“An unexpected discovery?” Viktor asked. “What’s it?”

  Alycia didn’t reply right away, her lips curling into a smile. She was enjoying this, clearly, the little game she was pying. She wanted to make him wait on purpose, drawing out the moment just to see his reaction. And of course, he was not going to give her the satisfaction. He stared back at her, unblinking, with a neutral expression. Eventually, she broke the silence.

  “Have you ever wondered what would happen if you broke a gem in half?”

  Breaking the gems? That had never crossed his mind. After all, why would he want to destroy something he could actually use?

  “No. What will happen? From the way you’re acting, I take it they don’t just stop functioning, right? So... you end up with two smaller gems to cast spells with or what?”

  “No. Technically, only the bigger fragment can be used to cast spells.”

  Technically? Viktor frowned. “So the smaller one is useless?”

  Alycia’s grin stretched wider, as if she had been holding back a secret for far too long. “If you hold the small shard and try to cast the spell...” She paused for dramatic effect, eyes brimming with excitement. “It’ll be cast at the location of the big shard. No matter the distance.”

  “What?”

  “Well, strictly speaking, the distance is not unlimited. But it’s long enough. For example, you can stay in your house and start a fire here.”

  That’s ridiculous. He stared at Alycia. If what she cimed was true, it would open up a world of possibilities. Traps, for example. Yes, that was the most obvious application. He could break a few gems, hide the rger pieces throughout his dungeon, and use the smaller ones to activate them from the safety of his Core Room. A fire trap to burn unsuspecting adventurers to a crisp, or a wind trap to hurl them into a pit full of spikes. The potential was endless.

  It was hard to believe that no one else had discovered this detail about the gems until now. But to be fair, it wasn’t like people had access to Celeste and got the convenient description that told them exactly what the Reliquary did. Normally, when one was hauled out from a dungeon, they had to find out how it worked the good old-fashioned way through trial and error.

  “Have you made your findings known to the public? What was the reaction?”

  “I’ve reported to the Arstenian military, of course. Even gave them a live demonstration. They were enthusiastic at first, but then... they decided that it was of no practical use and dismissed it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because the triggerstone and the powerstone must work as a pair. Oh, that’s what I call them,” Alycia expined. “The triggerstone is the smaller half, the one you use to activate the spell. And the powerstone is the bigger half, the one that actually casts it.”

  Viktor nodded, prompting her to continue.

  “You have to remember which triggerstone goes with which powerstone. And it can be tricky to keep track when there are a lot of pairs. The higher-ups said that sometimes the soldiers wanted to activate a powerstone, but they couldn’t figure out which one was the corresponding trigger.”

  Fair point, Viktor thought. If he ever used these to set traps, he would have to bel them clearly to avoid activating the wrong ones. Also, he needed to keep the stones as far away from those gremlins as possible.

  Now he could see why the Arstenians had been reluctant to implement this. While the stones indeed had potential, they also introduced a lot of complexity. It was hard to scale it up for use by an army. Keeping track of pairs, organizing the stones, and ensuring they were used correctly—those were management nightmares. One mispced triggerstone, one moment of confusion, and suddenly they had a fireball in the wrong pce. A disaster waiting to happen, honestly.

  Also, the whole point of creating the pseudo-mages in the first pce was to keep things simple, cheap, and expendable. They took ordinary soldiers, gave them reliable tools, trained them well, then let numbers do the rest. If they had wanted something fancy and complicated, they could have just hired normal mages.

  “But that didn’t stop you from using this discovery yourself, right?” Viktor gnced at the rotator Alycia held in her hand. “I see it now. The triggerstones inside your gauntlets and the powerstones inside the rotators. That’s how you control your constructs.”

  She smiled, clearly pleased that he had pieced it together. “Exactly. They’re all fragments of the wind gems. Through the triggerstones embedded in my gauntlet, I can adjust the speed of each and every rotator, and that gives me full control over how my birds move.”

  “But...” Viktor frowned. “There are a lot of rotators inside one bird, and you control every single one of them manually? In fact, you control two birds at the same time.” He stared at her. “Are you sure you’re not some kind of wizard?”

  The woman shrugged. “It’s not that hard. Just requires a lot of practice. Took me two years, though.”

  Viktor could imagine why the Arstenian military wasn’t thrilled with the idea. Two years was an absurd amount of time, enough to train a soldier to acquire a lot of useful skills, and certainly shouldn’t be wasted on something like learning how to py with toy birds.

  His gaze returned to the table, his fingers brushing over the various items id out before him. He picked up one round object, examining its weight and texture in his palm.

  “Be careful,” Alycia said. “It’s a firebomb. But... well, it only explodes when I choose to detonate.”

  In an instant, he connected the dots. He had figured out why this explosive didn’t need a fuse and how it could be used underwater.

  “It’s the same with the birds, right? The bck powder is packed inside a sealed case that shields it from water, along with a powerstone that could create fire. Then, you use the corresponding triggerstone to make it explode.”

  And it works in any weather.

  “Exactly.” The woman chuckled, gazing at him. “You’re very smart, you know? Honestly, I can hardly believe that you’re just twelve. Sometimes I feel like you’re an adult living in a kid’s body.”

  Well, about that...

  Viktor rubbed his chin, deep in thought, as he turned the firebomb over in his hand. Then, he furrowed his brow in realization. “Wait. To use this, you throw it at the enemy, and then you make it explode. But you have to be damn sure to activate the right trigger, right? Otherwise, you might blow yourself up by detonating the wrong bomb.”

  Alycia snorted. “You’re saying the exact same thing that snobby captain of mine has said. That idiot. I’ve clearly marked the bomb and its detonator. The ones in the same pair have the same symbol. You’d have to be blind to screw that up.”

  “Your captain?”

  “My immediate superior in the army.”

  “You were in the army?” Viktor asked, staring in disbelief at the young woman. It was hard to imagine her standing in the ranks and files, marching in formation with the other soldiers. With those two fluffy pigtails, no less.

  Alycia nodded. “I used to be one of those pseudo-mages. Served in their corps for a short while.”

  “Why did you enlist? You don’t exactly strike me as the type who likes being told what to do.”

  “They had a lot of toys I couldn’t get anywhere else. And I wanted those toys.”

  “Fair enough. Then why did you quit?”

  “Dishonorably discharged, actually,” the woman said nonchantly, almost as if she were discussing the weather. “They kicked me out after I blew up a couple of warehouses.”

  Perhaps he should start treating this pce like Kazyk’s workshop. Avoid at all costs. In fact, he was sure that Alycia and the gremlin would get along extremely well if they ever met.

  “I’m surprised that they didn’t lock you up.”

  “Well, Tyra and Lord Manfred came to my rescue. He had to leverage his family connections and toss in a fair bit of coin to get me out of that mess. After that, I joined his party.”

  And with that, you became indebted to him, Viktor thought. He doubted that Manfred had the most noble intentions when he saved her. The man probably wouldn’t have lifted a finger if she hadn’t been so attractive. Oh well, whatever. Not that any of it mattered now anyway.

  “Your party didn’t mind having someone who had blown up military property? They had no problems whatsoever with your bombs? After all, if you had messed up, you wouldn’t have been the only one getting killed by the explosion.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell them how they work.”

  Of course. How else could she have gotten away with it?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Alycia said. “As I told you, I’ve marked the bombs and the detonators. Like that one, the one you’re holding. It has a star symbol carved on its surface, doesn’t it? There...” She turned, pointing at an item on the table. “That one has the same symbol. That is the detonator.”

  Viktor looked at the object. It was bck, rectangur, roughly the size of his finger. At its center, a star symbol etched into the surface, just like she said. The corresponding triggerstone was probably encased inside.

  It seemed he had learned everything he needed to know. For now, at least. Once in a while, he might return here to see if she had any new inventions. Otherwise, he would keep as far away as possible from this shop.

  “I have to go,” Viktor said, carefully putting the firebomb back on the table. “I need to go home and make lunch for my sister.”

  “You’ll bring it to the Guild at noon, right?” Alycia asked, eyeing him with a mischievous look. “Then make one portion for me as well, if you don’t mind?”

  How shameless. She should have learned some manners from Rhea, or Jeanne.

  “Didn’t you say you could cook for yourself?”

  “I will.” She grinned even wider. “From tomorrow.”

  Well, he always made a bit more than needed anyway. “Fine, but only for today,” he said over his shoulder, walking out of the yet-to-be-opened shop.

  A chilly breeze swept past him as soon as he stepped outside, rustling the dust along the silent street. It had been much warmer in the shop than he had realized. Winter was coming, clearly.

  Let’s get home quickly.

  He was going to cook something hot to chase away this cold. A hearty stew, yes, which he would bring to the Guild, and have lunch with Cire and the others. As for the afternoon, well, he wasn’t sure he would go to the dungeon today, considering the weather. Unless something unexpected happened, the dungeon ran by itself anyway, so there was no need to check on it every day. And he couldn’t see any problem that could arise in the foreseeable future. After all, the issue with Clovis’s deal had been resolved. There was absolutely nothing left to worry about.

  At that very moment, Viktor saw him.

  A bald man had just walked past. A man who was tall and slender, slightly hunched. A man with a gaunt face, framed by a dark beard. A man who was cd in bck, with a short spear hanging from his belt.

  That was Azran.