Borrowing, not Stealing

[Tarot]

One by one, the books piled up on the helper golem's tray. Each and every one was a gem mine of knowledge, dangerous enough to be locked away in secrecy. Jilitse had endured enough centuries to know that true power, not the shallow obsession of greedy money hoarders, came disguised as ink stains upon a sheet of paper or parchment. These were not the generic textbooks she had trained herself on for countless years; this was cutting-edge magical research. Borderline techniques not suitable for public use. Revolutionary approaches that gave even masters some pause. Measures and countermeasures. Research journals. Some belonged to Nuits she had known in the past, and who had mysteriously vanished. They had fought their own magic, and lost.

All of it was encrypted, of course, but a good portion of the texts were clear of protection. Coding was a long and tiresome task, and encryption-enabled golem scribes tended to make mistakes that were unacceptable in such writings. What the authors did was encrypt only the critical sections of their texts, teasing the reader with the general nature of the findings, but locking the secrets away from the prying eye with a complex code. The books Jilitse had collected so far were:

"The thin line between man and golem: building the missing link", by Arthur Vidimus, about anthropomorphic golems. About 200 pages of sketches and custom Animation techniques. Extensive sections about building joints from metal and wood, ranging from simple to a full-fledged simulation of the human arm.

"Supervisors, the Minds of Steel," by Court Mage Rupert Pycon. Detailing Albrecht, Baird and Caliman - especially the last one. Written from an Alchemist's perspective with little knowledge of Animation, more anecdotical than technical. Detailing the cruel experiments Pycon performed on Caliman to "incrementally upgrade" its capabilities through exposure to terrifying stimuli.

"What we are, and what we could be," by Yovinkus Wotch, legendary Animator. Seminal research journal on soul transfer. Yovinkus was the father of modern Nuits, though he wasn't one himself. He had turned Animation from a semi-tribal pseudoscience to a rigorous discipline. Mashaen had built upon Wotch's version of the Daek-Nuit to make his own.

"Project D," the red book by Zarik Mashaen. This was by far the most terrible book of the lot. It contained the complete logical and technical schematics to create Mizahar's most advanced Supervisor. The book's 500 pages were filled to the brim with directive lists, concepts ready for teaching, mental organization and a complete recipe for building Drainira from the ground up. Useful only to a master… but if it had taken Mashaen over a decade to make Drainira, someone using this book would only require a small fraction of that time for sure.

"The cosmic closet: a bestiary and compendium of all things Voided," by Aelobius the Voider. It was a collection of creatures and items that had presumably been thrown into the Void in ages past, and occasionally ideas for retrieving them, at the user's own risk of course.

"The Cypheropedia," by <name encrypted>. A list of common and uncommon encryption methods both current and historical. There was enough math in the book to make a Nuit's head hurt, but it looked quite thorough.

"An overview of the Alahean army, before and after Bloodvalley," by Tyreas White, Minister of War under Kovinus I. This was the closest Jilitse could find to a book on the Alahean war budget. It was only to be expected that a magical library would not place too much emphasis on such mundane things as sword-swinging men in armor.

"Sagallius: bonkers with style," by Vuld Shaik. An unofficial biography written by the great chronicler right after Sagallius went insane and had to be replaced with Mashaen. This manuscript was believed to have been lost, like many others by Vuld Shaik, and was probably worth some money on the mainland. This one was the only book not coded with a cypher in any of its parts. Shaik's caustic irony was strong as ever. No surprise the writer never spent three nights in a row under the same roof; he had a unique knack for making enemies, and a preternatural ability to leave just before they got to him.

Eight books so far, and the capacity of her golem helper was exhausted. She could probably hold a couple more on the way out, but no more. The catalogue, if any, seemed to elude the witch for now. Qiao may very well be keeping it safe in his own quarters, after all. No matter what Jilitse thought, it looked like there was nothing here but what met the eye. Just when she was about to abandon all hope, though, something strange happened. One of the books on the Animation shelf started shaking and moving by itself, jumping up and down to attract the Nuit's attention. It landed on the cold floor, flapping its covers like a duckling. It straightened itself and opened itself in front of Jilitse. Rather thin and leather-bound in brown, it had no title or cover text. It showed the witch one of the inner pages, the corner folding on itself and pointing at a mid-paragraph sentence in the text.

"'Take me with you,' said Marie Susanne, her blue eyes sparkling with the innocence of her soul. 'Let's make our dreams come true!'"

[Jilitse]

Jil had circled the whole room twice, trying to see if there was an off-looking space between the shelves and the walls. She couldn't exactly try to pull out books just to see if any of them hid a switch for a secret doorway to a lair. What she did, however, was to displace a few books here and there. Stealing was an art, and if it had to be so, then the least Jil could do was to attempt to confuse the next person who will come inside the library. Silly yes, but it will prove to be effective once somebody looking for text on Voiding found Alchemy books instead. Anything that would delay whoever will do the inventory to figure out which books were missing. It was a matter of bringing a few books to another shelf, or rearranging the order into a random system.

Jil tried to scan the rest of the books in an attempt to locate something out of the ordinary. By her third round of jumbling books and messing up the natural order of things, she knew that her time inside the forbidden room had come to an end. There was nothing else to find. The last light of hope sank in, a tug of disappointment. She wished there was something more to pilfering the library.

Just when she was walking away from it all, footsteps heavy with spoiled anticipation... a book let its presence known. Jilitse stepped back, glanced back, and stared at the animated book on the floor. A waterfall of doubt washed over her upon reading the line of the the mysterious book was pointing at. "Make our dreams come true," did not exactly sound anthemic, and the name Marie Susanne wasn't evoking any sense of recognition. She looked back up to the shelf where the book came from. Was this a book on Animation? Or did it come from the Malediction section? Unfortunately, there was no way of figuring it out.

The book in front of her made her rethink her strategy. What was this unexpected little thing? It was a weakness that Jilitse couldn't fight at the moment: curiosity. She stooped down low and reached for the book, cautiously.

"Should I really take you with me?" The question was for herself, rather than for the book, but she said it out loud and waited for the hint of a reply before picking it up. She called out to the wheeled golem, commanding it to stay between her legs, hidden within her cloak. She took the last book under the black folds of her cloak, embracing it tightly. The answers could come later, she thought.

Right now she needed to get to Lucrece. Four days preparation did not sound like it was enough time to get herself ready, anymore.

[Tarot]

Jilitse did a wonderful job of scrambling up the contents of the restricted wing. It was a highly liberating and perhaps somewhat sadistic experience. She was disobeying the rules she had first lived by and later un-lived by. "Treat the library with respect, for the books here are far more valuable than you lot," had said the Headmaster on her first day at the Academy. Because he had smiled as he said so, a kid or two had giggled at the statement, thinking it a joke. The misconception only lasted until someone spilled a glass of water on a book. It wasn't clear what kind of punishment was inflicted on him - but afterwards he would shiver in terror at the mere sight of water.

As for the moving book, it did indeed come from the Animation shelf, but a cursory glance at its pages revealed that while it was definitely a magic book, it was no book on magic. It was a novel. As mentioned, it didn't have anything printed on the leather cover, though the first folio carried the ominous words: The adventures of Marie Suzanne. The anonymous cover probably served to keep the book from getting too much attention from the occasional visitor. As it was, the only fact that made the book's presence here reasonable was that it actually nodded at Jilitse's question - or did the closest thing to a nod that it could do, which could also have been construed as a bow. Nevertheless, it showed the Nuit another passage from its pages.

"I know who you are," Marie Suzanne smiled. "We are the last ones of our kinds. Our meeting is fated, as is everything else in the world."

And with that, the book let the witch tuck it away in the safety of her cloak. Her time here had come to a close. Jilitse made her way outside the restricted wing. The door slid close neatly behind her. "Thank you for your cooperation. Please use this knowledge responsibly!" The golem's voice rang helpfully, without realizing the Nuit was already gone. Now, as for the next step. Taking the books to Master Lucrece Hatterman. Many Nuits in Sahova had a reputation for being slightly eccentric. Some of them had already been odd in life - it was all excused if you were a genius, of course. Others had played with crazy things until the crazy had attached to them like a bad smell, almost qualifying them for overgiving, but not quite. And then there was Master Lucrece, a Mashaenian of the first hour. And as… eccentric as they came. Jilitse had not had many opportunities to interact with him, but she still remembered him trying to convince the community that the best way to build team spirit in Sahova was to sew the Nuits together like Siamese twins. Other than that, Lucrece wasn't seen much around the Citadel.

If Jilitse knocked on the door of his apartments, a gruff voice would invite her to "Come in". She would then be greeted by the sight of a sparsely furnished room and a stark naked Nuit with a middle-aged body hanging from the ceiling, tied to a sturdy-looking rope by the ankles. Lucrece looked at Jilitse coldly, their eyes about at the same height even though he was hanging upside down. "Ah, you must be J. ZM warned me you'd pass by. That is the only reason I can spare some time for you. As you can see, I am a busy man and I am performing an experiment of the utmost importance." He folded his arms across his reverse chest. "It's gravity, J. It's always about gravity. We do not have a pulse, so our ichor invariably tends to drop and accumulate in our legs, especially in the absence of regular physical activity. If my theory is correct, our bodies can last up to 20% longer if we just spend six bells a day in this position. I have some spare rope if you need it."

The Master of Cyphers paused and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Who are you again? And who in the world gave you permission to barge in and ask all these questions about my research?"

[Jilitse]

If her quest at hand was a great big puzzle, Jilitse would say that a lot of things just did not make sense. The clues she had obtained so far were far too disparate to build a theory upon. Planning would need to go on and on and on. She walked to Lucrece's, and she hope that he would be amenable. Mashaen's allies were usually a certain kind of crazy. And Jil proved it right when she arrived at the Crypher's place.

Lucrece was in the middle of some kind of therapeutic theory he was experimenting on. He was hanging upside down like a bat, which disoriented Jilitse for a moment. She found it polite to respond, "Your theory is interesting, I have always believed that regardless of gravity, our ichor is able to spread out in equal parts inside our body. Hence our need to enter coma, after excessive bleeding because the rest of the body lacks the proper amount of soul vector. And if there was a lot of ichor in our feet, wouldn't we die when we get our legs cut, instead of when we are decapitated?" Theorizing hurt her head. Her piece said, she buckled, "But you are the one knowledgeable, so I would retract my opinionated guess if you have already found evidence to say otherwise."

"You may call me J, if you wish to, for names are of less importance. I am here under ZM's referral," she used the abbreviations, "It is better that you know less of me, for I am here to invite you to become an accomplice to a crime." She decided to be straightforward about her mission.

"I have stolen books from the library," her tone somewhat shaky, "and I am to destroy Drainira." The rest of the story should not be revealed at this time, she thought. "The matter is of grave importance to ZM, and I think I have broken 67 Citadel rules already, and my adventure have not yet begun." She bent herself and searched for the Cypheropedia and presented it to Lucrece. She assumed that as a Master, he must have used the book, maybe even written it himself. He will recognize it. By showing the book, which was rare and restricted, Lucrece will probably get her point. The other nuit was upside down anyway, and Jilitse could probably bargain. "I need help in deciphering books, but I have no idea how to use this." She waved the book at him. "I have stolen text on Supervisors which I need you to help me read."

"I am of the understanding that you can be trusted?" If Lucrece tries to do anything funny, Jil had a knife in one of her pockets, his head dangerously hanging low enough to be stabbed and cut. Jil may not successfully take off his head, but he would surely die of the flesh wounds.

But maybe it will not come to that- and for goodness sake, Jil had never even tried to murder another nuit! - so she bid the dastardly plan away and added, "I need to kill Sagallius while I'm at it, too. Help me increase my chances, Master Lucrece." And then she revealed the golem, together with the books she stole.

[Tarot]

Lucrece frowned at Jilitse's counters to his theory. Her late withdrawal of her criticism appeared too half-hearted to convince the master to let go of the matter. "Ah, so we have a fine mind in our midst," he scoffed, waving his upside-down hand dismissively, "pray tell me, J, how many research papers did you get published before the Valterrian? And on what journals? And were they peer-reviewed? And how many citations did they get? Since you have, oh so much experience under your belt, why don't you take that rope over there and show me how it's done?"

However, seeing the books and listening to what Jilitse had to say seemed to completely sway his mind from the incident, and hardly half a chime had passed by the time he'd all but forgotten about it. "Mmmmm…" he mumbled something unintelligible as she mentioned her misdeeds and her ultimate goals. "You are a very naughty Nuit, you know that, J? I like that." He thought about it some more. "That stuff seems a bit much for me to decipher on the spot. It'd take me weeks to write it down. I'll just show you how it's done, decode a page or two from each text, and you should be able to do the rest on your own, slowly but surely. You got the Cypheropedia too, which is a big help. Yes, yes, I'm glad you like the idea." He said that before Jilitse even had a chance to express any opinion to the contrary.

Lucrece gave a grin. "Now, regarding my payment," he began, "how about we throw a hypnotic party, babe? You and I and a couple trusted non-psychotic non-overgiven friends? Master Tzikovich down in the Philtering labs brews a lot of good stuff, if you get what I mean. There are these new Nostalgia pills, they make you feel alive for a bit. 'Tis all in your head, of course, but that doesn't make it any less good - the best of both worlds and all that stuff. Soooo, we get high, use hypnotism and do THIS and THAT and THIS and THAT in our minds," he grinned again in anticipation. "Come on, surely you don't want to miss out on THIS and THAT before you embark in that suicide mission of yours? Right? Right? Just remember, if you see any orange elephants, they aren't real, understood?" Nuits could be unwittingly creepy sometimes. This was probably one of those times. Nevertheless, it was obvious that some of the masters were into strange vices they did not normally let their apprentices into. Everyone needed a reprieve from their own eternity.

[Jilitse]

The Nuit was not about to let Lucrece have his own way. "I'm due to leave on the 65th, Master Lucrece. Time has never been so thrifty against me. That said I wish to get started as soon as possible to learn the most I can from you."

"If we could get as many things done as soon as possible, I shall take your offer." To be safe, she added, "As long as it will not deter me from what I need to do and from when I must have all things accomplished. A Nostalgia pill sounds promising," but she had better things to do than, "joining your party would be to my pleasure. But do I really need to join join, can I not just stay to watch?"

"Also, that hardly sounds like a payment. And now is not exactly an occasion to celebrate."

The counter-offer. "So, if we could get more things done if we skip the party, would that not be to both our benefit?" She suggested, "If you decipher more than a page or two from more than a text or two, then we'll both learn more. In the event that I fail, and disappear along with these books, you'll be the only one left with the knowledge, increasing your value. Adding to the chances that Qiao will give you a certain kind of nostalgia no hypnoparty can ever offer. But then, I'll try my best to do my best." Would it appease you if I succeed, "I will write about it and promise to include your name in the acknowledgment and mention your contribution a lot." She was joking, patronizing even. "I kid. Do allow me to be silly."

The twist and snap. "SERIOUSLY," And perhaps it was the most honest thing she has ever said in her entire goddamn dead life, "I am ALMOST out of my skin. Can we start NOW as two comrades teetering on the brink of discovering something of intellectual IMPORTANCE and be snap SNAP about it?"

"PETCHING get down here, PLEASE." Please, before Jilitse snaps altogether. "And help me with THIS and THIS." She pointed to her stolen books.

But, that was all in her head, none of them escaping her lips. She mumbled the lines she had practiced over and over again.

"I'm due to leave on the 65th, Master Lucrece. Time has never been so thrifty against me. That said I wish to get started as soon as possible to learn the most I can from you. Everything you can do to help. Anything I must do in exchange."

[Tarot]

Master Lucrece stared at Jilitse with such an intensity that it almost looked like his eyeballs were about to pop out of their sockets - which sometimes happened literally when the undead got too careless with their bodies. "Have you come here to drive me insane, woman?" he roared. Well, it was something between a roar and a whimper. "Ever since you stepped in here you've spouted nothing but bad logic and petty accusations. Now you are even insinuating that I make use of drugs and other illicit substances? And you are openly inviting me to some base and immoral "party"? HOW DARE YOU, apprentice? I. Shall. Not. Stand. For. This!"

He pouted at Jilitse for a long moment. "I should have known you were up to no good when I saw you walk into my room upside down like that. Normal people don't pull that kind of stunts. I have no idea why ZM likes you so much. You have way too much crazy in you for my tastes."

Lucrece extended one hand and the foremost book on the pile just flew into his hands. "So, let us get started on this, old witch. The sooner we begin, the sooner I can be liberated from this torture. Oh, ZM will hear me! That he will! He knows I have little patience for such madness. Now look carefully, foolish woman." He held the book upside down for Jilitse to read, if she could.

That was the beginning of a long, long training session in cryptology. About half the time was spent listening to Lucrece's antics and paranoia. The thing about Lucrece was that he certainly numbered among the masters in his field, but he made a horrible teacher. He would translate one page here, one page there, and then shut the tome on a whim and switch to another one. Jilitse was forced to resort to any manner of tricks to have him repeat things, which was sometimes necessary when complex tables were involved in the translation. Thankfully, he was also incredibly forgetful - he truly had no short-time memory at all - and so Jilitse could sometimes rewind the discussion by pretending it had never happened.

Nuits could keep doing things for days or even seasons on end. This did not mean they had to like it. Jilitse would remember the few days spent with Master Lucrece as the most frustrating experience in her undead existence, but she would walk out with a basic understanding of how to decompile the books - or try to, anyways.

Somehow, she would also discover that something had made its way between the folds of her clothing. It was a blue pill, thin and smooth so it could be easily ingested by a Nuit with an inactive esophagus. The scrap of paper around the pill read "Take it when you are feeling blue. We'll have our party when you get back after killing S. Good luck, you crazy babe. L."

[Jilitse]

It was best to stay silent, Jilitse thought as Lucrece began to lecture her with a high-speed lesson in Cryptology. The Nuit tried her best not to get tempted to push Lucrece across the room like a pendulum every time he slipped into his short-time memory loss, confusing her by shifting between one book and another. It was not helpful, as the Cryptographer would switch books just before he could finish translating a whole block of encrypted text. Jil doubted he was being forgetful, it was probably a ploy to hide something, or a quick excuse to pretend nothing ever happened if Qiao traced Jilitse's whereabouts to the master. Also, the Nuit somewhat had the uncanny feeling Lucrece was deliberately spiting her, using his impairment as a technique to get Jilitse to understand the knowledge she so desperately needed but leave her at a dead end, if not a good distance, to figure things out for herself.

It was somewhat annoying how she could not exactly understand his musing about the golems, the machinations were beyond Jilitse for she have not even glimpsed at some of the pages. The revelations that Lucrece opened up for her were too impossible to be true, but seeing them written down (although she couldn't read them yet) was almost divine intervention. Yes, many things were possible with Animation. She made Lucrece repeat most of the parts written by Wotch and Vidimus and Mashaen - picking out at clues about Supervisors, and whatever can constitute as a good starting point for research. It was hard to coax Lucrece into reading a lesson from start to finish, he was focused into teaching Jilitse the mathematics and algorithm in order to fish out sense from the otherwise incorrigible numbers, words, glyphs, and symbols. The research can wait, crypted information would be useless if she could not figure out the mathematics. However, if you have Lucrece teaching you Math and Logic and Cryptology... shykes it was almost like being enrolled in an unwanted subject in the Academy again. The kind of subject(s) that you didn't want to take but was mandatory that you did. It was a good thing that Jilitse was an absorbent cotton when her life depended on it.

Even so, all of it was too complex to take in easily. It didn't help that Lucrece was an upside-down pain in the ass. The desire to punch him was ever so great. Still, Jilitse kept on making him repeat basic encryption techniques - most of which, to her, were multifarious to understand within the last few days of her stay. The eagerness helped to force herself into trying to understand the fundamental methods and elementary techniques. The operative word here is to "try". Nothing is ever freely given, and knowledge is not food that can diffuse into the mind once swallowed. In fact, although Jilitse preserved Lucrece's words - all of them, lectures, taunts, crazy and all - she could only make sense of two sentences out of ten. It was, of course, an improvement. She could now fully translate an encrypted sentence without popping her eye off.

Mentally exhausted, she left the Master's room with all her books. She returned to her room where she placed everything she owned inside the small box: her heirloom golem, a few drawing tools, the books. She even found Lucrece's small parting gift. She kept it in mind, telling herself that it would be years before she ever try to take a psychoactive drug. Yes, a nefarious voice sounded in her head, keep telling yourself that.

There was still a few hours worth of waiting before she had to leave. The plan was in the waste basket now, and Jilitse was working through luck alone. The Nuit was relatively anxious at not knowing what the future was about. Killing Sagallius was far away in the distance, studying golems seemed to be a closer goal. Even if the greatest Animators were known to be in Sahova, Jilitse was quite certain that there were a lot of other masters unaccounted for. Drainira was a looming threat, and quite frankly she didn't know what to do and how to go about it. Well, then, time is of the essence and essentially, as a Nuit, Jilitse had a lot of time. She would like to believe it was so. As she removed her cloak, the strange book fell with a thud. Jil almost forgot that one. Tensely, she held out her hand to Marie Suzanne and flipped the book open on a random leaf.

There's enough time for a page or two, she thought.

[Tarot]

The adventures of Marie Suzanne

Three pages later, in a little worn corner that had escaped Jilitse's attention on her first skim-read:

"A story by Bianca Mashaen
dedicated to my Dad, even though he's always working on his magic stuff and comes home about twice a year!"

Then, the story began abruptly by introducing its main character and author-avatar.

"Marie Suzanne was the daughter of a very important wizard. She was tall, beautiful and everyone always seemed to be happy around her. Ever since she was five, Marie Suzanne could talk with animals. Caiyha had appeared in her dreams and told her that she was half-human, half-wizard and half-ancient. Marie Suzanne did not really understand why she was special yet, but she was overjoyed that she could talk with her kitty, Kit, and her doggy, Pup.

Marie Suzanne was beautiful, but she soon learned that her beauty was also a curse! For the son of the evil Grand Official in the city where she lived fell in love with her the day he first saw her. But since he was also evil and ugly like his father, Marie Suzanne did not love him back, and the son grew angry and mad. He tried to kidnap Marie Suzanne while her father was away, making a great weapon of peace that was to make everyone happy. And then, Marie Suzanne left home with Kit and Pup so her family would not have to suffer at the hands of the evil man.

On the way to the next city, a brigand ambushed Marie Suzanne and captured her in his net. The evil son had paid him to kidnap her and bring her to him! But upon seeing Marie Suzanne cry, the brigand was reminded of his own daughter whom he had long since abandoned. The big man found himself tearing up at the thought, saw the evil in his ways, and freed Marie Suzanne, swearing that he would forever walk the path of justice from that moment on and would become someone she could be proud of. Marie Suzanne wanted to know the man's name, and he answered, 'Qiao'. Then Marie Suzanne laughed and said: 'From now on you are Qiao the noble brigand!'"


There was a little handwritten footnote here, reading - "Note to self: stop talking about work at home." The novel continued on the same vein, and suffice to say it did not get any better. If anything, Marie Suzanne learned new abilities and gained new powers at such a rate that would put Drainira to shame. However, there were also strange series of numbers at the bottom of certain pages. Curiously enough, that was exactly one of the first patterns Lucrece had taught Jilitse how to decipher. And so, armed with patience, some ink and paper, the Nuit shifted symbol into letter, letter into number and back into letter, until she could make out a sentence here and there.

"Fourth supervisor mobile proof-of-concept. How does an extreme intelligence cope without physical body? Heard they pin geese to the ground to fatten them so the liver tastes better. Wonder if supervisors feel the same. Static design inhuman: treat someone like a beast and expect it to become a beast. But full human-like mobility is highly dangerous; global scale takeover probable in the presence of any logic oversight. This limited proof-of-concept should be harmless. Anticipating heavy opposition to mobility - will fall back to static design should Sag. and all the politicians give me too much heat. Guy is not softening with age."

Suddenly, the book shut itself close and stood on its bottom corners, alerted. There were faint footsteps coming from the corridor outside Jilitse's quarters. And a voice, slowly approaching and mockingly sweet, called out to her.

"Jiliiiiitseeee... got a moment for meee?"

And right there and right then, Jil knew that Qiao had ordered her death. For he had unleashed Master Aelobius on her.

[Jilitse]

Or maybe the Master Voider just wanted to visit her. You can never be sure, Jilitse tried to reason with herself. She closed Marie Suzanne, for she found everything written in it harder to understand than Lucrece's words. She dropped the box onto the small cart she had prepared for her escape. One, two, three. She went out of her room, cart in tow. Facing Aelobius triggered fear in her, the kind of self-preserving instinct that told her she was gonna die. She had been focusing all her energy since last Winter on this journey, and there was no way, no way - she slowly sank into helplessness - that she'll be able to leave the island alive.

But she faced him, the other Nuit's question was left unanswered. She searched his face briefly, she knew full well that Qiao must have found a way to figure out everything she had been up to. It bothered Jilitse more than she had to admit. Jil faced him, clean and direct, "I'm heading to Zeltiva." She did not want to give the Voider a chance to become imperious. She tried to walk away from him, stepping backwards, her eyes never quite leaving his. As if she did not trust the Master enough to turn her back against him? Who in their right mind would? The smallest flicker of movement and Jilitse would sway as if to evade an invisible arrow thrown at her. It was ineffective of course, for if Aelobius decided to bring out a portal big enough to swallow her, she would be nothing but a particle sucked into the depths of the Void. She would avoid that, by all means. Knowing the Voider, whom she have had the honor to not have as a professor way back in her Academy days, he would at least toy with her. There was no happiness to be gained from quickly eradicating a threat. Part of her contemplated that thought, thinking that slipping into the Void was actually a better exchange than... than whatever vicious thought Qiao had for her.

A little faster now. The cart did not help her to move away at a better pace. Some ichor sloshed out of her mouth. She would not be able to derail Aelobius' challenges. How could she steer clear away from him? "I must leave now, Master Aelobius." Jilitse said, her face stoic. "It is urgent, I shall return as soon as I can." Will her life be spared with these petty words? Of course not. There was a reason golems did not exist in post-Valterrian Mizahar. It was because most Animators had nothing to defend themselves with in the face of danger. What did Jilitse have? A box full of stolen books. She listened to any insult he might throw at her, nodding but never retorting. Jil was the lesser Nuit in this confrontation, but she was tenacious enough to be resilient and resistant against the Voider. But how? Since when did she become an expert on surviving? She should have prepared better than she thought she would.

Whatever happens, as she had decided last season, she will create her own life. She was no longer bound to the Citadel as an apprentice. Of course, a Nuit being involved in somebody else's affairs was unheard of, and Jilitse knew from the way that Aelobius looked at her that he might be challenging her to tell him something he didn't know. Could he even persuade this man to let her leave? Could he even persuade this man to let her live?

"I have an idea." Well, not really. "I have a story to tell you."

She would probably figure out how fast she could run in the next few chimes.

OOCScheherazade had 1001 nights, it's worth a try.