>>5778001You stared at the note for a while. The Mirror Maze… One of the Initiates’ Village tourist traps. Elves and fairy creatures, like the Beastmen more common to the East and South or the fabled True Fey of the deep and hidden places, were skilled illusionists in their own ways. But the Race of Man… Well, not so much. The Mirror Maze was really more of a little tent, propped up with plywood walls and filled with mundane mirrors given only the slimmest coating of baffling enchantment; the rest was all distortion of the material itself. It could make a person appear slim and tall, squat and fat, green as a goblin or black as a Southman, or even blue with spots!
It had also been a popular meeting place for students, primarily for two reasons… But neither seemed right, not where you and Henzler were concerned. And why THEN? You had scarcely spoken to the girl for a year. What did she WANT?
Well, there was only one way to find out. You WOULD find out, too. You were no coward, and you were curious, and that’s all it took to make up your mind. You tucked the letter in its envelope, the envelope in your robe’s pocket, and headed to class.
The final day of the school-week went by slowly. You shared a few classes with Henzler, as usual, though fewer than in years prior. You could not help but continually glance her way, as if you could catch a glimpse of her intentions by peering into the back of her head. Once or twice you caught her doing much the same, in your direction. The exchange did not go unnoticed.
“So,” Pearce asked after a time, “what's going on with you and Henzler?”
“What?” you asked.
He stared you down, and you broke eye contact first. You did not even drag it out; steady, reliable Logan Pearce did NOT lose staring contests. You contemplated whether to tell him—ask his advice, maybe even bring him to be a lookout or spotter, but…
“Nothing,” you said. “It was nothing. But I may have to skip on shopping that weekend.”
“On a totally unrelated note, of course,” he said, deadpan, then shrugged when you made no reply.
“Fine then, keep your secrets,” he said. “Just don’t forget we’re doing that cat-to-rat impulse transplant next week. Make sure you’re good and ready—I’ve heard how feisty the bloody rat gets after you stick it with the spitting-mad cat-blood. Though, I guess I would be too, if someone had mixed me up with some big fellow I hated, and also I was going to die in a few hours.”
“I’ll make sure to have <Calm> prepared,” you murmured.
You were still a little perturbed even after all this time at how casually the humans disposed of their urban animal experimentees, but such (you were told) was the cost of medical advancement, and necessary to prevent contamination of wild and feral genepools with unstable chimeras. At any rate, all the while, your eyes and your focus were still on Izirina Henzler.
