“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing these hallways quite often from now on,” Grace said.
Adah led the way down the halls of the gray boulder of a building that housed Region 4’s Department of Magic. She did her best to remember the path that Iris had walked the last time she’d visited, but navigating the building’s first floor was as much of a challenge as ever. Elise hadn’t added any signage—or color—to these hallways since she’d assumed her new role.
“You won’t need to come all the time,” Adah said. “I can take the train. Or, since this is technically official magic business, maybe I’ll just fly.”
“No,” Grace said. “I will need to.”
Adah didn’t argue. Grace’s caution toward dealing with the Department of Magic was reasonable, given all that had happened with Thibault. Besides, Adah didn’t mind having backup—and a friendly face—when entering this soulless building.
She and Grace had driven out to Padoux to meet with Elise, now that the new Secretary “had her house in order.” Elise hadn’t specified what she wanted to discuss today, but no doubt today’s conversation would set the stage for the first few months of her leadership. Elise likely had her own priorities when it came to revamping the Department, but Adah intended to use today’s meeting to make it clear why this opportunity had come Elise’s way in the first place. Now that she’d taken over this position, she owed Adah a certain degree of cooperation.
Otherwise, Heartbreak would get up to some fun. Or, as Rika called it, trouble.
Eventually, Adah got her bearings on the labyrinthine hallways and found the rickety elevator that would lead her and Grace to the sixth floor, where Elise and the Department of Magic awaited them. The creaky box crawled up the elevator shaft like a slug, lurching enough times to make Adah queasy, before finally arriving at the sixth floor with a dull ding. The doors opened, revealing the circular hub of the Department.
The last time Adah had visited, this central area had been empty except for the burly bald man standing guard outside Thibault’s office. The room had looked like a containment zone where potential intruders could be screened and rejected, rather than an open space where Department employees could congregate and converse.
Elise may not have been able to influence the rest of the building’s appearance, but she had certainly changed this lobby area.
High-top tables and stools had popped up at various points along the perimeter of the circle, while a row of open style cubicles split the room in half. The doors that led to hallways that shot off from the circle like spokes on a wheel were all open now. Even in the few seconds Adah spent observing the room, she saw people passing through those doors, heading to and fro with laptops or papers in hand. Other employees sat at those high-top tables, either enjoying a snack or sharing a screen. The one person who didn’t seem to be present was Thibault’s bodyguard. Perhaps he had left with his boss.
The woman who had taken Thibault’s place didn’t seem the type to want a man like that following her. Apparently, she wasn’t the type to shut her office doors either. Through all the hustle and bustle of the central room, Adah could see clear past the double doors that had once barricaded the Secretary’s office. Inside, Elise was seated at the grand mahogany desk, staring at something to her side that was hidden by the circular wall.
Since all barriers to entry had been removed, Adah figured she might as well enter.
At first, none of the employees paid her any mind as she walked past. They were all wrapped up in their own work and conversations. Slowly, however, people began to take notice of her. Eyes lingered on her as more and more people recognized her as something more than just an unfamiliar face. Then the whispers started, along with the outright staring.
Adah caught scraps of their whispers—snippets like, “Heartbreak,” or, “That’s her,” or even, “Our boss’s boss.” This, too, was a kind of fame, she thought. She much preferred the outspoken fawning of her fans—perhaps not the more degenerate ones—but this sort of whispered reverence had its own appeal. If nothing else, their whispers made her feel less like an unwanted outsider in this building and more like a mythical being.
At any rate, she wouldn’t let their attention go unaddressed. It was in her professional—not to mention personal—interest that these staff members liked her.
Once she reached the space just outside Elise’s office, and all the eyes in the room were glued to her, Adah turned around to face the Department staff. A small crowd had formed, though its members attempted to disperse before Adah could notice the clump of people. Still, they all watched her, so she dipped her head in recognition of them and then spoke.
“Thank you for all that you’ve done for me,” she said. “I hope I can reward your hard work, now that circumstances have changed.”
Of course, she had no idea what any of these people did in their day-to-day jobs. What she did know was that many of them had played a part in Elise’s scheme, even if they weren’t aware of it. From the way they seemed to be enjoying the Department’s change in direction, most of them had probably hated Thibault even if they hadn’t considered quitting. Most importantly, they were people who—for whatever reason—wanted to work in the field of magic. Some of them must have valued protecting humanity above all else, and that was work Adah wanted to support.
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“Are you giving a speech?” a voice came from behind Adah.
Elise stood in the doorway of her office, watching Adah with a blank expression. Perhaps now that she’d secured her position, she was dressing down in black jeans once more.
“Oh, uh, no,” Adah stammered, suddenly feeling like an intruder again. “Just saying thanks, I guess.”
“I see,” Elise said, glancing around the room. “Are you ready to talk now, or do you want to say more?”
Setting aside the fact those two options were the same, Adah absolutely wanted to leave this spotlight behind. Elise had a terrible power for putting pressure on a room’s atmosphere, whether she knew it or not. Adah could only imagine how her confirmation hearing had went.
Elise led Adah and Grace into her office, closing the doors behind them. If she wanted privacy after the way she’d opened up that central room, maybe whatever she had to discuss was more serious than the kickoff meeting Adah had expected.
But before any discussion got started, Adah noticed what Elise must have been staring at when she’d been looking off to the side of the room earlier. A television was placed atop a cabinet there, and on its screen played combat footage of a magical girl fighting a burrowing mole-type Cruelty. Adah recognized the magical girl instantly as Seliah, her oversized witch hat still flopping about as she flew.
“You’re watching Seliah?” Adah asked a question that was even less of a question than Elise’s earlier proposal.
“A recording,” the new Secretary said. “Out of everyone involved in your carnival, Celestial Seliah has the greatest potential for defeating Cruelties.”
On the television screen, Seliah shot forward so fast that the drone camera had trouble tracking her. The mole Cruelty had burrowed underground, but Seliah seemed to be tracking it and even predicting where it wanted to emerge. With the video quality being slightly fuzzy, Adah couldn’t tell if the mole showed any signs of its movement, or if Seliah was operating purely off her read of the monster. Either way, she was ready to go for the kill with her newly acquired weapon—a rapier not unlike the one Adah had passed up—as soon as the monster burst above ground.
No doubt Seliah was an incredible fighter, but wasn’t Elise’s manner of speaking a little too bold? The strongest magical girl in the region was standing right here, after all.
“No offense taken,” Adah said.
Elise looked at Adah, expressionless as ever, then shut off the television with a remote.
“I’m sorry to say I’ve asked you here for another favor before I’ve had a chance to repay the last one,” Elise said.
“That’s what you’re apologizing for?” Adah nearly yelled.
Elise’s eyebrows perked up. She gestured in front of her desk, where the same pair of chairs Adah and Iris had sat in before stood.
“Sorry,” she said again. “Please do sit down.”
She could be a genius, though Adah wasn’t sure if she was a genius of negotiation or of comedy.
All the same, Adah and Grace sat down without another word. Adah was learning when to give up with this woman.
After taking her own seat at her desk, Elise continued along her original thought, “The favor I have to ask of you is simple, but may be unpleasant. I’ve been asked to meet with the other regional Secretaries of Magic next week, supposedly so that we may introduce ourselves to each other. I don’t believe that’s what the other Secretaries intend to use that meeting for. I believe they intend to interrogate me about how I arrived in this position. And about you.”
Elise paused to look Adah in the eyes. She didn’t need to say anything more for Adah to catch her meaning.
“If they’re interested in getting to know Heartbreak, let’s make it easy on them,” Adah said. “I’d be happy to tag along.”
In the first place, she wanted to meet the other Secretaries anyway. From what Sheffa had told her about the Region 2 Secretary, Elise’s new colleagues all seemed to hold a similar attitude to Thibault. That man had simply been the least competent among them. As her plans for the future expanded, Adah would need to know who exactly she might bump shoulders with, and whether she had any hope of cooperating with them on anything. They all had access to information that Adah needed about Cruelties—humanoid and otherwise.
Beyond that, they posed one of the largest threats to Elise’s autonomy. Together, they could apply enough pressure on both an economic and political level to force the woman’s hand in certain affairs. Thibault’s tactic of trying to strong arm them out of Region 4 had been a foolish exercise, but wasn’t based in a foolish concern.
This meeting would be a good opportunity to tell these Secretaries they weren’t dealing with a man like Thibault any longer. They were dealing with Elise, and by extension, Twilight Heartbreak.
“You said ‘next week,’” Grace spoke up. “When exactly next week?”
“They would like to meet on Friday,” Elise answered. “We’d be gathering in Avepoir, so I planned to depart from Region 4 Thursday afternoon. It would be wise to get a good night’s sleep before such a meeting, I think.”
Avepoir was Region 1’s official capital, the administrative counterpart to the economic hub of Ivendawn. Depending on your means of transportation, the journey from Region 4 to Avepoir could take most of a day, so traveling in advance was almost a necessity.
“Friday,” Grace mused. “Friday I was going to visit Ketzia, but I don’t feel good about sending you into the hornet’s nest alone.”
“Ketzia?” Adah said. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
Grace shook her head and said, “I just owe her, as her friend. It was going to be a personal trip, that’s all. Since I rushed out last time.”
“Don’t cancel because of this,” Adah told her. “I’ll be fine on my own. I’m actually looking forward to it. Besides, I have a talent for bending Secretaries to my will. Don’t I, Elise?”
The woman tilted her head and stared at Adah from behind her desk.
“I suppose that’s possible,” Elise said.
A genius, as always.
At any rate, Adah focused her attention on Grace. It would do her manager good to get away for a while and reconnect with an old friend. It would do Ketzia even better, surely. The Untethered magical girl probably hadn’t received another visitor since Adah last traveled up there.
“I’ll go to the heart of Region 1, and you’ll go to the outskirts of Region 4,” Adah said. “It’ll be a fitting way to kick off a new era for this country, don’t you think?”
Grace returned Adah’s gaze, her eyes sharp behind her glasses.
“A better era, I hope.”