***

  Outside, I recovered a bit, though my head was spinning mercilessly after climbing the stairs. I only had enough strength to put my protective gloves back on and hobble to a bench in the garden by the house — and even that only with Calypso’s help.

  “Sit here, I’ll bring you something to eat,” he said, looking at my pale face with concern.

  “You’ve used up a lot of energy, you need to restore some of it right away.”

  “Going to shamelessly raid the homeowner’s fridge?” I smirked, watching Calypso head back into the house.

  “I think, considering you saved his life, he’ll be happy to feed you to your heart’s content any time of day, whenever you want,” Calypso smirked and disappeared through the door.

  I smiled weakly and looked around, slowly inhaling and exhaling in the rhythm of the restorative breathing exercises my parents had taught me long ago.

  Inquisitors were bustling around, carefully examining the house and its surroundings, looking for any clues, while I sat on the bench breathing in the fresh air, enjoying the pleasant sharp smell of freshly cut grass and smiling at my small personal triumph today.

  The dizziness was slowly passing, but the weakness wasn’t in any hurry to leave me. And I desperately wanted something to drink.

  I spotted a well with a bucket of water nearby and, on legs trembling from weakness, decided to drag myself over to it while waiting for Calypso, because I was really dying of thirst.

  But I’d barely taken a couple of steps when an inquisitor rushing toward the house nearly knocked me off my feet. He apparently hadn’t noticed me emerging from behind the bushes and crashed into me at full speed. I barely stayed on my feet, grabbing onto the fence.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going!” the inquisitor said roughly.

  I rubbed my bruised elbow and was about to launch into an angry tirade, or at least bark something caustic, but I grimly shut up when I got a good look at the person who’d crashed into me. Standard dark purple robes, short dark hair, narrow eyes, and a very long nose…

  “Oh, I know you,” the man said, looking me over with contempt.

  “You’re Zael and Elza’s youngest daughter, right? That loser. What are you doing here?”

  I grimaced.

  Unfortunately, I also knew this man, though I’d never met him face to face. But this was Cloyne Mackelberry — not the most pleasant person in the world. The son of the General of the Inquisition’s General Staff, who’d inherited all the delights of his father’s character.

  At Armarillis, there was a lot of talk about how both the general and his pompous little son should be kicked out of the Inquisition. But the General Staff was a powerful machine, a serious government structure that was very hard to influence.

  A cooperation agreement had long ago been established between the General Staff and Armarillis, and several of our colleagues now worked in the Inquisition on a permanent basis, achieving considerable heights in that field. But it was still a drop in the ocean among the General Staff’s thousands of employees.

  The Inquisition was run by the general and the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, consisting of several supreme mages, including Ilforte, Moris, and my older brother Eric.

  They’d all been saying privately for a long time that something should be done about removing General Mackelberry from his place, but it was very difficult due to the long-established system in the General Staff.

  The general was elected and removed by the Supreme Council, and in both cases an unanimous decision of the entire Council was required, and when there were about thirty such mages, the re-election of the general turned into endless bureaucratic wrangling.

  The Mentor often grumbled about this. But unfortunately, while he was an important figure in the Staff, he couldn’t totally influence Mackelberry through peaceful means since there were too many of his supporters on the Supreme Council.

  Ilforte and Mackelberry had been ‘at daggers drawn’ for many years, but they’d been maintaining an uneasy peace. Although in the past couple of years, the tension between them had been growing — you couldn’t help but notice.

  General Mackelberry fundamentally disliked Fortemins and cooperated with Armarillis reluctantly, understanding that we really did provide first-class help clearing dark creatures from worlds.

  Why did he dislike us? Well, how could he not… Fortemins were all so cool and powerful, living according to the Armarillis Code, interfering in Inquisition affairs with their advice and even demands, answering only to the Mentor and reporting only to him…

  In other words, all so ‘doing their own thing,’ and such powerful mages that they could easily outclass any inquisitor. How could you not be envious and pissed off? Many people envied the Fortemins’ power, that’s for sure…

  And personalities like my mom irritated the general incredibly, because ‘well, where had anyone seen a general cooperate with a greater demon and even have to do her bidding from time to time?!’

  A wise general would say thank you for such help, but General Mackelberry wouldn’t say a word of gratitude even on his deathbed, I was sure. I think he dreamed of bringing the Mentor under his thumb and making all Fortemins work for the general, not the other way around.

  I’d better not argue with the general’s own son and preferably not even talk to him at all — this guy was no better than his daddy, and his daddy fussed over him like he was made of gold.

  If it weren’t for our colleagues in the Staff, the general would have long since pushed his son far up the career ladder. But Moris was handily blocking that — he was the head of the intelligence department in the General Staff and, as a member of the Supreme Council, kept throwing wrenches in the works, preventing Cloyne from getting a high position he hadn’t actually earned. Cloyne seethed and kept pushing forward stubbornly but kept running into an impenetrable wall in the form of Moris.

  In short, the inquisitors and Fortemins had their own beef, and it wasn’t worth adding fuel to these endless clashes.

  So instead of a long angry tirade, I simply said:

  “I’d ask you not to insult me. Save the ‘loser’ label for someone else. And I don't recall giving you permission to address me so casually.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “So they haven’t kicked you out of Armarillis yet?” Cloyne said dismissively, looking me up and down with a sleazy gaze.

  He ignored my words completely.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Excuse me, what? Why should anyone ‘kick me out’ of there?”

  “Well, you’re defective,” Cloyne smirked.

  “I’ve heard all about you, my father told me a lot. You’re supposed to be the elite and all that, right? That’s how you present yourselves to everyone. And here you are, such a dirty stain on the Clarkson family’s reputation and Fortemins in general in the form of you. I mean, I understand your family didn’t choose you and won’t disown you. Though I would if I were them, but the fact that they brought you back to Armarillis? Hmm, strange. Your ringleader should’ve left you locked up somewhere so you wouldn’t interfere with everyone working and functioning normally. What an embarrassment.”

  I was literally choking with outrage.

  You piece of shit!! Trying to build yourself up at my expense, huh? No way that’s happening.

  I’m problematic, but not defective. You’re about to be the defective one when I set your ass on fire. And I don’t give a damn that your daddy is the General of the Inquisition’s General Staff.

  I’d already folded my hands in front of me, considering which ball of lightning would be best to blast Cloyne with, when I flinched at the cold voice that sounded behind me:

  “Apologize to her.”

  The voice, though it wasn’t directed at me, made me go cold with fear — so much fury was packed into that short phrase that it chilled me to the bone.

  I turned around and saw Calypso coming down the steps from the house, his eyes fixed on Cloyne. In his hands he held a round metal tray with sandwiches, fruit, and a pitcher of water, apparently intended for me.

  Calypso's eyes flashed — for a moment I thought he'd smash that tray over Cloyne's head.

  But no, I was wrong.

  “Eat now, please,” Calypso addressed me in an even voice.

  “You need to eat as soon as possible.”

  He literally forced me to sit on the bench, set the tray beside me, pressed a sandwich into my hands, and turned to Cloyne.

  “I’m supposed to apologize to her?” Cloyne raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you confused? Do you even know who I am? My name is Cloyne Mackelberry!”

  “And my name is Calypso Brandt. And this is my ward, Lorelei,” Calypso said with a dazzling smile.

  “I’m her warden, and I not only supervise her studies but also protect her from… clowns.”

  Cloyne’s face turned crimson. He clenched his fists, his jaw muscles working.

  Unlike him, Calypso looked quite serene. He demonstratively put his hands in his pockets, and it was hard to read the degree of his fury from his face, but it was easily sensed through his vibrating aura. So heavy that I couldn’t even get the sandwich into my mouth — right now I was even afraid to breathe. I just froze on the bench, holding my breath in anticipation of the storm.

  “You’ll pay for the clown remark,” Cloyne hissed through his teeth.

  “Oh really?” Calypso said in an even tone.

  “First apologize to Lorelei for what you said.”

  “I told her the truth, she's a defective stain on Armarillis’s reputation,” Cloyne snorted.

  “You should understand that yourself!”

  “If you throw one more nasty word at Lorelei, I’ll turn you inside out,” Calypso said with a sweet smile.

  “And I’m asking nicely for the last time: apologize to Lorelei.”

  “I’d rather die than apologize to a defective Fortemin!..”

  “As you wish,” Calypso said in an even voice.

  Cloyne suddenly fell silent, took a step back, and stared at Calypso with eyes full of terror. The whites of Mackelberry’s eyes had suddenly turned red, as if all his blood vessels had burst at once. His face, on the contrary, went pale, and his breathing noticeably quickened.

  “Stop,” he mumbled, backing away.

  “Stop! You misunderstood! I can explain!..”

  I looked back and forth in confusion between Cloyne, who had started shaking for some reason, and Calypso, who was just standing silently next to me — back straight, serene expression, hands in pockets… only his eyes gave him away, where I spotted the familiar golden spirals.

  “Calypso?..” I asked tensely.

  He didn’t answer, his unblinking gaze fixed on Cloyne, who took another step back and then fell to the ground, clutching his head and screaming at the top of his lungs as if in terrible pain. Apparently Calypso had managed to put up a soundproof barrier, because the inquisitors nearby didn’t even glance our way.

  But I jumped up, my heart pounding, trying to ignore the terrible dizziness.

  “Cal!” I grabbed Calypso’s arm.

  “What did you do to him?..”

  “Nothing special. I just made him believe he’s in his death throes,” Calypso said dryly, continuing to stare at Mackelberry writhing on the grass.

  “But he’s shaking like he’s being burned from the inside by spells!” I said, staring in horror at the trembling Cloyne.

  “It’s a mental attack, Lori. A contactless strike technique. I’m very skilled at this technique,” Calypso said in that same frighteningly even voice.

  “The human brain has amazing structure, and affecting certain areas of it can have a very profound effect. I only made Mackelberry absolutely certain he’s in his death throes. The rest he filled in himself.”

  “Stop!” I said, squeezing Calypso’s hand harder and turning away from Cloyne, unable to watch his agony.

  “You’ll kill him like this!”

  “Do you feel sorry for him?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No,” Calypso answered simply.

  His voice was merciless, his gaze just as cold.

  I swallowed nervously, realizing that if I didn’t do something now, Calypso would definitely kill the general’s son without batting an eye.

  “Your parents definitely won’t appreciate this,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Think about what Ilforte and Serenity would say about this!”

  The mention of his parents’ names seemed to cool Calypso’s temper. He finally blinked, shifted his gaze from Cloyne to me, and his eyes looked normal again.

  “Fine, let him live for now,” he said.

  “Consider this his first and last warning.”

  Calypso carefully detached my trembling hand from himself, walked unhurriedly over to Mackelberry, who lay exhausted on the grass, twitching slightly after the mental attack.

  “You’re a clown, not a Cloyne,” Calypso said coldly.

  He crouched down next to Mackelberry, who struggled to focus his gaze on Calypso. His eyes burned with hatred and a thirst for revenge.

  “You… will… pay for this…” he rasped in a terrible voice.

  “Oh really? You’re so sure about that?” Calypso said in a gentle voice with a deceptive smile.

  “If you dare complain to your daddy about me, and word of it reaches me, I’ll come for you in your dreams and make you experience these unforgettable sensations all over again. Only this time I’ll finish what I started, and you won’t wake up. Trust me, it won’t be hard for me to do and cover my tracks so well that your bully of a father will never track me down. I’m not only an excellent mind mage but also a skilled dream walker.”

  “You… wouldn’t dare…”

  “Want to test it and go complain to daddy?” Calypso smiled even wider.

  “Go ahead. And I swear on my Spark that I’ll immediately make good on my threat.”

  With those words, Calypso snapped his fingers, and a crimson flame flickered at their tips — a simple but effective oath on one’s magical Spark. Such oaths aren’t made lightly — you’re betting your entire magical power. Cloyne knew this perfectly well, and his eyes went even wider.

  “Lie here for a bit, rest under an invisibility dome… The inquisitors will manage without you. Let’s go inside, Lori,” Calypso turned to me.

  “You can eat there. The house is full of chattering inquisitors, but at least it doesn’t stink of trash like this.”

  With those words, he cast one last contemptuous look at Cloyne, took my arm, and led me into the house.