Page 63 of I Ran Away to Evil #3
You Are in Fate’s Story
Julian
“Ah, perfect, you’re back,” his mother greeted them as Julian escorted Gerda, arm in arm, into another private room just off of the main ballroom. The music of the masquerade could be heard a short distance away, the dancing and merriment in full swing and undisturbed by their absence.
“Mother.”
Gerda asked. “You called for us, Your Grace?”
“I did.” His mother was standing in the middle of the room, all of the furniture pushed aside. She was interacting with her abilities, her hands up in the air and her eyes darting back and forth at an unseen interface while magic swirled around her. “I trust you are both well?”
“Yes, no need to worry,” Julian reassured her, ignoring the fact that he had been unalive less than half an hour ago. It wasn’t his first Revive potion, so it didn’t faze him much.
“I always worry, son.” Her simple honesty left him uncomfortable. She followed it up with, “But perhaps less so now that you have Miss Gerda at your side.”
“It isn’t—” Julian started.
“He doesn’t—” Gerda said at the same time.
The two of them paused and then disentangled themselves.
“I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of trouble since you left,” Calisto spoke, her eyes never leaving her notification tabs. “Our Keeper of Fate took a walk tonight.”
“From your dimensional dungeon? How?” Gerda didn’t seem surprised, merely intrigued.
Julian shot her a look. For the barest second, he suspected her of knowing this was going to happen.
She’d already made it clear that she wasn’t going to share all of the details of her foretellings …
but his heart told him that the troll wouldn’t have let the celestial escape if she could prevent it … and she would have told him.
“Someone let her out.” Calisto pinched her thumb and index finger together then opened them wide in quick succession three times on her interface.
Julian pulled the key out of his storage.
Gerda noticed and asked, “Is there more than one key?”
“I have one,” Calisto replied. “And Knight Commander Karl. He’s the one who let me know that she’d escaped.”
Karl was an honorable, trustworthy half elf in charge of the Coral Mare Knights, but Julian knew the full weight of Alice’s powers. “Did he let her out himself?”
“No,” Calisto replied simply. “An invisible mage bypassed the guard and cut a hole into the subspace with a specialized Void power. Miss Alice walked out, and the pair teleported away.”
“Where?” Julian asked, knowing that the teleport restrictions were especially layered in that area of the coral palace.
“She went to the stairwell lobby, then appeared in the servants’ hall, then I’m assuming into a private room, and then to the east wing sky bridge, the herb garden, the wall, and then into the city,” his mother explained, unhappy. “It’s the how that frustrates me.”
“The ball is crawling with rogues; any one of them could have let her go,” Gerda offered.
“Few are so powerful that they can break into a dimensional space—let alone my dimensional space,” Calisto said. For the first time, her eyes flickered from her task, briefly landing on his bridge troll. “It’s fortunate that you were accounted for all evening, Miss Gerda.”
“It is.” Gerda nodded, unintimidated.
“We have a few people we are investigating.” Calisto sighed as she closed her character sheets, waving them away with a soft gesture of her hand.
She looked calm and collected, but his mother’s voice betrayed her aggravation.
“Which is just lovely , as I now have until tomorrow to figure out the culprit and tell the Continental Council how I lost her.”
Julian asked after his first suspect. “Did Master Thomas let her out?”
“It couldn’t be Master Thomas,” Gerda interjected.
“Why not? I haven’t seen him all night.” Which meant she couldn’t have seen him either.
“Thomas is … um, busy. With important magical matters,” Gerda sidestepped the question. This after he’d just convinced himself she wasn’t hiding anything important.
“I’ll need more than that,” Julian demanded, his voice harsher than he wanted it to be. Gerda could turn on him in an instant for overstepping, and the thought twisted a knot in his stomach.
Her eyes snapped to his, and he regretted it. She looked like she was trying to hide her frustration with him and failing. To his surprise, she grumbled a response.
“If you must know, he’s off saving Valaria. Or preparing to, at least.”
“Valaria needs saving … and you trust Master Thomas to save it?” He couldn’t believe that. The mage was insufferable.
“Valaria always needs saving.” Gerda scoffed.
“From pirate attacks to dungeon breaks to political uprisings … Why do you think I started Madame Potts’s Casts?
My skills let me know who’s the best for the job, and I poke them—which is why I’m leaving the world-ending disasters to the mage.
Unless you know a better master-elemental, high-tier magic-circle user? ”
“Miss Gerda, I believed you when you told us yesterday that interfering with Master Thomas would have dire consequences for my home and my son,” Calisto spoke quietly; they both turned to face her.
“But you cannot tell us that there will be a continental catastrophe and expect me not to inform the Continental Council.”
The bridge troll’s shoulders tensed. “That is why I didn’t want to say anything.”
“Why did you?” The words escaped him.
She looked at him with exasperation. “Because you asked.”
That hit him hard, and he had to look away for a second to calm the warring feelings inside.
His mother spoke firmly. “I am speaking to you with all due respect and consideration when I ask you, Miss Gerda, as the grand duchess of North Sumbria and a representative of the Continental Council tasked with keeping safe and secure all of Valaria—what is your official report on Master Thomas and his current course of action?”
“ Master Thomas must be left alone to complete his current work, or a great calamity will befall Valaria ,” Gerda stated firmly, invoking her fortune-telling Madame Potts’s voice.
She added in her normal voice, “He really didn’t do well with others in his space or interfering with his work—even when that interference was trying to help .
That route had a bad ending in season one. Has your Mistborn Wand been stolen?”
Julian looked to his mother for the answer. Calisto frowned. “Was that young Master Thomas?”
“See, you’ve already helped him.” Gerda tried to make light of the theft. “If he managed to steal Mistborn without Henrietta’s help, he’s well on his way to completing his master spell circle, and we really should just leave him alone.”
“Until his task is complete, you say?” His mother smiled in such a way that made Julian want to run. He didn’t, though, of course; he wasn’t ten years old anymore. “And then there is nothing stopping me from having a long, polite chat with the young man?”
“Yes,” Gerda confirmed.
“Someone should inform the mage about what is expected of him as a standing member of the Continental Council. Thoroughly.”
“Can you chastise him after Feliwyn wakes up?” Gerda asked.
His mother considered the troll before nodding. “I can.”
“Thank you.” Miss Gerda smiled softly. “By then, everything should be complete. I haven’t been paying much attention to Servalt since the rains were going strong, but that is as it should be; I hate walking in the rain.”
Julian asked after something she’d said earlier. “Are your visions of the future also limited to the seasons of the year?”
“Sort of,” the troll replied. “I am shown things about certain people and upcoming world-changing events. Since I’m not in the storyline myself, I can try to force a different path.”
“But you are in Fate’s story,” Julian countered. Gerda looked at him as he tapped a finger to his chest. “You foretold that I would be shot—and I was, redirecting the arrow from your own heart.”
Gerda’s casual demeanor cracked, her eyes locking on his chest in uncertainty and confusion. And a touch of fear. Her hands flinched, and then she firmly fisted them in her skirts.
“I guess I went too far this time …”
Julian felt a twist in his stomach. She’d been outed as Madame Potts while helping his family, and that was going to change everything for the troll. It might be too late to go back now, but he would be here to assist her in any way he could.
He told himself it was because he still owed Gerda … but he knew it was just an excuse.
And Julian wanted any excuse.