Chapter 183: I thought you could fly!

Milda stood at the window with her back to the room, and she did not say anything for a long time.

She had been thinking about this since the first report reached her desk.

A level seventeen boy had destroyed a guild with an S-rank at its head, and then he had killed the S-rank with his bare hands.

She had read the report twice and had thought it was a mistake. Then Thokas had come back from the ruins and asked her to read it a third time.

She had a plan for the day she finally met him. She just had not expected the boy to be so rude about it.

Milda turned around, and the smile on her face had come back.

"I am thinking," she said. "And I have decided that this room is not the place to have this conversation."

"It is too crowded." She glanced at the S-ranks on the floor, who were all staring at her, and then she lifted her right hand. "Hold still for a moment, please."

"Why?"

She snapped her fingers.

A white flash burst across the chamber, so bright that it swallowed every shadow in the room.

Maelis threw an arm over his face. Ilsa and Seraphine both turned away, and Haldor squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could.

Batnac was the only one who didn’t move, and that was only because he was still sitting against the wall with his mouth open.

The light faded after a few seconds.

"Is it over?" Maelis asked, his arm still over his face.

"I think so," said Ilsa.

They lowered their hands and opened their eyes, and the chamber was exactly as they remembered it. The broken floor. The scorched walls. Garrick’s body lying where it had fallen.

But the golden woman and the boy were gone.

Nobody said anything for a while.

"Did she kill him?" Seraphine asked at last.

"There is no blood," said Haldor.

"Did she take him somewhere to kill him?"

"That is possible."

"I do not like that this is the fourth time tonight I have been confused," Maelis said, finally lowering his arm. "I would like to be told what is happening. Even if it is bad."

"Nobody here knows what is happening," Ilsa said. "Sit down and stop talking."

"I am already sitting."

"Then stop talking."

Leon blinked.

The white light had been so bright that he had not been able to see anything, and for a second he thought the woman had done something to his eyes. Then the light cleared, and the first thing he noticed was the wind.

It was cold. It was very cold, and it was blowing hard against his face.

The second thing he noticed was that there was nothing under his feet.

He looked down.

The city was there, but it was tiny. The tall buildings of the Association’s headquarters looked like toys, and the roads between them looked like thin gray threads.

A layer of white cloud drifted past below him, and beyond it the ground was so far away that it did not even look real.

"What..." Leon said.

Then he started to fall.

It happened instantly. His stomach dropped, and the wind roared in his ears, and the whole sky seemed to lurch upward as he plunged through it.

He flailed for a moment, which he would never admit to later, and then twisted around to find the only other person who was up here with him.

Milda was floating a few meters above him, perfectly still, with her hands clasped behind her back and her golden hair drifting in the wind.

She was looking down at him with a very polite expression, and it took her a moment to realize that he was not floating with her.

Her smile vanished.

"Oh," she said. "Oh, no."

"You..." Leon shouted, as the wind tore at his clothes. "What did you..."

"I am so sorry!" Milda called out. She was already diving after him, her face full of genuine alarm.

"I thought you could fly! You are so strong, I assumed you must have some kind of flight skill, I did not think to check..."

"How would I know how to fly? I am level twenty!"

"That is a fair point!"

She was coming fast, and she held out one hand to catch him. But Leon did not wait for her.

He kicked.

It was a reflex more than a decision, and he did not even have to think about it.

His legs flared with a bright light, and a pair of small golden wings unfolded from around each ankle. They beat once, and the fall slowed down.

He kicked again.

The wings beat harder, and Leon felt the wind change under him.

The fall slowed a little more. If he stopped kicking, he would drop again, so he kept going, and he kicked faster and faster, until the wings were flapping so quickly that they were nothing but a blur.

His legs went with them. They were moving so fast that they seemed to vanish from the knees down, and from Milda’s point of view, it looked like a floating upper body, with a pair of white blurs hanging underneath.

Milda stopped a short distance away from him and stared.

Leon stared back, his arms crossed, his legs still pumping furiously in the air.

It worked. He was staying up. But there was no getting around the fact that it looked ridiculous, and he knew it, and he refused to say anything about it.

"Hmm," Milda said slowly.

She tilted her head to one side, and then the other. She seemed to be trying to decide what to think.

It was clearly impressive, because he had managed to find a way to stay in the air using only his physical capabilities, and it had taken him less than three seconds.

But it was also very strange to look at, and she was not quite sure whether she was supposed to be impressed or disturbed.

In the end it came out as a little of both.

"Are... you comfortable like that?" she asked.

"Do I look comfortable?"

"Not especially, no."

"Then maybe you should not teleport people into the sky out of nowhere," Leon snapped. "Some of us do not have wings."

"You do appear to have wings."

"On my feet."

"I see that."

"It is not the same."

"No," Milda agreed. "It is not." Then she folded her hands in front of her and bowed her head, and it was a real bow.

"I am sorry. I truly thought you could fly. In my mind it was a very simple thing, a nice quiet place where we could speak without anyone listening, and I did not think about what it would mean for someone who was not used to it. I apologize."

Leon looked at her for a moment.

He had expected her to laugh, or to smirk, or to tell him that a real SSS-rank should have been able to handle it.

Instead, she was bowing to a boy in the middle of the sky, and she looked embarrassed. It was strange to be on the receiving end of that, and it made it a little harder to stay angry.

But only a little.

"Fine," he said. He scoffed and looked away. "Do not do it again."

"I will not."

"I mean it."

"I understand."

"I am still going to ask you to make me SSS-rank when this is over."

"I assumed so," said Milda.

Leon grunted. He wasn’t exactly feeling pain since his stamina was so high now, but kicking repeatedly in the air felt a bit annoying.

He kicked again to stay level, and while he was doing it, a thought crossed his mind.

He had a better way to do this.

He pushed one fist down toward the empty air, and the ring on his finger began to glow.

Green light poured out of it, spreading and widening, and the Aegis took form beneath his feet.

It was wide enough for him to stand on, and it hung in the air as steadily as a floor.

Leon stopped kicking.

His legs came back into view, and the wings folded away from his ankles. He dropped down onto the shield with both feet, and it held. It did not even tremble.

He let out a breath.

This was better.

He rolled his shoulders, put his hands in his pockets, and looked up at Milda with a satisfied expression.

Compared to what he had been doing a minute ago, this was a much more dignified way to stand in front of one of the ten Heads.

But Milda was not looking at him anymore.

She was staring at the shield. Her amber eyes had gone wide, and her smile had disappeared again, but this time it was not out of surprise or embarrassment.

Something else was in her face now, and it was very still. She looked at the green metal, and the carved face, and the snakes, and her lips parted slightly.

"I was not sure before," she said quietly. "I thought it might only be a rumor. But that shield..."

She swallowed. Leon could see it, the small movement of her throat.

"Could it be... the Aegis?"

The wind howled between them.

Leon’s hands stiffened inside his pockets. His expression did not change on the outside, but his heart gave a hard thump in his chest.

Nobody had ever said that name to him out loud before. Not the news, not the Association, not the people who had been hunting him. Only Thokas had seen it, and Thokas had never told anyone what it was.

He stared at her.

How did she know?