Adah left for Avepoir the day before Grace went to visit Ketzia and Ami had her shoot with Pominomi, so she had been the first to say goodbye to her team. Though she would only be gone for a couple of days, she felt as though she was embarking on some grand excursion. Perhaps that was a result of her reason for visiting Region 1. This would be a short trip for Adah in terms of time, but a massive stride forward for the Last Light in their mission. There could be no doubt their team had arrived on the national stage now.
Though she wouldn’t be gone long, Adah did wonder what Rika and Emi would get up to on Friday, when they would be the only ones at the agency. They could take the day off, but somehow that seemed unlikely. As Adah said her goodbyes, neither girl looked interested in sitting idly by while their teammates went to work.
That said, Thursday was a break day for Adah in a strange way. She had considered flying to Avepoir, like she had done when seeking Ketzia’s advice, but decided she’d draw too much attention that way. No need to risk complicating her and Elise’s meeting with a stunt like that. The next best option would be to take a train, which was what Adah had planned to do until Elise called her earlier that week and offered to drive them both.
Well, more like Elise had assumed she would be driving them. The only reason she had called was to confirm what time she should pick Adah up. Slowly, Adah was getting used to the woman’s means of communication.
Elise arrived alone to pick Adah up. Her own personal aide, another long-time employee of the Department, and one of those whom Elise had convinced not to quit due to Thibault, would handle business at home while Elise traveled. Adah was the only other person Elise saw fit to bring to this meeting.
“The fewer of us there are,” Elise had said, “the easier it will be for them to remember us.”
Adah wasn’t particularly worried about whether she’d be remembered, but she kept that thought to herself.
Their drive to Region 1 hadn’t been as awkward as Adah had expected—mostly because Elise made it clear from the start that she wasn’t interested in conversation. She didn’t have much free time as Secretary, as was to be expected, so she wanted to use this drive to finish a novel via audiobook. Some story about a wind-up bird or something. In any case, this arrangement was fine with Adah. She preferred to keep her relationship with Elise strictly professional, and wouldn’t know how to make small talk with her anyway. She put in earbuds and drowned out the novel’s narration with some music—not magical girls for once, but an alt-rock band Rika had asked her to check out.
While not awkward, the drive was interminable. They had left the agency office before lunch, but wouldn’t arrive in Avepoir until well into the night. Adah couldn’t possibly pass all that time by listening to music and scrolling through her phone, so partway through the journey she called out to Izzy. Her mascot was the only being she could speak to through a magic channel without transforming, on account of the essence inscription that bound them together. Their conversation would stay private.
“What do you require?” her mascot asked. “In-flight entertainment?”
“Might as well put this time to good use,” Adah said. “I wanted to talk about tomorrow’s meeting. I need your help.”
“I will assist where I can, but my knowledge of human affairs is limited,” he responded. “And with you as my reference point, I have built a twisted sense of how humanity thinks.”
Adah turned to look out the passenger window so that Elise wouldn’t see the scrunched up face she made.
“What’s with the sass today?” she asked. “I thought we’ve been getting along well lately.”
“There is no particular reason, but you couldn’t blame me for assuming you’d grown tired of me. After all, you never brought me on stage during your concert.”
Was he making a joke, or was he actually hurt that she had left him out of the team’s performance? Adah had never heard Izzy be genuinely upset about anything, so she had no point of comparison. If he spoke more casually, like Sheffa’s mascot did, maybe she could get a better read on him. For the time being, she offered him a real apology.
“Let me make it up to you, though,” she continued after he accepted her apology. “When I asked for your help, I was hoping you would show up to this meeting with me. In your physical form.”
“And what should I do during this?” he asked. “My kind have strict rules for who can participate in human negotiations. I cannot speak.”
“You don’t have to talk, just make yourself seen,” Adah said. “Do whatever you want. I want these people to see you and me together, and to remind them where I get my magic from. It’s you and me who cast the spells—the Department just signs the paperwork. I want us to make a lasting impression on them.”
There was a silence in Adah’s mind for a moment, but finally Izzy’s reply came and betrayed a hint of happiness.
“I will do my best.”
Adah spent the rest of the trip imagining how this meeting might play out, bugging Izzy with random thoughts she had no one else to ramble about to, and trying to fall asleep. Then, long after the sun went down, they arrived at the parking garage of a hotel in downtown Avepoir. The hotel wasn’t luxurious but, like most of Region 1, felt upscale in comparison to the amenities throughout Region 4.
“I booked us separate rooms,” Elise explained as she and Adah unloaded their bags. “I have a terrible time falling asleep around other people. I won’t be having dinner, but please feel free to order room service or whatever you prefer. The Department has budgeted generously for this trip.”
This arrangement, like their mostly silent drive, worked just fine for Adah.
She had considered staying with her parents while she was here, but they lived about an hour out from the capital. After this long of a journey, Adah couldn’t handle any more road time. Besides, she had just seen them. She did, however, make sure to call them and let them know she would be in the region. She explained what she could about the meeting with the Secretaries, and her mother didn’t press the issue any further than what Adah said. Apparently, if she respected her parents’ concerns, they would respect her limits in turn. Such a simple realization made her feel guilty about keeping her work to herself for so long.
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Once she settled in her hotel room, Adah also gave a call to Rika, who put her on speaker phone so the twins could talk to her as well. She didn’t have much of an update to provide them yet, but she wanted to let them know she’d arrived safely in Avepoir.
Maybe she also wanted to hear her teammate’s voices one more time before she entered that room full of Secretaries tomorrow. Maybe that would help her feel like she wasn’t fighting this battle alone.
☆☆☆
“You don’t need to do that,” Elise said, glancing at Adah as she drove. “They all know who you are.”
Adah sat in the passenger seat, fully transformed into Twilight Heartbreak. Her horns and grim attire marked a stark contrast with Elise’s formal jacket and cravat.
“Maybe so,” Adah said, “but this helps me remember.”
“I see,” Elise said. “You also did this when Roland and I met with you.”
“And it worked wonders.”
While they drove to Avepoir’s Department of Magic—a much shorter trip than yesterday’s—Adah inspected her fingernails. She had followed through on her idea to inscribe a new variation of her Heartbreak design into Izzy’s essence. Her nails were black, and appeared to shine from deep within like polished pieces of obsidian. They grew a full inch out of her fingers, more like claws anchored to the rest of her flesh by a quick hidden beneath the black. In addition to their own shine, Adah had accented the nails with a magic effect that made tiny silver stars periodically sparkle on their surface. When she had redesigned her teammate’s outfits, Adah had added these little magic effects to them all, but she had neglected to take advantage of that option for herself until now.
These nails would probably make it impossible to properly grip her scythe, but that inconvenience didn’t matter today. They made her feel more like Twilight Heartbreak, and that persona was the weapon she needed for this battle.
After twenty minutes of navigating the busy streets of Avepoir, Elise parked in yet another multilevel garage. The security guard manning the gate stared Adah down because of her getup, but a flash of Elise’s identification granted them swift entrance to the garage. As they walked from Elise’s car around to the entrance of the building that housed the Department of Magic, Adah called upon Izzy again. She wanted him to be present from the very moment of their arrival. She was a magical girl, after all, and magical girls had mascots.
The difference between Region 1’s Department of Magic and Region 4’s became apparent as soon as Adah stepped into the building’s lobby.
In Region 4, the Department of Magic was crammed into a decaying building of a bygone era like an afterthought. The regional government needed some place to stow it and its workers, and that gray block was the last closet available. Here, inside this glistening glass prism of a building, Region 1’s Department was clearly the chief resident. People rushed through the lobby in a sea of commotion, with many them easily identifiable as magical girls herded by their managers. Attached to each of the four structural pillars that divided the lobby were plaques displaying labeled diagrams of the building’s interior, which showed exactly which floors housed the different functions and offices of the Department of Magic.
While the corresponding building in Region 4 felt like a maze for lab rats, this was a cathedral of magic. The whole place was designed to make its visitors feel important, and those who worked in its offices even more important.
As Adah inspected the plaque on the nearest pillar, a young man emerged from the lobby’s crowd and approached her and Elise. He had on a thin, navy blue suit, with an equally thin tie. Kind of like a lizard’s tongue extending from his throat, Adah thought.
“Hello, Secretary Godard?” the man said to Elise, then turned to Adah and Izzy. “And you must be Miss Heartbreak? And her mascot?”
Something about the way he addressed her made Adah squirm.
“I’d rather you use my full name,” she said.
“Miss Twilight Heartbreak?”
That was worse.
“Actually, just Heartbreak is fine.”
“Miss Heartbreak, then,” he said with a smile.
Adah gave up. She needed to save her brainpower for speaking with the regional Secretaries, anyway.
“Izzy, please,” the pig by her side added.
The man nodded, his smile unmoving. He must be used to speaking with mascots if he worked here.
“My name is Alex,” the young man continued. “I am an aide to Secretary Sirk, and I would like to welcome you to Region 1. If you need to use the facilities or would like a coffee or other refreshment, I’d be happy to show you to the lounge. Otherwise, please allow me to guide you to the Secretary’s office.”
Adah and Elise’s brains weren’t often on the same page, but they were in full agreement about wanting to get this meeting over with as soon as possible, so they declined both the facilities and refreshments.
“Please, lead the way,” Elise said.
Rather than tucked away behind three right-hand turns and an endless hallway, this building’s elevator was accessible right off the lobby. Alex’s presence allowed Adah and Elise to bypass all security checks besides a quick metal detector scan. Adah worked to keep a grin off her face. If she intended to cause trouble, only the pig at her side could stop her.
The elevator, free of creaks or lurches, took them to the top floor of the building, where they were greeted by a floor-to-ceiling window view of downtown Avepoir. This was the twelfth floor, so while they were dwarfed by the skyscrapers down the street, they still towered over most of the city.
Alex led them through halls filled with sunlight until they arrived at a pair of massive double doors. The two regional offices had that feature in common, if nothing else. After a swift knock, Alex opened the door, revealing a spacious meeting room with a thick-based, oblong conference table at its center. Seated around that table were five people, all of whom set their eyes on Adah as soon as she entered the room.
At the far end of the table sat a bald man with round-rimmed glasses that served to make his hairless head look even more like an egg. Given his position at the table, Adah figured he must be Secretary Sirk, head of Region 1’s Department of Magic.
To his left was a woman in a gray pantsuit, against which her blood red scarf stood out all the more intensely. In contrast to the bald Secretary Sirk, her hair cascaded down to her shoulders in what Adah could only think of as tornadoes of ringlike curls. From her conversations with Sheffa, Adah knew this woman to be Secretary Carrell of Region 2.
Region 3’s Secretary, a man by the name of Borzage, sat to Sirk’s right. A pale scar ran down the side of his face and his shoulders were so broad they threatened to rip apart his dress shirt. Adah had done what research she could on each Secretary, and had learned that Secretary Borzage had served in the military before the Cruelties invaded.
In addition to the three regional Secretaries, two of the seats closest to Adah were occupied by a boy and a girl, both around her age. They were the first to stand up upon Adah’s arrival, and the first to greet her.
The boy she recognized immediately: Lysalt Locke. Seeing the captain of Desiire in person felt a little too much like looking in the mirror. If he grew out his hair and dropped some muscle, he might actually pass for Adah. She made a mental note to ask her parents if she really was an only child.
“You’re even cooler up close, Heartbreak,” he said, some fang-like teeth showing through his smile. “You make me want to transform, too.”
The girl stepped in front of Locke before Adah could respond. Her smile looked more like a monster baring its teeth for a jumpscare in a horror film. As her face relaxed, she started to look more familiar to Adah. She was a magical girl, of course, but it was only thanks to her sharp features and pointed chin that Adah recognized her. The girl’s transformation was so extreme compared to her appearance today that it might as well have been a secret identity.
“I can see why Iris hates you,” she said. “I’m glad you left her in the dust. She needed to learn that being cute will never beat hard work.”
That’s right—this manner of speaking, these backhanded compliments, were too similar to those of Iris. They could only come from someone who had spent time in the same environment as Adah’s old rival. They were a sure sign of one of Iris’s former teammates.
“Pleasure to meet you,” the girl continued, extending a hand to Adah. “I’m—”
“You’re Ren of the River,” Adah finished for her. “But why are you here?”
Why were either of them here?