the windows at a different angle entirely. Yang was seated on the other side of her bed now, slumped against Blake's shoulder, fast asleep. Blake herself was reading, while in Yang's old seat, Weiss was blinking at her.

"Oh, Ruby," she said softly. "How are you feeling?"

Blake's eyes darted up from her book, which she closed with a snap.

"I'm…" Ruby began, then noticed just how raspy her voice was. "Thirsty," she decided.

"I'll get you some water," Weiss said. Her voice was more gentle than Ruby could ever remember hearing it before, and as she stood, she reached out to brush Ruby's sweat-matted hair out of her face, fingers feather-light against her skin. "Don't try to sit up, okay?"

"Okay," Ruby said, blinking as Weiss turned and walked away. She rolled her head on the pillow to look after her as she went towards a water cooler in the far corner of the room. Then she turned her head back to look at Blake, who was gazing at her with an unreadable look in her eyes. "What… happened?" she asked.

"How much do you remember?" Blake's voice was just as impassive as her face.

"Um…" Ruby thought back. So much had happened so quickly. "Raven left just as the adrenaline was wearing off. It… hurt." She grimaced. "I think… you guys tried to talk to me a bit more, right? I'm not sure I remember any of the conversation, though."

Blake exhaled. "Okay," she said. "We were mostly trying to get some basic, like, diagnostic information? We were trying to figure out if it was safe to dig you out of the rubble. We, uh, decided it probably wasn't."

Weiss sat back down on Ruby's other side. "Here," she said, reaching out and encircling Ruby's shoulders with one arm, pulling her partially upright. Ruby's chest—her ribs—twinged at the motion, but she immediately knew it would have been far worse if she'd tried to sit up on her own power. Weiss held the plastic cup to her lips, and Ruby drank gratefully, even though Weiss only tilted the glass a tiny bit so that she could barely get a thimbleful of water at a time. All too soon, however, the cup was empty, and Weiss laid her back down. Her fingers lingered on the back of Ruby's neck as she pulled away. "Sorry for drip-feeding you," she apologized with a soft smile and sad eyes. "The doctors said not to overload your throat."

"It's okay," said Ruby. "Thanks." She looked back at Blake. "I guess Raven got us medevac?"

"Yeah," said Blake. "The medics pulled you out and got all the Fang on the transport with us. A few of them were injured. None as bad as you. You were long unconscious by that point. Yang was—" Blake's voice suddenly broke. "Yang was checking every few seconds whether you were still breathing. I've never—I don't know if I've ever seen anyone as scared as she was. It felt like hours we were trapped down there."

Ruby's heart sank. "I should have sent you guys with Raven," she realized. "There was no reason for all of us to—"

"None of us were going to leave you down there," Weiss said firmly, but still uncharacteristically gentle and kind. "Half-buried in rubble, bleeding out, and surrounded by White Fang who were starting to wake up? No way."

Ruby's heart surged with sudden warmth. "I… thanks, you guys."

"Don't—" Blake swallowed. "Don't thank us," she whispered. "Or don't thank me, anyway. I'm…" She shook her head, careful not to dislodge Yang. "All I could think," she whispered, and the impassive mask of her face was cracking now, letting out something like shame, "was that I was once one of the White Fang, one of the people who almost got you killed and—and I wasn't even sure I'd have stayed to save them if it had been up to me."

"You would have," said Ruby firmly.

"You don't know that."

"I do," said Ruby, smiling at her. "You're a Huntress, aren't you?"

Blake's composure crumpled. "It's not that simple," she mumbled, voice shaking.

"Yes it is," said Ruby. Her smile fell. "It's exactly that simple. Simple just doesn't mean easy." She shook her head. "Anyway. After the medevac came, they brought me here. How bad was it? How bad is it?" She remembered something. "Oh, also, what the heck happened to Mom? Do you guys know?"

They looked at each other. "Ozpin was on the medical transport," Weiss said. "He said it was classified, and that he'd try to figure out how much he could tell us once everyone was out of danger."

"Okay," Ruby said. "So—back to me." She grinned impishly. "Give it to me straight, Doc—how long have I got?"

Neither of them laughed, which made her heart plummet. "Oh, that bad?"

"You're not going to die," Blake said hastily. "Um. I mean, unless you're 'both spectactularly careless and catastrophically unlucky,' was what the doctor said. Three of your ribs were broken, and you have to be be careful with them until they heal or they could break again. But there was no serious organ damage—just some bruising on your lungs, which will heal on its own. Just be careful not to get a cold for the next few weeks."

"Okay, wash hands a lot. Got it." Ruby frowned at her teammates. "That… doesn't sound too bad?"

"Well… that's not all." Weiss took a deep breath. "It's… your leg, Ruby. I…" she sighed, reaching out and hooking her arm around Ruby's shoulders again. "Do you mind if I just show you?"

"No," said Ruby, feeling sick to her stomach. "Go ahead.

Weiss pulled her a little further upright this time, until she was almost sitting properly. Ruby looked down herself. Chest, belly, hips, thighs, knee—knee. Singular.

Ruby's right leg was gone, cut away just above the knee.

"Oh," she said, voice small.

"Yeah." Yang's voice was rough from crying and sleep. Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby saw her sit up straight. "I… yeah. Rubes, I'm so sorry."

Ruby blinked at the space where her leg should have been, feeling a strange sense of… unreality? The evidence of her eyes disagreed with the evidence of her other senses. She could still feel her leg. She tried to wiggle her toes. It felt like it worked, but the sheets didn't move. For a moment, she felt a wild impulse to laugh, to accuse her teammates of pulling a prank on her. She shoved that thought away. This was real.

Maybe, if she told herself that enough times, she'd start to believe it.

Maybe, if she started to believe it, she could start to be okay with it.

"Dad's on his way from Patch," Yang said quietly. "The doctors said you'd be safe to move the day after tomorrow, if we were careful, so he's going to spend the night here until he can take you back home."

"Wait." Ruby blinked hard, tearing her eyes away from—from her missing leg to look at Yang. "What do you mean, take me back home?"

Yang's mouth dropped open. "Ruby," she said, "you're—you can't seriously be planning on staying in Beacon like this?"

"Of course I'm staying in Beacon!" Ruby exclaimed. "I—what? Why would I go home? We have finals in a few weeks! And then the Vytal Festival next term!"

"How are you planning on fighting in your combat finals?" Yang asked, her eyes flickering red. "Let alone the Vytal Festival! How are you even planning to get to your other exams!?"

"Okay, so crutches for that last one," said Ruby primly. "And—yeah, I'll probably have to take an incomplete for Professor Goodwitch's class this quarter, but—Yang, combat prosthetics exist. General Ironwood has his arm and half his torso replaced with cybernetics! This?" she flailed her arm at the space where her leg should have been, then winced when the motion aggravated her ribs.

Weiss grabbed at her hand with the one she wasn't using to hold Ruby up. "Okay, that's enough of that," she said, and now there was an edge to her voice. "Yang, if you can't help upsetting Ruby—"

"No! No." Yang's voice broke and she slumped in her seat. "I'm sorry. I'll be good."

Weiss gently let Ruby back down onto the mattress. Ruby was surprised to find that she was sweating heavily. Weiss gently dabbed at her forehead with the corner of the blanket.

"It's not that easy," said Blake softly.

"What?" Ruby asked.

"Getting used to a disability," Blake said, looking at her with sad, pitying eyes. Ruby ruthlessly wrestled down an impulse to scream at her for it. "I've known people who lost… a lot of things. An eye. An arm. One person lost both legs in a mining accident." She took a shuddering breath. "A lot of them had… cosmetic corrective surgery, was the diplomatic term. Ears, tails, wings, cut off so they could pass as human. Usually, they weren't asked if they wanted it." She shook her head. "Not the point. The point is, Ruby, it takes time to get used to something like this. It takes time to get used to not having what you had, and then time again to get used to whatever prosthetic you start using. It's not as easy as just saying you're going to get a combat prosthetic."

"Of course it's not easy," Ruby said. "But it is that simple."

"Professor Leonardo Lionheart," Ozpin read aloud from the newspaper, "was found dead in his office in Haven Academy this morning. Mistral Police report he was hanging from the ceiling. 'Although we will, of course, investigate all avenues available to us,' said Commissioner Nicole Steele, 'the lack of obvious signs of a struggle suggest that Headmaster Lionheart took his own life." Ozpin folded the paper neatly and set it on the corner of his desk before clasping his hands and resting his chin on them. He looked at the seven other people in his office. "I am genuinely unsure how I should feel about the last seventy-two hours," he said.

Geralt stood brooding in one corner, arms crossed. Beside him sat Regis, whom Ozpin had invited to join their little group after his battle with Fenrisulfr. Yennefer stood to Ozpin's left, looking past him at the window. To his right, Glynda stood at attention. James held a crisp parade rest near the door. Qrow was slumped against the wall, looking like a small shove might knock him sprawling.

The one new addition, Barty Oobleck, stood drumming his fingers on his thermos and tapping a frenetic rhythm on the wooden floor. He had taken advantage of his standing invitation to these meetings, Ozpin suspected, because he felt responsible for what had happened to Ruby.

"It seems to me that we've won far more than we've lost," said Ironwood. His voice was slightly wooden, and his eyes had taken on the hooded quality they affected when he was actively using Mettle. "Geralt's mission was a resounding success, and we've not only neutralized a hitherto-unknown threat to the Kingdom of Vale, we've also captured a Grimm Titan for study. Mrs. Rose and Chief Branwen have, it appears, successfully eliminated two of Salem's inner circle, and exposed a traitor in our midst. Thanks to the efforts of Team RWBY, a breach in Vale's walls was prevented. The only unfortunate outcomes are Lionheart's death before he could be brought in for interrogation, as well as the deaths of Salem's other collaborators, and Miss Rose's injury. Those seem to be acceptable losses, given what we—"

"That's my niece's fucking leg you're calling 'acceptable losses,' General," Qrow hissed furiously.

Ironwood turned to him and then, with visible effort, released his use of Mettle. His eyes cleared and he gave Qrow a sympathetic look. "I'm aware," James said, bringing his hands together to pull the glove off of his prosthetic hand. "Believe me, Qrow, I am aware. Miss Rose—Ruby's—sacrifice is great." He took a breath, and it actually shook slightly going in. "Losing a limb in combat at fifteen is… awful. I will, of course, see to it that Polendina's most recent line of military-grade prosthetics are available to her, should she choose to continue to pursue a career as a Huntress. And if she doesn't, I think we can all understand that. No one could ask her to give more than she already has. But think of what her sacrifice bought us, Qrow." He gestured at the window behind Ozpin's chair. "We have no idea what was sealed in that cavern beneath Mountain Glen. We have no idea what might have poured through if the White Fang had managed to open that breach. For all we know, there might have been another Grimm Titan, lying in wait down there. Ruby's leg may have just bought us the entire Kingdom of Vale. I hate that it was necessary as much as you do, Qrow, but I won't insult Ruby's sacrifice by suggesting it was anything less than necessary."

Qrow glared at James for a moment through bloodshot wine-red eyes. "Fuck," he mumbled finally, running his hand through his hair. "You're right, damn it all. Ruby's just a kid. She shouldn't have been there. But she was. And—and I wasn't." His fists clenched, nails digging into his palms.

"Even if you had been sober," said Geralt coolly from the corner, "I think it still would have made sense to send two escorts with Summer. Team RWBY may still be students, but they're good. They've already fought Torchwick and his goons multiple times and come out fine. There was no reason to suspect they wouldn't this time."

"There was an entire Kingdom's worth of volatile Dust in that cavern," Qrow said hoarsely. "And I let both of Tai's kids walk in there with just my antisocial sister for company. Fuck. Oz—if I ever pick up anything stronger than root beer again, I want you to shoot me."

"Oh, Qrow," said Oz with a wry, mirthless smile. "I am an absolutely terrible shot."

"It may not be as dire as it appears," said Yennefer thoughtfully. She stood to the left of Ozpin's desk, staring out at the Kingdom far below. "It will not be an easy spell, but significant alterations to the body are not unheard of. I've been the recipient of them myself. I will do some research."

"Would a prosthetic interfere with your magic?" James asked. "Or can I offer her one, to be potentially replaced later?"

"Unless the attachment of the prosthetic involves applying anything toxic to the site of the injury, it should be no issue," said Yennefer dismissively. "Toxicity can interfere with physiological magic, however. It is what makes Witchers so very frustrating to work with."

"Good to know," said James. "I'll forward that to Pietro. I doubt it'll be an issue."

"Great," said Qrow. "Fantastic. There's also the other bit of news."

"Wait," said James, holding up a hand and stepping towards Ozpin's desk. "Oz, may I?"

Ozpin gestured permission, curious, and James came around and tapped the power switch on Ozpin's desk, turning off the inbuilt computer. Then he pulled out his scroll and, showing it to everyone in the room, turned it off, then gestured silently for everyone else to do the same.

Once they had obeyed, he turned back to Ozpin. "If Arthur Watts was really working for Salem," he said lowly, "it's entirely possible we've discovered the reason for the infiltration of the CCT tower several days ago. The man was a software genius and knew the CCT better than anyone else. I'll have my cybercorps search for whatever present he left in our systems, but for now, we should assume that our electronics are compromised."

Ozpin grimaced. It made far too much sense. "Wise," he said. "Yes, while discussing these affairs, we should ensure no electronic ears might be listening." He gestured to Qrow. "Please, Qrow, do elaborate."

Qrow glared at him balefully, slipping his scroll back into his pocket. "Were you ever planning on telling us that you thought Salem was literally impossible to beat?"

"What?" Ironwood exclaimed, head whipping around to stare at Qrow before turning to face Ozpin again. "Oz, is this true?"

Ozpin ignored him. He was staring at Qrow. Something he hadn't felt in… centuries, at least, was bubbling up in him. "Why do you say that I thought this?" he asked softly.

Qrow smirked at him. "Turns out, it was just impossible for you to beat her," he said. "Summ asked Jinn who could."

"And?" Ozpin demanded."

Qrow turned wordlessly. Ozpin followed his gaze.

"Oh, fuck," said Geralt.

"Ozpin." James' voice was soft. He sounded… hurt. "Is this true? This whole time, have you believed Salem was invincible?"

Ozpin grimaced. "Yes," he admitted.

James grimaced. Then his face went slack as he activated Mettle. "I see," Ironwood said. "I suppose I understand. We keep Salem's existence secret to prevent panic from attracting Grimm. This secret, I imagine, you kept for the same reason. From us."

Ozpin's gaze fell to his desk. "It's more than that," he said quietly. "The first few generations after I asked the lamp that question, I shared the answer with my friends and collaborators. I noticed a… marked increase in the number of betrayals I suffered." He took a deep breath. "Those who stayed by my side sometimes became closer friends than nearly any I have had since I started keeping it secret," he said. "But my friendships, I decided, were not worth the potential damage a betrayal could do to the people of Remnant."

Ironwood nodded. He did not release Mettle.

"But…" Glynda began, uncharacteristically hesitant, "if Geralt is the only person capable of stopping Salem—well, first of all, it means that Ozpin was correct that she was unbeatable until less than a year ago. But, also, how?"

"Have you been holding out on my, Geralt?" Yennefer purred. Ozpin glanced at her and saw an amused smile creeping across her lips. "You seem to be making a hobby of slaying immortal demigods. There are… safer ways we could engage in stress relief, you know."

"Yen," Geralt said, exasperated. "I do not have a habit of—" he stopped suddenly. His brow furrowed.

"Have you thought of something, my friend?" Regis asked.

"Maybe…" said Geralt slowly. "Oz—I looked a little further into that fable from a few weeks ago. The Witch's Three Wishes?"

"I also did some research," Ozpin said. "What did you find?"

"No two versions of the fable have the same third wish," Geralt said. "But all of them agree that the third wish is what leads to the witch's downfall, right?"

"I have noticed this pattern, yes," said Ozpin, frowning. Thoughtfully. "You believe that if we can find the actual wish Salem made, we can use it to determine how you might defeat her?"

"That's what I'm thinking," said Geralt. "But there are only two ways I can think of to find that information. Either we have to summon him ourselves, to ask him—which I cannot stress enough is a bad idea—or we figure out where Salem made the wishes in the first place." He glanced at Yennefer. "Yen can probably use psychometric magic to unlock the memory of the wishes."

"It shouldn't even be especially difficult," said Yennefer idly. "If even half of what I've heard about this Master Mirror is true, his very presence, and especially his invocation, should leave an imprint to be felt for thousands of millennia."

"So if we can figure out where Salem made the wishes," Geralt said, turning to Ozpin, "we can figure out how I can use them to beat her."

"Well," said Ozpin, "I can probably tell you where she made the wishes."

Geralt blinked. "Where?"

"Many—not all, but many—versions of the fable have the wishes being made at the site of some great tragedy, about which the witch is still bitter," said Ozpin. "At a guess? She made the wish at the site of our first battle."

"Why would Salem consider your death a tragedy?" Glynda asked.

Ozpin smiled ruefully, feeling the ancient ache surge back up again. "Not mine," he said. "But if I know her at all—and I do—then she still, to this day, mourns the deaths of our four daughters."

As one, every eye turned to him. "Sorry," said Qrow, "your what?"

Geralt watched as Ozpin smiled ruefully. "Given the circumstances, I suppose it's time I told all of you the full story. You see, Salem was not always the immortal queen of the Grimm—and I was not always cursed to be her cyclic enemy. Once, a very, very long time ago, we were both ordinary humans who met and—as ordinary humans do—fell in love."

The man's smile fell, and Geralt suddenly saw what Ozpin had always hid behind his impassive secrecy and mystique. The man was burdened with the sort of infinite sadness that Geralt suspected only the very old or immortal could ever know.

"The world was very different then," said Ozpin softly. "Unimaginably so. It almost feels like a dream, now. There was no Dust—magic suffused the very air we breathed, free for all to use. There were no faunus, not yet. There were Grimm, but they were contained—even docile, to a degree—and far fewer in number." He looked up at them. "I've told you all about the two brothers who created the relics. At this time, they still held court on Remnant—and it wasn't Remnant, then. We called this world Celestica, Home of the Gods.

"One day, a scant few years into my relationship with Salem, I took deathly ill. Salem did all she could, consulted every physician and healer she could, but to no avail. I died my first death." He pursed his lips. "As you can imagine, I have had to piece together what followed from relatively little evidence—much of it comes at Salem's own word. She told me that she despaired for a time wandering Celestica alone, before hitting upon an idea. She would seek out the gods and ask if I could be resurrected."

"She first approached the God of Light. He told her in no uncertain terms that the resurrection of a soul who had passed on was something he was unwilling to do. Though she railed at him, he would not budge. So she left, and went to the court of his brother.

"At first, she tried asking him the same way she had asked his brother. She received the same response. But it was said that the God of Darkness was jealous of the adoration his brother received from mortals, and so she stoked that envy. She said that his brother had told her he doubted he would even be able to resurrect me. Her ruse worked, and the God of Darkness did as she asked.

"I do, in fact, remember this, in a way. I awoke in screaming pain. I was barely cognizant, but if I strain, I think I remember the God of Light arriving. The brothers argued—and I was caught in the middle. The God of Light destroyed me, and the God of Darkness resurrected me. Over, and over," he took a shuddering breath, a shadow crossing his face, "and over.

"But in the end, I am told, the God of Light convinced his brother that he had been manipulated, and the God of Darkness destroyed me for the final time himself. And then they turned on Salem. It was then that they cursed her with immortality—to be forced to accept the necessity of death by being denied it herself."

"But that means…" Glynda breathed. "That means that all this—everything she's done—was caused by the gods."

"That," Ozpin said darkly, "is exactly what it means." He shook his head. "Salem later told me that she tried to lead a rebellion against the gods. I suspect she tried to take her own life at least a few times. But she went around the various realms of Celestica, telling their rulers that she had stolen her immortality from the gods and that, if they followed her, they could defeat the gods and steal it for themselves too. Not everyone was convinced, of course, but enough were to form an army. And Salem marched that army to the domain of the God of Light."

Ozpin took a deep breath. "And then the gods destroyed them. For the hubris of Salem's followers, they destroyed not only the army, but the entire human population of Remnant, with only one exception: Salem herself. She was cast into the Pits of Grimm, transforming her into the creature we know today. And then they left, shattering the moon on the way out."

There was a ghastly silence. Geralt found his teeth were gritted.

"I have no idea how humanity reappeared," said Ozpin softly. "I have no idea how faunuskind appeared. I have no idea how magic was converted to Dust. All I know is that, when next I was aware, the God of Light was speaking to me in a dream. He told me that it was my task to unite the people of Remnant, and then bring together the four relics he had hidden throughout the world to summon the gods back. If humanity was truly united, the gods would return, and raise us back to our former glory. If we were not, they would destroy us again—permanently, this time.

"And then I woke up, in a new body, in the middle of a Grimm attack. It took me some time to become familiar with things, and then I went in search of the relics. I did not find them. Instead, I found Salem.

"Even after all that time, and wearing different faces she still loved me, and I her. I lived with her briefly, and then she had the idea that we, as the only remaining practitioners of old magic, could guide the people of the world as gods ourselves. To my shame, I went along with her. Many came to worship us, joining our new kingdom. Many did not—and Salem conquered them, and I stood by and let her."

Ozpin let out a breath, pulling off his spectacles. As he moved to rub at his eyes, Geralt saw that they were damp with tears. "It was in that time," the man said, without looking at any of them, "that Salem and I had four beautiful daughters. As my doubts about our path grew, they grew up. And then our eldest showed that she had inherited our ability to wield magic. Salem decided then that we could use our line, with our ability to wield magic, to… replace the mundane peoples of Remnant. That was when I understood that my wife had gone irrevocably mad.

"I tried to sneak out of our castle with our daughters. She caught us. We fought. Our—our daughters—" He took a shuddering breath, resting his head in his hands. "They died in the fighting. Whatever remained of them became the Four Maidens which wander Remnant today. Salem killed me, too, but of course—I returned. And so our feud began."

"Oz…" James sounded horrified. He had released his Semblance, and was staring at Ozpin in sympathy and pity. "Brothers, I'm so sorry."

Ozpin shook his head. When he lifted his face out of his hands, his eyes were damp, but no tears had fallen. He met Geralt's gaze. "So you understand," he said. "The place where Salem made her wishes—would be our old castle. Which, unfortunately, is where she holds court to this day."

"In the Grimmlands," Geralt said. The continent north of Vacuo was widely considered the be uninhabitable, infested with Grimm as it was.

"Shit," said Qrow. "Oz, are you—"

"Enough." Ozpin's voice was hard. He held Geralt's gaze, but spoke to the whole room. "I do not need your pity. I do not need your sympathy. Every tragedy in my long life is the fault of exactly two beings."

"You and Salem?" asked Glynda sympathetically.

Yennefer, once more looking out the window laughed darkly.

"No," Ozpin said to Glynda quietly. "Salem and I have both dabbled in madness after living so long. The fault, in the end, lies with the monsters who drove us to the extremes we have been pushed to—both of us."

"The gods," said Geralt.

"The gods," Ozpin agreed, dark fury in his tone. "I was tasked to unite the four relics. As such, I sought them out, and built kingdoms, cities, and academies with the singular purpose of ensuring that they be kept separate at all costs. Because if the relics are united, either humanity is divided and slaughtered to the last child, or humanity is unified and thrust once again beneath the heel of monsters who were willing to drive an entire planet's worth of people to extinction for the actions of one woman—and who then left that woman to do even more damage in future." He snorted derisively. "Salem, meanwhile, is doing all she can to penetrate my defenses and bring the relics together. She believes—rightly, I suspect—that if the gods destroy humanity, they will destroy her with it, this time."

After a long pause, Regis sighed quietly. "I have never been more glad," he murmured in Geralt's ear, "that my kind are not technically immortal. It sounds horrific."

Geralt grunted in agreement.

"So," said Yennefer. "We have to get me to these Grimmlands, preferably without Salem any the wiser. How?"

Ozpin steepled his fingers. A thoughtful silence fell.

Ironwood cleared his throat, eyes dull with his Semblance. "I have an idea," he said.