124 – Academy

Elise was no stranger to serving unpleasant men and women, but the past month had been distasteful even by her standards.

She had considered breaking her contract immediately after the events of the Convoy—though only after seeing Count Barnaby Caldimore safely back to his manor, of course. His refusal to send her to aid with that disaster had strained her professionalism nearly to its limit. The man hadn’t even needed to risk himself, only give her permission to go and help. But the small danger of briefly not having a bodyguard had been enough to make him quake in his boots.

When Elise had been a girl—and when she was early in her training as a White Glove—she’d genuinely believed that most nobility deserved their titles. Deserved to lead. Not only were they better educated and of stronger dispositions, she had thought, but they understood what power they held and strove to benefit those they ruled over. The image had no doubt been formed from the Lord of her hometown, and then Headmaster Winston and the nobility he kept as company.

But she had learned better by now. From her experience, the average nobleman might know how to act in high society, but they were not fundamentally keener of mind, nor were they of stronger and purer spirit. In fact, those she served tended to be dumber, greedier, and meaner than an average commoner plucked from the street. And Elise didn’t have a particularly high opinion of the ‘average person’ either.

Then again, it’s not like I can blame luck, she thought, calm eyes watching through the Convoy’s window as Meridian’s walls came into sight. When you only take the highest-paying contracts, you’ll get the worst of the worst.

The Academy didn’t force assignments onto its graduated students. Rather, it acted as a middleman, allowing each Glove to accept contracts at their leisure—not dissimilar from an Adventurer’s Guild quest board. There weren’t many organizations with a better understanding of a given noble family’s reputation, and the family’s true dispositions, not the masks they wore for society. So with all Gloves having their pick of well-paying assignments, her sisters weren’t motivated to take contracts from clientele that were known to be unpleasant people. Thus, the prices for jobs posted by those individuals would keep rising until eventually Elise, alone among her sisters, would be forced to accept.

Because she needed the coin.

And I didn’t even get full payment, Elise thought, annoyed. The Caldimore family had had their assets seized. When her next pay period had arrived and the House’s steward had been unable to produce the owed coin, she had politely explained that she would no longer be rendering her services, and promptly gathered her belongings and left.

She still hadn’t decided if she’d gotten lucky or unlucky. Because again, while it had been one of the least enjoyable contracts she’d ever taken, and she was thankful for getting to leave early, she had needed the coin. Remy needed the coin. And the Caldimore family, prior to their sudden kingdom-wide shame, had possessed quite a lot of it.

Sighing, she shooed those thoughts away and finished watching the walls of Meridian crawl up. She replaced the malaise with more pleasant anticipation of reuniting with her sisters-in-arms at the Academy and seeing Remy again. She didn’t like being away for long periods, and not just because of the absolute warts of nobility she tended to serve.

When the train rolled into the station, she waited for everyone else to disembark before she herself rose. She drew eyes as she walked through the streets of Meridian—a White Glove commanded attention almost anywhere they went. Their uniforms were not gaudy or distinct from the modern style; they stood out simply through how they moved and held themselves.

She visited the bank first and withdrew her earnings from the Caldimore contract. Less than half of what it should be, she thought, nose wrinkling as she looked at the coins. She sighed and tucked them away, then strode for the Alchemist’s Guild. There, she watched all those earnings vanish, replaced with a thin vial of reddish-goldish liquid. She mentally sighed once more, then dropped the potion into her inventory.

Errands done, she headed for the Academy.

As she walked, her thoughts drifted to a theory she had formed, now pressingly relevant as she returned home. She was torn on the speculation simply for the absurdity—because logically speaking, it did seem plausible.

The demonic woman she had met on the Convoy. The one who had performed feats she doubted the Headmaster or the Deputy Headmistress could replicate. The mage who had picked up half of the Convoy and laid it onto its tracks.

Who was she? The evidence seemed overwhelming, when not a week after experiencing that ridiculous event, news of the Sorceress’s return had begun circulating. What other conclusion was she supposed to draw?

Surely my imagination is running wild, she thought to herself as the gate of the Academy came into view.

Or rather: the gate of Vivisari Vexaria’s personal estate.

If the Sorceress had returned, would the Headmaster seek a new campus? She hoped not, selfish and silly as the idea was. The Sorceress wouldn’t want her residence kept as a schoolhouse for obvious reasons.

But the Academy was Elise’s home too, and it would always be so. A sentiment she knew her sisters—both in training and graduated—would agree with. Most of them had been in bleak situations prior to enrolling, and in providing them their education, the Headmaster had opened doors to wealth, status, and security a collection of commoners never could have imagined. The Academy both represented and was their brighter future. It was more than a home to them, in many respects.

Gazes turned as she walked through the swung-open iron gates, and she received nods from her colleagues and bows or curtsies from the students, which she returned with reserved acknowledgments of her own. Nothing seemed amiss with the campus at first glance, and Elise started to feel silly about the theory she’d formed yet never committed to believing.

Inside the foyer, she bumped into Nicole.

Not every working White Glove knew the students by name and face, but in between contracts, Elise acted as a supplementary combat instructor. Another way to earn coin, which she always needed more of. So she knew the upper-year students well.

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The girl glanced at Elise as Elise walked by, then paused and slowly looked back. A Glove’s refined equivalent of a double-take, and Instructor Annabelle would’ve had the girl’s head for it.

“Instructor Elise. You’ve returned.”

Elise came to a gradual stop and faced her. Nicole was near enough graduation that she wouldn’t have responded with overt shock simply because Elise was back earlier than expected. Not even if she had instantly deduced that Elise must have broken her contract. Justifiably so, yes, but that would still be unorthodox for a Glove.

She already had a reputation as the ‘sellsword of the White Gloves,’ she supposed, but she had refused to work for that slimeball a week longer than she was obligated to.

“Indeed, I am,” she replied smoothly to the younger woman, folding her hands in her apron. “Have you fixed that issue in your guard, as we spoke about?”

“I’ve been working diligently, Instructor,” Nicole responded, curtsying. “Your advice has raised my marks in combatives by three whole points.”

“I’m pleased to hear that.”

Circumspect hellos completed, Nicole glanced over her shoulder in a passably subtle manner, checking to see if anyone was in earshot. “Do you have a moment to speak, Instructor?”

“Nothing urgent occupies my time,” Elise replied, though her mind started racing. Now she knew something was up. Elise had worked with many of the upper years, Nicole more than most, but the two of them didn’t hold any special bond. And yet the girl felt an urge to warn her about something?

They stepped aside to talk.

“Your return is rather coincidental,” the young woman began in a polite tone. Gloves were never anything but.

“How so?”

“Have you heard the news?”

Her heart started beating faster. “I’ve heard rumors. Events of great import occurred while I was gone, that much is clear. But you’ll need to be more specific.”