Fifth Moon, Second Sun Day

  Aida was deep into the process of making poison pellets. It was like making sausages: she would pipe the poison mix into the ant’s intestines, twist it, heal the tissue closed, and then snip it off and drop it into a crate lined with more ant intestines so that it could be safely transported to Bokar’s clinic in Burston City.

  Therefore, it took a few seconds for her to realize there was someone standing in front of her.

  “Hello, Healer Vega. How can I help you?” Aida continued twisting and snipping, the poison flowing upwards through the upside-down glass funnel she had placed over the glass cauldron she used to brew the poison.

  “It’s been a while since I returned to Maglica, so I just thought I’d take a tour of the new facilities the school has added in my absence. I see you’ve been keeping yourself occupied.” Vega bent over to peer into the glass cauldron, putting her head directly over the crate that carried the completed poison pellets.

  “Just doing my part. If you don’t mind, can you please step back. You’re disrupting my workflow.” Aida nudged Vega’s head aside with the back of her hand and dropped the pellets she had been collecting in her hand into the crate.

  Feeling Vega’s displeasure simmer at having been touched, Aida sighed internally. There was no one else in the greenhouse, and she didn’t sense any other people wandering around outside to feasibly rescue her from Vega’s ire.

  “Is there something I can help you with, Healer Vega?” Aida asked politely. “If not, I really need to get back to work. Crafting poison pellets requires immense focus.”

  Vega glared at Aida, her normally perfect, albeit menacing, smile curled down in a ugly scowl. She clearly felt comfortable showing her real feelings when Aida was the only other person in the room.

  “Yes, of course. You can help me—“ Aida didn’t like the mocking tone Vega infused the phrase with “—by giving me the respect I deserve.”

  Aida pressed her lips together as she carefully snipped off another completed pellet. At least she’s finally being honest.

  “I beg your pardon, but I haven’t done anything to disrespect you the whole time you’re here. In fact,” Aida raised her voice as Teena Vega attempted to cut her off, her voice growing louder as the other young woman insisted on getting her words out as well. “You’re the one who’s been going out of her way to disrespect me whenever you get a chance.”

  “—ignore me, think you can backtalk—“

  Aida released the poison she had been holding in the glass contraption, the liquid sloshing and hissing as it splashed against the walls of the cauldron. She dropped the ant stomach she had been holding, letting it flop against the side of the funnel, and whipped her protective gloves off of her hand before throwing it down on the low table top beside her. She turned to Vega with her fists on her hips.

  “Okay, fine. Let’s have it. Get it all out at once.”

  Vega stared at her, her pale cheeks splotching. She was literally trembling with rage, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Come on, I stopped my work so I could give you the undivided attention you were demanding of me,” Aida said, annoyed. “What do you want?”

  “You think you’re better than me, do you?” Vega whispered, her pupils dilating.

  “Honestly, no,” Aida snapped. “I don’t think about you in my day-to-day, because I’m focused on doing the work assigned to me and improving myself. And we’re literally doing different things, so no. What reason would I have for comparing what I do to what you do?”

  “Liar!” Vega snapped, throwing her hand out and shattering the glass cauldron with a single swipe. Without thinking, Aida caught all the droplets of the poison with her mana, suspending them in the air so they didn’t splatter on her.

  Carefully collecting the poisonous liquid into one giant globule, Aida funneled the substance into a second glass cauldron that had been drying out in the corner. Stoppering the cauldron with a glass stopper, Aida bent down and began picking up the large shards of glass on the ground with shaking hands, placing them into another sack lined with ant intestines before tying it securely with a cord. She moved slowly: partly to ensure she didn’t hurt herself on the shards; mostly to reign in the blood rushing through her head.

  She looked up at Vega when she was finally done, triumph gleaming in the smug woman’s golden eyes.

  With the sack in one hand, and her wand held loosely in her other hand, Aida gave Vega a hard stare. When Aida didn’t blink, the light in Vega’s eyes seemed to diminish slightly, though she kept her victorious smile.

  “Since you insist on believing that you occupy my thoughts all day, every day, there’s clearly nothing I can do to change your mind. However, I will kindly ask you to leave now, because I have to clean up the mess that you created, and clearly you can’t be trusted not to let your irrational pettiness get in the way of productive work.” Aida kept her voice soft, trying to maintain a veneer of civility; but Vega seemed to interpret the shakiness in her voice as weakness, as her smile broadened and the gleam returned to her eyes.

  “Is that so?” Vega asked mockingly. Her blonde bangs began to flutter around her face as she gathered her mana about her. “You think you are a productive member of society?”

  This is silly, was Aida’s only thought as she felt Vega’s mana go for her face - the equivalent of a slap. Except the woman telegraphed her move so obviously - and honestly, the amount of power behind it was so weak - that Aida easily blasted through the woman’s own mana with her own, sending golden hair flying across the greenhouse.

  Vega flew through the canvas flaps of the greenhouse exit, disappearing as the flaps settled back into place. Aida checked to make sure she didn’t miss any major glass shards on the ground, before heading towards the exit.

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  It was gratifying, knowing that she had enough power to defend herself. But she also hoped Vega would have taken the opportunity to escape, and not come back for another confrontation - because this was a seriously awkward and unexpected outcome. How would she explain to staff or Affiliates what happened? Would they believe her if she said Vega tried to attack Aida first?

  Kuri would believe me. She saw how Vega treated me early on, Aida thought bleakly as she trudged through the door. She turned around to look back up at the rest of the greenhouse structure.

  Other than the canvas flaps, the rest of the building was made out of thick glass panels and solid beams of wood. Fortunately, Vega had been standing directly in the middle of the greenhouse path, so her trajectory from Aida’s blast had sent her neatly outside without damaging the rest of the building. At least I don’t have to ask for any other repairs.

  “Is everything okay?” Lily called, jogging over with Vanita. Her eyes were wide as she glanced nervously over her shoulder at Vega, who had gotten to her feet and was shaking with rage. Behind her were a number of students who had come from around the Affiliates’ building, having heard Vega’s cry and felt her vengeful mana ripple through the air.

  “Not really,” Aida said stoically, glaring past Lily at Vega. She raised her voice so everyone else could hear. “Healer Vega broke my glass cauldron, so I’m going to the Earth students so they can repair it.”

  “You’re a liar!” Vega shouted, capturing all the students’ attention.

  “Which bit?” Aida countered loudly. She lifted her sack. “The part where you broke my cauldron and funnel, or the part where I’m going to ask the Earth students to repair these pieces of high-precision equipment?”

  Several groans echoed among the crowd, cutting through Vega’s increasingly hysterical justifications. The majority of the students witnessing this standoff were Earth students working the furnaces, so they were all familiar with Aida’s - and by extension, Bokar’s - exacting standards for the glass.

  Kelvin Clay, the second-year Earth student who was the de facto leader of the glass makers, jogged up to Aida, taking the sack from her fingers.

  “Have these pieces been cleaned?” Kelvin asked, opening the sack.

  “Not yet,” Aida said grumpily. “There are still some smaller pieces I couldn’t pick up in the warm room. I was hoping I could get one of you guys to help me collect the rest.”

  “Got it,” Kelvin said, waving over one of his classmates. “Trevor will help you gather the rest. I’ll get these big pieces cleaned up so we can start melting it all down.”

  “But we still haven’t finished Luk’s vials,” a girl who had drifted over with Trevor protested.

  “We’re not going to finish them today, anyway,” Kelvin said, handing the sack to the girl. “But if we hurry we might be able to get Aida’s cauldron done so she can get back to work. Do you need anything else, Aida?”

  “No, that’s it. Thanks Kelvin, I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. See you in a bit.” Kelvin nodded reassuringly at Aida as he hurried after the girl. Aida turned toward the greenhouse, with Lily and Vanita trailing after her.

  After a few moments, Trevor departed with the last remaining pieces of glass, hustling back to the furnaces. Vanita had helped Trevor and Aida pick the shards out of the earth while Lily anxiously checked the plants to make sure they didn’t absorb any “negative mana.”

  “You really showed Vega,” Lily observed when the flap finally snapped closed.

  “What do you mean?” Aida asked warily, sitting on a bench and rinsing out the ant intestine that had fallen onto the floor in the ruckus.

  “She seemed very destabilized when she saw all of the students deferring to you,” Vanita said quietly, plumping up the earth around some of Lily’s herbs. “What happened?”

  Aida groaned. “That woman just came in and started picking a fight.” She gestured towards the corner where the poison was sitting. “She scattered the poison and broke my funnel. It’s a good thing I’ve already used up a lot of the brew, because if it had been a full batch it wouldn’t fit in that cauldron.”

  “Are you going to report her to the teachers?” Lily asked. Aida shrugged.

  “I’ll let Kozu know, but I don’t know what they’re going to do about her. It’s not like they have any control over the Affiliates’ actions.” Aida wrung out the ant intestine, hanging it on a rack so it could dry overnight. She sighed. “I guess I’ll go see how the Earths are doing.”

  The three girls exited the greenhouse, tying the canvas flaps securely closed behind them. Aida wondered if the physical deterrent would be enough to dissuade Healer Vega from trying to sabotage her work, but was too tired to care at this point. At least I’ll have witnesses to back me up if she decides to do something stupid.

  When they finally arrived at the second-year Earth students’ workstations, they found Myk and Pritchard there, helping with the glass-making process. The boys seemed to have developed a good rapport with the second-years, taking the ribbing from the younger students good-naturedly.

  “Stop, stop, stop! You need to pull the inclusion out of the glass!” the girl Kelvin had given the bag of broken glass to said peevishly. She smacked Pritchard’s shoulder, making him wince as Myk snickered. “Is this seriously the best you can do, with all your boasting about your Earth control?”

  “I’m just unfamiliar with the materials, that’s all,” Pritchard wheedled. “I’ve got it now.”

  “And you!” The girl whirled on Myk, making him sit up straight as the boys around him melted backwards, grinning. “Hold the flame steady! Your inconsistent fire is making it difficult for Pritchard to separate the unwanted compound!”

  “Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am,” Myk said resolutely, turning all his attention to the furnace.

  “Lena’s better at the technique,” Kelvin confided to Aida quietly. He had crept up to her while she and the other girls watched Lena scold Pritchard and Myk with amusement. “I take over when she needs a break, but otherwise I just handle the logistics.”

  “It’s good to see Pritchard and Myk get along with your class,” Aida said, smiling. He nodded.

  “Yeah, if it weren’t for them, we might not be able to finish fixing your equipment until curfew. It’s just the funnel and cauldron, right?”

  “Yes, the funnel is most important. I still have some of the mixture left, I just need the funnel to pour the mixture into the pellet. If you can get the funnel fixed tonight, I can get the cauldron later this cycle.”

  “Okay, sounds good.” Kelvin rubbed his eyes. His voice took on a grumbling tone. “Why did Healer Vega break your stuff, though? Making more work for all of us…”

  “She got sent back to school in disgrace,” Myk said shrewdly. All the chatter around their furnace ceased as everyone approached Myk. Even Lena quieted, pointing her wand at the mass of molten glass to help Pritchard separate the impurities so Myk could speak. Myk looked around importantly, nodding knowingly. “Word is, she can’t handle the workload at Fortune Favors. They couldn’t put off taking in new patients, with all the other clinics in town doing their part to keep the fighters healthy. So she had to take on more patients than she was used to, and apparently she let the stress of it all get to her. The Fortune Favors Head Healer told her to come back to Maglica and at least take care of the Affiliate responsibilities.”

  “Oh, is that what the ruckus was about?” Pritchard asked innocently. “I heard from a family friend that there was a big argument with the Head Healer, but didn’t realize Teena Vega was involved.”

  “That’s so odd, though,” Trevor piped up. “Isn’t she one of the best healers in the clinic?”

  “I mean, maybe on paper she is,” Lena chimed in. “But one of my cousins said she’s fake. She only pretends to be a caring Healer when the patient is from an influential family, or when she’s under scrutiny.” She scoffed, before adding to Pritchard, “It’s good now. I’ll take over.”

  “Funnel!” Kelvin reminded Lena. She nodded, the furnace casting a glow over the intense concentration on her face. Slowly, the molten glass bled outwards, shaping a small cone. As Lena worked, the other students continued gossiping about Healer Vega while Aida listened in astonishment.

  “So, I take it that Healer Vega’s reputation isn’t as pristine as she’d like us to believe,” Lily said quietly to Aida and Vanita, a vicious smile on her cherubic features. Vanita shook her head disapprovingly, with a ‘tsk tsk’ demeanor.

  “It was only a matter of time until the truth came out.”