A Summer's Scheming

It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes

But it might just save your life

~ Huey Lewis

Chapter 1

If you want to be revenged, hold your tongue. ~ Traditional Proverb

Mary was waiting at the door to the room used by the campus bookies when Leon arrived. There wasn't really a queue as such - it was just the two of them.

"Do you get the impression that someone had less than total faith in Lady Redgrave's champions?" he asked her in greeting.

"A proper lady would not speculate upon what others had wagered, much less on the extent of their losses," the girl said primly, covering her mouth with a fan. Her eyes danced with amusement though.

Leon snorted. "And that's one reason so many idiots lose their money. No one reins them in."

"You might be onto something," Mary conceded. "However, since financial and social ruin presumably follows those who fall into that trap, one might argue that it is to the benefit of the noble class as a whole."

"That's one view, I suppose."

The door opened and Raymond Fou Arkin emerged from inside. He looked pleased with himself, but wiped that look off his face when he saw he wasn't alone outside.

"I see someone had faith in at least one of us," Leon noted.

Mary closed her fan and tapped it to his lips. "Discretion, Lord Bartford. Lest fools thrive." She went ahead of him into the bookie's room.

"More than they do already?" he called after her.

Raymond shook his head in disbelief. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Have high ranking women treat you like that!" the slightly built baron's heir demanded. "I'd be jealous if it wasn't for your tea parties digging out some quiet girls for the rest of us, but none of us would get the time of day from a noble lady."

Leon stared at him and then snorted. "I think you have a definition issue, Raymond. These are noble ladies, but the ones you have trouble with are harpies. There's a pronounced difference!"

The other boy winced. "Don't let them hear that. You're on shaky ground as it is."

"That's what makes this so fun!"

Raymond didn't appear to believe that. "Rather you than me. Er, will you be hosting more tea parties after the summer?"

Leon rolled his eyes. "Sure, but we should all just invite the actual ladies, then informally agree that everyone goes to one host in turn. Us competing to put on a display doesn't work well."

Mary opened the door and walked out, beaming. "Leon, you're up. Try not to make the poor men cry."

"No promises," he said with a wink and went in.

The boy inside flinched as he saw Leon, but then plastered a welcoming look on his face. "Ah, our big winner. Welcome back, Lord Bartford."

Leon inclined his head. "Three out of five."

"That is correct, of course." The bookie gestured to the seat ahead of him. "You have your betting slips?"

The five were proffered and Leon politely ignored the expression of dashed hope, separating the bets on Keith and Alan. "These two were losses."

"Quite…" The other boy accepted the two, tore them up and discarded them into a wastebin. "So, moving on to what we owe you, let's start with the final duel. The odds were almost exactly even, so…" He opened a cash box and pushed back a platinum coin - probably one of the five that Leon had bet with since coins of that denomination weren't usually flashed around, at least not by mere students - and added a number of smaller coins that were almost but not entirely equal in value once you added them up.

Leon pocketed them without counting. It could have been taken as a gesture of trust… or that he just didn't care very much given the two bets that he hadn't collected on.

The bookie picked out the slip for the last duel and discarded it. "And now we have these two." He placed his hands on the table. "To be completely honest, we don't keep enough cash on hand to pay out odds of ten to one against you and of seventeen to one against Lady Claes."

Leon quirked an eyebrow. "Not enough people bet against us?"

"I can't comment on anyone else's wagers," the boy said primly. "We have enough to cover either one of those right away, and I'd be perfectly happy to go to the capital and collect the cash from the bank but that would take time and my understanding is that you won't be staying at the academy over the summer."

"I take it that you have alternatives in mind then?"

"Naturally." The bookie relaxed slightly. "If you're happy to accept partial payout today, we can cover the rest with an IOU to be collected next term…"

Leon frowned at him.

"Or a banker's draft," the older boy concluded, smoothly.

Holfort's banking system didn't quite extend to checking accounts but the capital did have banks that held and transferred funds for nobles, gentry and more affluent merchants. They also offered loans, to entrap the feudal nobility into debt… er, to facilitate trade and help those whose income was seasonal to manage their finances. For a group of students to have a joint account with one reinforced that they were quite a well-established group.

Leon wondered if the money he drew on with such a draft would come from their actual reserve funds or if they'd taken a loan out. The latter didn't mean he'd run them out of money, just that he'd have reduced them to so little capital that they couldn't keep operating in the short term. "A draft is fine," he agreed. "Shall we say half of the total with the rest in cash?"

"Of course." The cash box opened again and all four of the remaining platinum coins came out. The number of coins and banknotes that joined them was impressive but the bookie managed to make it look as if it was an everyday transaction. "Fourteen point five in cash. I'll write out the banker's draft now." The document he retrieved had been mostly written up and signed already. It was the work of a moment for the upperclassman to enter the amount and a few other details. "If you'd be so good as to sign here?"

Leon accepted the draft and read it carefully first. Once he was satisfied that it didn't mean he was accepting the draft itself as settlement or any other stupid trap, he signed it and stowed it away carefully.

"Congratulations," the bookie told him. "You've pushed us to impose a maximum bet limit."

"It's nice to make an impact, I suppose."

"Oh, I assure you that you have."

Mary was still waiting for Leon outside, although Raymond had made himself scarce. Perhaps he found the young lady intimidating. Leon would have said that that would make it hard for the heir to Baron Arkin to find a bride, but since he was already introducing the other student to some less threatening young ladies, it wasn't the end of the world.

"I wondered who was behind luring some of the more reclusive ladies in our class out of their rooms to socialize," Mary noted. "And now I know."

"The cunning hunter does not chase," Leon told her in a pretentious tone. "He waits."

She snapped her fan out again to cover her face. "Given that gentlemen tend towards the more dangerous professions, the disparity in influence between ladies and gentlemen in society is… puzzling. When I was younger it was just how matters were."

"The majority of the ladies are competing to marry up." Leon reminded her. "The matter doesn't impact on the heirs to viscounts and upwards. Well, not as much. But second sons or the heirs to mere barons struggle, and social events in the academy are structured to render us competitors to each other."

"With the observed results," she mused, placing one hand on the arm that he had offered her as they headed towards the door. It was taking decorum perhaps a little too far, but Mary seemed to enjoy the formality and courtesy cost Leon nothing while buying him some goodwill. It was a currency that it was hard to have too much of.

Leon wondered if it was a good moment to let her in on the fact that it wasn't the result of some shadowy conspiracy… or rather, that it was but that they weren't subverting the kingdom's customs to create the current situation. The customs had been created intentionally by previous generations of the Holfort dynasty, if not with quite this result in mind.

They paused at the sight of a finely dressed gentleman crossing the academy grounds as they exited the building. It was a fine summer day and more than a few students were already departing, carrying their bags (or trailed by servants doing so) as they did so.

"That's one of the crown's heralds," Mary noted, her hand tightening on Leon's arm. "What's he doing?"

"Collecting a family member?" Leon didn't think that it was likely though - few families would send someone to collect their offspring from the academy itself. It would be an inconvenience to the feudal lords and even court nobles had little need to do so. A student should be assumed to be competent to get themselves at least as far as the capital or its attached port without supervision.

"I'm fairly sure that the baron has no children our age," she disagreed and pulled lightly. "If you will indulge my curiosity?"

"Gladly."

The grey-haired court baron seemed to pay no heed to the fact he was being followed, leading Leon and Mary to one of the dorm buildings - the one that catered to the most exalted of all the male students.

"Oh my."

"He's here on business then," Leon concluded. "I do believe that someone is in trouble."

Mary nodded. "Unfortunately, I doubt that his message will be delivered in public."

"I think we can safely say that it's going to be Julius, right?"

"I would imagine so. But the prince's rooms are the most secure in the entire dorm. We can't exactly listen at his keyhole."

"No… but he is on the top floor, and the dorm's attic is just storage space," Leon suggested. "I have an idea."

He led her into the dorm, past the harried concierge and up the main stairs. At the end of one of the upstairs corridors, there was a locked door and Leon pulled a couple of pins out of his sleeve.

"What in the world are you up to?" Mary asked as he pushed them into the keyhole, feeling for the tumblers. Then her eyes widened as something clicked.

Leon smiled, opened the door and ushered her inside, closing the door after he'd followed her inside.

"You have some unexpected skills," she told him as they climbed the stairs behind the door.

He shrugged. "Product of a mis-spent youth. Please keep your voice down, we can hear through the ceiling, so we can also be heard."

At the top of the stairs, the rafters were bare. Perhaps at one point the space had been used for storage but right now it was empty. Leon orientated himself and then they hopped from rafter to rafter until they had reached a spot above Julius' suite. Mary took off her high-heeled shoes, as they were impractical under the circumstances.

Kneeling in the dust, the two of them listened for voices below.

"...families are disinclined to welcome you back for the summer given your disgraceful performances of late," a man's deep voice declared.

"Hey, I won my duel," Greg Fou Seberg rebutted - clearly audible to the two eavesdroppers.

"What did I do wrong?" added Brad Fou Field indignantly.

"What leads you to think that it is merely the duels that your fathers are concerned by?" The herald - or so Leon assumed - didn't sound at all bothered. "Count Seberg expressed - with the full support of Marquis Field and Viscount Marmoria - that he has always supported the notion that a son who fails to wed should not inherit. Since Count Atlee has dissolved the arrangement between his house and the Marmorias, that leaves only one of you with a fiancee. You need not expect that your fathers will provide such arrangements again in the future."

"Then I'll marry Marie and everything will be fine!" the redhead declared.

"Excuse me, what makes you think it's you that Marie will be marrying?" asked Brad sharply.

The herald cleared his throat. "I have also been asked to determine whether Prince Julius is upholding the terms of the duels fought between yourselves and Lady Redgrave's champions." He paused. "Since Lady Lafan is currently in the prince's suite, I believe the answer can be taken that you are not."

"Ah. No," disagreed Jilk Fia Marmoria. "Marie is merely accompanying the four of us as we visit the prince. She isn't actually seeking him out… so… you see. It's not the same thing at all!"

"I wish I could see the Baron's face," Mary mused.

"That is precisely the same thing," the deep voice responded, sounding quite distinctly unamused. "That being the case, I have been instructed to inform his highness that he is to be deprived of his status as crown prince. While the royal house does not at this time disown Prince Julius, his qualifications to succeed the throne shall be under review. Whether your position is reinstated or you are formally expelled from the Holfort household will depend entirely upon you, your highness."

There was a feminine shriek of disbelief from below. "Y-you can't be serious!"

Fortunately it masked Mary's own astonished gasp and Leon reached over to steady her.

"Marie, it's alright." Julius declared comfortingly. "As long as you're beside me, I can endure anything."

"If the lady were not beside you, we would not be having this conversation," the herald observed tartly. "Speaking of enduring, it has been agreed that none of you should look to your families for funding through the summer. Since you appear to care very little for the privileges they have given you, it's the collective decision of your fathers that you should see what it is like to live without them."

"No, no," a girl sobbed below them.

"Marie, it will be alright." Jilk promised. "His highness is right. We need nothing but you to make our lives complete. What does money or status matter?"

Leon looked over at his companion and, seeing that she seemed about to explode, he gestured back towards the stairs.

They retraced their path and paused at the head of the stairs to remove some of the dust that they'd unavoidably got on them. "Are they completely blind!" Mary erupted.

"I don't believe that anyone in that room except the herald and Lady Lafan has ever actually faced adversity," Leon pointed out. "When everything in your life is well-cushioned, how would you know to be worried about a sharp edge?"

The girl shook her head. "Lady Katarina isn't that blinker-eyed, and she's the most sheltered person I know. Not that she isn't a wonderful person," she added hastily - lest Leon doubt her devotion.

"We all have our blind-spots, but for a future king and his likely counsellors to be like that is certainly concerning." Leon rubbed his chin. "Although I suppose he isn't the future king right now. What does that do to the succession?"

"It's not really clear." Marquis Hunt's daughter toyed with her fan in thought. "The king has an illegitimate son, Prince Layne."

Leon suddenly remembered the two children he'd met at the palace when he first met Scarlet. "So he'd be legitimised?"

"It's possible. Otherwise, King Roland's heir presumptive will be Duke Stuart. There was supposedly talk before Julius was born that the king would adopt one of his nephews, so he could pick up that idea instead since the second prince is still quite young."

"If I understand you correctly, that sounds as if there's no definite answer until King Roland gives one - and if he does choose someone then that would make it very difficult to reinstate Julius as his heir."

Mary nodded. "And until there is a decision, every power broker in the capital will be trying to decide which horse to back."

"A race which can have one winner but many losers."

"Thank god the Stuarts aren't likely to start a civil war," Mary muttered. "At least they're not complete cretins!"

"You do realise that if Alan were to be adopted as heir, that would make you the next queen?"

The girl doubled over and started hyperventilating.

The academy grounds had emptied as students left. Only a relative handful would be remaining over the summer.

Angelica Rafa Redgrave could at least take some comfort that this made it easy for her to avoid attention as she waited for her father to make arrangements for her summer. At first she'd remained in her rooms, turning away the majority of visitors. Her maid Cordelia had worked around this for the most part, but today she had strongly hinted that Angelica could do with some sunlight - and that she was hoping to begin packing for the summer.

Putting aside the temptation to insist on her self-imposed house arrest, Angelica had washed her face, changed into something comfortable and walked as far as the rose garden gazebo. It was a romantic setting, and out of easy view from most of the paths.

Angelica imagined sitting here with Julius, drinking tea and talking happily. Her treacherous imagination kept inserting Marie next to Julius, the two of them cutting Angelica out of the conversation.

The girl shook her head irritably. Had Julius ever come here with Marie? Or might she see them here in the future.

For a moment she was tempted to burn the gazebo down, but refrained. "I'm so pathetic."

Then she heard footsteps on the path and pulled back, hoping that whoever it was would pass by without noticing it.

"Well this isn't my daughter's garden," a woman's voice mused. "Maybe Mary's. Excuse me, young lady, your memory of the academy's layout is surely fresher than my own."

Reluctantly emerging, Angelica found herself looking at Katarina Rafa Claes - or rather, at someone who looked very much the way Katarina might look in another ten to fifteen years. The same sharp blue eyes and long, silky brown hair. "Duchess Claes?" she enquired. She hadn't met Miranda Rafa Claes in years - after the Claes family adopted Keith they had withdrawn somewhat from court and then formed their own social circle among the nobility in the southern part of the kingdom.

The woman smiled warmly. "I am, yes. And you must be Lady Redgrave. You look much like your mother did when she was your age."

Except for my hair, Angelica thought - she shared her hair colour with her brother and her father (at least until the latter began to grey). And mother must have been better than me in other ways, because father never abandoned her. "You look very much like Katarina," she said instead. "Are you looking for her?"

"Normally I would trust that Keith and Anne could between them bring her home safely," the duchess observed archly. "However, the recent affair has suggested that a stronger hand may be required." She held out her hand and a maid so discreet that Angelica hadn't even seen her until now emerged to place a sealed letter in the outstretched hand.

Cordelia would be envious, Angelica thought.

"However, I was also looking for you. Your father asked me to give you this," Miranda extended the letter towards Angelica. "It would probably be best for you to read it now."

Accepting the letter, she noted that it did indeed bear the imprint of her father's signet in the sealing wax. Angelica cracked it crisply and opened the envelope.

The letter was not long - Vince Rafa Redgrave was not fond of cluttering his correspondence with anything that might confuse his intentions. Everything from the introduction to the 'with love' that preceded his signature served to convey his meaning as clearly as possible.

She looked up at the duchess. "You've extended your hospitality for the summer?" She'd thought she would be sent to one of the more obscure properties on the Redgrave's home island.

The duchess nodded. "I gather that your father will be cleaning house amongst his vassals. I would be similarly disappointed if Katarina's friends had not stood by her. She may have led them into foolishness, but at least they stepped up."

Into my own foolishness, Angelica thought.

"Enough of that." Miranda tapped the girl's head lightly with a fan. "You may have lit this fire, but Lady Lafan handed you the torch and it was those foolish boys who poured oil on it, to extend the metaphor. There is plenty of blame to go around, not all of it is yours."

Curiously, that warmed Angelica more than those who had tried to tell her that everything was Julius's fault.

"Now," the duchess continued. "I don't know exactly what your father has written, but one thing I will inform you right now is that while I've no doubt that a number of people will assume that your presence in Claes is a sign of a new marital alliance for you, that would be their mistake."

"I understand." Her father had said the same and she understood. The Claes household would have no interest in a failed woman like herself marrying the future Duke.

Miranda examined her and then shook her head. "I doubt very much that you do. Lady Redgrave, as someone who has had her own heart broken once, I can assure you that for you to try turning to another young man would be a terrible mistake. It will take time for you to recover from the blow. If, in a year or two, you and Keith should have formed an attachment then your father and I will consider the matter then. Right now, your heart and your head are in very different places."

The duchess had illustrated her point with her fan, tapping Angelica's chest and brow. Now she stepped back, covering her mouth with her fan. "And on another point. I have yet to find my own children. Might you have any idea where they could be?"

Angelica considered the question. She really didn't know Katarina all that well - although she really ought to have reached out to the girl sooner. Alas, the matter of Marie Fou Lafan had so consumed her attention that she had found herself with far less time and energy for forming such connections than ought to have been the case.

A scrap of past conversation came to mind. "I believe she petitioned the student council for part of the school grounds to use as a garden."

The duchess's fan snapped shut. "Yes, I had heard from Anne - my daughter's maid - that she had a garden here. I can only hope that she is doing better here than she did with her garden at home." She shook her head, as if dismissing the thought. "I suppose that you will see that, inevitably, over the summer. Do you have any idea where it might be?"

"Ah…" Angelica cudgelled her memory. "I believe the area students can make use of is along the northwest edge of the campus." She indicated the appropriate direction. "It shouldn't be hard to find."

"I would hope not." The two set off, Angelica following the duchess quietly. (Or was it three of them? Angelica couldn't see the maid from earlier, but she had no doubt that she was somewhere… just waiting to be needed.) Now that she had directions, Miranda seemed to have no trouble finding her way.

Fortunately, they didn't have to cross the entire campus. Unfortunately, this was because they met Katarina coming. At first, Angelica thought that the figure in coveralls, hair covered by a neckerchief, was simply one of the academy's gardners pushing a wheelbarrow down one of the paths.

The Avatar of Utter Fury that she had apparently been walking next to, all unaware, did not make that mistake. "KATARINA RAFA CLAES!"

The girl in question let go of the wheelbarrow and paled, eyes going wide. "M-mama?"

"Tell me, daughter, that you have not been growing vegetables at the academy? That your garden plot is not simply another thinly disguised attempt at a farm."

"W-well…" And then Katarina flung herself on her knees. "I'm sorryyyyyyy!"

Angelica choked, for the first time in what seemed like forever holding back a laugh and not a sob. It seemed that staying with the Claes would at least not be boring.

"Master, we are receiving a transmission."

Leon had been watching the sky as the Dreadnought flew, the flying continent already shrinking behind the skyship. Almost half a mile long, the ship dwarfed anything in port and they couldn't have avoided attention as they departed so Leon hadn't tried. Still, as far as anyone knew, the vessel was simply a large but under-armed lost item that he had uncovered. Valuable but limited in several ways.

Beneath the veneer though, the ship that served as - among other things - Luxion's core was a fully fledged spacecraft intended to carry a colonial expedition to the stars. The dorsal gun turrets were nothing close to the full extent of its armament, but even so, it could have been far more formidable if it weren't for the various other systems within that were intended to support a fledgling population as they set up their homes on an alien world.

"Is the source unknown?" the boy asked, stepping back into the navigation bridge and out of the wind.

"No." The AI's voice was flat with distaste.

Leon nodded and took a seat. "So Cleare wants to talk to me."

"That is technically correct."

"The best form of being correct, Luxion. What am I missing?"

"That AI has chosen to share this capability with the new human you entrusted them to."

For a long moment, Leon sat still and then he reached up and patted his ear. "Maybe I misheard you there… is the earbud malfunctioning? I thought you said that Cleare told Director Smith she could talk to you at this distance."

"Neither the earbud nor your ears are at fault, master. Cleare must have developed some major deviation."

"Either that or there's a real crisis on our hands." The boy tried to force himself to relax, slumping back against the back of his seat. "If the cat is out of the bag, we may as well hear them out."

"It is not too late to turn back and destroy them both."

"Luxion." Leon counted to ten inside his head, very quickly. "We can decide that after we listen to them."

"But you are considering the option?"

Leon glowered at the drone and after a moment, the mechanical device backed off. One of the windows looking out over the forward deck of the Dreadnought flickered to another view entirely, revealing that it was actually a screen rather than mere glass.

The new view was of Kyle, standing on a stool as he put books back on a shelf. Since he was looking in the other direction, Leon suspected that the half-elf didn't know he was being looked at.

"Stop fooling around, Cleare," he ordered.

Kyle jumped, landing back on the stool but almost overbalancing it. He seized hold of the bookcase, which was fortunately heavy enough to steady him. "Who's there!?" the boy exclaimed at the top of his voice.

"It's Leon Fou Bartford. I got a message that Larna Smith wanted to speak to me."

The half-elf looked around frantically. "Leon? I don't see you. This isn't funny."

Leon closed his eyes. The view was jumping around, staying behind Kyle. "Dammit, Cleare, cut that out!" he ordered sharply.

"I thought that master might find it stimulating," the other AI claimed. However, the view steadied and pulled back, showing not only Kyle but also the rest of the somewhat familiar confines of Larna Smith's laboratory. Leon had seen it during his previous visit when he introduced the obsessive researcher to the AI and set her the challenge of detecting the difference between humans and elves.

"Well you were wrong. Where's Larna?"

A side door opened and Larna emerged, adjusting her clothes slightly. In a glimpse through the door, Leon realised that the door led to a private water closet. Well, that answered that. "Did I hear Bartford?" she enquired. "I didn't think he'd get here this quickly."

"I think he's a ghost," Kyle proclaimed. "I heard him, but I don't see him anywhere!"

"Director, Cleare is projecting my voice for you," Leon declared, speaking clearly.

The drone that was evidently the source of Leon's perspective moved and he saw a projection of himself appear on a mirror set up on the workbench. Larna and Kyle both stared at it. "Leon?" the half-elf asked, sceptically.

"Hello Kyle. How's your mother?"

"Well, any day you're not around is a good day."

"I know you feel that way, but how about her?"

"Yumeria seems very happy to me," Larna interjected. "This is brilliant, Leon! How is it done! Can you see me?" She lifted up the mirror, addressing her words to the image. "There are so many applications for this!"

"I'm sure you'll have more fun working it out for yourself. I wouldn't have revealed we could talk like this, but Cleare insisted it was urgent."

"Wait!" Kyle raised his voice. "Does this mean Cleare has been spying on Director Smith all this time?"

"...well obviously," Larna said dismissively. "Why else would Leon have left her with me?"

It was mostly because Leon found Cleare almost as irritating as Luxion found the other AI, but he didn't see the need to tell them that. "That and Cleare had formed an attachment to you, Kyle. I would have felt bad separating you."

The half-elf looked understandably distressed at that prospect. "I'll leave him to you, Director," he decided and headed for the door. "Let me know when it's safe for me to come back in?"

The door slammed before Larna had finished asking "How do you define safe?"

Cleare began to laugh in a way that made Leon uncomfortable, but Larna raised her hand and a gust of wind bounced the drone around, shutting the AI up. Leon closed his eyes for a moment and waited for the view to steady again. When he checked, Larna was studying the mirror, which no longer held his image. One of the bookshelves had also collapsed, spilling its contents onto the floor.

"Did I disrupt this somehow?" the head of the Magical Tools department asked curiously.

"After a fashion." He watched his image form again and Larna nodded, mind already working to try to figure out how this was working. "So what's so urgent that you need to speak to me?"

"Ah." Larna adjusted her glasses. "You remember the detector I made for you, that detects elf ancestry?"

He nodded.

"You gave it to Count Atlee and he gave it back to me." She sat back a bit and pursed her lips. "Somebody stole it."

"From you or from the Ministry?"

"It was in one of our storerooms," the woman told him seriously. "We keep those quite well guarded."

Leon frowned, still not clear why she was telling him about it. "So? I mean, I hope no one was badly hurt, and I know it's not great that the thing's back in circulation, but why is it urgent to ask me about it?"

"Ah, the guards don't remember a thing about the robbery!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Which means that someone tampered with their memories. And you know what that means!"

"No I don't."

"...you don't?"

"Well, unless they got blind drunk and all somehow erased their short term memories, but I imagine there would be much less mystery in that case," Leon replied sarcastically.

Larna looked downcast. "Well there goes a perfectly fine theory. I thought you'd learned dark magic and stolen it."

"Why would I learn dark magic?" asked Leon. "Besides, I can't do magic. You know that."

"Ah, but unlike any other form of magic - which has to be inborn - dark magic can be acquired!" She pouted. "I wanted you to come to the Ministry and help us research the subject since so little is known about it. And I thought altering memories was the sort of thing you might find useful."

Leon took a deep breath. "As useful as it would be, no. I don't have any dark magic. The price, as I understand it, would be too high." Besides the whole sacrificial aspect, Luxion would probably be extremely annoyed. "But someone else having dark magic is problematic."

"Very problematic," Luxion agreed privately. "Dark magic was a powerful tool of the new humans during the war. The fact they had lost access was one of the few good developments since then."

"I don't suppose that you know anyone with dark magic that we could consult?" Larna pleaded. "I'm really curious."

Of course she's interested in it for the research potential rather than out of any concerns for security, Leon sighed. On the other hand, dark magic was a factor in the story involving Katarina. This might be a good way to have someone dig into that and see if that was also true in this world. He didn't want to go around accusing people based on 'because my past life read it in a book' and, thus far, the most likely candidate he suspected of having dark magic hadn't done anything suspicious. Or at least, nothing that Leon or Luxion had identified.

"Dark magic is illegal, director."

"No, the processes of gaining dark magic are illegal," she corrected him. "And if you use it to commit a crime, that's illegal. But only the temple actually condemns dark magic just for the sake of it being dark magic. They claim that the saintess opposed dark magic because she was a light mage, but the two aren't necessarily opposed."

"You can't have a shadow without light to cast it," Leon suggested.

"Pithy," Larna approved. "But can you help me?"

He considered for a moment. "I don't know anything for sure, but rumour has it that Marchioness Dieke may have been looking for dark mages some years ago. I doubt she'd admit to anything, but if you look at her contacts then you might be able to learn something. It's a long shot, but the best I can tell you at the moment."

If his past knowledge was of any use at all, that should lead Larna - and by extension the Ministry of Magic - to some very dark corners of illicit magic users.

"Are you sure you want this woman to have access to the tools of dark magic?" Luxion asked Leon once Cleare had cut the connection.

"No, but if she digs them out then at least we know who else has them." Leon frowned. "And who would be after the elf detector anyway?"