50. It’s Not Ours

The rest of the party passes in a bit of a haze. We spend most of it in the company of Draga and Rara, trying out different food, drinks, and entertainment. Especially the drinks. Once the dam was broken, Vi’s request for moderation went pretty much entirely forgotten. I remember a few highlights, at least...

* * *

“Is that a fricking [hookah]?!” I exclaim as we wander past a group sitting in a circle around a pleasant-smelling smoking apparatus, drawing little puffs of smoke from several flexible hoses.

“I don’t know what that word means,” Rara replies, “but we call it a circle-pipe. Want to try?”

“Uuugh, we probably shouldn’t,” I grouse. “What are they smoking?”

Rara takes a tentative sniff of the hazy air and shrugs. “I’m not familiar with the mix, but there’s some sweetleaf and whisper tea in there.”

“Whisper tea is a mild sedative too bitter for recreational drinking,” Draga provides. “It’s easier to tolerate when smoked, but the sweetleaf further helps to cover the flavor.”

“You’ve tried it before?” I ask.

“Not since I joined the army,” he hedges. “But I’ve been in more than a few smoking circles.”

“Maybe it won’t hurt to try a little...”

* * *

“A what?” Rara’s friend—I’m having a hard time holding on to his name—asks incredulously between smoky coughs.

“Heat exchanger,” I reply. “It moves heat!”

“What does that have to do with circle-pipes?”

“The...tubes?” I wonder aloud. I actually have no idea where I was going with this or how I got on to the topic in the first place. “We weren’t sure if we’d be able to get the right kinds of tubes.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me?”

We stare at each other in awkward silence for a moment, then he laughs abruptly and takes another drag.

“Tell me more!”

“[Violet, do you want to handle this one?]” I ask.

“No,” she replies. “I’m mad at you.”

“[Huh? What for?]”

“For being a huge fucking bitch, as usual,” Maggie interjects unhelpfully.

“Miss Maev?” the man asks in a worried tone. “Something wrong?”

“My head voices are yelling at me, hold on,” I answer, before switching back to my own language. “[Evie take the wheel. I gotta handle this.]”

“What?!” I protest. “But I don’t know the first thing about a heat exchanger!”

“You don’t?” the man asks, now visibly confused. “Then what were we talking about?”

“Uh...tubes?”

He laughs again, shaking his head. “You’re a funny one, miss!”

* * *

“Enjoying yourself?”

Half a mouthful of my drink goes straight up my nose as I’m startled by the hostess a second time. She’s a sneaky one!

“Biyu! I mean—Lady Biyu, or uh...Lady Dou?” I stammer.

“Lady Dou would be my mother, but I’d be honored if you simply called me Biyu.”

“R-right, okay.” I nod. “It’s been a lot of fun! Different than I’m used to, but good!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she replies with a smile. “Those things you’re wearing on your feet, my little brother helped make them, didn’t he?”

“Huh?” I ask, looking down at my shoes before my brain finally catches up. “Oh right! Roro. He’s kind of a crabby little shit—oops!”

I don’t have time to take it back before Biyu covers her mouth and giggles.

“He is, isn’t he? I apologize if he’s given you offense.”

“No, sorry, we haven’t actually spoken,” I admit. “He’s quiet most of the time, but he’s rude to Baira.”

“Baira?”

“Iro’s other apprentice,” I explain. “She’s older, but Roro keeps trying to pull rank. Or uh...well I only actually saw him do that once.”

Dang it, the booze is making me way too talkative.

“I see,” she sighs. “We’re a small family, and some of the younger ones are sensitive about it. I’d hoped that apprenticing under a clanless male would mellow him out a bit.”

“Got a problem with clanless guys?” I ask defensively.

“Quite the opposite. I think that hubris is the greatest failing of our clan. It’s my hope that gatherings like this one can help to erode the boundaries between clans.”

I squint a bit, trying to consider what she’s saying. “But you only invited rich people.”

“Well, of course, but I don’t turn away other visitors, you see?”

I blink. “No.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very well,” she grumbles. “I must see to the other guests, but let’s meet again some time, shall we?”

“Yeah sure,” I reply easily. “I’ll add you to the list!”

She furrowed her brows at that, but doesn’t say anything else as she turns away to do more hostess stuff.

“Rara, did I fuck that up?” I ask surreptitiously, leaning on her shoulder.

“You might have annoyed her a bit, but I don’t think so,” she says, grunting as she helps steady me on my feet. “Wow, you’re really drunk, though.”

“Blame Allie,” I grumble. “Always Allie.”

* * *

And that’s about it. The rest is a blurry haze. I can’t remember the last time I drank until I blacked out, and that’s not a joke about my amnesia this time. At least there’s absolutely no question that the pounding in my head is a hangover. I can’t believe that I mistook magical strain for a hangover when I first woke up. Something about that thought bothers me, but my brain is too busy trying to implode to actually process it.

I groan and drag myself out of bed, finding that someone has left a carafe of water and an empty cup on the end table for me. It would be better with some painkillers, but I’ll take it. I drain the first glass in one go and finish with a sigh.

“Holy fricking heck, Evie,” I grumble, already pouring a second. “So much for one drink...”

“Don’t you fucking start!” Maggie barks so sharply I almost spill the water. “She’s not the one who filled a beer mug with fucking everclear!”

“It wasn’t that strong,” I protest.

“Well it sure as shit wasn’t one drink, was it?”

Poopy-fricking-doodles, she’s not wrong. I groan miserably and rub my temples. I don’t even know why I did that. Some kind of immature protest against Vi imposing restrictions on me, maybe? So stupid.

“By the Goddess...” Evie whispers. “In all Her names, what have I done?”

“No, sorry,” I sigh. “Mags is right, that was my fault. We were already drunk by the time you started.”

“Not that,” she whines. “I can’t believe I was so forward with Sir Draga! As if it wasn’t bad enough that I’m hideous—now he’s going to think I’m a slattern!”

“Oh, honey...”

“Hold that thought,” Violet interrupts. “Allie, put on our glasses.”

I kind of didn’t want to focus on anything while my head is pounding like this, but she sounds pretty serious.

“Hey, Vi, I really owe you an apology...” I say as I fetch our glasses from the end table and slip them on.

“Yes, but later,” she agrees. “I need you to focus right now.”

Her urgent tone is starting to make me worried so I finish off the second glass of water and shake my head to clear it.

“Right, okay. What am I looking at?”

“The room,” she replies darkly. “It’s not ours.”

Crap! Fricking crud on day-old moldy toast! Please please please tell me that I didn’t manage to violate Vi’s other boundary too. I look back at the bed to find it empty, but unfamiliar. Now that Vi mentions it, nothing in the room is familiar. While the construction and layout is similar to our room in the Goa estate, none of the furniture is the same. Checking myself, I realize that I’m down to just my shirt and underwear, but I don’t feel any of the tell-tale signs that I would associate with a hook-up. If anything I’m still pent up—but that’s a very distant concern next to waking up in an unfamiliar place for the third time in less than two months.

Two of which have been both my fault and alcohol related—frick! My clothes are easy to find, at least, since I apparently just tossed them on the floor on the way to bed. That suggests at least some level of willing participation, though given that I can’t remember how I got here, the amount that I could have consented to anything is pretty questionable.

“Okay...okay...” I mutter, trying to keep my breathing steady as I hastily pull my clothes back on. “Wrong room. That happens, right? We just drunkenly wandered into the wrong room.”

Once dressed, I rush to the door, hoping against all hope that this will just end with a bit of mild embarrassment. The door is a lever latch, which is a weird detail for me to pay so much attention to, but when I try to twist it open, the lever doesn’t budge.

“Right. Okay. Drunkenly stumbled into the wrong room and...locked ourselves in...” I inspect the handle for any sign of a lock or keyhole to no avail. “From the outside. Frick!”

“Did we get fucking kidnapped again?!” Maggie grouses. “Goddess, we suck!”

“Calm down,” Violet says flatly. “Take stock of our surroundings. What resources do we have access to?”

It’s a remarkably similar refrain to what she told me when we were lost in the Candle Labyrinth which is not nearly as comforting as I’d like it to be. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to do anything like that, ever again.

But I take a deep breath and follow her instructions. “Right. We’ve got a cup, a jug, our clothes,” I recite as I inspect the rest of the room. “No knife, no spear, no Nipper, no candles—flipping heck, I should have got us a purse or something.”

“So we’re fucked,” Maggie declares. “Though I love that your first thought is that you wish we had a purse to hold all our implements of destruction.”

“I may not be cut out for the violent stuff, but I know how to recognize a pattern.”

“Not well enough to bother actually keeping some weapons on us, apparently.”

“Never mind that,” Vi interrupts. “No point worrying about what we don’t have. There’s also the bedsheets, the table itself, no windows...are those alchemical lamps?”

“Oh! Good eye!” I exclaim, taking note of the softly glowing mana stones placed in sconces around the room. “Should we take those?”

“Definitely,” Vi confirms. “They’re not as potent as mana candles, but our skills should still be able to tap into them as a power source.”

“Good enough.”

I make a circuit around the room, prying the mana stones out of their sconces. They aren’t nearly as securely fastened as the ones outside the convergence point were, and come loose easily. It’ll make the room darker, but at least we’ll have something we can use as a weapon.

It’s disturbing how casually I can say that. Yes, I’m freaking out a little, but it feels like I should be a lot more terrified. In just a couple of months I’ve gone from having a panic attack and a minor breakdown to immediately finding something I can use to kill with. Kinda messed up, to be honest.

More importantly, I don’t actually have anywhere to put these fricking rocks. They glow conspicuously even after being removed, and this dress doesn’t exactly have pockets. I’m just in the middle of attempting to hide one in my cleavage when the door clicks.

Without thinking, I press myself to the wall to hide from view as an unfamiliar woman with white fur and light green clothing walks in. She turns towards me immediately, my attempt to hide spoiled by the lack of anything to hide behind and also the fact that I’m the only light source in the room.

Both of us freeze as our eyes meet, and she stares at me in mute incomprehension for a moment before finding her voice.

“What are you doing?”

“Hiding,” I reply honestly.

She blinks. “You’ve got...uh...” she trails off, tapping the center of her chest.

I look down at the extremely obvious orange glow emanating from between my boobs, then back up at her.

“Yeah, I know,” I say with a shrug. “I didn’t say I was doing a very good job.”

“Right. I see. Well when you are finished...robbing us?” she hedges, raising an eyebrow.

I just shrug again in response, giving her a moment to rally.

“Lady Gaa will receive you as soon as you’re ready,” she finishes. “I’ll escort you to her sitting room.”

“[Cool.] I mean, uh, good. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Maybe without the lamps?” she suggests.

Looking down at my palm, I turn one of the glowing mana stones over in my hand. They aren’t much, compared to the mana candles—even I can tell that much—but they’re the only thing we’ve got in a place that is probably hostile, for all that this nice young lady is being polite.

“Maybe.”

She just stares at me for a second, then slowly closes the door again. I don’t hear the lock click back into place, so I can only assume she’s waiting for me on the other side.

“So we’re fucked, yeah?” Maggie repeats once we’re alone.

I sigh and toss one of the mana stones onto the bed. I doubt a couple of glowing rocks are going to make a difference if we have to fight our way out of a noble estate.

“We are so screwed,” I agree.