Her slender, jade-pale toes slipped into the stocking. The flesh-toned silk, its mouth stretched wide between both hands, swallowed her narrow ankle and calf inch by inch, until it clung to her thigh with a soft snap.
Once the stockings were on, she lowered her taut, shapely calves and let them hang straight down against the side of the bed.
The gentle, fragile wife sat on the edge of the mattress, combing her hair again and again.
Sunlight lit her faintly flushed face. Lady Annie's gaze drifted, her heart rate hovering right on the edge of danger.
As everyone knows, young schoolgirls all harbor a bit of an Oedipus complex, a longing to be doted on by a gentle, attentive, motherly big sister.
And so Lady Annie had gained two little daughters, who cried "Mama" and demanded milk.
That double dose of girlish vigor still left the frail wife shaken.
Only when the soles of her feet sank into the soft sheets, as she wiped the frames of her glasses, did Lady Annie try a little self-reproach:
I'm an unfaithful wife and a mother with no face left to show.
Yet a thought was plainly, endlessly sprouting in the depths of her heart:
Is this… really so bad?
"…"
Her willow-slim arms dropped limply, and Lady Annie sighed.
She didn't want to admit it, but she had to: the first step into her new life was going far more smoothly than she'd imagined. She was even enjoying it a little.
At least Lilith won't get dragged into this.
So Lady Annie thought, relieved, never noticing that the fine cracks along the impression of her wedding ring were quietly weaving twisted, tangled patterns in the dark.
*
"Ugh, I actually wavered. I actually wavered."
Li Fei was seething with regret.
She'd meant to use a cold, hard stare to make the women trying to rattle her composure back off on their own. Who'd have guessed she'd hold out for barely a moment before showing her soft side, even slumping into her usual meek submission and playing the little one, like a girl calling the villain Mama.
"Next time, for sure, I won't!"
Li Fei vowed it firmly.
In truth, the Azure Mint's potency had all but drained away along with the piping-hot tea. The only mint left was called [Stubborn Mouth].
"Open wide."
"Ahh—mmph."
Her lips had barely parted when something soft, dense, and richly milky was stuffed into her mouth, with a crisp, sweet burst of fruit as she chewed.
It was Grace, feeding Li Fei a crepe-like dish piled with colorful fruit.
Lady Annie clearly hadn't had the stamina to last to the end on a battlefield with three Transcendents, let alone rise early to make breakfast, even if one of the three had joined the fight late.
As for Li Fei, after the War Academy's Vice Dean's hands-on coaching yesterday, she had gotten used to her surging strength. Today she was walking the same road to school as the other two mage girls.
Her cheeks bulged as she enjoyed her food and mumbled thickly:
"Dwon't fink a mere bweakfast will make me fowgive you."
Clearly, she was still holding a grudge against Miss Poker Face, who had been showing a more and more scheming streak, over last night's coercion.
"Mm."
Grace yanked over Lilith, who was just as tight-lipped, pried her mouth open without mercy, and shoved in another cream-and-fruit crepe.
"I'm nwot hungwy."
Lilith's stubborn mouth was exactly like her stepmother's.
"Mm, sleep spells really don't burn any stamina."
Grace said flatly.
"Shut your trap!"
Li Fei snapped.
Fearing the Azure Mint hadn't evaporated thoroughly, Grace had, once Lady Annie was spent, egged Lilith on to share her mother's burden, using friendship, fiery blood, and filial devotion to awaken her self-sealed good partner.
And those two words, "sleep spell," vividly brought back to Li Fei the dread of having uttered those fatal words, and the humiliation of being used as a relay baton.
Still, with her Art of Tea half-sealed, Miss Top Courtesan didn't dare provoke the seemingly blackened Miss Poker Face for now, so she glared at the soft target instead:
"It's all your fault! I could've gone to sleep at three!"
"You called me Mama first," the stepdaughter said faintly.
"…"
Li Fei froze for a moment. Then, flushed with humiliated fury, she let loose a stream of exquisite profanity in her mother tongue: "Ah fuck Annie's old…"
Halfway through, she stopped.
Lilith is my senior, I can't do this… Wait, I'm her stepmother, I can!
So Li Fei finished the entire sentence with perfect righteousness and successfully enraged Miss Cleric.
Lilith's face went dark, her twin tails bristling upright. She silently drew her staff, not in the standard casting grip but the way you'd hold a feather duster or a rolling pin.
—So does Azure Mint also have a side effect that makes people childish?
Grace calmly watched the two figures dwindle into the distance, one chasing and one fleeing. The corners of her mouth curled by a barely perceptible degree, then her small face was taken over by gloom again.
In the end, she'd been dragged into the very center of a tangled family.
*
"How are the preparations coming?"
The Dean poured a cup of black tea for the Spell Encyclopedia Lady, who had fled here from pursuit, then casually scattered a rain of mana light to heal the red mark on the back of her hand.
The stepdaughter's filial devotion had turned out too gentle after all, and she hadn't had the heart to knock Li Fei on the head. As for Lady Nicole, she remained as unhurried as ever, giving off a feeling of quiet, peaceful years, just like the gray braid resting on her shoulder.
"The goods are ordered. Seventeen thousand tons of yield."
Li Fei kept it short and sweet.
"Clever Spell Encyclopedia Lady, would you care to explain what 'yield' means?"
Nicole asked, clearly amused.
"On my birthday, my friends gave me a few spatial rings. To avoid wasting all that space, I went to the Goblin laboratory and ordered seventeen thousand tons of Type II white gunpowder."
Li Fei answered honestly.
"…"
Nicole lowered her head for a sip of tea, then sighed softly. "Your thinking is as pioneering, original, and subversive as ever."
"Is there a problem?"
Li Fei sat up straight and asked for guidance.
When your superior says your ideas are pioneering, original, or subversive, it means your thinking is rather dangerous. When all three show up at once, it's extremely dangerous.
"In theory, Folded Space B-01 forbids 'deliberate killing,' but every scrap of news from inside gets sealed, so if you 'accidentally' kill someone, you needn't worry about being held responsible," Nicole said unhurriedly. "After all, the Main Academy does have confidentiality regulations."
"Then that settles it, doesn't it? I don't feel very safe, so I carry a little gunpowder for self-defense. It goes off by accident, a few people die by mishap, and by the rules I can't be held responsible, and the Main Academy has to keep it quiet. Right?"
Li Fei looked taken aback. "Surely nobody would dare break the rules of the Magic Academy's Main Academy?"
The Magic Academy, a colossus that stood hand in glove with the War Academy!
"The Magic Academy is strong, and its rules are thorough. But in the end, it's people who enforce the rules."
Nicole curled up the corner of her mouth. "Let's imagine something. Suppose you died in there. Do you think the Main Academy's rules would make certain ladies give up on vengeance? The Thieves' Guild's vice president, for one. The Angel Queen's twin sister. A certain archfiend. The finest potion master Enlos has seen in decades. The brilliant potions-and-combat teacher the War Academy just recruited… See? You can't count them on one hand."
"A-and what about you?"
Li Fei asked bashfully.
Evidently, with the Azure Mint's effect nearly gone, Miss Top Courtesan's Art of Tea was recovering.
"Who knows?"
Nicole smiled lightly.
—Damn it, this woman has the nerve to play hard to get with me…
Miss Top Courtesan puffed out her cheeks, only to have a porcelain-white fingertip press them flat again.
"Anyway, if you kill someone in there and the victim's friends and family are stopped by the confidentiality regulations, they were never a threat to you in the first place. The ones with the real power to take revenge won't care about any regulations."
Nicole reminded her. "Commoner prodigies are rare, which is exactly why bards sing their stories. In reality, most of the elites qualified to step into Folded Space B-01 have high-Sequence elders. Toss a stone at the sky and you might hit some branch vice dean's son, or the disciple of a high-Sequence expert…"
"If you don't want to be erased, body and evidence, by a forbidden spell dropping out of a clear sky as you leave the city one day, I suggest you not entertain thoughts of killing so lightly."
Li Fei shuddered.
After her preliminary study of Folded Space B-01's rules, she had considered swallowing up the Magic Academy's golden children with a mushroom cloud. That would mean a rich haul of experience, and whatever loot survived the blast would surely be good stuff.
But if she'd actually done it, the consequences would be unpredictable.
Her best friend was powerful, no doubt. But if Li Fei were suddenly killed outside the city by an enemy, and the murderer fled straight to some folded plane beyond the Enros Continent, Tingbao might not be able to find them. What's more, high-Sequence experts had ways to nullify the [Resurrection] spell.
Factor in the power vacuum of the Year of Mist…
Li Fei clutched her chest, secretly relieved that she hadn't made a rash decision and had sought the Dean's opinion first.
"Unless…"
Nicole slowed her tone slightly.
"Unless what?"
Li Fei put on her good-girl, all-ears posture.
"Unless the risk can be eliminated completely."
Nicole expressed the idea of pulling out weeds by the roots in a fairly roundabout way.
—So I kill someone, and to stop the victim's high-Sequence relatives from taking revenge, I wipe out the whole family in advance?
Her smile didn't waver. She felt sure the Dean wouldn't propose something so "pioneering, original, and subversive," so she waited quietly for the rest.
Sure enough, Nicole changed course and brought up something seemingly unrelated:
"Witches are the most terrifying virus in the endless planes, but not everyone intends to wipe them all out."
"In fact, the dean of the War Academy's Hedren branch, the 'Old Wolf King,' Mr. Wolfrick, has always held to the position of 'coexisting with witches.'"
—Hm? One of ours.
Li Fei thought, keeping her face still.
"Mr. Wolfrick even believes he can conquer a witch in body and mind, and that his blood can neutralize the harm of the Witch Sickness, producing offspring who inherit a witch's beauty and Innate Talent without endangering the order of Enlos. So he has publicly proposed to witches, hoping more of them will marry him and turn the tide of being denounced by a thousand fingers."
Nicole's smile turned kindly.
—What gave him that confidence? Manliness?
Li Fei's eyes went dim, and killing intent welled up from the depths of her soul, the response of a witch's instinct to a provocation.
Clearly, Mr. Wolfrick, the Hedren branch dean she had never met, had just offended both a 'kill-all-witches' partisan like Nicole and the Witches' Coven.
And as a capable minister skilled at divining her superior's wishes, Li Fei had already divined what the Dean meant. So she feigned curiosity:
"What an independent-minded gentleman. It would be nice if he had a junior joining this coming feast. Then I could get to know them and learn more about Mr. Wolfrick's thinking."
"His most gifted son will be stepping into Folded Space B-01 too."
Nicole handed over a file. "As the dean of a Magic Academy branch myself, I don't support his views, but I will defend his right to speak."
—Lady Nicole, as dean of the Loxibrook branch, can't conveniently kill another dean outright. But if Wolfrick's son were unfortunate enough to die in Folded Space, and the father then abused his power, violated the confidentiality regulations by prying into other students' records, and came looking for revenge… then the selfless Archmage would have no choice but to personally clean house for the Main Academy, and, out of regard for their old collegial bond, pay the victim a little compensation for emotional distress from her own pocket. Is that it?
Having silently translated and supplemented the Dean's meaning, Li Fei nodded lightly.
She opened the file and memorized everything on the "Little Wolf King," then sincerely offered a prayer in her heart for the manly young man in the photograph.
Hoping he meets with misfortune. Fei-men.
*
After class, Miss Witch Agent made straight for the Witches' Coven to report the latest developments to the head witch.
"Is that Mr. Wolfrick of Hedren on our side?"
Li Fei came straight to the point.
"That old wolf?"
Gnaea frowned. "A disgusting creature. But for now he isn't worth killing. Making a blood feud with both great academies would cost far too much."
Excellent!
Miss Witch Agent immediately volunteered: "What if I had a way to make our enemy, um, the wicked Archmage, and Wolfrick turn on each other, until the former finally kills the latter…"
As she spoke, Li Fei even clasped Lady Gnaea's hand in both of hers, her eyes sparkling. Of course, even that simple gesture was done with some craft. For instance, Gnaea's hand was placed, quite naturally, in an extremely suggestive spot, so that when Miss Top Courtesan swayed her waist from side to side as if coaxing, Gnaea's fingertips could feel the faint, now-you-feel-it-now-you-don't presence of a human heart.
Pleading with someone this way made full use of one's physical advantages, and as long as the request wasn't too outrageous, it was hard to refuse. There were just two prerequisites: a face that could melt anyone, and a human heart of a certain size.
…
Sensing the familiar aura of a green-tea schemer, Lady Gnaea was taken aback again and again.
Of course she knew Li Fei was exceptionally gifted, with a constitution so strong that even warriors of the same rank could hardly match it. That was why the high-Sequence witch had assessed the drug's effect at "about a week," and only after overestimating Miss Top Courtesan's metabolism as far as she could.
She'd never imagined that in just three short days, she would already…
Lady Gnaea calmly withdrew her hand from that warm place, added another pinch of mint powder to her pipe, and took a deep drag before her heart settled.
"If you can truly pull it off, I can give you a private reward."
"Okaaay."
Miss Top Courtesan agreed happily.
If all went well:
The Witches' Coven would be rid of an annoying fly.
Lady Nicole would have killed off an enemy blocking her road.
The agent would win twice.
Everyone would profit, so who would lose? Mr. Wolfrick?
Hehe.
"There's one thing I have to remind you of."
Behind the smoke, Lady Gnaea's eyes looked a little hazy.
"Mm-hm?"
Li Fei hummed curiously.
"Emotions are like springs. The tighter they're pressed, the harder they bounce back."
Gnaea lowered her eyelids. "Your Azure Mint's effect is about to be gone. I suggest you go home before then."
For some reason, Miss Top Courtesan thought of the Empress Dowager and Consort Hui, and even Lady Annie, who now and then would take Lady Diana's dresses out on her own.
But she quickly turned her attention back, her index finger tracing suggestively along her lower lip, her eyes sultry, her breath fragrant as orchids:
"Will I really crave that sort of thing once the effect wears off? If so, then I hope that when it fades, the one beside me is Gnaea~"
She even shyly threw her a wink, making the mature, full-figured older woman tremble as she added another pinch of Azure Mint.
Clearly, Miss Top Courtesan still hadn't realized how loudly she would cry once the true nature of a high-Sequence witch, master of spells like [Phantom Limb], [Tentacles], [Acceleration], and [Frenzy], came pouring out after being forcibly suppressed by ever-escalating, lethal doses of Azure Mint.
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