Iris and Ekki weren’t the only ones who had concerns about Adah’s visions.
When Adah pitched her idea for unveiling the new and improved coalition by taking on an A-Rank Cruelty, Elise responded by sending her the names of a half dozen doctors and specialists. Before she’d be allowed to fight any Cruelty—A-Rank or otherwise—the Department of Magic was requesting a full medical and psychiatric evaluation of Twilight Heartbreak. Actually, instead of a request, it was more like an ultimatum. Adah would be blocked from accepting any missions until she submitted an official medical report clearing her to serve the region.
Word of her most recent blackout must have spread to Elise, and now she was being sent on a tour de médecin. The one saving grace of her situation was that Elise’s connections through the Department of Magic had fast-tracked all of Adah’s appointments. She surely would have been waiting months for some of these exams if she had made appointments as a regular citizen.
That said, checking all of the names off of Elise’s list still took the better part of two weeks, during which time Adah was forced to watch her teammates take jobs without her. Two weeks of waiting rooms, bloodwork, and screenings later, Adah had finally filled out her official Department of Magic medical report.
Adah was all too happy to slam that sheet of paper down on Elise’s desk at the end of it all.
“They didn’t find any cause for concern,” Adah summarized as she fell back into one of the chair in front of Elise’s desk. “I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, in fact. The benefits of sticking to a training routine, I guess.”
“Even the psych evals?” Grace asked. She and Izzy had joined Adah on today’s visit to the Department of Magic, as had become standard.
“Those are staying private,” Adah said. “But yeah, I’m still ‘fit to serve,’ at least.”
Elise scanned the medical report Adah had slapped down, which would tell her just as much as Adah had, as well as confirm that she was indeed fit for duty. Magical girls were still soldiers—even if the other regions didn’t treat them as such—and examinations like this were necessary to insure they could properly perform their duties. That being said, Adah hadn’t submitted any other medical records since she first registered as a magical girl. All of this was in response to her visions.
Elise set down the report and said, “Ideally we’d set up an EEG or MRI at the same time you experience one of these abnormalities, but I imagine that could be difficult to arrange. You said they show up most reliably when you transfer essence into your weapon?”
“That’s right,” Adah said. “And I’d advise against bringing a Cruelty—or its core—inside a hospital.”
Elise frowned but nodded in agreement.
“Izrashell,” the lion Kodriel spoke from his spot atop Elise’s desk. “Have you detected anything unusual in her energy? Any foreign essence? Any parasites? Of this plane or another?”
Izzy had taken a seat in Adah’s lap for this meeting. Although he was large enough to bump against both the chair’s armrests, he must have been able to control his weight at will. He felt as light as a pillow in her lap.
“There has been no change that I can detect,” the pig said. “Not at the time of these visions nor afterward.”
Kodriel sat upright on Elise’s desk, like a cat waiting by its food bowl. Maybe it was because they’d each taken the form of some kind of cat, or maybe it was another way of differentiating themselves as Keteriel, but both Kodriel and Iris’s mascot Iosk maintained this refined posture. Adah had never seen them plop down or lounge about like Izzy liked to do.
“That is odd,” Kodriel said. “It seems impossible there would be no sign of interference. You’re certain of this? You haven’t mistaken an intruder’s essence for a change in her own?”
“There is no mistake,” Izzy responded immediately. “I am certain of it. If there was any such danger to Adah, I would put a stop to all of this at once.”
His body tensed in her lap, so Adah gave his head a few pats.
“Then there’s nothing for us to worry about,” Adah said. “I’ve been checked up by humans and mascots alike and everyone agrees I’m in tip-top shape. More importantly, I feel fine, which is what I told you all at the start of this.”
Grace turned to her and said, “I don’t know how you can say that when you basically blacked out on a mission.”
“I wasn’t on a mission, technically,” Adah said. “I was only there to take the essence from a Cruelty that Iris and them killed. That’s really the only time the visions are ever a problem anyway—when I’m collecting a core. And since I can only do that when a Cruelty is already defeated, it’s not like I’ll ever be in any danger.”
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Grace stared at Adah, with each second of eye contact further building the sensation of two phantom hands wrapping around Adah’s neck. If Grace ever became a magical girl, surely she’d earn herself some glare-themed spells.
“But I’m going to be more careful,” Adah tried to assuage Grace’s concerns. “I’ll see if I can slow down how fast the scythe consumes the essence. Or I could space out the missions I show up to. That was the fourth C-Rank in a row I’d collected, so maybe it was the same thing as eating too much too fast.”
Elise slid open one of her desk’s drawers and stashed Adah’s medical report inside. She spun her chair so that she could type a few lines on a laptop stationed at one side of her desk, then turned back to face Adah.
“We can adjust the frequency at which you’re called to these supplementary missions,” she said. “There has been an increase in local Cruelty appearances, so you’ve already participated in more missions than we anticipated by this point in the month. You’ve earned yourself a rest—even days off, if you’d like.”
“No,” Adah said. “No days off. I’ll slow down if the visions keep giving me trouble, but stopping isn’t an option. I want the extra essence as a failsafe. Or did you forget why I went to all those doctors in the first place?”
The only reason Adah had put up with her fitness being called into question was so that she could move forward with her plan. That medical report she’d handed in was like her permission slip. She was going to lead the coalition teams against their first A-Rank. They’d all take that next step together, and they’d carry the whole region forward with them.
Now that her health had been cleared beyond all doubt, Adah was ready to set that plan into motion.
“Of course, the A-Rank,” Elise said. “We did look into that while waiting for your medical results. Margot agreed that it seemed like an appropriate means of unveiling your coalition—as you call it—and I trust her judgment when it comes to the more creative side of magic. I have no objections to the idea itself.”
“Then we’ll take the next one that spawns,” Adah said. “I already talked to everyone else—they’re all on board.”
Elise spun over to her laptop once again. This time, she spoke while clicking away, her eyes darting from point to point on the laptop’s screen.
“I don’t object to the idea,” she said, “but it is not so simple in practice. After analyzing the list of known A-Rank variants, there are several for which the size of your squad will work against you. Something like deflective defenses could give you trouble, for example. Ideally, we should also avoid any variants capable of attacking wide areas at once. Then there is the matter of location. Any forested area is out of the question, as are any narrow city streets. With eleven of you fighting at once, the last thing we want is for you to crash while flying or damage each other with your spells.”
Elise went on to name another dozen variables she felt increased the risk of taking on this mission, from the time of day to the location’s relative distance from each coalition team’s office. After a couple minutes of Elise talking like she was reading the warning label off a bottle of medication, Adah thought for sure that the Secretary was going to shoot down her plan. After all, it sounded like they’d need to wait for an eclipse on a cloudless day and find the one bird of a migrating flock that bled green blood before they could take it on.
But Elise soon turned back toward Adah and nodded.
“Accounting for that,” she said, “there is a high likelihood that an A-Rank which meets our criteria will appear within one month. The probability approaches near certainty after two months. At your current levels, with all eleven of you acting together, you also have a near certain chance to defeat this subset of A-Ranks. There is also, of course, the failsafe of your weapon. Do you have confidence that the other teams can coordinate with one another? I understand that cooperation was difficult between yourself and DreamRise in the past.”
Adah nodded her head as fast as she could without breaking her neck.
“The past is the past,” she said. “We’ve all been practicing together, and our team’s already fought lower ranked Cruelties with everyone else anyway. This will just be more of the same. Get me a list of those variants you’re targeting, and I’ll even come up with some strategies ahead of time.”
“I was going to suggest as much,” Elise said. She opened her mouth to say more, but Grace beat her to the punch.
“I told you when it comes to what you girls do on these missions, I’m going to trust your judgment,” she said to Adah. “But this involves more than just our team. This is about the whole region. After what happened with that S-Rank, we need a better fall-back plan than relying on your weapon. Don’t forget that what you’ve been doing with that scythe is the reason you had to see all those doctors.”
Elise folded her hands atop her desk and said, “It’s a reasonable concern. However, time is on our side. We will make sure Adah’s condition is stabilized before we commit to any plan. That will give her time to design strategies against these Cruelties as well. As for a contingency plan, I will work with Secretary Sirk to designate a team from his region as backup. In a couple of weeks, we’ll know our timeline.”
“Sirk?” Adah asked. “Not Region 2 or 3? Aren’t they usually the ones who handle the A-Ranks in our region?”
Back when Thibault had barred the other regions from accepting missions in Region 4, it had been Region 3 teams who had waited around at any jobs the Last Light went on. In fact, Adah didn’t remember ever interacting with a Region 1 team until she’d met Ren and Locke.
“This will be the first of the favors we call in from Secretary Sirk,” Elise said, a faint smile on her face. “It will not be much of a favor, assuming your mission goes well, but that is preferable. It will keep us from seeming a threat to him. How could we be plotting against him if we need to rely on him for such a simple task? Instead, it endears us to him. While Secretaries Carrol and Borzage make demands of him, bring headaches worth of problems to him, we alleviate him of problems and ask little in return. At the same time, the other Secretaries become able to squeeze less and less out of our region.”
“So, we play our hand as if whatever’s good for Sirk is good for us?” Grace said.
“We get strong enough to knock the other players out,” Elise said, “but not to threaten what he’s holding. There will come a point when he pushes all-in.”
“Then we turn our own cards over,” the little lion Kodriel said.
He stared at Adah, his irises an ivory almost as white as the rest of his eyes.