The fear that clawed at Lillet's belly at the thought of Amoretta's missing flask was matched only by her fury at the ones who had done this. This was not an accident, not a case of a thief after valuable loot accidentally taking something much more precious. They had courteously left a note in the stand where the flask had been.
Lillet Blan:
Your lover's life belongs to us, now. Do be a good girl and don't try to scry out the flask's location; we have it under ward and you would not wish there to be...accidents. Expect word from us soon as to how you may repay our tender care of this most valuable property.
Tender care, indeed. A homunculus's life was an artificial creation of magic, and as a created being its body did not sustain itself on its own the way an ordinary being's did. Its flask contained its life essence; without this additional source its body would cease to be. Most homunculi could not even fully leave their flasks, but the angel's spirit within Amoretta made her superior to them in that regard--the seed of a true life created by God rather than mortal magic lent her an independence others lacked. But her life still depended on her flask. If it was shattered, her homunculus body would cease to exist and the angel within be released.
This wasn't just theory, either. Lillet knew what would happen, because she'd seen it. While she'd fallen through the loops of time, she'd watched Amoretta sacrifice herself to save Lillet's life, not once but twice. Lillet had changed that fate, but not forgotten it. Sometimes she relived it in dreams, on nights when she and Amoretta had fought over one of the silly things that couples do.
I want to do something to repay you...for all that you are to me, Amoretta had said. How silly was that, to Lillet's mind? Amoretta had freely given her life for love of Lillet multiple times over. How could anyone repay that? It was only bearable at all because love demands no debts, only gave without taking.
She crushed the note in her fist and flung it away.
"Lillet, what are we going to do?" Amoretta asked nervously. Lillet pulled her close, clinging to her as if to reassure herself that the other girl was still there.
"Whatever we have to," she said, holding Amoretta tightly to her. "I will never let you die."
"I'm scared, Lillet."
"So am I," she admitted, stroking Amoretta's hair. "We have to stay strong, though. It's the only way to get your flask back."
"I'll try."
Of course she would, Lillet knew, and she's succeed, too. Though she was gentle and at times almost shy, Amoretta had a fierce willpower that wouldn't let her hesitate or succumb to panic. It was Lillet who had to stay strong, to keep her spirits up. She had to find it within herself to be the magician who'd defeated Archmage Calvaros, who'd outwitted the devil Grimlet.
Only, there was a difference between that time and this one. Then she'd been caught up in the loops of time by the Philosopher's Stone. She'd had the luxury of making mistakes, seeing their consequences, then trying different things until she got it right. This time, there's be no such fallback, no second chances.
It reminded her of how, a few months past, a thief had slipped into her room and Lillet had caught him with Amoretta's flask in hand. Lillet had been almost paralyzed by fear, acting only at the last second and only capturing the thief by luck.
"Wait a minute..." she mused aloud.
"Lillet?"
She let Amoretta go, thought beginning to take over from the momentary weakness of her fears.
"That thief, the one who tried to steal you..."
"Runcifer Beammest?" Amoretta never forgot a name.
"Yes, him. I wonder, is it really a coincidence that we've had two break-ins so close together? The methods were very different; whomever came in this time had to use force to dispel or break some of the wards while the thief was able to sneak past, but the result was the same both times. And it's not like everybody in the world would know what you are, Amoretta, or what that means."
"No; that's a good point."
Lillet pursed her lips.
"We need information. I won't risk breaking their instructions and trying to find the flask by scrying, but there are other things we can try."
She took out her wand and began to sketch out a ward in the air, fueling the design with the mana she held within herself. Bright blue lines followed the sweep of her wand-tip, until the ward was set with a bell-like chime that rang in her mind.
"There! Now no one can scry on us, either, and I can be sure there are no enemy familiars lingering behind. Now, what we need is an eyewitness to what really happened here tonight."
"An eyewitness? But there's no one--oh! You mean Grimalkin!"
"Right. Do you know where he's hiding?"
Amoretta closed her eyes, extending her will to try to locate her familiar, but when her eyes opened there was worry and fear in them.
"Lillet, I can't sense him anywhere. I think he's gone. Whomever stole my flask must have killed him!"
"Oh, no! I'm so sorry, Amo--wait a minute!"
"What is it?"
"Professor Gammel once told me that familiars that are too hurt to fight return to their own world, be it Faerie, Hell, or Hades. Grimalkin wasn't a cat, but a spirit in a cat's form. You should be able to summon him back."
"I think you'll have to help me with that, Lillet. It was Dr. Chartreuse who called him for me in the first place."
"Yeah, I suppose an angel using sorcery would be kind of strange."
There was another point to be considered, too. Summoning grimalkins was mid-level sorcery all by itself, but calling up a particular grimalkin was another matter altogether.
Lillet opened the grimoire of the Chaos Nest and began to carefully check what she needed to do within the red-bound book. The basic summoning Rune was almost second nature to her by this point, but she had to make certain changes in the pattern, each one sketched in precisely and charged with mana. The ordinary Rune was like a net dipped into a pond, set to scoop up whatever it could catch, but to recall Amoretta's familiar specifically was much more precise and tiring work.
"There!" she sighed fifteen minutes later when the Rune was finally drawn.
"That looked very hard for just one grimalkin."
"Well, I could summon up a grimalkin in a matter of minutes, but one particular one is a lot harder." Lillet mopped her forehead on the back of her sleeve, then realized she still hadn't changed out of her party dress. "Now, for the actual summoning."
A minute later, a scarlet spark appeared above the center of the Rune, the swelled and took a tangible form, becoming a large, green-eyed black cat.
"Summoned again, and so soon? 'Tis lucky I am," it said in an oddly accented, sibilant voice, and then its eyes widened. "Miss Blan? 'Tis you? This can'st be coincidence."
"It isn't. We need to know what happened here tonight, and besides, Amoretta misses you."
"And I her." He padded across to the homunculus and hopped up into her arms, then looked down at the Rune he'd been summoned from and back up at Lillet.
"'Tis too easy to see you with my mistress and forget what you are, but I do not think I shall again."
"We don't have time for compliments, Grimalkin. Someone stole Amoretta's flask."
"Indeed, 'twas a small army of familiars. Whomsoever sent them, 'twas skilled in necromancy, for 'twas Charon that pierced the wards and sent forth the familiars. I struck down the first of the creatures that entered, and your wards accounted for more, but I was swarmed by imps and demons. It was a close thing; the Rune you set to summon fairies in case of intrusion nearly was enough to drive the demons and imps off."
What do I have to do, ward Amoretta's flask as heavily as the Archmage warded the Philosopher's Stone? Lillet thought incredulously. But then again, Calvaros couldn't have loved the Stone anywhere near as much as Lillet loved Amoretta.
The one thing she did know was that whomever their enemy was, he or she was a skilled magician. Summoning imps was basic sorcery, but empowering them to attack, and calling on demons besides, was the mark of a skilled sorcerer. Moreover, as Grimalkin had said, the ability to call upon the ferryman of Hades, Charon, was highly advanced necromancy, and to combine those abilities was another matter altogether. Indeed, that was the most significant part of Lillet's own talents, her mastery in all four fields of magic rather than just one. Her enemy was no common hedge-wizard.
One of the Archmage's followers, perhaps? A number of his minions had survived his death and schemed towards his resurrection, which Lillet had thwarted. Revenge was a potent motive, and the kind of magician who'd serve Calvaros would certainly be the kind to indulge that passion.
"Lillet?" Amoretta asked, softly stroking Grimalkin's back. "Are you all right? You just fell silent for a long time."
"I'm sorry; I was thinking." She quickly shared her ideas with Amoretta, not wanting to leave her in the dark. "If it's not just to see us suffer, I don't understand what the motive could be."
"The note said they'd tell you how you could pay them back for keeping my flask safe."
"Yes, but what could they want from me? They already have a very skilled magician, capable of master-class necromancy and mid-level sorcery at the least. What could I do for them?"
Amoretta smiled for the first time since they'd found her flask gone.
"You really don't know how special you are, do you?"
"I may be a good magician, but I'm not that much better than what was used to break in here."
Amoretta shook her head.
"Your modesty is sweet. Even if it were true, though, it's not what people necessarily believe. Think of Lord Collins tonight. You do have a reputation at Court. Or, it might be something that requires more than just one magician alone."
"That's a good point," Lillet considered. After all, it had taken Calvaros, Lujei Piche, and Gammel Dore working together to create the Philosopher's Stone, and they were the three greatest magicians of their generation. She rubbed her chin, a habit of hers while pondering matters. "In any case, they'll let us know soon enough what they want. What we need to do is get ahead of them."
"How are you going to do that?"
"Well, first we need to find Gaff so he can have this place cleaned up so I can finish resetting the wards. Could you help with that, Amoretta? I've burned through a lot of mana so far and I don't want to completely exhaust myself before--oh, no!"
"What is it?" Amoretta said, obviously worried by Lillet's sudden fright.
"Amoretta, how long can you go without restoring yourself in your flask?" she asked urgently. It wasn't just that the homunculus's life was dependent on her flask; she routinely had to rejuvenate her body in it.
Amoretta sighed, her hand pressed to her chest in a relieved gesture.
"Is that all? You scared me, Lillet! If I don't restore my body once a week or so I'll start getting weak and listless, but it won't do more than make me an invalid even if it goes on for months on end. I am a homunculus, not a chimera, after all. My body is an artificial creation, but so long as my flask is unbroken I am not an incomplete being."
Lillet let out a sigh of relief.
"That's good. I didn't know about the long-term effects."
"You only had to ask. And I will be glad to help with the wards. May I ask why you wanted to conserve mana?"
"Tomorrow morning, I'm going to pay a call on the last man to try to take your flask. I can't help but think the attempts have some connection, and I want to make sure I can persuade him to talk."
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