On the Wings of an Eagle

by FernandelDeLaFrance

Near the end of his life, Ezio Auditore, once Mentor of the Assassins, decides to serve his order with his dying breath by retrieving an ancient artefact. To his surprise, it whisks him away to a strange country of magic, where old eagles fly again...

7. Chapter VII – Picking Up The Pieces

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...

Good day or good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the seventh chapter of On The Wings Of An Eagle!

If you're surprised that this chapter came out (relatively) on time, you're not the only one – I am very much confused on the matter as well. This chapter wrote itself pretty easily, for some reason, and it's also the longest so far.

There's lots of stuff happening in this one. I would recommend re-reading the ending part of Chapter Six, though if you have a better memory than mine, ignore that and move straight on.

Some of you told me that you would appreciate translations for the foreign phrases I use in my writing. I was honestly surprised, because I didn't think it would bother people that much, but I included translation at the end of this chapter, in the chronological order of their appearance in this chapter. They're highlighted, so you can't miss them.

If any of you are wondering why I'm including bits and pieces from foreign languages in the story, there's several reasons. Ezio using Italian to sprinkle his dialogue is something I took from the Assassin's Creed games. Also, it's his native language, and I thought it would add authenticity to his character if he did it here.

Tristain is something of a Belgium/Netherlands analogue in the Zero no Tsukaima universe. Considering that I don't speak a lick of Dutch, I decided to use French so that I wouldn't embarrass myself. It's to add authenticity, and to make the world of ZnT seem more than just an amorphous mass of countries that butt heads for no reason. Language is an important part of culture, after all. And if Kirche spoke anything other than German, I would have to bang my head against the wall. Honestly, her home country's name is Germania in the ZnT canon. I'm not going to have her use Mandarin.

So yeah. My small reason for including foreign languages in this story. These Author's Notes are getting long and tedious, so let's just get the ball rolling, shall we?

Please, enjoy yourself while reading this story, and if you liked or disliked it, be kind enough to leave a review. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

…

On The Wings Of An Eagle

Chapter VII – Picking Up The Pieces

…

Ezio blinked groggily, his vision blurred and dark. He thought he could see a faint blue light, far away. If only he could reach out for it...

"Ser Ezio! Please, talk to me! Say something!"

There was a loud voice calling out to him... in French? Ezio groaned, despairing. French was already difficult to understand when he was awake, but now he had to speak it in his dreams too? There'd been a stone monster in this one...

"Oh, thank the Saints! You're alive!"

Something heavy was lifted off him with a grating sound – a wooden beam? Had he fallen again? But where did the beam come from?

Wait. Ezio blinked rapidly. Fall. Stone monster. That hadn't been a dream.

And as soon as soon as he realized that, Ezio felt his body light up with pain as it protested, cracked bones, bruises and cuts demanding their toll. He shook his head to clear it, swearing profusely, and took a look around him. He was lying in a destroyed living room, surrounded by loose beams, masonry, shattered roof tiles, and broken furniture. He looked up to see that he'd apparently crashed through the house's roof and smashed right through three floors, somehow having survived the incredibly high fall. The blue sky was visible through the hole he'd punched through on his way down.

He swore again, pushing away the hands that tried to keep him down as he stumbled to his feet. "Don't move, Ser Ezio! You're injured!"

Ezio ignored him in favour of venting his frustrations by ranting. It alleviated the pain. Usually, at least. "Figlio di puttana... Stupidi mostri di pietra e irritanti nobili e tetti di paglia... Come diamine sono riuscito a soppravvivere a tutto questo!?"

"Ser Ezio!" Someone grabbed him by the shoulders, and Guiche's blond head swam into focus, looking concerned and slightly panicked. "Please stop! You just fell two hundred feet; you're only going to make it worse!"

The student was doing his best to steady him, wand in hand. Two of his Valkyries stood in the room – apparently they'd dug through the wreckage to get him out. It was then that Ezio realized that the usually immaculate blond fop was covered in grime, dirt, and dust from falling masonry and soot, and he immediately remembered who, exactly, had caused him to fall this far down, rage coursing through him.

He gritted his teeth. "Fouquet?"

"Escaped! Ser Ezio, please don't move—"

Ezio curtly interrupted his pleading. "Is anyone following her?"

Guiche looked at him, looking as if Ezio had suddenly grown a second head. "Her? Ser Ezio, I think y—"

He grabbed him by the front of his dirtied uniform, snarling. "Gramont! Is anyone following her?!"

"The city's ablaze, Ser Ezio!" the panicking noble babbled. "The nobles and guards have their hands full getting it under control!"

Ezio let go of him and staggered back, swearing. She'd planned her little coup well – with the princess here and the city burning, everyone would be more concerned with them than pursuing a simple thief. Anger flowed through Ezio as he remembered the corpses littering the courtyard, cold fury giving him strength.

She would die.

"Which way did she go, Gramont?"

"Ser Ezio, you nee—"

Ezio lifted him up by his collar and shook him, finally losing his patience. "Listen, you stupid boy, someone needs to go after her, and it's obviously not going to be you! Which way did she go, bastardo?!"

"North-east, into the woods," Guiche said promptly when he saw the murderous look in Ezio's eyes. "It was only a few minutes ago!"

"If she's on foot, I can still catch up to her," Ezio muttered, his eyes clearing as he set Guiche down. "Bene! Go help the others, Gramont, those puppets of yours might be useful! Tell Louise not to worry about me! I'll be back soon!"

And with that, he disappeared through the door, cursing in the vilest Italian he could think of. Guiche ran after him, pleading with him to stop, only to see him disappear as he climbed the roof on the house opposite.

Guiche swore and kicked the door frame. How can a man be so nimble after falling two hundred feet!? He's going to get killed himself if he goes after Fouquet!

"Milord?" an uncertain voice addressed him, and the student whirled around to see a man cautiously step closer towards him, a woman that led two small children by the hand and two older boys trying to hide behind him. The family of the house Ser Ezio had landed in, by all appearances. They all looked incredibly frightened. "What shall we do, milord?"

Guiche looked outside. The street was crowded with lines of fleeing commoners trying to get out of the city, stretcher bearers carrying the moaning wounded, long bucket chains forming back and forth, and nobles running to and fro to help out where they could. Shouts, screams, and bellowed orders filled the air, thick black smoke rising from all directions above the roofs of Academy City. He wanted nothing more than to run away and hide, coward that he was.

But Ser Ezio had left him a mission.

He turned around. "Get your family beyond the city walls," he ordered curtly, the next word out of his mouth tasting like ash. "We can't protect you."

"Milord, I have friends here—" the man began.

"Then save your family first, and come back later to help if you want!" Guiche snapped, waving his rose wand at them and seeing the family flinch back. "Go, for Founder's sake! That's an order!"

The man bowed and mumbled something – perhaps gratitude, perhaps cursing him – but Guiche ignored him as they quickly moved down the street, instead closing his eyes and concentrating on that familiar feeling of power inside of him.

A long incantation and three slashes of his rose wand later, he opened his eyes, surrounded by two dozen of his Valkyries. Wand moving like a conductor's baton, the troop of metal puppets followed him in a quick march as he led them towards one of the larger columns of smoke he could see in the distance. Perhaps they could save someone from a burning building, or tear down houses to stop the fire from growing, or carry out the injured, or do something!

All around Guiche, Academy City burned as its people, common and noble, fought together to save their home.

…

Ezio leapt from roof to roof, running towards the north-eastern part of the city. Fouquet had apparently foregone subtlety when she prepared her heist – the whole district here was in flames, many smaller fires combining into large conflagrations and filling the sky with black smoke, obscuring his view of the city and the land beyond.

He frowned. It was utterly ruthless, perhaps, burning down everything and everyone that could chase after you, but at the same time it was a viable tactic. Ezio had done the same when breaking out of the blockaded harbor of Constantinople. Hundreds of sailors of the Sultan's navy had died, burned alive as the Greek Fire consumed their ships. His victims, however, hadn't been innocent citizens. They had been soldiers doing their duty, well prepared to die for their sovereign.

And what about that city by the Adriatic? a dark voice whispered in the back of his head. Those thousands you poisoned when you blew up that powder magazine, men, women and children choking on the dust cloud as they fought to escape the collapsing caves? Was that so different from Fouquet?

Ezio didn't answer. Those images had haunted him for years afterwards, and the excuse 'It was an accident' hardly pacified him.

He stopped on a roof, the fires around him glowing dim as the world grew dark. He focused on an image of Fouquet in his mind, concentrating.

He saw a blue silhouette of a cloaked woman move through the streets below at an incredibly rapid pace, faster than any human could run, disappearing into the flaming inferno she had turned this part of the city into.

Ezio leapt from the roof onto a lower building on the other side of the street, dampening his fall with a roll and grunting in pain. It was a wonder that he'd actually survived that fall from Fouquet's creature. He certainly wouldn't complain about a cracked rib or a few bruises. Thank goodness for this armour.

He picked up the pace, leaping from roof to roof and façade to façade with practiced ease, moving quickly to avoid getting roasted by the winds of superheated air that rose from the burning buildings and taking care not to miss a hold in the dark smoke that rose from the burning wreckage. Some of the roofs collapsed after he stepped on them, and he could feel the burning hot clay of the shingles even through his boots. No natural fire burned through weathered wood this quickly – this was definitely a mage's trick, or at least an incredibly fast-burning compound that he didn't know about.

Fouquet doesn't muck about, Ezio thought grimly as he moved over the roofs of the burning district, trying to roughly estimate through the smoke where his quarry would have gone. She never hesitated when trying to kill me, either. I have to be careful.

Soon, he reached the outer walls of the city surrounding the Academy, leaping down onto the cobbled street. He cautiously approached the wall and saw that something had punched right through the ten yards of enchanted stone, leaving a large hole at street level. Ezio smelt a strong, metallic scent and glanced around – corpses were scattered around the makeshift entrance, various weapons in hand and spikes of rock embedded in their skulls or impaling their chests, all with contorted expressions of horror on their dead faces. A guard patrol, unlucky enough to catch Fouquet in the act.

Ezio smirked humourlessly. Usually, he would have been the one to leave the guards to die in droves, drowning in their own blood. And here he was, hunting someone who reminded him very much of himself.

He saw the blue silhouette move as his senses retold the past before his very eyes, her wand snapping out in various directions, her movements coinciding with the guards' efficiently brutal deaths, and then finally simply tearing apart the city wall, disappearing through it.

Ezio frowned as he examined the hole, running a hand along the broken wall. He had read that the Academy's defensive structures had been imbued with many spells over the centuries, all designed to strengthen them against all kinds of assaults, both mundane and magical. So how had Fouquet gotten through them this easily? Had she suddenly found a way to increase her power?

Merda, this is just getting better and better by the minute, he thought. The Assassin stepped through the wall and observed the blue silhouette move quickly towards the woods. He followed it before all the traces of her passage would disappear.

As soon as he reached the forest, he took to the trees, leaping from branch to branch, vaulting and climbing with ease as he used his sharp eyes to follow a path of broken twigs, snapped-off branches and disturbed earth – apparently, Fouquet had foregone subtlety for speed now that she thought herself safe from her pursuers. A mistake she would soon regret.

Ezio had never been much of a woodsman. He'd been born in a city teeming with people, where the night was as clear as the day, where the revelers in the darkness were just as alive as the people wandering about in sunlight. However, even though he'd never liked the wilderness, he had always felt secure in it.

These woods were different. In this dark forest of Halkeginia, the shadows were all-encompassing due to the thick foliage, the trees higher and their trunks thicker than any other forest Ezio had ever seen before, utterly empty of buildings and people. There were no roads, no beaten paths, nothing to help him navigate except Fouquet's trail.

He knew instinctively that these woods were dangerous in a way the city never was and never could be. This was nature's realm, not man's, and it treated intruders harshly. Wild animals, slippery mountainsides, vast expanses of trees than an inexperienced traveller could easily get lost in, poisonous plants and nestles by the hundreds, and a complete silence that grated the nerves of any valiant man.

When Louise and Ezio had practiced her magic, they hadn't ventured far into the deep forests surrounding the academy, keeping well in sight of the Academy's walls. Louise had told him that they shouldn't go any further. She'd seemed afraid, terrified even – and when he'd gently mocked her for it, she had shuddered and told him stories of malicious imps, kobolds, strange plants that seemed sentient when men clapped eyes on them, magical loci that entranced men, refusing to let them leave or turning their minds to madness, and the dreaded tribes of wild orcs that attacked travellers to cannibalize them.

There were even stories of elves and dragons living in hiding in those vast forests (Louise had spoken these words with quiet fear and reverence), far away from the eyes of men where they wouldn't be disturbed. Rumours of entire merchant caravans disappearing in the dark woods were common, and few dared to travel through them without an experienced woodsman, hunter, or talented noble to lead and protect them, preferring to keep instead to the cultivated plains that humanity had carved out for itself.

It sounded very much like a collection of old wives' tales, and Ezio had laughed in her face at her superstitions, much to her annoyance. When they had started practicing, he had quickly pushed her stories out of his mind.

But now that the Assassin was actually pursuing Fouquet through these woods, it became increasingly difficult to ignore the feeling that the forest was alive, somehow, and watching him. Every single one of his senses, normal and otherwise, seemed to pick up on something that they nevertheless couldn't explain, that just felt utterly wrong, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and flee, to return to those streets and buildings he knew so well.

Ezio ruthlessly crushed that feeling of unease, vaulting from branch to branch at a quick pace through the foliage as he followed Fouquet's trail. An Assassin bowed to no one, least of all their fear. He would hunt Fouquet down, kill her, and return the way he came.

And no one would stop him, strange hocus-pocus and magic be damned.

...

Louise watched with absolute horror as Ezio simply fell from the golem's shoulder, dropping out of sight beyond the courtyard's walls. For a moment, she simply stood there, frozen, as she slowly understood what had just happened.

And then she screamed and ran. "EZIO!"

She thought she heard Henrietta shout at her to stop, but she couldn't be sure. Her legs pumped as she ran faster than she had ever had before, hoping, praying, begging that he wasn't dead, that he wasn't really dead—

And then someone tackled her from behind, driving her to the ground and the breath out of her lungs. "Don't move, you stupid girl!" someone snarled into her ear. "You'll only get killed!"

"Wha—"

It was only when Louise looked up that she realized that the Blood Golem was collapsing piece by piece, the destroyed arm falling to the ground with a resounding crash, the other arm following it a moment later. What was left of the torso crumbled as the monster toppled sideways, crashing down onto the Vestri Court like a mountainslide. Wide-eyed, she saw the boulder that had once been its head topple off its lifeless shoulders and fall down right towards her.

There was a rushing sound as she saw water rush over her head, as if a stream had suddenly decided to defy gravity and flow up into the air, intercepting the falling house-sized boulder and pulverizing it, the highly pressurized water cutting sharper than any knife ever would. The one who had tackled her pressed her close, protecting her as pebbles rained down around her. For a minute, Louise could hear the roar of conjured flames, sliding and scraping sounds of moving earth and the pressure waves of displaced air as the mages destroyed as much as the falling wreckage as they could. A moment later, the deluge of stone stopped and the sounds of magic died away.

The woman who had thrown got up, swearing profusely before addressing her. "Damn it, child! What possessed you to run away like that?"

"Louise, Agnès!" Henrietta called out to them as she ran over, panic written all over face. "Are you all right?"

"My uniform's torn, but we're fine. No thanks to this foolish little girl," the Musketeer grumbled, glaring down at her. "What on earth did you do to destroy Fouquet's golem?"

Louise couldn't bring herself to answer that question, her panicked mind on other things. "My familiar just fell after fighting Fouquet! I need to find him!"

"You can forget about going anywhere," Agnès snapped as she pointed towards the gates to the Vestri Court, the wide doors jammed with commoners and students fighting to get out of the city. All around them, they could see black smoke rise into the sky. "The streets will be clogged with people, and from what I can see, half the damn city's on fire! How the hell do you plan on finding a corpse in this chaos!?"

"He's not dead," Louise insisted stubbornly, glaring right back at the uniformed woman. "I need to find him! He's my familiar!"

Henrietta looked at them both and nodded. "Right. Agnès, help Louise find her familiar."

"What!?" Agnès blurted out, looking absolutely furious. "You can't be serious! You need to be protected!"

"Agnès, stop arguing with me!" Henrietta shouted, making both soldier and student jump at her sudden anger. Her eyes softened when she saw her bodyguard's expression. "I'm sorry, Agnès, but please help Louise find Monsieur Auditore. Please."

"Your Highness—"

"I'll stay right here with Old Osmond, Professor Colbert and the other teachers," Henrietta bargained, her eyes pleading. "Won't they be enough to protect me in case something happens?"

"Fat lot of good they did against Fouquet," the Musketeer muttered before sighing reluctantly. "As you command, Your Highness. You, girl!" she snapped at Louise, turning around and starting to run towards the gates of the courtyard. "Follow me!"

"Go," Henrietta told Louise. "Find him. We'll see each other later, alright?"

Louise nodded thankfully and ran after Agnès. The Musketeer had already drawn her longsword and bellowed "Make way, in the name of the Queen!" when she reached the gates. At the sight of drawn steel, the Musketeer uniform and the loud, commanding voice, people scattered left and right as she pushed her way through the crowd, Louise close behind her. "Which way, girl?" Agnès growled.

Louise thought quickly, trying to remember some of the maps she had seen of Academy City. "The north-eastern side, I think."

"You think!? Well, aren't you children incredibly useful. Right, this way!"

They soon managed to get through, entering the winding streets of the old city. It was total chaos. When Agnès had said that half the city was on fire, she had made what turned out to be at best an optimistic guess. Guards were running around, organizing firefighter crews and bucket chains; stretcher bearers bellowed at others to "Make way!" as they carried out those wounded by debris, burns, and those who had inhaled the noxious smoke. People did their best to carry out their most valuable possessions before the fire consumed it if they could; if they couldn't, they just tried to get themselves and their families out of this infernal hellhole.

However, as Agnès and her made their through the crowded, overheated, and smoke-obscured streets, Louise saw people fight. Stoic nobles and slightly panicky students were doing their best to douse the flames with water spells, heaving earth on them to deprive them of air, performing first aid, carrying out wounded and dead, and countless other things side-by-side with swearing commoners that were helping each other to get out of burning buildings, carrying the elderly, infirm, and young children, and grimly forming bucket crews. They weren't even thinking about it – they just helped each other without asking.

Just like she wanted to help Ezio. She needed to find her familiar, before he was...

She shook her head, forcing herself not to think about it. He was alive, she was sure of it. She kept pressing on through the crowd, Agnès going first and making way. It was slow going, though, as they pushed past crowds of hurried nobles and commoners working in tandem to save themselves, to save their city.

After minutes, she saw a familiar head of blond hair, the colour standing out starkly amongst the grime, smoke, and fire. "Guiche!" she yelled out, catching his attention as she ran up to him. "Over here!"

"Vallière?" he asked, relief showing on his face. He was holding his rose wand (conspicuously lacking petals), his Valkyries marching back and forth as they dismantled a burning building. He looked dishevelled, his usually pristine uniform grimy with ash, soot, and... was that blood on his shirt? "Oh, thank the Saints you're alive! Ser Ezio will be glad you're safe!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine! Do you wh— wait, did you see him?! Where is he?" she asked, eyes widening.

"I saw him about twenty minutes ago, I think! He fell over two hundred feet, somewhat, and crashed through three floors of a building, and I dug him out with a few of my Valkyries—"

"Get to the point already, boy!" Agnès said sharply, the scarred woman impatiently tapping her foot. "We don't have time for your nonsense!"

"Well, yes, alright, I get it, he was injured, but he was alive and moving, and he told me to tell you not to worry, and—"

"Guiche!" she said dangerously, drawing her wand and holding it right under his nose, eyes narrowing. "Where is he!?"

"He went after Fouquet!" Guiche yelled loudly, quickly stepping away to get the tiny instrument of death out of his face. "First Ser Ezio, then you! Honestly, why do people keep threatening me today? It's outrageous!"

Louise ignored his complaining, looking at him with horror. "After Fouquet? But he nearly got himself killed the first time! Why would he go after her again?"

"Because Ser Ezio is incredibly noble, even though he holds no title, and is determined to bring Fouquet to justice!" Guiche exclaimed, holding his rose wand in one of his traditionally grandiose poses.

Agnès spat out onto the street, annoyed. "Or perhaps he's suicidal after having to deal with both of you for too long. Heaven knows I am."

"Why, that is most unladylike behaviour!"

"Oh, stick it up your arse, brat." She turned around to Louise as Guiche spluttered in indignation. "Right. He fell two hundred feet, he's injured, he's a commoner, and he's gone to hunt after a renegade triangle-class mage known to kill anyone coming after him. Overall, he's as good as dead. If you'll excuse me, I'll just go back to Her Highness now."

"WHAT?" Louise shrieked, aghast. "But you can't do that! We haven't found Ezio yet!"

"And you're bloody well unlikely to," Agnès said bluntly, rolling her eyes. She sighed when she saw Louise start to shake in fury. "Listen, mademoiselle," she said, kneading the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I'm a Musketeer. My duty, above all others, is to protect the royal family of Tristain. And right now, my charge was attacked by a renegade mage that killed dozens, injured scores more, and left one of our country's landmarks in ruins. Most of my men are dead or wounded. Her Highness is currently in the middle of an inferno, and I know her well enough that she'll probably try to kill herself saving people and healing the injured. I simply don't have time to chase after your damn pet."

"Ezio," Louise said slowly and dangerously, stepping closer and glaring, "is not my pet. He's my friend."

Agnès shrugged, unconcerned with the girl's furious stare. "Call him what you will. I'm leaving."

And then she simply turned around, pushing through the frantic crowd and disappearing through the fogged-up street, leaving behind a furious Louise and a dumbstruck Guiche.

Louise kicked out at a piece of burned cinder, sending sparks flying. "How dare she!" she raged, stamping out the wisps of flame that had caught on the hem of her uniform. "Oh, no matter! Which way did Ezio go, Guiche? Tell me!"

"He specifically told me that no one was to follow him—" Louise raised her wand threateningly. "North-east, into the woods! Damn it, Vallière, stop pointing that thing at me!"

"Thank you, Guiche," Louise said, her voice sounding surprisingly earnest as she turned around to walk down the road. "I'll find Ezio find and come back with him later, alright?"

"Vallière, Vallière, Vallière," a chiding voice called out. "What noble sentiment! Admirable, certainly, but you're going the wrong way! That's south, dear!"

Louise whirled around to see Kirche saunter towards them from the other end of the street, the dark-skinned Germanian waving cheerfully at her. Louise stared incredulously. "What are you doing here, Zerbst?"

"Why, I'm going to help you find your man, of course!"

"He's my familiar, you dolt!"

Kirche shrugged it off. "Oh, details. He's both your familiar and a man, so who cares, really?"

"Any sane person would! Why would you help me, anyway?"

"Well, my motive is extremely egotistical, see," Kirche said, winking. "It would be an absolute shame to have such a delicious specimen of manliness die off without having bedded him at least once, so saving him is pretty much win-win for all of us, right?"

"And tell me why, exactly," Louise snapped angrily, "I should let a fool like you come along?"

Kirche grinned and pointed straight up. "Well, to start with, I have a friend with a flying dragon."

Sylphid caught itself out of her steep dive, her wings flapping quickly as the large lizard landed, buffeting the soot and ash of the burning street into the air as Guiche and Louise hurriedly stepped back. The dragon landed, claws clacking loudly on cobblestone, and turned a sapphire blue eye on Louise, a strange sound between a whistle and a croon emanating from its throat.

On its back sat Tabitha, giving Louise and Kirche a simple look of annoyance and pointing at the empty space on Sylphid's back behind her. "Up. Now."

Louise's shoulders slumped. "Fine, you win," she muttered morosely as Tabitha helped her climb onto the dragon's back.

"Excellent!" Kirche cheered as she lifted herself onto Sylphid's back behind Louise, giving her rival a delighted hug that stuck the back of her head all the way into her cleavage. "This is going to be so much fun! Like a field trip!"

"Let go of me, you tramp!" Louise yelled, fruitlessly struggling against the stronger girl's grip. "Take this seriously, will you!?"

"Be careful, ladies!" Guiche called out with worry in his voice, quickly stepping to the side as Sylphid experimentally spread her wings in the narrow street, nearly taking his head off his shoulders.

"Stop that," Tabitha muttered to the two jostling students as Sylphid took off through the smoke of the burning city.

"Or else, Tabitha dear?" Kirche asked cheerfully as she repeatedly poked Louise's cheek, much to the smaller girl's annoyance.

"Dragon dinner."

Kirche and Louise promptly stopped squabbling, concentrating instead on finding a good grip on some of Sylphid's blue scales so they wouldn't be thrown off when the dragon made its first mid-air turn. It turned out to be a wise decision: Louise felt her stomach lurch unpleasantly as Sylphid climbed in height, quickly punching through the smoke of the burning city and reaching the blue sky.

The view from the back of the dragon took Louise's breath away.

To the east of the Academy, the outlying parts of the forest stretched out like a dark green ocean, pines and leaves of light and dark greens giving the impression of the changing sea, the hills and winds making her think of rolling waves. However, she knew that underneath its canopy was enough shadow and danger that merited the name it was given in the old texts: the Darkwoods, les Forêts Obscures.

To the south and west were only small coloured patches of yellow fields and green pastures divvying up the entire landscape. A long time ago, the Darkwoods had stretched even here, but humanity had conquered it and made themselves at home, nobles and commoners cultivating the earth and driving out the elves and orcs with the help of the Founder and his Saints. From up here, Louise could see villages, small farms, and even some smaller cities in the distance.

She would have probably enjoyed the view far more had her home been less devastated: the facade of the Academy was completely destroyed, stone crumbling from Fouquet's attack, and smoke was rising from the city surrounding it in thick black columns. The Academy looked very much as if it had been bombarded, as if war had come again to Tristain.

"Which way?" Tabitha whispered, her voice audible even though the wind whipped around them, snatching all other noise away.

"North-east!" Louise shouted into her ear to make herself heard.

A tap of the shepherd's crook on Sylphid's head later, and the dragon immediately banked towards the woods. As they reached the woods and flew low over the treetops, Louise kept her eyes wide open for a sign of her familiar on the ground below.

"Where do you think he is by now?" Kirche shouted into her ear.

"Ezio can run faster than any man I've ever seen!" she yelled back. "But I can't see anything! Can you?"

"Tabitha!" Kirche shouted forwards. "Get us up, quick!"

Again, it seemed that the tiny mage heard her friend, as impossible as it seemed with the rushing sound of the wind that enveloped them. Louise tried to turn around and glare as Sylphid climbed, not daring to pummel her rival at this height. "What are you doing?" she screeched. "We'll never find him from up here!"

"We don't even know where he is!" Kirche snapped back, her eyes unusually serious as she scanned the horizon. "We need to wait fo—"

"Found him," Tabitha muttered quietly, immediately catching their attention.

Her shepherd's crook pointed into the distance, and Louise and Kirche could easily see that a pillar of light was reaching into the sky, a faint golden glow surrounding the ground where it sprouted from. Even from so far away, all three mages felt something blasting past them like a breeze of freezing air. Louise felt her skin tingle, giving her goosebumps and making her shiver. The feeling was eerily reminiscent of Ezio's summoning three weeks ago.

She had no time to think about it, though, as Sylphid angled her wings and sped off towards the far-off light, faster than the dragon had ever flown before.

...

Well, well, well, how incredibly tenacious, Ezio thought, half amused and half irritated as he saw how the trail split up into three different directions. Again.

This was the third time that had Fouquet had tried to throw off her pursuers by sending them on a wild goose chase. Had Ezio been less observant (and had his senses been less sharp), he would have surely been fooled already.

Ezio took a sharp whiff of the air. The metallic scent of blood was pungent in the air, even against the backdrop of resin, tree bark, grass, moss, and upturned earth. The smell on one path was particularly strong, and Ezio saw the silhouette of Fouquet's past self disappear amongst the tangled tree roots of the dark forest up ahead.

Hm. She was losing blood fast, it seemed, and she appeared to be slowing down as well. Did she know that he was following her? Was she planning to ambush him, or was she just tired?

No matter. The important thing was that he was gaining on her.

He launched himself once more from branch to branch, hurling himself from one tree to the next, and wondering how he would finally put her down. Harass her until she collapsed from exhaustion, like he'd heard some African tribes hunted their prey? Shoot her from afar to catch her unaware? Fight her one-on-one and hope he could overpower her in a moment of weakness? None of that sounded particularly encouraging.

A clearing. Ezio slowed down, taking small, cautious leaps until he reached the outermost trees, peeking around a trunk.

Fouquet looked distinctly worse for wear. She had thrown off her robe and hood, the green fabric utterly stained with blood. Right now, the mage was sitting down next to a stream coursing through the clearing, cleaning out her wound and bandaging her own shoulder with torn swathes of her own cloak, cursing under her breath all the while. The Papal Staff lied in easy reach next to her.

Ezio frowned. Apparently, she was no healer. That was one advantage he had over her; her injury was slowing her down. But still, he had to admire her cunning. In this clearing, anyone trying to harm her would have to come out into the open to attack her, giving her early warning and allowing her to strike first. It was a ruse he would have employed – if he had been alone, injured and unable to flee, at least.

The Assassin decided to wait and get his breath back. If he had the element of surprise, attacking her when she thought herself safe, he might still overpower those strange magical defences of hers. And if he had to, he'd simply try to take her head off. It worked for Perseus, and it would certainly work on a mere human, no matter what strange magic she may have had at her command.

The Florentine reached for the grip of his small crossbow, testing the tautness of its string. Thank goodness that the sun was out; the thing would have been utterly useless in the rain. He drew an arrow from his quiver and delicately loaded in into the crossbow, then threw a speculative look up into the foliage of the tree he was currently occupying. A higher vantage point might be useful...

He reached out for a higher branch and started hauling himself up with one hand still holding his crossbow, climbing up with nothing more than his free hand and two legs, silently thanking whatever strange magic that had rejuvenated him a few weeks ago.

There was a sharp crack as the branch he was currently holding on to broke off without warning, the dry, snapping sound echoing around the silent clearing like the shot from a musket. Ezio managed to grab onto another branch as he fell, cursing, and spotted Fouquet leaping to her feet, looking straight at him and screaming with barely restrained horror and fury.

In retrospect, Ezio realized, chasing after someone in a forest wearing a fancy fluttering white cloak that stood out against the thick green foliage like a whore in a seminary was a stupid mistake to make.

Fouquet grabbed the Papal Staff and raised it high over her head with both hands, smashing its head into the ground with all her might and a loud cry. The ground split from her blow, and a moment later the whole clearing shook with the greatest earthquake Ezio had ever had the misfortune of experiencing, the grass turning over as the earth cracked from the point of impact outwards, hurling boulders into the air and easily uprooting the trees that the Assassin had found refuge in, making the ancient trees topple and fall with resounding crashes and the creaking groans of breaking wood.

Ears ringing, Ezio let go of his branch and allowed himself to fall to the ground, landing on his feet and grunting in pain as his body protested against the rough treatment. He ignored it for the moment, launching himself over the cracked earth towards Fouquet. She had miscalculated with her desperate manoeuvre: destroying the earth had also kicked up a large cloud of dust and grit, and Ezio could hear the thief swearing as she tried to claw it out of her eyes.

He caught her on the back foot when he charged out of the dust cloud like a demon out of hell. She gritted her teeth and raised her staff to block the flurry of blows of the hidden blades she had now come to expect from him.

Ezio calmly shot her in the leg.

Fouquet screamed as the arrow punched through her thigh, the green-haired woman dropping to her knees in pain. It was just as Ezio had thought: that arcane stone armour of hers needed its caster's full attention to be effective, like most of the magic the nobles of Halkeginia used. Caught by surprise and light-headed by blood loss and exhaustion, and Fouquet simply didn't have the strength to call on it in time.

Ezio stowed away his crossbow and drew his ancestor's sword, charging full tilt at Fouquet to run the blade through her chest.

"Oh no you don't!" Fouquet shrieked, stabbing the broken earth with the blunt end of the Papal Staff. Ezio saw the earth suddenly rise like a wave before her, slamming into him and throwing him away like a ragdoll, driving the breath from his lungs as he slammed to the ground.

He got to his feet, tasting blood and shaking his head groggily to clear it, and lifted his left arm. A moment later, the hidden gun cracked, the bullet hitting Fouquet's chest and cutting off the woman's next incantation as she pointed the Papal Staff at him, making her stumble back, yet she didn't fall.

No time to reload. Ezio charged again, sword raised, trying to close the distance and drive the blade through her heart before she could bring the Staff to bear again.

And then all he saw was light.

Familiar golden light forced him to stop in his tracks, and once again he felt a crushing weight on his shoulders as he fell to his knees with a cry. Again he felt as if he was cursed to carry the sky on his shoulders, those voices whispering to him, asking him to submit, to stop resisting, to bow and obey—

A high-pitched, hysterical laugh cut through the noise assaulting his mind, and he strained with all his might to shakily lift his head. Fouquet was stumbling towards him, supporting herself on the Papal Staff, blood flowing freely from her wounds. All around her, the golden light flowed in waves and ripples, emanating from the cross of the Papal Staff, flooding the destroyed clearing with light, and making it streak into the sky like a pillar called down from Heaven.

Fouquet looked like an angel, like the pictures that adorned the altars in Italia – powerful, full of wrath, coming to punish the sinners and the guilty, and again Ezio felt that instinctive need to lie down and obey.

"It's over, you thug!" the angel called out gleefully as she stumbled closer, a victorious gleam in her eye. "It's over, don't you understand? Years and years I prepared for this moment – to steal the Founder's treasures, all to liberate my people from the nobles' yoke! And you thought that you could stop me?" She laughed again as she stopped in front of him, slamming the butt end of the Staff into his face and sending him sprawling. "You may be strong, familiar, but you are only human! Your master has abandoned you! You are alone! How do you want to fight me, when I hold the power that the Founder and God himself has granted me, familiar? Tell me!"

Bow down, human, the voices whispered again, their tone soothing and calm. Bow down and obey. This is your purpose of your existence, the purpose for your creation. Bow down, human, and the pain will disappear.

It would be so easy to just give in, Ezio realized. All he needed to do was just give up, stop listening to his own mind that was frantically scrabbling together its many pieces to remain whole, just give in to that lovely, calm voice that promised him rest, and oh, he certainly needed rest, he was far too tired—

There was someone else, though... Someone that had depended on him... A small girl...

And then another voice burst through the fog clouding his vision, cutting through the pain that assaulted his mind. His own voice, cold and proud.

My name is Ezio Auditore da Firenze. I bow to no lord, mortal or otherwise.

He gritted his teeth, fighting against the weight on his shoulders that threatened to drive him into the ground, pushing against it with all his might, slowly getting to his knees even as his own body screamed in pain.

An Assassin bows to no one.

He realized that he still held his sword in his right hand, that he was gripping the eagle-tipped hilt with all his strength, gripping it so fiercely that he thought he heard his own bones creak.

He pushed once more against the overwhelming power and light as Fouquet continued to gloat, and then he roared, screaming at the top of his lungs as he called on his entire being to break free.

And then suddenly the weight was gone, and Fouquet was right there—

Steel flashed, and Fouquet screamed as she dropped the Staff, staring at her own hand in disbelief as she realized that it was now missing half its fingers—

And then shocked green eyes stared right into Ezio's cold black ones as he drove his sword right through her stomach and out her back.

For a moment, they simply stood there, looking at each other. Ezio twisted the hilt, and the blade came loose with a sickening sound as it tore through flesh, Fouquet dropping limply to the ground.

Both of them stood there, splattered with blood, still staring into each other's eyes.

"You've killed me," Fouquet said, her voice full of wonder.

Ezio dropped his sword, kneeling at her side as she clawed at her stomach, desperately trying to stop the blood flowing. Death was inevitable now. The mages of this world might have been able to save her, but they were too far away to help. And besides, he wasn't sure she deserved help.

"Yes," he answered simply, watching her die.

The woman laughed shakily. "How very strange... When I imagined my death, it was always different..."

"We rarely choose the time of our deaths," he said, putting his hands on top of hers and rubbing them soothingly.

"How true... how true..." Fouquet shakily smiled at him, spectacles askew, and as she lay there, splattered with blood, quiet and shaking as she died, Ezio could easily see that she had once been a beautiful woman.

For a moment, he was at her side in silence, Fouquet starting to shiver as she bled out bit by bit, Ezio simply holding her hands. He'd always found that people died easier, more peacefully, when someone kept them company in their last moments. Even if it was their worst enemy.

"Why, familiar?" she suddenly asked, looking up at him.

"Why did I kill you?"

Fouquet chuckled, wincing in pain a moment later. "No, not that. Why did you chase after me? You had no duty to. Your master was safe."

"...Because you murdered innocents. You killed people for your own gain, for power. That's why."

She gave him a mocking smirk. "How... idealistic of you, familiar." She spoke the word with quiet scorn. "Have you never killed innocents before?"

He averted his eyes. "I have," he admitted quietly. "I have always regretted it. Unlike you, it seems."

"Hah," she laughed, blood flowing from the corner of her mouth – the bullet lodged in her lung made her breath run ragged. "I'm a thief, familiar. A very good thief. Killing is something I'm not particularly good at. When it happens, I never plan it. People just happen to... get in the way."

She looked up at him and smiled faintly. "But you... you are a real killer, aren't you? I've seen how you fight. Ruthless. Methodical. Creative." She laughed again, hacking up blood. "...A true master at work... Killing is something you've done for a very long time, isn't it?"

Ezio wiped away the blood from her mouth and chin. "Yes," he said simply. "I have done it for a very long time. Far too long." He looked down at the dying woman, his eyes sadder than they'd been for a long time. He leant close, speaking softly. "But I will keep doing it. As long as people like you walk the earth, people that will murder others to simply gain power, to bind them to their will against their own, I will keep killing and killing, and I will not stop until there are absolutely none of you left."

Fouquet laughed him right in the face, the once beautiful woman's green eyes looking madder than they ever had before. "Then rejoice, assassin! Times of war and strife are looming, drums and swords and many marching feet! A revolution, a war to sweep over these lands and forever change this cruel world!" She cackled. "You'll find many people to kill, I'm sure of it!"

Ezio glared at her, but it didn't keep her from laughing, the woman chortling insanely to herself, as if she was enjoying some obscure joke that only she could understand. Soon, however, her laughs turned to small whimpers as she started shaking uncontrollably.

"Oh, God," she whispered, her voice getting fainter. "Oh, God. I never wanted to die like this. Not like this."

"Like what?"

"Unfulfilled." She looked up at him. "I wanted to change things, familiar. Change them. Don't you understand that?" Her hands gripped his with renewed strength, her eyes growing desperate. "My family was murdered, familiar, murdered by a man we'd sworn fealty to! On a simple whim! And we could do absolutely nothing to stop it!"

"And?" he asked neutrally.

"And so I became a thief." She laughed bitterly. "I stole from the nobles. I killed some of them. I destroyed whatever belief they had that they were untouchable, I destroyed their disgusting little idyll that they had built for themselves on the backs of the commoners that could do nothing to fight against them!" Her eyes clouded over for a moment, but then they returned to stare at him, full of fire, even as her body grew weaker and weaker. "And then they came to find me."

Ezio frowned. "Who came to find you?"

"Reconquista." She spoke the name gleefully, like a child sharing some great secret. "I was alone, familiar. I was alone, fighting all the nobles of this world. Whatever I did, no matter how many nobles I killed, there were always ten more to take their place. And they came. They wanted to change the world! Free the commoners! But they needed my help to do it."

"And you said yes."

She laughed again, a high-pitched giggle that bordered on the hysterical. "Of course I said yes! My family had been killed on a noble's whim, familiar. And the world just watched, unable to help, no matter how wretched and cruel it may have been. I wanted to change that world, that world that allowed my parents and siblings to die, and they offered me the chance to do it when no one else could."

"...By stealing the Papal Staff."

"Papal Staff?" she repeated, frowning and shaking her head. "The Staff of Destruction, familiar. That's what it's called. A weapon from times long gone, used by the Founder to drive out the elves from the Holy Land... You saw its power, didn't you? No human can resist it." She kept frowning at him, as if she were trying to figure out some puzzle. "Except you. How strange."

"I have led a strange life," he said, smiling bitterly at her. "Much like you, I think."

"There's a curse, I think," she said, frowning as she struggled to remember. "May you live in interesting times... Yes. That's what it was. It always thought it was a foolish thing to say. Life isn't supposed to be boring, is it? But then again..."

For a moment, both stayed there in silence, the only sound being Fouquet's increasingly ragged breathing that grew fainter with every moment.

"Do you have anyone?" he finally asked, glancing at her gaping stomach wound. It wouldn't be too long now. "Anyone you would wish to know of your death?"

"...There's a man called..."

"Yes?" Ezio asked, bringing his ear down to her mouth.

"Roberto," she whispered.

Ezio frowned. "Where do I find him?"

"...Go to the city of Tristain," she whispered, her voice growing fainter. She weakly reached up to her throat with a bloodied hand, shivering fingers vainly grasping at a silver chain around her neck. "There's a brothel called the Fairies' Inn, run by a man named Scarron... Show him my necklace. He'll know where to find him."

"What should I tell him?" he asked quietly as he gently lifted Fouquet's head, taking the silver pendant from her neck.

"...Tell him," she coughed, blood suddenly welling up from her mouth, "...Tell him that Matilda has finally rejoined her family."

"Matilda?" He saw her give a faint nod, and he smiled. "That's a very pretty name."

"...What's yours, familiar?"

"Ezio."

"...That's an unusual name. Exotic, isn't it? What's it mean?"

"Eagle. It means Eagle."

"Strange..." Matilda was now no longer looking at him, her eyes looking at the clouds above. The golden light around them had nearly dissipated, though little wisps were still dancing through the blue sky above them. "...Do you think there's a place for us somewhere, Ezio? A place for us sinners?"

Ezio answered honestly as he held her mangled hand. "I don't know."

"Well, perhaps we'll meet again one day..."

Ezio thought of the stories the priest used to tell during mass in his childhood, of heaven and hell and eternal punishment, and how these were only stories, started by a simple carpenter with a strange artefact from forgotten times, and carried on and on during centuries by popes and cardinals and priests until no one knew the truth anymore. If there ever had been a truth.

"Or perhaps we won't."

"Who knows?" She smiled faintly at him, green eyes dimming. "All I know is that you will live in interesting times, Ezio. Make the most of it."

There was a faint, regular sound on the edge of his hearing, and he quickly looked up to see Sylphid bear down on him, remnants of golden light making her scales shine an eerie blue as she batted her wings. She landed in the destroyed clearing with a loud thump, crushing earth and grit underneath her claws, and then Louise was suddenly running towards him, her eyes wide and panicked.

"Ezio!" she shouted as she threw herself to kneel next to him, reaching out to his bloodied face to sure that he was still alive, that he was still there. "Are you alright?!"

The Assassin winced. "No need to shout, piccina," he muttered, suddenly feeling very tired. He smiled reassuringly at her. "I'm still alive."

"Well, at least there's some good news to this disaster," another voice muttered. Kirche's footsteps slowed down as she approached with a frown, wand at the ready, Tabitha silently walking alongside her with her shepherd's crook in hand. "What about Fouquet?"

Ezio glanced down at Matilda and saw lifeless green eyes look past him at the clouds above, her face still smiling that faint smile. If she hadn't been lying in a pool of her own blood, her body torn and battered, she would have probably looked peaceful.

He heard silent footsteps approach, and then Tabitha kneeled next to the two of them, a small hand reaching out to touch her throat. "Dead," the small mage pronounced a moment later, throwing the Florentine a sharp glance.

Ezio nodded, reaching out with bloodstained fingers to adjust Matilda's spectacles until they were no longer askew, and then gently closing her eyelids until it looked as if she was merely sleeping. "Requiescat in pace."

Louise frowned at him, puzzled. "What does that mean?"

"Old Romalian," Tabitha answered quietly. "Rest in peace."

"Can we leave now?" Kirche interrupted before Louise could open her mouth to fire off questions. The Germanian had turned around, wand outstretched and nervously eyeing the surrounding forest. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we're in the middle of the Darkwoods. I'd like to get out of here before something finds us and thinks we'd make for a decent lunch."

Ezio chuckled. "After all this effort, ending up in some beast's belly would be a shame. Un momento, per favore." He quickly patted down Matilda's corpse, and quickly found what he looked for in a pouch on her belt. If she had gotten a hold of the Staff...

He turned the Apple of Eden over in his hand, examining it intently. He heaved a relieved sigh – even after the commotion it had just been through, it was undamaged. But then again, the Pieces of Eden had survived thousands of years across human history – a little scuffle like this probably wouldn't even scratch it.

"Ezio?" Louise asked hesitantly, eyes glued to the glowing object. "What in Founder's name is that thing?"

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me," he answered easily, stowing the Apple away in a pouch on his belt. He got to his feet, cursing quietly under his breath as he nearly stumbled. Now that the danger was over, his body was demanding its toll after nearly an hour of constant running, fighting, and getting pummelled by unfamiliar magic.

"I thought you weren't injured!" Louise said indignantly as she stopped him from falling over.

"Ah, no," he corrected, grinning and wincing at the same time. "I said I was still alive, not that I wasn't injured. Not exactly the same thing, wouldn't you agree?"

"Here," Tabitha said quietly, and master and familiar looked up to see the small mage levitate the Papal Staff in mid-air, right in front of Ezio's nose, and keeping a healthy distance."Dangerous," Tabitha added stoically when she saw the looks she was receiving.

Ezio chuckled, amused by her paranoia. "Oh, assurdo," he said, reaching out for the floating staff. "You have to be careful, certainly, but—"

As soon as his fingers touched it, his head felt as if it had been bludgeoned by a hammer, and he clenched his eyes shut as memories that he distinctly remembered not having slammed into his brain, making him clench his eyes shut in pain.

He suddenly felt as if he was walking along an old, dark passageway, whispers and faint lights dancing across his closed eyes.

Do you remember, Desmond? An older voice, quiet but insistent. Do you remember how to open this door?

I'm... I'm not sure. This one was younger, more hesitant. Ezio's memories showed me the place, yeah, but Connor's memories of visiting this place are... fuzzier.

Fuzzier? Another voice interrupted, snide and exasperated. Rebecca, did you just hear the vocabulary our boy wonder used to describe the marvellous technology of the Animus? 'Fuzzier!' Honestly, Desmond, what is it you think we're doing here, kindergarteners out on a field trip?

Shut up, Shawn, a woman snapped, her temper obviously frayed. You're really not helping here.

Well, neither is he! May I remind you that we've spent about two weeks in this dank and dreary place, and we haven't even advanced past the bloody entrance hall! We're locked in here because Abstergo is waiting outside to shoot us all in the head the moment we leave or they figure how to open the door, our food supplies are dwindling, and my stash of coffee is running out! Pardon me if I don't have a particularly sunny disposition about our situation!

Shawn, so help me—

I think I need to re-examine those DNA sequences in the Animus, the voice apparently belonging to Desmond interrupted, deep in thought. There just... wasn't enough detail in the places Connor visited. Or perhaps I just missed it when I went through the first time. We can only check again.

Great, now he's spending even more time in the magic machine, the other man grumbled. We're all doomed.

It's not magic, Shawn, the woman sighed. It works by— Why am I even telling you this? You know how the Animus works!

Well, however that fancy couch of yours may work, it still doesn't solve our immediate problem, does it?

Well, do you have any better ideas?

...Open the front door and see what happens?

An idea that won't get us all killed or experimented on?

Well, what am I supposed to think of? I'm a historian, woman, not a miracle worker!

Settle down, children, the older voice interrupted sternly, immediately stopping the squabbling. The man sighed, sounding resigned. Well, we have no real choice, do we? Get back into the Animus, son. Looks like we'll need to work through more of the DNA sequences from Connor's later life in order to get useful information.

Yeah, dad. Desmond laughed. Pull me out if my feet start twitching, alright?

Desmond, I'm pulling the plug if I think you're going too far, the older man said, his tone deadly serious. We don't want you to end up like Subject 16.

...He had a name, dad. Clay. Clay Kaczmarec.

Well, the moment you start redecorating the walls with your own blood, I think we might consider pulling you out of that thing, the other man said snidely.

Shawn!

What? I was trying to be reassuring there!

Let's get back to camp, the older man said, his voice harried and tired. We're running out of time—

The Papal Staff fell to the ground with a dull thud as it slipped from Ezio's shaking fingers. He stood there, swaying, his mind burning with pain as he tried to grasp what he had just heard, ignoring Louise and the others' attempts to get him back to his senses. Memories slammed into his brain, finding space to store them where none were before, and his mind was afire with pain as he suddenly heard quite whispers, words that made no sense, pictures and images of places he'd never seen—

A sharp slap across the face brought him back to reality. He stood there, blinking quickly, and saw that Kirche and Tabitha were looking at him with obvious concern. He spotted Louise just in time as she raised her hand again, looking absolutely terrified.

He grabbed her wrist before she could hit him again, smiling faintly. "Mille grazie, Louise. I needed that."

"How could you be so stupid!?" she exploded, grabbing the front of his cloak and dragging him close, glaring him right in the eye. "Fouquet killed to get this thing, and Tabitha told you it was dangerous, for Founder's sake! Are you trying to get yourself into an early grave?"

"I think 'early grave' is the wrong choice of words for someone my age," Ezio answered, amused by her indignation. "If anything, it would be late."

"Oh, you can't be that old," Kirche interrupted, grinning.

"I'm sixty-six," Ezio said drily as he picked up his sword, sheathing it. He tore his tattered cloak from his shoulders, carefully wrapping the Papal Staff until no hint of golden metal was visible. He carefully handed it to Tabitha.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. The pale-haired girl cocked her head, her expression never changing. "For not listening to you," he clarified, adding a small, awkward bow to his apology.

Tabitha studied him intently for a moment, blue eyes boring into his, and then she just nodded as she accepted the now-safe Staff, silently walking past him towards Sylphid. The dragon was starting to fidget, watching its surroundings anxiously and nervously flapping its wings. Apparently, it disliked the strange forest as much as Ezio did.

The Assassin bent down, scooping up Fouquet's corpse into his arms with surprisingly gentle care. "Let's go," he said quietly to Louise. "This forest is giving me a bad feeling."

They both turned to leave, only realizing a few steps later that Kirche wasn't following them. "Signorina Zerbst?"

Kirche stood there, her mouth opening and closing like that of a goldfish and rudely pointing at Ezio with a look of stunned disbelief on her face. "Sixty-six..."

Louise's eyebrow twitched. "I am going to kill her one day, I swear."

Ezio shrugged and walked back towards Sylphid, lifting up the body carefully to sling it across the skittish dragon's back. "Bene, we can always leave her here in the forest, all by herself, with all those wolves and bears and other pleasant animals. Don't you agree, Louise?" he asked loudly, winking at her.

His little master grinned as she accepted his help to climb onto Sylphid's back. "Sounds like a wonderful idea, Ezio. Why, apparently there's even elves and orcs and—"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Kirche yelped, hurrying to join them. She threw an annoyed look at Ezio when he linked his hands to help her climb onto the dragon's spine. "No need for drastic measures," she muttered, pouting as he easily lifted her up.

Ezio climbed up after her with a laugh, and found some space behind the annoyed Germanian. "One man's drastic measure, signorina," he spoke quietly into her ear, "is another man's pleasure."

Kirche threw him a sharp glance over her shoulder. "Why, you should be careful, Herr Auditore," she answered in a whisper, smirking as she leant her back into him. "Play with fire, and you might get burned."

"Are you two quite done?" Louise snapped, sounding rather piqued. Sylphid was agitated, moving her wings nervously, and even Tabitha seemed slightly uncomfortable as she scanned the forest around them.

"Let's leave," Ezio said loudly. "We've done all we can."

Sylphid didn't even wait for Tabitha's quiet command, stretching her blue wings and launching herself into the air as quickly as she could, flying far above the treetops to get as far away from the Darkwoods as possible.

...

The flight back to the Academy was sombre and quiet. For one, it was impossible to talk with the winds snatching away every second word, and Kirche and Louise were unusually quiet on the flight, not even one cross word or teasing remark exchanged between the two of them. Fouquet's bloodied and battered corpse, strapped onto the dragon's back, might have had something to do with it. Ezio's mind, however, was still trying to understand what had happened when he had touched the Papal Staff, trying feverishly to understand the influx of memories he had suddenly gained out of nowhere.

Desmond. He knew that name. He knew it, he was certain of it. Minerva had mentioned it. She had talked to Desmond, not to him, when she had appeared back in the catacombs of Saint Peter's cathedral in Rome. He'd been nothing more than a conduit, a vessel to transmit the message by some strange way that he didn't understand. In the dark library of Masyaf, he had seen something that he thought was him, the faint outline of a man in strange clothes, and he'd even spoken to him for a few moments, passing along whatever he could.

Ezio... They had mentioned his name. How did they know his name? And who was this 'Connor' person? Who were the other people talking to Desmond? And Abstergo – all these were names that he couldn't even begin to understand!

He thoughtfully eyed the wrapped Staff, held securely in Tabitha's hands as the small mage looked straight ahead into the whipping wind, guiding her dragon familiar with a quiet order or a small tap on the head when required.

Was this even the same Staff that Rodrigo Borgia had desired so long ago? It certainly looked exactly the same... but then again, he hadn't received strange memories from it back then. But he knew that recording memories for posterity was possible, if difficult. Altair had done it, to record the location of the Temple and the Pieces of Eden and pass them on to later generations... Was the same possible with other objects, perhaps? But even if it was, how had these artefacts come to Halkeginia, a world so separate and distant from his own home?

He carefully opened his hand, examining the bloodied necklace that Fouquet had given him, moments before she died. It was a simple silver chain, but the pendant attached to it was a small piece of undecorated silver that looked like an inverted, stemless Greek upsilon with hooks at its end. The ancient symbol of the Hashishim, and the one that all their successors used, partly out of genuine respect, partly out of quiet reverence for tradition, and mostly out of pride.

And how were they connected to the Templars and Assassins?

Now he definitely had to confront the Academy's headmaster about the so-called 'Staff of Destruction,' and why they had been so adamant about concealing the Apple of Eden from him. Ezio grimly stowed the necklace away, feeling the Apple's heavy weight in the pouch on his belt. They might not like the fact that he was asking uncomfortable question, but he would get his answers – one way or another.

"Nearly there," Tabitha said quietly, and he looked up to see where she was pointing with the shepherd's crook in her left hand. He heard Louise's sharp intake of breath, and felt Kirche shift uncomfortably in front of him.

From high above as Sylphid circled, it was easy to see the damage done to the Academy and the city. The fires had apparently been mostly extinguished, though smoke still rose in small columns from burning hulks, small flames still eating away at the mostly wooden buildings. The Academy, separated as it was by walls and a mostly decorative moat, had managed to escape the inferno. However, that was little comfort – Fouquet's golem had rampaged without restriction, destroying gardens, courtyards, and defacing the Academy. Entire floors were simply torn out and destroyed, large, gaping holes left behind in the school's facade.

His sharp eyes picked up a thick gaggle of people camped out on a field outside of the city proper, tents erected row by row and people milling about with great activity. Up here, they looked as small as ants, but Ezio still managed to recognize the small golden sheen standing out like a beacon. The princess was amongst them, he was sure of it.

"Down there!" he shouted, pointing. "By the southern gate!"

Tabitha nodded once, and soon they circled lower and lower, Sylphid repeatedly adjusting her wings to make their descent smooth and controlled.

The dragon's arrival caused quite a few people to look up, tense talk and whispers soon exploding afterwards, but if any of the four stragglers had expected a warm welcome or a triumph on their return, they would have been sorely disappointed. The reason was all too obvious.

"Oh, Founder help us all," Louise muttered with horror in her voice, looking as if she wanted dearly to throw up.

The row of tents and the space around them had been converted into an improvised field hospital, healers and nurses flitting back and forth to attend to the dozens, perhaps even hundreds of injured scattered about on crude litters, many of them moaning and writhing in pain as they clutched their injuries or feebly asked their despairing friends and families for water, while others were already lying dreadfully still.

Ezio saw a man hurry past, his arms stained crimson all the way up to the elbows and carrying a bucket in each hand, filled to the brim with bloody limbs crushed by falling rocks and debris – with such injuries, amputation was really the only way to save the patient from gangrene, at least if the shock didn't kill them. Louise shivered, and he reached past Kirche to give her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Coraggio, Louise," he muttered.

"Ser Ezio!" a voice called out, sounding elated. "And the demoiselles Vallière, Zerbst and Tabitha too! Thank goodness you're alive!"

Guiche stumbled towards them from the shade of the makeshift shelter, grinning from ear to ear and looking genuinely happy at their return. The effect was marred by the thick, bloodied bandage wrapped around his skull and the fact that one of his uniform sleeves was torn up all the way to the shoulder, his arm held in a sling. Blood was splattered across his frilly shirt, and his uniform was torn and ragged, soot and ash staining it.

Ezio swung his leg over Sylphid's back, sliding down the animal's flank to land in front of the battered student. "Gramont? Cazzo, what happened to you?"

Guiche glanced at his injured arm and laughed. "Nothing serious, Ser Ezio! It's only broken. Nothing that won't heal, I'm sure!"

"Did he tell you how he got his arm broken, Our Sword?" Marteau boomed as he marched towards the small group that was just dismounting. The head cook clapped a huge paw on Guiche's shoulder, laughing uproariously. "Stupid idiot here rushed right into a burning building as it was collapsing when he heard there was someone still inside, managed to have a beam crash on top of him, and then walked out with a child under his cloak so that it wouldn't suffocate! Insane, that was!"

Guiche winced in pain, but still managed to scowl at the man's compliment. Ezio just raised an eyebrow. "That was... particularly foolish, ragazzo," he said drily, but grinned when Guiche's expression turned to dismay. "Well done, Ser Gramont."

"Haven't seen anything as stupidly heroic like that since the war, I tell you!" Marteau agreed cheerfully. "That child's mother could have kissed you, milord, I'm damn sure of it!"

Guiche chuckled, swaying on his feet. "Well, the citizens are all safe now, and we're mostly treating the injured..." His eyes grew wide as he looked past Ezio at the corpse that Tabitha was levitating to the ground. "Is that...?"

Ezio nodded grimly. "Fouquet. Dead."

Marteau whistled as the body landed on the ground, kneeling next to it. "Well, I'll be – isn't that Mademoiselle de Longueville, the headmaster's secretary?"

"Alias," Tabitha said succinctly as she lightly floated to the ground next to Ezio, helping Kirche and Louise down from Sylphid's back. The dragon prodded Fouquet's corpse with its long nose, nostrils flaring, until Tabitha sternly bopped her familiar over the head. "No eating."

"Did you kill her, Ser Ezio?" Guiche asked quietly, staring at the woman's many deep wounds.

Ezio glanced at him. "What of it?"

Guiche laughed shakily. "Nothing, really. You just killed a triangle-class mage, Ser Ezio, one of the most powerful renegades of Halkeginia!" The student shook his head, looking terrified. "Oh, Founder, how could I have been so stupid to challenge you to that duel..."

Marteau stood back up and threw a long, calculating look at Ezio, the intelligence behind those eyes belying his brutish looks. "You're going to go into the history books for this, Our Sword."

Ezio gave a small bark of laughter. He'd read quite a few of those history books in the last few weeks, and none of them mentioned any commoners killing nobles one-on-one. "I doubt it."

"Is Her Highness alright?" Louise piped up, looking rather worried as she wrung her hands.

Guiche nodded, waving in a vague direction at the other end of the camp with his good arm. "She's with Sister Catherine and the other teachers, helping the wounded, or at least she was when I last saw her. She's unharmed, as far as I know."

Louise threw an unsure look at Ezio, but before she could say anything, Montmorency stumbled out of the shade of the tent, her usually immaculate uniform stained with blood, the pretty blond girl herself looking rather dazed and unsure. She stopped right in front of Guiche, not looking him in the eye.

"Katie's dead."

All conversation stopped immediately. Guiche just stared at her, eyes wide in shock. "Wha..."

Montmorency stood there, starting to shake uncontrollably. She was starting to cry, tears running down her cheeks. "I... I was helping the other healers with the injured... They brought her in, she'd been crushed under a boulder... and... and..."

Guiche looked on helplessly as Montmorency broke down right in front of him, sobbing. Ezio gave him a push, and he looked back at him, panicked. "Go hug her, stupido!" he hissed.

And Guiche, looking the most terrified any of them had ever seen him, cautiously walked over to Montmorency and gave her an awkward, if sincere one-armed hug. "Hush, Monmon, it's alright..."

"It's not alright!" the young girl wailed, hitting him in the chest and making him wince in pain. "The last time we talked, we were fighting about boys! I mean, how stupid of us! I never got to say sorry!"

And then she broke down again and held on to Guiche for dear life, the terrified young noble whispering into her ear as he rubbed the girl's back, trying in vain to calm her down.

"Nothing like a battle to rearrange one's priorities, eh?" Marteau said quietly to Ezio.

"You've seen this before," the Assassin noted, studying the cook intently.

Marteau laughed, his voice bitter. "We haven't had a big war in years, thank the heavens above, but I still remember the last one." He shifted uncomfortably. "Third Germanian Campaign. Bloody business, that was."

"...Can you find the princess and the headmaster?" Ezio asked after a moment. "Tell them that Fouquet is dead. I'll come by soon."

Marteau nodded, bending down to lift Fouquet's corpse into his arms. "Aye. I'll see you around, Our Sword." And then he walked on, his bulk and the sight of another corpse allowing him quick passage through the healers and relatives thronging the hospital.

Ezio himself walked past Guiche and the crying noble girl, entering the darkness of the large tent that had been erected to accommodate the injured. Row of stretchers followed row of stretchers, and he could see family members crowding around their injured relatives – some of them desperately praying, some of them holding hands and comforting each other, others begging the healers to help their father or mother or siblings. The injured students were surrounded by their friends – the students were sent to the Academy by their parents, most of which wouldn't have yet received the new of their children's injuries or untimely death.

Everywhere he looked, he saw mages working feverishly to heal bleedings stumps after the surgeons had amputated a limb or two, their patients screaming with pain through their gags and weeping, or else enduring the procedure with unimaginable stoicism. Others were forcing enchanted water down their patients' throats to clear their lungs of the ash and smoke they'd inhaled as the city burned, trying to clean them out before they suffocated. Splints were made, broken bones reset, and torn flesh where jagged bones had cleanly punched through was also getting stitched and healed.

At regular intervals, a pair of men would silently walk past Ezio, a stretcher with a still form covered by a blanket between them, making room for those who needed it. The victims were elders, mothers, fathers, children and babes – all of them had gone to the Familiar's Fair to enjoy themselves, to celebrate, and it had turned into a tragedy.

Ezio found her at the very end of the end, no one around her stretcher. He kneeled at her side, studying the corpse that had once been known as a pretty girl named Katie. Her face was unmarred, curiously enough, even though her left side had been reduced to nothing more than shredded gore. Her arm and leg were completely gone, staining the ground and her uniform with blood. Her brown eyes were wide open, sightless, her features ghostly pale and relaxed in death.

He saw Kirche kneel opposite him, not caring about the blood that covered the ground. The Germanian student took a handkerchief from her pocket, carefully wiping away the blood from Katie's face.

"Did you know her well?" Ezio asked quietly.

"Not really," Kirche answered, looking carefully composed as she kept cleaning Katie's face as best as she could. "I was always... ah, an outcast, so to say. A foreigner, and a bit of a flirt as well... the other girls never really appreciated my company." A small hand touched her shoulder, and she smiled briefly as Tabitha kept her silent company. "Tabitha was all alone as well, you know. So we decided to be alone together. It was... convenient."

Ezio laughed quietly. "Outcasts, vero? I can relate."

Tabitha looked down at Katie's mangled corpse, not even flinching. "Exsanguination," she said quietly. "Shock."

Ezio threw the small mage a sharp look, but said nothing. Someone as young as her shouldn't have recognized the symptoms this easily – unless she had prior experience.

"Ezio? What does that mean?" Louise asked haltingly, standing helplessly next to him and not really knowing what to do.

"She bled to death," he explained quietly. "If she was lucky, she went in shock from the pain and blood loss, and never noticed when she passed on." He sighed. It was a bad sign that he had gotten so used to these things. "Is there a prayer?" he asked, glancing at the students around him. "Something we can do?"

"Allow me," Kirche said quietly. She clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and started to speak in a quiet, reverent tone.

"Sei uns gnädig, Gott, sei uns nahe. Sei uns sehr nahe, jetzt, da wir trauern…"

It flowed like a song, and though Ezio didn't understand a word of it, he listened intently to the short poem as Kirche spoke. "That was pretty," he commented when it ended. "What was that?"

"'God, stay close to us.' A death prayer from my homeland," Kirche said, smiling briefly at him before looking back at Katie. "Germanian is a wonderful language, Herr Auditore," she said, sounding distracted. "Even though some may think of us as barbarians. You should hear some of our songs."

Ezio nodded once. "I'd like that." He reached out and gently touched the young girl's eyelids, closing them. "Requiescat en pace."

"Sorry, guv'nor," a gruff voice addressed them, and they all looked up at the two men that had appeared, hovering impatiently just outside their small circle. "We've got ter make room."

Ezio nodded. "Bene." He threw a last look at Katie's still face, and then drew a blanket over it, getting to his feet and stepping away, as did the others. The men pushed past them, grabbed the stretcher's handles, and disappeared with Katie a moment later.

"Let's get out of here," Kirche muttered as she wiped the blood from her knees. "I can't stand seeing the dead."

Louise mumbled her agreement, and the two rivals quickly left the tent, leaving Ezio and Tabitha standing in the middle of the tent by themselves. Ezio stepped out of the tent a moment later, taking a look around. The Academy was in ruins, the city more or less burned to the ground. He'd seen the Vestri Court littered with debris when they had flown over it, and the dead and wounded were everywhere, wailing and tears accompanying them.

And yet people were still alive. They were comforting each other, helping the healers bandage the injured and ease the passing of the dying, and students and commoners were lying in each others' arms and grieving together for their loved ones, others huddling outside the field hospital and chatting with their friends in low voices, simply glad to be alive.

Ezio took a deep breath. It smelt of blood, bile, and the brandy used by the healers to dull the pain. But he was still alive. Louise was alive. Their friends were still alive. Something to be glad for, at least.

He glanced at Tabitha, who was silently keeping him company and stonily watching the proceedings. He smirked wryly. "Glad to be alive, piccina?"

He thought he saw some surprise flit across her eyes, though it disappeared just as quickly. She thought some time about her answer. "...yes."

He nodded, taking the wrapped Staff from her hands. "Good." He sighed and steeled himself, marching decisively towards the other end of the encampment, leaving Tabitha to look after him. People recognized him as he walked past, some of the servants he knew quietly hailing him, some of the spectators recognizing him from his presentation and whispering amongst themselves, but they all respectfully stepped aside when he approached. Ezio's sharp ears picked up the whispers as he passed – apparently, the news of Fouquet's death (and the rumors of the thief's killer) had spread around the citizens like a wildfire. He ignored them, pressing on.

Soon, he reached a smaller group standing in front of a tent, the princess and the teachers amongst them, all quietly discussing some matter of importance. Louise stood off to the side, looking uncomfortable at the prospect of butting in.

Ezio had no such compunctions, however. "Professore!" he called out, and all conversation stilled as Old Osmond turned towards him, Henrietta, Agnès, and Colbert eyeing the Assassin curiously.

"We need to talk," Ezio said curtly, no longer in any mood for games.

Osmond nodded seriously. "Indeed we do, Monsieur Auditore."

…

Osmond led them inside his tent. With a tap of his staff and a muttered incantation, a desk and several chairs made of stone shot up out of the ground. He settled down at the desk, Colbert taking up position at his shoulder, and watched warily as Ezio, Louise, and Henrietta took their seats (Agnès hovering protectively behind her), carefully noting that the Assassin nursed his side all the while.

"So," he said evenly, looking Ezio straight in the eye. The usually friendly glint in it was gone. "Marteau already spoke to me. Fouquet is dead."

Ezio, battered, dirty, and injured as he was, didn't even flinch as he held the stare of the most powerful mage in the room. "Yes."

"How did she die?"

"Generally, a gaping stomach wound will cause anyone's death, mage or not," Ezio replied flippantly.

"And you caused all of her injuries?" Colbert asked, disbelief in his voice. "The shoulder wound, the arrow in her leg, the bullet lodged in her lung, and the stomach injury? When dozens of other mages couldn't even scratch her?"

Ezio threw him a cool look. "Is there a point to all this questioning?" he asked icily.

"There is, Monsieur Auditore," Old Osmond muttered quietly. "Please, just answer the question."

"I did," he answered, and he heard a sharp intake of breath from the princess. He refused to look away from Osmond, the old mage still holding his gaze, hands linked on his desk. "Is anyone going to tell me what you seem to find so incredibly disturbing, per favore?"

"There's no doubt now, sir," Colbert said quietly, glancing worriedly at his superior.

"A simple commoner not only defeating, but killing a triangle-class mage in one-on-one combat?" Osmond sighed. "No, there isn't."

Ezio glared at them. "What is there no doubt about?"

"You, Monsieur Auditore," Colbert said, straightening up and looking straight at him, his grey eyes serious and troubled, "are without any reasonable doubt the Gandalfr."

The proclamation had an effect on the people assembled in the room. Henrietta's and Louise's breaths hitched in something that Ezio couldn't recognize – it might have been horror or awe, he couldn't tell. It left him entirely cold, though. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

Louise's breath left her in a hiss as she rounded on him. "You don't know? But—"

Ezio threw her a glare, silencing her. "Let us just assume, per cortesia," he said deliberately slowly, "that I have absolutely no idea what any of you will be talking about, considering that I'm not a native of these lands, bene?"

"True enough," Osmond said, nodding. "You have only been here three weeks, Monsieur Auditore." He drummed his fingers on the top of his desk, looking thoughtful. "Though it is difficult to begin explaining the concept of the Gandalfr to you... Jean-Baptiste, this is more your department..."

Professor Colbert shot him a slightly irritated look, before returning his attention to Ezio. "This is going to be a tedious explanation," he muttered, rubbing his bald head as he sought for words. "…What do you know of Brimir, Monsieur Auditore?"

Ezio threw a quick look at Osmond. The old mage was silent, expectantly awaiting this answer. "Brimir is the saviour-like figure of your religion," he began slowly, glancing at Louise. She didn't correct him, so he continued with more confidence. "He is known as the 'Mage of the Beginning,' the first human to ever use magic, which is said to have been a gift granted by God himself. When humanity was in dire straits, beset by the magic of the elves and driven out of the Homeland, erring in the wilderness, he arrived to save them and taught his followers magic.

"These followers came to be known as Brimir's Saints, spreading the lore of magic and God's word across the known world. The students and descendants of these apostles rose to nobility, and disputes between Brimir's sons and followers after his death created the modern human kingdoms as they are known today."

For a moment, everyone in the room stared at him. He shifted uncomfortably. "...Did I say something wrong?"

"That... is surprisingly accurate, Monsieur Auditore," Colbert said, the first one to catch himself staring and clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"And why is it surprising?" Ezio asked politely.

"Well... you're a commoner," Louise muttered uncomfortably. "And a foreigner. When did you learn all this?"

Ezio remembered that Sister Catherine, kind as she was, had still called him a 'barbarian' when she met him. "I did spent quite a lot of time at the library," he reminded her. "And a friend gave me a book." He reached into one of his pouches and showed them the well-thumbed book Tabitha had gifted him. "Honestly, the fact that I am a commoner doesn't necessarily imply that I'm stupid."

"The Hero Ivaldi..." Osmond read out. "Hmm. A collection of folktales, isn't it? I still have my own copy of that book somewhere… Ah, no matter."

His eyes cleared as he fixed Ezio with his dark brown eyes, all trace of old age gone and instead replaced by the sharp gaze of a man who had lived to old age in times that killed many lesser men. "I know Jean-Baptiste has explained the Springtime Summoning Ritual to you already, so I won't insult your intelligence by repeating his words. I assume he told you that during the centuries and millennia of mages summoning their familiars, the case of a mage summoning another human being was unheard of?"

Ezio nodded sharply. He remembered that conversation far too well. Apparently, Louise did too, considering she shifted uncomfortably in her seat next to him. "Of course. Apparently, my summoning was... unusual, even by your standards."

"Which is why we immediately investigated your case." Colbert cleared his throat meaningfully, and Old Osmond sighed, throwing him a weary look. "Alright, alright; it was more Jean's idea than mine. I thought he was talking nonsense, but since the professor has been an invaluable addition to the faculty ever since the beginning of his tenure, I thought nothing ill of letting him examine the records in the Academy's Vault.

"And here it is that your story become interesting, Monsieur Auditore." He linked his hands, smiling wryly. "You see, we were wrong about you being the first human recorded as a summons in history. There were others, fleeting mentions in the oldest documents we had available." He leant forward, whispering. "Document dating back from the time of the Founder himself."

Ezio had to admire his flair for the dramatic, but his impatience still shone through. "And what, if you please, does that have to do with me?"

Old Osmond sighed. "Why does the youth of today have to be so impatient," he muttered. "How to put this… well, Monsieur Auditore, the only mage known to have summoned human familiars was none other than Brimir himself!"

Louise suddenly stood up straight, staring at Osmond with undisguised horror. "But that means—"

"Congratulations, Mademoiselle de la Vallière," Professor Colbert said, throwing her a small, commiserating smile. "After all these years, we have finally been able to determine your elemental alignment: Void."

Louise started to shiver. "If you think this is some sort of joke," she whispered, "I'll have you know that I don't think it's funny. At all."

"Do you think we would joke at such an inopportune time?" Osmond demanded, eyes flaring angrily. "The evidence is such that it cannot be ignored! One, you summoned a human familiar. Two, his Familiar's Mark matches that of Brimir's familiar, the Gandalfr, line for line and rune for rune. And three, you absolutely destroyed Fouquet's Blood Golem, a feat that none of us would have been capable of without prior preparation, me included, with nothing more than a single spell used on the spur of the moment!"

He leant back into his chair, looking exhausted. "Face the truth, child – you are the carrier of Brimir's element. The primordial magic, the one that God himself granted to humanity in times of darkness, is yours to command."

Louise sank back into her seat, staring at her hands. "I can do magic," she whispered to no one in particular. "It wasn't a fluke. I can really do magic."

"Piccina," Ezio quietly addressed her, and she looked up to see him smile. "I told you, didn't I? Why did you doubt me?"

Louise laughed quietly, relieved and happy and scared, all at the same time. "I don't know."

"Excuse my ignorance, per favore," he said quietly, addressing the room at large, "but what is the Void, esattamente?"

"Four elements," Henrietta said quietly, drawing everyone's eye. She had clasped her hands in her lap and quietly listened to the discussion before joining in. "Water, Fire, Earth, Wind. Every mage has an affinity to one of those elements. The Void was Brimir's element, and his alone. The wielder couldn't use the other four, but they manipulated the fabric of magic itself."

She eyed Louise, a small smile crinkling her mouth. "It was thought lost, a legend. Until now."

"We cannot speak to anyone else about this," Osmond said sharply, quenching the happy mood and faint smiles that had formed on everyone's faces. "Your summons, Monsieur Auditore, was already enough to attract some unwelcome attention. If the Papacy got wind of a new user of the Void, we could very well bring down the Inquisition down on our heads, and that is certainly something I would like to avoid."

Louise's face fell. "…I can't tell my mother, can I?"

"I'm afraid not, mademoiselle," Colbert said, his tone sympathetic. "Duchess Karin is a… ah, how to put this… headstrong and doctrinal woman. Informing her would probably do more harm than good."

"So nothing has changed, really," Louise muttered to herself, scowling.

"And how does Louise's magical talent concern me?" Ezio interjected. "What is this 'Gondolar' thing?"

"Gan-dal-fr," Colbert corrected, smiling at the way Ezio's tongue stumbled over the harsh, unfamiliar word and adopting a lecturing tone. "The Gandalfr is, according to legend, one of the familiars that accompanied Brimir on his travels. He was known as the 'Left Hand of God', and was known to have mastered all weapons to such heights that no other human could surpass him."

"The Gandalfr could fight toe-to-toe with the most powerful mages and emerge victorious," Osmond continued. "He fought elves and affronted armies by himself when protecting Brimir and his human disciples."

He glanced idly at Altair's sword hanging from Ezio's side. "We saw you fight the Gramont boy, Monsieur Auditore. Never, in all my life, have I seen a commoner defeat a mage in straight-up combat, as pitiful as his or her skills may have been. And your unusual rejuvenation is also a clue: the Gandalfr was noted to be in peak physical condition, no matter whether young or old, so that he could protect his master." Osmond lifted his shoulders. "Killing Fouquet only removed our last doubts. You are the Gandalfr."

"…So?"

Their expression of dumbfounded disbelief on their faces was amusing, in a way. Ezio shrugged. "Bene, so I'm apparently an unusual familiar that knows how to use weapons, and Louise can use unusual magic. Just earlier today, I saw a gigantic stone monster rampaging around and killing people. In all honesty, compared to today's events, this isn't that difficult to believe."

"…You really don't know what being the Gandalfr actually means, do you." Louise's tone was flat.

"No, I do not," he said airily. "And it's not what I came here to discuss." He reached down and picked up the Papal Staff, unwrapping the upper part and revealing the artefact's golden cross.

"Ah, yes, the Staff of Destruction," Osmond said, smiling benignly. "Thank you for returning it, we were worried it could fall into the wrong hands—"

"This," Ezio interrupted him, "is an artefact from my homeland, professore. It was thought lost or well hidden. How did you come by it?"

And for the first time, Ezio saw the old headmaster genuinely stunned. "What?"

"This," Ezio said quietly, voice cold and dangerous, "is from my home, professore. It was known as the Papal Staff, an artefact wielded by our religious leader, and used to enthral crowds and drive men to madness." He leant forward menacingly, hand clenching around the wrapped staff. "How did you come by it?"

"Impossible," Osmond whispered, his face white as a sheet and his hands clenching on his desk as he stared at Ezio. "The Staff of Destruction is hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years old. It was fashioned by Brimir, and wielded by the Founder as a weapon against the elves!"

Ezio's mouth curled into a mirthless smirk. "Your Founder seems to have been quite a fraud," he muttered, "to pretend to have fashioned this object."

Osmond's eyes narrowed and he held out his hand. "Return it to me, Monsieur Auditore."

"No," Ezio said flatly.

Colbert shifted slightly, grey eyes growing dangerously cold. "And why not?"

"This, Messere," Ezio said tightly, pointing at the Staff, "is a weapon of unimaginable power. It can be used to hold people against their will. It can turn men to madness. And from I saw with Fouquet, it can augment a mage's power to such an extent that they no longer have any need for incantations and can destroy swathes of land with a single blow." He eyed Colbert and Osmond warily, tensing in readiness. "And considering you had the gall to steal the artefact in my possession when I arrived here, I'm not sure I can trust you with it."

Colbert's eyes widened at the accusation, and Ezio smirked humourlessly when his suspicions were confirmed. Osmond, on the contrary, wasn't fazed, though his eyes narrowed dangerously

"Strangely enough," the old mage said coolly, "we think much the same thing about you, Monsieur Auditore. We cannot let a stranger, a man with unknown powers and motives just traipse off with such a dangerous artefact and use it for God-knows-what. Especially when the artefact is powerful enough to topple kingdoms, to destroy the careful peace that has been established here. I think you can understand, hm?"

Ezio's shoulders tensed, his free hand drifting to row of throwing knives strapped to his side. "We are at an impasse, then."

Osmond's hand reached out again, the gnarled fingers of his other hand clenching around his staff, brown eyes serious. Colbert's hands uncurled from their sleeves, hanging freely from his sides as he studied the Assassin before him.

Ezio gritted his teeth. If it came to a fight with these two, he wasn't sure that he could win. To begin with, these two wouldn't underestimate him. They knew exactly that he was capable of killing mages. And they were both mages of skill superior to Fouquet, not to mention that Colbert was a killer like him – the only way to kill them would be to move faster than them and overpower them before they could chant their spells, but even then he'd have to fight his way out of the encampment. Perhaps he'd have to use the Pieces of Eden, something he'd loathe to do—

Colbert's hand twitched and Ezio leapt to his feet, three throwing knives between the knuckles of one hand while Osmond raised his hands in invocation, Colbert's fingertips bursting into blue flame—

"Gentlemen!" a voice chirped out, interrupting his increasingly violent thoughts. "Just one moment, please!"

Colbert, Osmond, and Ezio, all in various stances of combat readiness, blinked at the same time as their trains of thought were brought to a screaming halt, and just stared at the cheerfully smiling princess that had stepped between them.

"Considering that we are in the middle of a hospital," Henrietta continued blithely, ignoring the danger around her, "do you honestly think that the best course of action is to start a brawl that might hurt dozens or hundreds more?"

Ezio answered first, not lowering his blades. "Erm... No?"

"Professor Colbert, do you really want to endanger your students at this difficult time?"

"...It would be preferable not to," the teacher admitted, flames still dancing across his palms.

"May I suggest a compromise, then? Considering that I am the heir to the royal throne of this country? You know, the one that founded the school and on occasion supplements your budget?"

Colbert and Osmond exchanged glances, but didn't lower their hands. Ezio kept his knives pointed at them.

Henrietta just smiled at them all as if the pointy bits of metal and lethal magic weren't even there. "Oh, if you really insist on killing each other later, I don't mind you doing it, though I'd think it would be better if you did it somewhere else. I would suggest the Darkwoods. It seems fitting. But would you terribly mind calming down, at least just for the moment? Common courtesy would dictate it, at least. As would common sense, before someone sets the tent we're sitting in on fire."

Colbert's flames winked out, the bespectacled teacher looking rather sheepish. Old Osmond cautiously lowered his hands, his wary eyes never leaving Ezio's own. The Assassin's hand dropped to his side, though he didn't stow away his knives as he suspiciously watched the two mages before him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Louise had quickly gotten out of the way, hands raised protectively over her head, while Agnès had drawn her sword, though the Musketeer seemed glad that she now no longer had to worry about whom she was supposed to point it at.

Henrietta clapped her hands together, smiling delightedly. "Excellent! Now that we are not trying to kill each other anymore, perhaps we could try to meet each other half-way?" She turned towards Osmond and Colbert, the two teachers looking increasingly bemused with the whole situation. "Now, what is it you want, gentlemen?"

"The return of the Staff of Destruction," Colbert said quickly before Osmond could open his mouth.

Henrietta turned to Ezio, still smiling. "And you, Monsieur Auditore?"

Ezio just blinked, said Staff in hand. "I want to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands," he said slowly.

"Which, if I remember correctly, was also the aim of these gentlemen, correct?"

The two teachers nodded, not really understanding what the princess was trying to get at. Henrietta nodded, smiling. "Now, here is what I propose," she began, turning towards Ezio. "I think it would best if you returned the Staff of Destruction to Lord Osmond and Professor Colbert."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because technically, it belongs to the Academy and should be held in their care. Fouquet stole it from the Vault here, didn't she?"

The logic was sound, Ezio had to admit, but he had rarely been constrained by such things as laws and notions of ownership. Nothing was true, after all. "I am not," he said slowly, "willing to return such a powerful object to people who would steal from injured travellers."

Henrietta turned back to the two teachers, eyebrow raised. Colbert squirmed under her eye as he tried to justify himself. "Well, er... Monsieur Auditore had an incredibly powerful artefact in his possession, and we weren't sure that he could be trusted with it, considering his lack of magic..."

"So, what you are trying to tell me, gentlemen," Henrietta interrupted him, "is that you both had good intentions, but didn't trust each other's motives to talk openly about it?"

The three men nodded, glaring at each other a moment later. The princess ignored the byplay as she mulled something over.

"Monsieur Auditore," Henrietta addressed him suddenly, blue eyes sharp. "If I allowed you to keep the Staff, what would you do with it?"

That was a very good question indeed, and he said the first thing that came to mind. "Hide it."

"Where?"

"...I don't know," he admitted.

"Are you absolutely sure that you could hide it in such a way that it wouldn't fall into someone else's hands?"

And Ezio realized he couldn't. He had no friends here in Halkeginia, no brotherhood that would be willing to hide the Staff where no-one would be able to find it and abuse its power. And Colbert and Osmond had everything he didn't – a fortified location, power, and local influence – to keep the Staff away from prying hands.

A bitter taste was in his mouth. If he really wanted to protect people from the Staff's power, he would have to return it to Osmond and Colbert, no matter how much it galled him to.

He glared at the two teachers. "I concede your point, vostra altezza," he said, not looking at her, "but I don't have to like it."

"Oh, we're not asking you to like it, Monsieur Auditore," Henrietta replied, flashing him a slightly cheeky smile. "Isn't that what a compromise is by definition, really? Everyone sits down at a table, everyone argues as loud as they can until they agree on something, and no one's happy afterwards."

Ezio couldn't help it, and he burst out laughing. Young as she was, the princess seemed to have an excellent grip on politics. "Bene, bene," he chuckled, smiling despite himself. "I understand. I will return the Staff," he began, his face growing stern again, "on the condition that it is not used as a weapon under any circumstances, nor removed from this location – unless there is no other alternative."

"That's all?" Colbert asked, relief showing clearly on his face as the tension left him. "By the Saints, Monsieur Auditore, this is the first time in a century that the Staff has left the Academy's Vault! You don't have to worry about us using its power."

"I have another condition," Ezio said calmly, and Colbert's face fell.

Osmond considered him. "And that would be?"

"I wish to study this Staff at my convenience."

The headmaster blinked – he obviously hadn't expected this. "Why?"

"That is none of your business," Ezio answered with a sharp smile.

For a few moments, Osmond and the Assassin glared at each other in silence. Osmond looked away first, exchanging a glance with Colbert. "Jean-Baptiste will accompany you on these occasions," the old man bargained. "We cannot take any more risks."

Ezio nodded. He could accept the headmaster's caution. "Done."

"Well, then we're agreed!" Henrietta exclaimed, smiling happily. "You'll keep your word, won't you, Monsieur Auditore?"

"You'll need to keep an eye on it," Ezio warned as he reluctantly wrapped the Staff back into its thief's blood-stained cloak. "Fouquet shouldn't have gotten this close to stealing it, if this artefact is supposedly dangerous."

"Mademoiselle de Longueville– Pardon me, Fouquet," Osmond corrected himself quietly as Ezio handed the Staff to a very cautious Colbert, "was a mage renowned for her raw power and the inventiveness with which she used her talent."

"How did she manage to get employed here, in any case?" Ezio asked, annoyed and unable to keep the accusation out of his voice.

The headmaster's shoulders slumped as he sat back down at his desk, and he suddenly looked far older than his age, making him seem ancient and weary. "She came to me under a fake name, asking for work. I knew she was hiding something, but I assumed that she had simply had a dispute with a family, or run away from a marriage she had been forced into. Stranger stories have happened before, so I didn't ask too many questions. And considering that the guards and nobles of Tristain were on the lookout for a male thief, I never considered that she might have been preparing to ransack the Academy." Old Osmond sighed wearily. "Her plan worked flawlessly."

It was then that Ezio remembered that while the headmaster was perhaps a stubborn old man convinced of his own superiority – and according to the servants' gossiping, a man with a lecherous streak a mile wide – he was still a human being, and the death of the students under his care must have hurt him far more than the Assassin could guess at. Especially because his getting duped had allowed Fouquet to even chance the attack on the Academy in the first place.

Not knowing what to say, Ezio simply remained silent as Colbert quietly thanked him, stepping away.

Osmond blinked, his eyes clearing again as he fixed Ezio with a sharp look. "What about the other artefact in your possession, Monsieur Auditore?"

Ezio shifted. The old teacher was far too clever for his liking. "What about it?"

"Are you going to keep it?"

The Florentine scoffed. "Of course. It's mine, no?"

"...We thought it was one of the Founder's artefacts," Osmond explained after a moment. "To the unprepared, these objects can be very, very dangerous. And the power they can unleash can be... devastating, to say the least."

Ezio remembered Altair's memories of slaughtering dozens of Mongols using the powers of the Apple, turning them to madness and weakening their minds until they simply decided to just lie down and die. He remembered using it himself against the Borgia and their henchmen. And he remembered the torture he'd endured just today at Fouquet's hands.

Osmond noticed his expression. "You knew," he realized. "You knew about its power."

"Of course I did," Ezio muttered, reaching into his pouch and holding up the Apple of Eden, the golden orb lying heavy in his palm. "It was dangerous. Why else would I have killed so many men for it?"

Colbert, who still held the Staff, tensed at Ezio's words and looked at him with what could have been disgust, pity, or a mixture of both. Ezio himself couldn't tell.

"...Would you entrust it to us?" Osmond asked. Ezio stared at him with disbelief, and the old headmaster sighed and raised his hands in a placating manner. "I know we haven't been frank with you, but believe us that we never meant you any harm, Monsieur Auditore. We thought you were merely an uneducated commoner with an immeasurably powerful magical artefact in your possession. We thought it best to protect you – and anyone else you might encounter – by confiscating it and locking it away."

"Stealing, you mean," Ezio corrected coldly.

Osmond shrugged, not a trace of guilt clouding his features. "Call it what you will. It doesn't change the fact, however, that this artefact is dangerous. We can safeguard it for you."

Ezio mulled it over, and realized that he really had nowhere else to hide the Apple, just like the Staff. And although he could take it with him when he left the Academy, there was a chance that he might be killed, especially since he didn't know much of Halkeginia, and then anyone could just pick up the Apple and start wreaking havoc with it.

He had seen it happen once before, when Girolamo Savonarola had picked up the Apple after Ezio had been injured in his fight with the Orsi Brothers. Countless had died during the Carneval of the Vanities. Florence had burned, its people had rebelled, and countless of its citizens had been beaten to death in the streets, lynched, or were hanged when the authorities crushed the uprising in the most brutal manner possible.

Christina had died.

He breathed out, glaring at Osmond. "I will give it to you," he said harshly, "because I have no choice in the matter. But it is mine, Messer Osmond." He leant forward, his voice cold and threatening. "I will return and claim it, and should you lie or try to withhold it from me again, I will kill you and anyone else that gets in my way, be they students, teachers, or servants. And then I will burn down your precious Academy around your corpse. Do we understand each other?"

Osmond didn't bat an eye. "Perfectly. You have my word that it will not leave the Vault."

Reluctantly, Ezio unslung a large pouch from his belt, dropped the Apple in it, and then handed it over to Colbert. The teacher threw him an appraising look as he accepted it, but otherwise said nothing.

"Well," Osmond sighed as he got to his feet once, supporting himself on his staff. "Thank the Founder that we have concluded this dreary business." He bowed deeply in the princess's direction, his expression grave. "I humbly beg your forgiveness for involving you in our dispute, Your Highness. Thank you all the same."

"Oh, you're quite welcome," Henrietta said cheerfully. "It's the duty of the royal house to keep the peace here in Tristain, isn't it?"

"May you have greater success than your late father, then," Osmond muttered as he walked past her. Henrietta's smile was suddenly pained, but Ezio focused his attention on the headmaster as the old man walked towards the door.

"What are you planning on doing now, professore?" he called out.

Osmond stopped and turned around, giving him a wry smile. "What am I planning, Monsieur Auditore?" He grunted, looking tired. "Well, a good two dozen of my students are dead, many more are injured, and it seems that I will have to write many letters to their parents and families to inform them of the facts. Many more commoners are dead, and even more injured, so I will have to organize healers and surgeons, not to mention call on priests and monks to supervise the burials. The city is destroyed, so we will have to pitch tents to house everyone. And considering that the Academy is more or less in ruins, I will have to send all my other students home until we can rebuild the school, which might take months." Old Osmond sighed. "And yet I also plan on praying to God and Brimir tonight, to thank them both."

Ezio couldn't help but be surprised. "Why?"

"Because no matter how horrible this day may seem now, it could have been far, far worse," the old mage said, smiling wryly. "Goodnight, Monsieur Auditore. May the Founder and His saints guide you."

And with that, the headmaster threw back the flap of the tent, disappearing outside. Ezio simply stared after him.

Professor Colbert shifted and cleared his throat, and every person in the room turned towards him. "Please don't think badly of Lord Osmond, Monsieur Auditore," he said quietly, not looking at Ezio. "He meant well."

Ezio's mouth twisted in a grimace. "So did many others."

The balding teacher chuckled, sounding half amused and half tired. "The road to hell, wasn't it?" He studied Ezio, his bespectacled eyes sympathetic. "I apologize for having stolen this from you," he said, holding up the pouch. "Even though I meant the best for everyone, it doesn't excuse my conduct."

And Ezio found that despite his annoyance and previous anger, he couldn't really stay angry with the man. He seemed genuinely repentant, and holding a grudge wouldn't help anyone. "You're forgiven," he said curtly, jutting his chin out at the wrapped objects. "What are you going to do with those?"

Colbert shrugged. "The Academy may be inhabitable now, but the Vault still stands."

Ezio frowned. "It wasn't destroyed?"

Colbert shook his head. "No, no. Fouquet used a key." He deposited the pouch in the crook of his arm, awkwardly reaching into his cloak with his free hand. "I managed to recover it from Fouquet's corpse she got somewhere. I thought it might interest you..."

He held out a bloodied leather bracer, and Ezio accepted the object. He recognized the hidden blade instantly. Its design was far cruder than his own weapons, but it seemed to work perfectly. And he had called it a key?

He looked up and saw Colbert watch him intently. He nodded, pocketing the blade. "Thank you, professore."

"Do you mind if I examine this strange artefact for a while?" Colbert asked as he held up the Apple's pouch, and although he still wore that apologetic look, Ezio could see that his eyes had lit up with the slightly manic curiosity that had defined Leonardo's entire being. "I never was allowed to study the Staff of Destruction, but with your permission—"

"Go ahead, professore," Ezio said, shrugging. "As long as you can keep it safe, I don't mind you examining it. Be careful, though," he warned. "It might be dangerous."

"I will be, Monsieur Auditore, don't worry," Colbert assured him gratefully. "I have studied magical artefacts before, and there are ways to protect oneself from harm. Now," he continued, walking over to the tent flap, "I'll deposit these in the Vault, and then help Sister Catherine with the injured. You should let a healer take a look at you, Monsieur Auditore."

Ezio frowned. "Why?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Monsieur Auditore," Henrietta fell in, smiling cheerfully as she poked him in the side, making him wince in sudden pain, "you look a frightful mess. You've broken a rib or two, haven't you?"

He glared at her as Colbert disappeared with a quiet laugh, but weak as he was and without his dagger at her throat, the princess seemed to have good reason not to be afraid of him. She turned to her bodyguard. "Agnès, do you mind getting my supplies?"

The scarred woman scowled. "Your Highness, he might be dangerous—"

"Oh, hush already," Henrietta dismissed her. "If Monsieur Auditore had wanted to kill me, he could have done so last night at his leisure."

Agnès's fingers clenched around the grip of her longsword. "Pardon?!" she snarled.

"Oh, we've met already," Henrietta said lightly as she grabbed her bodyguard's shoulders, turned her towards the entrance and gave her a light push. "I'll tell you later, alright?"

Her expression thunderous, Agnès nevertheless stepped through the flap, though she shot a glare at Ezio that promised death and misery to him should her charge come to any harm. Henrietta cheerfully pretended that she hadn't seen it.

"Louise!" Henrietta called out to her friend that stood awkwardly to the side. "Help me get Monsieur Auditore's armour off!"

And despite his protests that he could very well do it himself and that he didn't need a healer, he soon found himself stripped of his ancestor's armour piece by piece – Henrietta all business, Louise incredibly embarrassed, the two of them chatting all the while about anything and nothing – and forced to sit on a stone stool that Henrietta had deftly conjured from the ground.

"Well, that looks unhealthy," Henrietta muttered when they finally got him to take his shirt off. There were several deep cuts lacerating his back, and there were splinters, most of them small, but others up to an inch long and embedded quite deeply in his shoulders and arms. "How did you get those?"

"I fell through a house," Ezio said laconically. "It didn't agree with me." He hissed when she touched one of the cuts.

"Those injuries might hurt a lot, but they're not actually dangerous if treated," Henrietta muttered, her manner all business as she examined them. Ezio heard the flap of the tent snap back. "Ah, well done, Agnès. A knife and a pair of tweezers, please."

The bodyguard silently handed them over and sat down on Osmond's desk a moment later, scowling at Ezio with her sword lying across her knees. As Henrietta cut into his wound and dug pieces of wood, Ezio tried to distract himself by studying the woman in front of him.

She was pretty, in a way, though her uniform didn't do her any favours. But then again, uniforms weren't supposed to be flattering, so the leather armour and heavy Musketeer's cloak could be excused. Agnès would have been considered beautiful, in an Amazonian way, if she had not been scarred. It really was an ugly wound, the leathery scar tissue reaching out from the collar of her uniform across her jaw line of one side of her face, marring it.

"What are you looking at?" she snapped at him.

Ezio looked her in the eyes and found them quite pretty, in a cold way. Green. A pretty colour. He smiled. "Just wondering what kind of extraordinary woman would command the guards of the royal heir," he said, trying to put as much charm as he could into his smile.

Agnès scoffed contemptuously, utterly unimpressed. "The kind that would cut you from shoulder to hip if you even thought of hurting Her Highness," she said bluntly, her fingers drumming on the hilt of her sword.

"Agnès, be nice," Henrietta chided, and Ezio hissed again as a bloody splinter was torn out from his shoulder. "He did us all a favour by killing Fouquet, you know."

"Hah!" Agnès said, rolling her eyes, but she said nothing more.

"You're lucky I ran across Kirche," Louise muttered as she handed Henrietta a small bottle of spirits and a handkerchief, glaring at the scowling Musketeer. "She refused to help me find you."

Agnès shrugged, completely unrepentant. "I had better things to do than chasing after a noble's pet. Don't worry, your familiar looks pretty alive to me."

Ezio took a harsh breath as Henrietta cleaned his wounds with the sharp alcohol, fixing the Musketeer with a glare of his own. "I'm no one's pet, signora."

"And yet there you were, chasing after a mage when you didn't have to," Agnès retorted. "I've no time for fools trying to kill themselves."

Ezio grinned at her, finding that he enjoyed this far more than he really should have. "Your princess seems to think the opposite. And besides," he continued, wincing slightly when Henrietta dragged the last bit of jagged wood from his flesh, "no one ordered me to chase after Fouquet."

Agnès raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why did you do it, then?" she challenged.

"Why did you refuse to go after me?"

The Musketeer blinked at the sudden question. "Because I had to protect my princess," she answered immediately.

"And why did you protect your princess?"

"Someone had to do it."

Ezio grinned at her. "There you have the answer to your question, then."

Agnès scowled at him, though the fingers around the hilt of her sword relaxed, if only slightly.

"Louise, could you give me the needle and thread, please?" Henrietta asked quietly. Her friend handed them over silently, still looking rather put out. Apparently, she found it difficult to forgive Agnès like Ezio had already done.

The Assassin watched her out of the corner of his eye, amused. Agnès may have been cold-blooded, but she had done nothing wrong. Admittedly, he had still had seen the world in black and white when he had been Louise's age, though that had changed with time.

He hissed again as the sharp needle, heated in a candle flame, stabbed through the flab of injured skin. Henrietta started closing the largest cuts quickly and methodically, her hand steady and assured.

"You're skilled at this," Ezio bit out, trying to distract himself from the pain by talking.

"I help out at the hospices in the capital," Henrietta said quietly. "It's... enjoyable, really. It gets me away from the palace."

"And exposes you to assassins," Agnès added testily.

The next stab of the needle bit slightly deeper than before, and Ezio winced. Henrietta brushed her hand against his back in silent apology, and he relaxed against her touch. She has soft hands, he thought idly.

"Agnès," Henrietta said quietly, her voice sounding tired, "we've argued about this time and again. I don't want to be cooped up behind castle walls, no matter how safe it would be."

"That's foolish," Agnès retorted, scowling. "You may be the dauphine, but there are people in the capital that would still hurt you, despite all your guards and influence. In fact, some will attack you because of it. You will help no one by getting killed and plunging the kingdom into a struggle of succession."

"How dare you speak to Her Highness like that?!" Louise finally exploded. She had leapt to her feet, looking every inch the fury her temper made her out to be. "She's the Princess of Tristain! The royal heir! Didn't you see those crowds today?! The people love her! No true Tristainian would even think of harming a hair on her head!"

Agnès threw a cool look at her, her hand never leaving her sword. "Be quiet, child. The adults are talking."

The youngest Vallière started on her, snarling. "Why, you—"

"Louise, please stop," Henrietta said quietly.

Louise threw her a dismayed look. "Your Highness—"

"And stop that courtly nonsense," she interrupted, smiling. "Can't you call me by my name, like you used to all those years ago?"

"Henr— Hen— Hnrgh—"

Ezio smirked, finding Louise's look of embarrassment as she tried and failed to do just that incredibly amusing, until she scowled at him and he schooled his face into an expression of neutrality. Still, he was sure that she had seen it, considering she kept glaring at him.

Henrietta just laughed. "Well, we'll just have to work on that," she said, giggling. "Father can't really forbid me from seeing you anymore now that he's no longer with us, Founder guide him." She addressed her bodyguard, her voice growing stern. "And while I appreciate your efforts to protect me, Agnès, I can't just stop helping people because it might be dangerous. How could I still be me, otherwise?"

Agnès huffed in annoyance, though a small smile tugged up at the corner of her mouth. "I understand, Your Highness," she muttered, her expression changing to tired weariness, "but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"I'm sorry, Agnès," Henrietta said ruefully. "I know I'm selfish, but... Ah, no matter. Now, put that sword of yours away. We're all friends here, and I don't think Monsieur Auditore is going to suddenly turn into a savage beast and maul us all."

"I am sitting here in my underwear," Ezio reminded her drily. "If I wanted to kill someone, I would have picked an earlier time when I still had my weapons on hand. And when I was wearing trousers."

"Oh, we seem to have foiled your nefarious plot," Henrietta teased, laughing. "Now," she continued, her voice growing serious, "I am going to heal your cuts, Monsieur Auditore. Considering you have never experienced this before, be warned – it feels rather strange."

"Alas, you three lovely maidens take away my innocence," Ezio said with a hand across his bare chest, pretending to faint. Henrietta just laughed, Louise went an interesting shade of red as she spluttered in embarrassment, and Agnès just rolled her eyes as she finally sheathed her sword.

Henrietta whispered in a strange dialect of French he barely understood, her hand trailing along just one of the many cuts. "Saint de l'eau, saint de pureté, accorde-nous ton pouvoir pour laver les plaies de ce brave homme."

Ezio felt a small, tingling sensation across his back, like rain trickling down his collar, and he suddenly the cut Henrietta was touching knit itself back together. It was an eerie feeling, as if his body was acting on its own, as if something was wriggling under his skin and in his wound. He forced himself to sit down and endure it. A moment later, the strange feeling vanished, the skin feeling as if it had already healed for three weeks.

Henrietta repeated the strange phrase that sounded like a prayer for the largest cuts, the magic healing his wounds while the smaller cuts disappeared altogether under her touch. On further inspection, Henrietta quickly found which of his ribs were broken, adjusting them with careful tugs of her magic until they were properly aligned, speeding up their healing with small splashes of water that tickled as they sunk through his skin.

She also forced him to swallow a disgusting potion that would apparently make the cracked bones fuse together at a faster pace, though Ezio found that part decidedly less pleasant than her delicate fingers roaming around his torso and bruised arms.

I am a bad, bad person, he thought with a small chuckle.

"Are you quite done?" Agnès snapped, and he looked up to see her glaring at him. Apparently, the bodyguard was sharp-eyed enough to spot that he didn't mind the extra benefit the healing provided. He just gave her one of his charming smiles, though it didn't budge her one inch.

Well, Christina hadn't been too impressed either.

"Nearly done," Henrietta answered after lifting his chin, smearing some salve from her bag on his bruised throat. "There's only this left..."

She lightly touched his bloodied lip, and Ezio winced at the deep cut that slashed through both upper and lower lip across the corner of his mouth. He hadn't noticed it when Fouquet had hit him there, but now that he knew it was there, the cut hurt like hell.

"Looks worse than it is," Henrietta muttered reassuringly, though it wasn't exactly clear who she was addressing; him, herself, or a worried Louise. "Wounds to the lip always bleed a lot."

She raised her wand, already starting to chant under her breath, but Ezio stopped her with a small smile. "Mille, mille grazie, vostra altezza, but that won't be necessary. I think I'll keep this one."

"Why?" Henrietta asked, frowning in confusion. In her experience, patients rarely appreciated their faces getting scarred.

Ezio drew a finger across the cut, its tip coming away a dark red. He smirked. "A reminder. And besides," he added, cracking a smile at the princess, "my pretty face could use some more scars. A more roguish look, no?"

"Well," Henrietta said promptly, hiding her bewilderment well, "at least let me clean it up for you—"

"I'll do that!" Louise interrupted, though she looked horrified when she realized that she had interrupted her beloved princess. "I didn't mean—" she spluttered.

Henrietta just giggled and held out the bloodied cloth to her, stepping away with an amused smile. And soon Louise found herself dabbing experimentally at Ezio's chin, having no idea how to really clean a wound.

She glared at him. "Stop grinning, you smarmy git."

The other corner of Ezio's mouth threatened to climb up, but he hid it well. "I would never dream of mocking my mistress," he said sincerely, though the effect was ruined by his black eyes dancing with mischief.

"Stop it!" Louise snapped as she shoved the bloodied cloth into his face, trying to wipe that smile off his face. For the first time, Ezio realized that she wasn't just angry, but on the verge of crying too. "Remember that the Familiar contract is a bond between the two of us?! You're supposed to protect me, and I'm supposed to protect you!" She bulled on before he could open his mouth to say a word. "And what happened just today? You nearly got killed, Ezio, right before my eyes! And I was damn well useless!"

Ezio's look of consternation was replaced by one of perplexity. "Aspetta un momento! That's what's bothering you?"

"Yes!" she yelled right in his face, blinking quickly and wiping her sleeves across her eyes, glaring angrily. "And then you run right after her, even though you're injured. It's as if you're trying to get yourself killed! Shouldn't it bother me, damn it!?"

For a moment, Ezio just sat there dumbly, at a loss for words and blinking incredulously at the girl that looked as if she was just about to break down. He then slowly reached out, laying a hand on her shoulder and speaking slowly and carefully. "I'm not leaving you, piccina."

Louise still glared at him, and he sighed, shooting a helpless glance at a worried Henrietta. "I have fought all my life, Louise," he said quietly, thumbing her cheek and making her look at him. "My entire life, I have spent it fighting, killing, and surmounting such great odds that you would call me a liar if I told you."

He smiled at her, the genuine kindness in the gesture unmarred by the blood on his face. "And I have always come back. I fought Fouquet today, and I won. I came back to you, no?"

"And you don't need to worry about being useless," Henrietta chimed in when Ezio shot a glance at her, nudging her into action. She stepped forward, comforting Louise with a small hug. "You destroyed Fouquet's golem, didn't you? You saved Ezio."

"By dropping him two hundred feet in freefall," the tiny mage replied archly, sniveling slightly.

Ezio shrugged, smirking slightly. "I survived. And you came to find me, all the way out in the Darkwoods. I might not have made it back without you, you know," he added as an afterthought when he got to his feet, stretching his arms and groaning slightly. This whole magic business was just bizarre, no matter how many times he saw it in action..

Louise blinked up at him, suddenly unsure. "Really?"

Well, to be honest, Ezio would have probably found his way back easily enough, but the strange forest had made an impression on him. And considering that he had only a few vague ideas of the creatures inhabiting it, all of them involving strange magic, a gut feeling telling him to leave as quickly as possible, and far more teeth than he was comfortable with, and he was quick to admit that he was quite glad that he didn't have to trek back to the Academy while injured, weakened, and alone. Predators liked bleeding prey. Ezio would know. He was one of them, after all.

"Of course," he answered, tapping her cheek with a smile. "Now, I would suggest you leave for a moment."

Louise frowned at him, puzzled. "Why would I leave?"

"I never knew you would like watching me dress, Louise," he said drily. "You should have told me sooner."

A moment later, he raised his arms to protect his bruised chest, laughing as Louise pummeled him, her face red with embarrassment. "Ezio! Don't say stuff like that in front of the princess, damn it!"

"No swearing, piccina!" he chided with a grin, and Louise clapped her eyes over her mouth, throwing a horrified look at Henrietta. The princess in question, however, seemed more amused than anything else.

"Well, it seems to never get boring around you two," she said, trying to hide her giggles with a hand – which, of course, only served to fluster Louise even more.

"Your Highness!" the small Vallière wailed piteously.

"Oh, stop it already!" Henrietta said again, frowning slightly as she began packing her bag of medicine. "I'm going to tell you again and again that you can call me by my name, Louise. Decorum is for the royal court."

A small grin suddenly grew on her face, and she quickly linked her arm with that of her flustered friend. "Let me propose something: there's still quite a lot of injured in the hospital here, and you'll accompany me while I help the other healers. If you can't call me Henrietta by the end of the day… hmm," she said quietly, tapping her chin. "What would be appropriate stakes? That's right, you'll owe me a favour, anything I ask!"

And then she happily dragged Louise out, the small girl utterly helpless in her grip. She threw Ezio a desperate look, silently pleading for help, but he just smiled and waved as the two friends disappeared through the tent flap.

He suddenly realized that Agnès hadn't left the tent and that she was still glaring at him. The Assassin chuckled as he went over to pick up his clothes. "Those two seem to get along well."

"I wouldn't know," the Musketeer said coolly. "I wasn't part of Her Highness's retinue when the two met."

"…If you have anything against me, signorina," Ezio said amiably as he pulled his shirt over his head, "don't hesitate to tell me." He turned around, hands open and smiling politely. "I promise that I won't be offended. Well, not much, at least."

For a moment, Agnès seemed taken aback, though her expression was quickly replaced by a scowl. "It's not that simple."

"And why is that, per favore?"

The Musketeer studied him. Though her hand wasn't on the hilt of her sword anymore, she still looked tense. "You're dangerous," she finally said. "You're a commoner capable of killing mages, which would be reason enough for me to be worried. But the thing is that I know absolutely nothing about you. Where you come from, what your plans are," and here she crossed her arms over her uniform, glaring at him, "or whether you are a danger to my princess or not."

"…You take your duty very seriously, don't you?"

"I'd lay my life down for Her Highness," Agnès swore. "But still, I prefer eliminating threats before they appear. Are you a threat, Monsieur Auditore?" she asked. The title of address sounded mocking, coming from her, though she waited for his answer like a hawk.

Ezio laughed quietly to himself as he pulled on his trousers. "Not yet," he answered as he fastened his belt. He reached out for Altair's sword lying on the ground, only to have Agnès's heavy riding boot slam down, pinning it.

He looked up to see her stare down impassibly at him. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

Ezio shrugged. He was confident enough in his skills to not be intimidated by a single enemy. "I honestly don't know whether I am a threat or not," he answered. "But right now? I'm not a threat to you. And certainly not to your princess. She's a kind soul."

Agnès grunted, displeased, but nevertheless stepped away, allowing him to pick up his sword. Ezio picked up the breastplate scattered around the other pieces of armour lying on the floor, running his fingers over the black metal. In the dim light, he could make out faint cracks running through it.

He frowned, examining the other pieces of armour fastidiously. While it had always protected him well from swords and maces, it seemed that magic was far stronger than a simple blade or metal weight. The fall from the golem had probably done it no favours, either. He would have to have it repaired, but where?

"Is it broken?" Agnès interrupted his thoughts, picking up an shin guard and examining it.

Ezio shrugged. "Not yet."

Agnès sighed. "Considering you killed Fouquet…" She trailed off, thinking as she considered Ezio's armour. "Is that Elvish make?" she asked, tapping a knuckle against it.

The Assassin raised an eyebrow. "Not really. Why?"

"I think it is," Agnès said aloud, weighing the piece of armour in her hand. "It's far too light to be made of ordinary steel… There's a blacksmith called Théoleyre in the capital," she said, her manner all business again as she shoved the shin guard into Ezio's arms. "Tell him you I sent you. Until then…"

She turned on her heel, marching briskly towards the tent flap. "Agnès!" Ezio called out. The Musketeer looked at him over her shoulder, green eyes narrowed at him.

"Fouquet didn't act alone," Ezio said seriously before the soldier would simply dismiss him. "She knew of the Staff thanks to a group called 'Reconquista'. They were the ones who ordered the theft."

"…Is that so?" Agnès studied him intently for a moment and then reached for her belt, freeing a small pouch and throwing it at him. Ezio caught it, confused.

"It's not Fouquet's bounty," he heard Agnès speak as he opened it and saw a good number of golden coins. "But a few écus will get you a long way – if you don't spend them foolishly, that is. You don't seem like a fool to me, Ezio Auditore." He looked up, only to see her pause at the tent flap. "You have my thanks."

And a moment later, she was gone, the riding cloak of her Musketeer uniform trailing behind her.

Ezio smiled. She may not like him very much, but it seemed that Agnès did have a sense of honour. That was a good thing, at least, even if it occasionally could limit one's options.

Then his smile faded as he remembered the day's events – the attack, the Papal Staff, the strange voices, Desmond, and that man called Roberto that Fouquet asked him to talk to…

Ezio gathered up his armour and weapons, sighing. Even in the afterlife, it seemed, his work never really ended.

…

And… cut! That's the Fouquet arc done. Next up: Welcome to the big city!

This was the last story arc where I follow the canon storyline of Zero no Tsukaima, or rather what's left of it, now that the elements from the Assassin's Creed universe come into play. Now, the rest of the story is free game, and there's just so much stuff to do, both in real life and when it comes to writing…

I hoped you liked this overly long chapter. If you did (or didn't, for that matter – constructive criticism is appreciated), please leave me a review, especially now that our dear host website has made it so easy for guests and account holders alike. I would really appreciate what you thought.

Considering that so many of you asked for translations to the foreign phrases I use in this story, I went to the trouble of writing translations for each of them, in the chronological order of their appearance in this story. I also added some small explanations to each, in the hope that you believe me that I'm not just making stuff up, and perhaps so you can learn something useful from reading fanfiction.

Hey, I learned English from reading Harry Potter. It might happen.

A great thanks to Shadenight123, who helped me with the Italian in this story. Mille grazie, maestro. Your aid was invaluable.

...

TRANSLATIONS OF FOREIGN PHRASES:

Figlio di puttana... Stupidi mostri di pietra e irritanti nobili e tetti di paglia... Come diamine sono riuscito a soppravvivere a tutto questo!?— "Son of a bitch... Stupid stone monsters and annoying nobles and stupid roof tiles... How the hell did I manage to survive all of this?!" Italian. Translated from English by Shadenight123. Many thanks.

Bastardo. — "Bastard." Italian. Only used on men. Very insulting, and considering that mothers are sacred to Italian men, be very, very careful about who you use this on. In fact, don't use it at all.

Bene! — "Alright!" or "Okay!" Italian.

Merda. — "Shit." Italian.

Les Forêts Obscures. — "The Dark Forests." French. A location name I made up. Admittedly, it doesn't mean much besides providing authenticity, but hey.

Requiescat en pace. — "Rest in peace." Latin. To all of you who don't know, this is what Ezio tells every single one of his (important) victims. A little acknowledgement, if you will, that he doesn't hold a grudge, no matter what they may have done.

Assurdo. — "Ridiculous." Italian.

Mille grazie. — Literally "A thousand thanks," though in context it means something more along the lines of "Thank you very much." Italian.

Signorina. — "Miss." Italian. A respectful form of address used for young, unmarried women, which can be followed by the family name.

Herr [insert name here] — "Mister [insert name here]". German. A form of address used when talking to adult men, married and unmarried, and always followed by the family name of the addressee.

Cazzo. — Literally means "dick" or "cock", though Italians use it more like a strong swear word, its sense being more along the lines of "Fuck!" Italian. Do not use this in polite company.

Ragazzo. — "Boy." Italian. A form of address used for young children, though it can come across as belittling or rude when used against older youths or men. Which is why Ezio uses it against Guiche.

Stupido.— "Stupid." Italian. A common enough insult for anything and anyone.

Sei uns gnädig, Gott, sei uns nahe. Sei uns sehr nahe, jetzt, da wir trauern… — "Be lenient to us, God, stay close to us. Stay close to us, now that we grieve…" German. Extract from a Christian prayer titled "Totengebet – Gott, sei uns nahe" to be recited at the sudden death of a loved one or acquaintance. The original author of the prayer is anonymous/unknown.

Vero? — "Right?" Italian.

Piccina. — "Little one." Italian. A term of endearment used when addressing young girls. Considering that Ezio is in his sixties, this pretty much could apply to any woman he meets, but he seems to have taken a shine to Louise and Tabitha.

Professore! — "Professor!" Italian. A title used when addressing teachers, showing great respect for the person or the position.

Monsieur. — "Mister." French. A form of address used when talking to married and unmarried men. It can be followed by the addressee's family name, but it doesn't have to be.

Per favore? — "Please?" Italian.

Per cortesia. — A more polite/courteous form of "Please." Can be translated as "if you please." Italian.

Mademoiselle. — "Miss." French. A respectful form of address used when talking to a young, unmarried woman. Falling out of favour these days, as some in modern society considers it rather sexist, but it was common courtesy to use until very recently.

Esattamente. — "Exactly." Italian.

Vostra altezza. — "Your Highness." Italian. A very polite and respectful form of address used when addressing persons belonging to the high nobility, but that aren't the king or queen. This applies to princes/princesses, dukes/duchesses, and ministers of the royal cabinet.

Messere. — "Mister." Italian. A form of address for a married or unmarried man. It can be followed by the addressee's family name, but it doesn't have to be. An archaic form of address, it would have been common in Ezio's time, but is no longer used in modern Italy.

Saint de l'eau, saint de pureté, accorde-nous ton pouvoir pour laver les plaies de ce brave homme.— "Saint of water, saint of purity, grant us your power to clean the wounds of this brave man." French. Something I made up on the spot. Definitely sounds better in French than when translated to English. French is cool like that.

Aspetta un momento.— "Wait a moment!" Italian.

…

P.S.: I'm currently trying to learn Spanish. Si hay algunos lectores que quieren escribir commentarios en Espanol, sería muy obrigado. ¡Muchas gracias!

…

The original light novels of Familiar of Zero (Zero no Tsukaima) were written by Noboru Yamaguchi, originally published by Media Factory in 2004, and are still ongoing after twenty volumes and a four-season anime adaptation by J.C. Staff that premiered in July 2006.

The original video game Assassin's Creed was originally released in 2007 by Ubisoft, followed by its sequels Assassin's Creed II (2009), Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010), and Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011). At the time of this writing (August 2012), Assassin's Creed III is announced to be released in October 2012.

Again, please support the official release, and be kind enough to leave a review.