No weird fever dreams about baked beans this time. That's a relief.

Cover Art: Z-ComiX

Chapter 41

No one had come to interview her by the next morning and Ruby and Weiss went to breakfast, early lessons and reached midday without sight or sound of the Specialists. Had she gotten away with the surge? Was not removing the tracking bracelet the right call? Ruby stayed away from them and the Black Arcana either way. No need to invite suspicion.

Instead, she spent the day with Weiss, falling back into the familiar routine both to calm herself down and convince anyone watching that things were normal. Collecting some lunch from the cafeteria, they headed to the small flowery gazebo they'd unofficially claimed as their own. Sun joined them not five minutes later.

"Where's Jaune?" Ruby asked quickly.

Sun looked back, a brief flash of some uncertain expression on his face. "Not coming. He came back a bit banged up last night. I asked if he was gonna show, but he said he had work to do and couldn't afford to be distracted."

"Awfully rude of him not to tell us in person," Weiss remarked.

"It's fine." Ruby waved it off with a laugh. It must have been more work in the Sanctum, and he didn't want people to know he worked there. "Will he come tomorrow?"

"I'll ask. He sounded busy, though. Something about training harder. Cutting down on distractions." He shrugged. "I couldn't get much out of him last night before he fell asleep. Kept muttering something but that might just have been him complaining about how busy he is."

"Well I for one think it's admirable he's prepared to work so hard," Weiss said. "I shall forgive the momentary lapse in manners this time. What of you, Sun? Don't you have work to do if your roommate does?" Her eyes sharpened. "You're not slacking, are you?"

Sun leaned an elbow on the table, his chin atop his fist as he smirked. "Worried for me, my lady?"

"In your wildest fantasies."

"Rather presumptuous to assume you'd feature in those kinds of fantasies. Unless you're saying you'd like to…?"

"Wukong…" she growled warningly.

"Alright. Alright." He laughed and straightened up, snatching a scone and taking a large bite. "Whatever work Jaune has, I don't. That's normal. Most of the Newbloods are given different shifts and rotas. We do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. It's not like you girls and your structured lesson plans."

"Hm. Fair enough, I suppose. Though you will keep me out of your fantasies!"

"You seem awfully interested in how I think of you, Weiss. Something I should know? Perhaps you should decide how you want my fantasies of you to go. That way there's no room for error."

Weiss scoffed. "A stern disciplinarian who will put up with no untoward advances!"

"Ooh." Sun grinned. "With a whip?"

"Sun, stop teasing Weiss. Weiss, stop rising to the bait. You're making it easy." Years with Yang had her inured to such things, but her roommate was burning bright red. Sun was laughing too, as cheerful as ever. "It's fine with Jaune. Tell him I said hi and not to work himself too much. Kay?"

"Kay. I'll tell him to swing by at some point too. That guy is too tense. He could use a way to unwind."

"Not in our room!" Weiss spluttered.

Ruby rolled her eyes. Weiss really was too easy to embarrass, and it wasn't like she and Jaune had even kissed, let alone bonked in her room. Weiss was Weiss, though. Weirdly innocent when all things were considered. Or maybe I'm the one who's messed up. Seen too many night workers having sex with men in alleyways.

"I'll find a deep dark corner of the Collegium to screw his brains out in," she drawled, unaware of just how scandalised Weiss looked, or how Sun's mouth fell open. Neither had expected to hear something so raw from a girl two years younger than they. "Anyway, Sun, did you hear about the explosion that happened in the Black Arcana?"

"W-Wha-? Oh that? Ah, yeah." Sun's cheeks were a light pink and he tossed his head from side to side to get rid of it. "Not much, though. How did you hear about it?"

"Ruby's friend was the one affected," Weiss answered for her.

"Ah. Makes sense. So yeah, keep this on the low but we've been told it might be an assassination attempt."

Bullshit. The Grand Arcanist and Ironwood knew it wasn't.

"Really?" Weiss asked, leaning forward, voice low. Sun leaned forward as well, huddling over the table like conspirators discussing the fall of the monarchy. "I wouldn't have thought any family would be brave enough to do that in the Collegium."

"Families do that?" Ruby asked.

"Officially no, but there are a lot of tragic accidents among noble families. A training accident here, an attack by brigands in otherwise secure areas, a crossbow misfire ending a noble life. To say nothing of the allergic attacks people have to various food types they've previously had no allergy to. It's not as though it's common," Weiss said, "But there's usually at least one assassination a year. It sounds bad, but there are a hundred times as many murders in the lower districts."

True, but those were usually because someone was desperate enough to need something. Usually, but not always. There'd been that guy a few years back who mutilated women because he got his jollies off it. Yang had been scared enough to keep them both locked up. In the end, he'd been lured out by the whores under the command of their matron, and the combines forces of several gangs had beaten him to death.

"Have you ever had an assassination attempt?" Ruby asked.

"Never. It's not something a family on my level needs worry about. If anything, suspicion would fall on us because we have more to gain. It's usually families with official positions that get killed, to free up those positions for others to claim. Rarely, very rarely, an heir or heiress will be killed to allow for inheritance to fall on another, usually if that new heir is marrying into the family who ordered the death in the first place."

"You're remarkably easy going about this," Sun pointed out.

"It's a thing that happens. I've never experienced it and my family has never needed to, nor would I ever condone such things. Really, everyone frowns upon it and it normally only happens among the top ten or so families. The Schnee are an old family but they'd fallen on hard times before my father married into them. We're on the lower end of renown."

"I thought Nora's family were poor as well. You said she wouldn't be on a level to marry Ren when you were, so she must be even lower than the Schnee."

"True, but I did say it normally happens among the upper families. There are exceptions. Perhaps Ren's fiancée learned of Nora's affections and sought to remove a competitor. His family aren't exactly prestigious, but there are plenty of families lower down that could gain a lot by wedding him."

Yours among them, Ruby didn't say. It was weird to think Weiss had almost married Ren because her family wanted the prestige, and even weirder that Weiss hadn't been at all upset by the fact. How could she be so blasé about being told who to marry and why? If it were me, I'd be furious. I get to choose who I love. No one else.

"That's what we're thinking," Sun confirmed. "Apparently, she works a lot with magical objects that explode so it wouldn't take much for someone to sneak in while she's in the cafeteria, sabotage one and then kill her. They must have messed up though because it went off early."

"No wonder she was so startled. Poor girl must be seeing assassins in every shadow. Is the Collegium going to do something?"

"Course!" Sun thumped his chest. "I spent this morning gathering up staff who haven't been working here long for the Specialists to interview."

Ruby perked up. "Why them?"

"Most obvious suspects," Weiss answered. "Many nobles fail to notice the servants, and they have access to every corner of a building to clean it or prepare food. It's the easiest method of poisoning someone, and no doubt the easiest way to access Nora's workshop. After them, you'd consider the staff who have been here longer – but first suspicion must fall on the newer ones. Has anything been found yet?"

"Too early for me to know. The commanders will find out first, then the rank and file and finally it'll drift down to us Newbloods. I'll let you know when it does," he offered. "Until then, it's all scuttlebutt. Not heard of anyone dragged away in chains, though."

There wouldn't be, since all this was a lie anyway. A front. It was there to stop the students having to know a Wildmage was out. Why so much secrecy about it? If they came out and said what it was and asked every student if they knew where their roommates were, they could soon narrow down everyone who had been alone at that time. From there it would be as simple as keeping an eye on them for a few weeks until a surge hit.

Trapping her would be stupidly easy if they came out – and what was the harm to them? Everyone knew about Wildmages being bad and having to be locked up, and only she cared to question why. Most of the nobles would happily throw her in the Sanctum if they knew what she was. If they'd throw their own children in like Cinder, she had no chance.

They keep feeding us lies. Telling us it's an assassin – they even made it sound more realistic by bringing her explosives and interest in Ren into it. The rumours came too quickly as well. Like Sun said, it should have taken time for the details to filter down, yet Sun already knew what the initial conclusion of the investigation was? That was a very quick investigation! Suspiciously so. They'd decided on that story ahead of time and purposefully let the information leak down. It'd probably be everywhere by the end of the day and no one would think to question it.

Why, though? Why keep it secret when they had a perfectly good excuse to hunt down a Wildmage? No one even knew what they were capable of, so it wasn't as though it would cause a panic. Why bother with all the secrecy?

"What do you think, Ruby?"

"Hm?" Startled, she blurted out. "It's terrible. Nora shouldn't have to worry about this…"

"Absolutely." Weiss agreed. "Nobles have an obligation to settle their disputes with diplomacy. We're supposed to be better than the lower districts we look over. I hope the one responsible is found out quickly."

"Yeah." Ruby forced herself to smile. "Me too."

/-/

Days came and went without the White Arcana bursting through her door and Ruby slowly began to settle down, even if she couldn't say she fully let go of the paranoia. Sun kept them up to date as best he could, but the news was about what she expected, that the assassin hadn't been found among the staff. The `official story` was that said person must have escaped after the attack, and that they used the attack on the wall as a distraction to get in.

It was amazing what lengths the Collegium would go to.

If nothing else, she was able to lay low with the surge handled. Her power became quiet again, tranquil and fluid to control, responding to her wishes but only when she wanted it to. Before, it had been like a glass full of water, ready to spill out at the slightest jostle, much like it had when Malneux's words about the floods caused her to bring down the wall. The closer she was to surging, the less control she had.

Another benefit of the week ending was that Nora sent a letter to the Azure Arcana saying she'd finished the final enchantment. Being without a workshop had made her work faster to earn the payment and invest in a new one, and the Azure had agreed to pay for both her previously agreed fees and the new workshop if she could finish it quickly. The downside of her working for the Azure was that she reported to them however, which meant that even though it was she who arranged all this, she didn't find out about it until a full day later when she showed up at the Archives and saw people fawning over it.

"Nora finished it!?"

"Yesterday," the Librarian said. "Given all the work you've done, we thought to handle its implementation without bothering you. The maps have already been made for the closest shelves and the Initiates are hard at work."

It was a kindness. They'd not told her because they thought it was a nice thing to do. Ruby stamped down on the boiling rage, reminding herself these people had no idea her life rested on her getting information as quickly as possible. "T-Thank you." Her stammer masked anger as embarrassment. "Is it okay to use? Does it work?"

"It works and yes, it's free to use. We've also added a commission of sorts for Initiates to earn a fixed tithe by mapping out the Archives. You're free to use that to earn a little extra lien if you like. Some are already forming groups to do so to fund their own experiments." That explained the groups with maps and scanning devices discussing routes by the shelves. They had backpacks full of food with them, suggesting a good day or two's foray into the Archives.

Given how large it was, it might take years to map it fully, and people would have to camp out there in the process. It was a daunting prospect but also exciting, especially for the Azure. All those books and all that knowledge just waiting to be discovered.

"We've also named the device," he continued. "Given your input in its design and implementation I thought it only fair to honour you."

Ruby gaped. "It's named after me!?"

The Ruby Rose? The Rose Diviner? The Rose Book Method?

"That's right. We've called it the Rubricator." He failed to notice her face falling. "Rubricators were scribes in ancient times who would look over manuscripts and take part in rubrication – the art of supplementing existing texts with additional information or insight. Given what you've done here, it only made sense."

"Y-Yeah. The Rubricator." It sounded awful. Pretentious. "It's a nice name. I'm honoured. Can I…?" Desperately, she nodded toward it. The Librarian smiled, nodded and gave her shoulder a little push, understanding her hunger even if he mistook it for the typical desire all within the Azure felt. It was excuse enough for her to hurry over and there was surprisingly no one around it. Probably because they'd all queued up from the first second to use it!

The final contraption – The Rubricator, she reminded herself – was a large squat square some one metre tall and three metres wide, arrayed like a desk but tooled in bronze metal that curled up and around it like metallic vines. Beneath those was obsidian so black it seemed to swallow light itself, so perfectly clean and without smudges or fingerprints that it couldn't be anything but magical.

The device hummed to her senses, bristling with convoluted strands of energy that meant nothing to her, but which Nora had apparently planned and organised into a lattice so clever it could recognise and interpret language, store information like a human mind and bring it to the fore. It was incredible, and the solid crystal oval in the centre with the silver plaque beneath it shimmered with energy, the water and the mist trapped within swirling like a whirlpool. There was a single golden quill on the side, attached by a tiny leather strip of cloth to the device. Taking it, Ruby etched out a single word on the plaque.

Wildmage.

The mist swirled and coalesced, binding and twisting in on itself like children in the floods, dunked down and out of sight and up again, tossed here and there without care. Until they began to move together, bind, mould. The letters came slowly and one at a time, forming into a working title.

`On Wildmages`.

Perfect. Ruby tapped the screen quickly and watched the mist form a sign.

6SE.

"6SE," she murmured, committing it to memory as she wiped her finger over the silver plaque to end the connection. The lens went back to nothingness, ensuring no one would know what she'd looked for. "6SE. 6SE. That's a lot more than the 1A we tested before. How far has the scouting gone? Where are those maps?"

Off by the huge crowd of people in blue robes. The way they crowded around a large map tied vertically between four posts signalled that, though she was relieved to see a bunch of smaller maps that were free to take. The big one was for people to mark down newly scanned shelves so that scribes could make new updated maps day after day.

Stepping away from the loud group of Arcanists, she looked over the map. It was… unique. The map itself was just parchment and ink like any other, but it was unfinished and that made it look strange. There was a circular doorway at the centre which indicated the portal in, then the map just sort of spread out in lines with numbers, but it was clearly unfinished, a living and growing map that would be added to day by day. Currently, the ink sketches covered about half the page, but depending on how vast the Archives really was, they might have to draw smaller and smaller. Or provide some very big maps.

Currently, the map was more expansive to the east and south than it was the west. The north was barely explored at all, only the first two shelving units. The east on the other hand went fourteen deep – and even had a small circle icon that said there was a rest stop, one of those stations where people would stop to eat and sleep. That must have been the scouting teams at work, and some were obviously a lot more dedicated than others. Or desperate for money, answers or a specific book. Contrary to that, the west only went out three shelves. 1W, 2W and 3W.

"The letters are the direction. That's a good way of doing it. That means 6SE is 6 shelves deep to the south-east..." Sure enough she traced the numbers to 6 on the map. A tiny scale at the bottom suggested how far that was, though she had to be judging it wrong. "Twenty kilometres. That can't be right…"

It was accurate.

Knowing the Azure Archives were impossibly large meant little without experiencing it. The knowledge just didn't make sense otherwise. After an hour of walking, the reality started to dawn, and that was when she was between two gargantuan shelves that seemed to go up forever and on just as far, and she realised she could no longer hear any human life behind her, and hadn't been able to for the last fifteen minutes.

Suddenly nervous and surrounded by books, Ruby stopped and turned back, scanning the long corridors formed by the shelves for any sign of activity. There wasn't a single person, nor a figure or a footprint or even a discarded book on the floor. The library was silent. Ominous. Swallowing, she rubbed her arms and considered going back, part of her wanting to sprint all the way.

"No. I can't. I came all this way for a reason. What am I even afraid of? It's just a library…" Out in the slums delivering messages, she'd had long hours to herself as well, though even then there'd been the reassuring hum and noise of everyday life.

The Archives felt absent of it. Devoid of any life, be that human, animal or plant life. It was artificial and empty and somehow all the more frightening for it. Ruby felt something tickle her neck and whirled on one foot, eyes wide and map held out like a dagger.

Nothing. No one. Only her and the goose bumps tickling up and down her skin.

Someone could have gotten lost in the Archives and never be found. Ruby cringed on thinking it, wanting to slap herself for even putting the concept to thought. Ducking low, she ran ahead, heart racing as she imagined the shelves closing in on either side, looming like giant beasts ready to rain books down on and kill her.

A full hour later she reached the rest stop, a bastion of human civilisation and a location where a good twenty or so people were busy reading books, eating or chatting among themselves. They spared a glance for the girl who stumbled into their midst in an exhausted panic but didn't react other than to note her presence and go back to their work. It was almost like they expected the reaction, or at least understood it. Catching her breath and holding her racing heart, she looked up to the sign erected nearby.

`7-East Rest`

Seven east. 7E. A little beyond what she'd been aiming for, but close. Close enough. The rest stop was set on the crossroads between shelves and aisles, and consisted of ten desks with as many benches, two dedicated for food, a campfire and six tents erected in what appeared to be a permanent fashion. Stops like this must have been dotted all over the Archives for people to stop at on their journeys deeper and deeper, which could in some extreme cases take a full week or more.

That wasn't something she could do with lessons. At least 6SE was only two hours in. Four hours give a return journey. It only occurred to her then that two hours really had passed. The Archives was lit as though permanently daytime. Looking up, she realises the ceiling was nowhere to be seen, even if it had to be there. The light was too cool to be sunlight; bright but not warm or gentle. Would it remain like that even as night fell?

Forget getting physically lost, you could lose track of time in this place as well!

Even with that concern, she took a thirty minute rest at the stop, gathering her nerves as much as her strength. According to the map she'd run right past shelf 6 without realising, but it wouldn't be far back. Maybe twenty minutes. From there, she'd need to head south until the shelf bent. Though it had been impossible to tell from the portal, the map made it clear that the shelves weren't actually arrayed in perfect lines, but spreading out from the entranceway in a hexagonal shape, the six corners open for corridors and the straight lines being rows or aisles.

With the reassurance of human life behind her – and the fact said human life hadn't been swallowed up by the library – she made her way back and south, picking through the corridors of books until she eventually found the plaque on the end of one that marked it 6SE.

"Finally…" Peeking around it, she groaned. "Aaand it goes on forever. Come on…" The shelf was easily half a kilometre long and impossibly tall. Searching it all would take even more time, and she had to wonder how the scouting teams had even managed it. Magic, presumably.

Ruby looked back and around. No one was near. Backtracking a few metres, she checked the next corridor along as well, only to find that empty too. There was no one for a good few hundred metres. Stepping back into 6SE, she pushed the map into her pocket and took a deep breath.

"Fire. Give me fire."

Wild magic tingled down her arm like water down a creek, and a small and obedient ball of flame erupted in the palm of her hand, licking her fingers but without any pain. She waited, but no bells tolled.

"It's the surges they react to. If it were wild magic in general, I'd have been screwed the first time I used a spell in class." Her eyes lit up. "That means I'm free to use magic in here!"

Probably not surges though. The bracelet apparently still showed her as being in the Azure Archives when she had that on, so the magic still worked. By that same logic if she came into the Archives to surge, the bells would sense it and alert everyone. It might be a good way to hide where it was but with the Grand Arcanist being of the Azure, he'd not be fooled.

Still, it was useful for now. "Let me hover. I want to be able to levitate."

Wind pushed down against the floor from her feet and Ruby yelped, falling forward as the soles of her feet pushed up off the floor. Her hands slapped against the marble before her face could thankfully, but it smarted.

"Ow! Note to self, being able to fly doesn't mean being able to balance." Glaring back at her feet which were higher up than her body, she sighed. "End. Let go." Her feet fell back down to the floor. "Okay. That didn't work."

It might if she learned how to balance but that would take time she didn't have, not to mention it would only be balance so long as she stood still. If she tried to move and her feet surged forward, her body would fall back and crack her skull on the floor. Or she'd be flying upside down until she hit a bookshelf. Neither option was ideal.

"Find me the right book?" she asked her magic. "Um. Bring `On Wildmages` to me?" Nothing happened. "Ugh. Guess my wild magic can't identify things. Kind of like Nora needing the language book…" Curiously, she looked up and identified a red book well out of reach. She pointed a hand to it. "Come here!"

The book wobbled out and shot down, making Ruby yelp and flinch, only for the book to perfectly hit her hand. It slowed at the last as well, so as not to break her wrist. Even if she hadn't said it, her wild magic responded to her desires, and she hadn't desired to be injured.

"Okay, that worked. Structural Engineering Treatise as by Lord Edward Port?" Ruby pulled a face. "No. Go back where you came from." To her surprise, the book flew out her hand and back up onto the shelf. "Huh. That worked out. Wait a minute…"

Going through every book one by one would take hours, and since she only had about one hour, it would take days to get through them all, especially if it took four hours to get there and back for five hours in total. That was about all she had after lessons! It wouldn't do. There had to be a faster way, and with wild magic, there might just be.

Holding her hand out she `summoned` another book to it, checked the title – Agricultural Advancements of the Ancient Ages – and sent it back to its shelf, then aimed her other hand further on and repeated the process. The book came quickly, the wrong one, and went back to its former place. The whole action took only a few seconds, most of that being her reading and positioning her hand.

"Faster," she willed her wild magic. "Faster."

A new book came. A second. A third. Before the third was read, the first was back on the shelf and a fourth was on its way. The books flew off the tall shelves and floated before her, slapping into her hand to be tossed before her face, caught in her other and sent flying back. To anyone watching from a distance she might have looked like an expert entertainer juggling and tossing books into their respective places. Luckily, no one was around to see at all.

Ten books took thirty seconds at first, but she soon had the process going faster, telling her magic not to summon where she pointed but instead to take the next book along. It responded, ripping books from the shelves in a flurry – and soon she had them passing before her face automatically and without her hands being involved, and at that point she was gated only by the speed at which she could scan the title.

`On Wildmages` was just two words, so any long titles were dismissed without reading them. That sped it up even further and soon Ruby was a whirlwind of books walking down the aisle, tearing them free and scanning covers before hurtling them back. It wouldn't have worked without the Rubricator. Even like this, it was going to take a solid hour to scan the shelf, maybe longer, and if she had to scan every shelf in the whole library, it'd take years. This was twenty kilometres out already! She couldn't imagine how long it would have taken to get her naturally.

Covers whirled and flashed before her. Too long. Too long. First word wasn't `on`. Look, read, discard, repeat. Power flowed through her so easily, so beautifully, and the thrill of it was unmistakeable. Just using her magic felt so good. Viscerally so! Her brain tingled and her eyes watered, pleasure rushing through her small body like a waterfall. Or maybe that was the magic crashing down over and over like she was the stream and it the water, and by letting it flow, she no longer had to struggle to hold it all back.

How could Cinder survive without this? How could anyone? Just the thought of not being able to do this had Ruby weeping. Big, fat tears running down her cheeks as she strode between the shelves like some powerful book wizard.

And then she found it. The book flashed before her eyes a mud-brown in colour with faded text. Only the word `On` features to her eyes, but every book fell out the air as she gasped, slapping down on the floor all around her. Ruby dove and caught the one that had ensnared her, wide eyes reading the text with reverence.

On Wildmages.

"Found you…"

Sweeping a hand back, Ruby sent all the discarded books onto the shelf, clearing the aisle of all debris. The looming wooden barriers vibrated slightly as she did but held still. In fairness, the Arcanists probably did the same to get their books down, but if how the levitation in class had been was any indication, it would take intense concentration to bring even a single book down and up again, judging the force required to lift it, keep it closed, angle it and slide it back into place without damaging anything. For her, it was but a whim and a flick of the hand.

Sitting down cross legged on the floor, Ruby planted the book in front of her and pulled the cover open, eyes sparkling at the rows and rows of text within.

Ruby finally gets her break, and not a second too soon with the surges coming faster and faster and Ironwood and the Specialists closing in.

Next Chapter: 24th May

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