Chapter 19

“I’m sorry, Stian. I betrayed your trust.”

I looked at Linnea and reminded myself not to be angry. First of all, it would have been useless since Linnea had acted like the young wolves acted inside their pack. It was clear that here, inside this house, Mrs. Hansen was the top wolf. She was the one telling us what to do and Linnea would be the one following the orders if those were given to her. Oh, Linnea was quite capable of making decisions, but if someone with authority came and gave her orders, she’d quite easily follow them. Mrs. Hansen had most likely seen that almost immediately. I had just been wondering what it was with Linnea, but Mrs. Hansen had reacted.

“Don’t worry. After all, things turned out better than I was able to hope for.”

In a way, that was very true. Things had turned out better than I had dared to hope. Another thing was that now I knew that, at the moment, I couldn’t fully trust Linnea. However much I would have liked to tell her everything, however much I would have liked to fully trust her ... no, she might be my friend but at the moment her loyalty could be transferred if there would be a new leader to our pack.

Wolves. I missed the forests, the voice of the wind in the trees, the smells that changed with the weather and the seasons, the silent moments - the peace in general. In that sense, it was funny to find some similarities between humans and animals. Even if it didn’t really help me here.

If I had had any doubts about Mrs. Hansen’s abilities, they disappeared quickly. In a few days there was a new shopkeeper at the herbalist shop and she would be paying Linnea some rent while she would keep the profits. I had been there with Linnea collecting everything Linnea might need and while doing that I did my best to check if there was anything hidden. Meaning anything magical, but there was no luck with that. I hadn’t really expected to find anything but I had needed to check.

That wasn’t the only thing where Mrs. Hansen’s efficiency showed. Now, when both Linnea and I really belonged to her pack - I mean family - she made it clear to us that, since we were University students we should also be good University students. Besides education we might be able to create some contacts - but carefully. Not with everybody, but selected people - and if somebody would push to become our friend, we should tell Mrs. Hansen immediately.

“So, Stian - your friends ... mind telling me what their plans are?”

It was already clear that Mrs. Hansen believed my friends were natural Mages like Linnea and me. Well, in a way they were.

“You mean besides stealing babies, conquering the world and making other people our slaves?” I held a short pause shaking my head. “The short-term plan is to stay alive. The long-term plan is to find a safe place to live, possibly surrounded by friendly people or at least some who do not see us as a threat - even where the women are treated as equals, if not more. Does that answer to your question?”

“You don’t see us ‘normal people’ as different?”

I suppressed a laugh, which I tried to make sound a bit bitter, even though I had noticed her reaction to my comment about women treated as equals. Even if Linnea wasn’t here, now, keeping an eye on me, I did my best not to lie.

“My fiancée was a ‘normal’ girl. Had she not married another man while I was away for a while, I’d probably be married to her now with a few babies. Mrs. Hansen, if you think of my ability as a gift, please think again. There could be hundreds of people close to me while I’m there at the University and if I weren’t able to tune my ability down I would have become crazy already. I know that there are people whose skin has a different color than ours and they are still people. Trust me, we’re the same people as you and Alva. Well, maybe not Miss Dahl; she’s one of a kind.”

Mrs. Hansen kept staring at me for some time before she nodded.

“Elise. Please call me Elise from now on, Stian. I don’t really like my last name too much, even though I kept it because of the business.”

I guess I was really a part of the family now. Even though she knew that my loyalty would be divided between two families.

“Thank you, Elise.”

“Do not thank me. I can see all your families benefiting each other if everything goes as planned. I just hope that, as long as you are here, you’ll use your skills to our benefit, just as Linnea promised to do. I already had a short discussion about your trade idea with someone from a fellow family. They are happy as they are now, but they are also willing to help if there’s somebody else to take the risk of those far-away journeys. The main reason why nobody has done that yet is there hasn’t been a strong enough family to establish it.”

I got it. Those ruling the country wanted the businesses to remain small enough so that they wouldn’t pose a threat to their leadership. Even less now, if they were planning to go to war. Those two forces balanced each other: The Guardians gave the structure and the Magicians were the ultimate tool that, especially as a group, could scare away a small army - unless the opponent had people who could distract the Magicians. I had no idea what kind of deal these groups had made with the Trolls, but the truth was that, if those groups could combine their strengths they’d be almost unstoppable.

I nodded to Mrs. Hansen - Elise. “I already knew that there’s no way I could have established all that alone. My initial plan was to get the process started and cause some delays for those planning to create that army, if possible.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

I smiled. “There’s not much point in lying when you can always ask Linnea to come here and ask the same question again. However, there’s no reason to worry, since I have no plan to do anything stupid. My other family would not like it.”

Elise looked at me intently, as though she’d like to see what’s happening inside my head. I almost hoped that she would be able to do so, since I wasn’t quite sure myself. Then she just nodded and our meeting was over.

I was now a frequent visitor of the University Library - together with Linnea. I knew all the open sections of the library, I knew where the books on Mathematics and its subtopics were; I knew where were the books about Biology, Farming, Anglon, Religion were; a few books about Astronomy - and local Geography. Local Geography - meaning this island, our Kingdom, the nearby seas and neighbors. That was it.

Then there was a guarded section of the Library downstairs where the books - and maps - about global Geography and Astronomy were, including most of the books related to navigation. Not even my Red Pass opened that gate at the top of the stairs. The gate to the basement - the ‘Dark Floor’, as the other students called it. The floor that was mostly underground. The place where all the books on Magic were stored! On the other hand, there was no time to sulk about that now, since I was busy learning Mathematics with Linnea.

What made the library special were the big windows providing all the light they could get - but since that wasn’t enough during wintertime, there were also many candle lanterns in which only certain pure candles were allowed. Close to every lantern was a pipe connected to the system that brought fresh water to the whole University. The system was designed so that if there was a fire, water could be directed to the right place by opening a certain valve. There was a nozzle that could be used to direct the shower to the right place putting out the fire in a few blinks of an eye. I was somewhat impressed by the system and I appreciated it because I also loved books. With that system, they should able to minimize the damage to the books in case of a fire.

I was now reminded of my mother’s instructions: ‘It’s all there in the capital, hidden in the University Library on the pages of books about Geography and Biology. For those who know how to look.’ I now knew where to look, I just didn’t want to do it with Linnea following me. It was already clear that Linnea knew nothing about the history of Elves, Trolls and natural Human Mages who had gotten here when those Magicians had opened the connection between the two worlds: Elonia and this Earth. It was a part of history that didn’t exist. What’s more, Linnea had no idea about her parents or even where she was born. Had there been some knowledge about that, it had gone to the grave with her so-called aunt, Gunhild. Besides those books, there might still be certain areas in the very old town part of Aston, but with them, I’d be extra careful since I had no idea of the depth of the betrayal. Hantaliel had also told me about a raid which had taken place years ago and that area might be totally abandoned by the people I would have liked to meet.

At least my mother had been in her full senses until her death and I was quite certain that she had had time to think about what had happened. If only she had had time to speak with me. If only Linnea’s aunt had not killed herself. Now I was here, in Aston with access to the University Library, but I was still in the dark about the hints my mother had given me. My Elven friends, with their lessons of patience, would have laughed at me because they would just have thought that I needed to learn to be more patient. Yet, I still had the feeling that we didn’t really have time to waste.

I lifted my gaze for a moment from the book about farming that I had been looking at without really seeing anything and looked at Linnea who was reading next to me. A part of me was happy that I had found her, since simply her existence gave us some hope, since more natural Human Mages would be needed - many more. Besides that, it had been her ability that had been the key to get the support of our new family. However, there were some issues - the biggest one being that her full loyalty was at the moment mostly pledged to Mrs. Hansen. Elise. It was clear that Linnea idolized her as someone who had been able to survive some terrible torture and become a person of her own, running her own business - even if from the background.

Then there were other, more personal things. More problematic things. The first one was that, even if Linnea’s loyalty’s main target might now be Mrs. Hansen, she was falling for me. In a way, I could understand it easily. I already knew that her early years had been next to terrible and getting orphaned in your teens was easy compared to what she had faced before she had seen ten summers. Had Gunhild not saved her, she would probably not be alive today. Why she didn’t hate all males, I really did not understand, but maybe it had something to do with her ability to tell if someone was lying or not. Linnea had been able to tell that Gunhild could sense if a person was able to do magic when she was able to touch him or her. So, this Human magic thing seemed to have something to do with extra sensitivity - but I didn’t need any extra sensitivity to understand that Linnea was falling for me, hard. The hard part of the problem was that I wasn’t falling for her.