“Hold up a tick, Loki!” Orpheus called, huffing as he tried to catch up with the sprite striding out of the castle, “I must say, old boy, I'm curious. What's an immortal like you in such a hurry about?”
Loki's mouth bent into a smirk. “I'm only immortal as long as I'm alive. It's the time of century when the faerie blood lust is up. Some of them are bound to attempt coordinating their assassination attempts on me, that is, unless I start sowing suspicions among allies now. Otherwise, I'll have to kill all those would be assassins at once, and mass pest control is tedious.”
“Ah, well then. Until the ball! Good day,” Orpheus declared, but Loki had already shifted into hawk form and was soaring off into a cloudless sky. Orpheus was about to head off to his van, which had gained a number of dents despite Fisher's driving lessons when he heard Aldrich's booming voice.
“Farley, come back for a moment!”
“What's this then? Here to berate me about procrastination and what not?”
“Would you just get inside? This isn't about you, and I don't want to explain myself more than once.” As relatively calm as the meeting had been, Aldrich still had a headache building behind his temples.
They returned to the main hall, where the society heads, apart from Eris and Loki, had gathered once more. “Are we going to the Supreme Wizard's study then?” Orpheus inquired.
“This won't take that long,” Aldrich explained, “Fifi, if you have a phone on you, could you turn it on?”
Seconds after Fifi hit the power button, her phone started to buzz. “I've got a text from my mom? She never -” her palm met her face before she could even finish her sentence. Without removing her hand from her forehead, she held the phone out to Aldrich, who read aloud.
“'Yo dawg. Heard you liked meetings, so I put a streamer in your phone so you can tell me wtf is going on while you're told wtf is going on.'
“Are you listening right now?” Aldrich asked the phone. It buzzed in response.
“'I'm all microphones.' Good, then I can begin. I am worried about the faeries behavior.”
Buzz “'What are you complaining about? You aren't the ones who got to have your neural network synced up to a computer as it's butchered.'”
“What do you mean, Arch Chancellor?” Fifi piped.
“I believe I know what he means,” inserted the Supreme Wizard, “he is referring to Loki and Eris's familiarity with one another.”
“Come to think of it,” Orpheus pondered, “they were a bit chummier than usual. In fact, did Loki ever threaten to claw out Eris's throat?”
“No,” Aldrich stated, “and what is more, no matter how far I read into her comments, I couldn't find a single insult in what Eris said about him.”
“How peculiar...”
“I'm sorry, but, er, why is that so strange?” Fifi asked.
Buzz “'Nymphs and sprites are like cats and dogs. You should know-'” Aldrich decided not to finish reading the sentence. “At any rate, the streamer is correct. When a nymph and a sprite get along, something is afoot, and given their histories, a plan hatched by Loki and Eris has a 99% chance of ending in war. I don't like those odds, and as a necromancer, it is my duty to prevent such reckless death.”
“Well, then, Mr. Necromancer, just what the dickens do you propose we do about it, hmm?”
“For now, I think it would be prudent to keep our eyes, ears, and, er, microphones open. We need to keep in regular communication on what we've seen. This may not be anything. This may be some strange faerie mating ritual for all I know, but caution never hurt anyone.”
“I could disagree with you there, but in this case, you may have a point,” Orpheus conceded, “I'll be sure to have someone else write you a letter every day.”
“Letters are not quite quick or secure enough for such a purpose,” the Supreme Wizard commented.
“Agreed,” said Orpheus.
Buz.
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