Chapter 7: Attempted Escape

  Bix had repaired her pack as well as she could, all of what she deemed to be hers brimming inside the struggling seams.

  Everything that mattered.

  All it needed to do was survive her a bit longer.

  Bix had some coin hoarded. Whether it was enough to survive on her own, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t have a full concept of this world, but she had no doubt in herself that she could figure it out.

  Bix shouldered her way out of the room, scooping up the box of bits and bobs she worked on all night—an arsenal in exchange for the few things she’d take with her.

  Bix hesitated a moment after placing it on Deverie’s desk.

  She felt a knot form in her chest at not telling him to his face that she was leaving, but… Bix was mostly sure that if she took the time to talk to Deverie, he’d find a way to talk her out of this.

  Out of leaving.

  Bix, though, couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t keep avoiding a fight at this rate or continue... just moving forward. It seemed her mind liked to focus on even things she'd put in the past here. And really, she couldn't deal with the ever-present expectation that she would eventually belong here.

  When she didn't.

  Bix wasn't made from the same cloth as the purple army, like they seemed to think.

  Sure, if Bix wanted, she could play a good game. Could read a room and try to blend. She could work so hard that no one would notice that she was off, but Bix would always be off.

  Bix would always be the girl who fell through the Faerie Portal.

  She’d always be from Detritus.

  She would always be Bix.

  No matter how much they all thought she'd magically grow into the image they'd concocted of Croia.

  Bix shoved out of the door, making her way swiftly out of the tower.

  “Bix, Dear!” a voice called.

  Bix whipped around, and as she took in Lodovico, the jolting movement caused the threads her sack was holding onto, to rip open. Everything she'd stuffed into it fumbled to the ground.

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  They both stood staring at it for a moment.

  Before Bix could think of a way to explain why she had everything that was hers in the bag, Lodovico lowered and started picking up what she dropped. Bix quickly started helping, following Lodovico's path into a building she hadn't been in before. It didn't have much to it; it was mostly just quiet and dark; until he waved a hand and stone flickered to life in the steady stream of light.

  Then she looked around and saw a workshop. Not one like she was used to seeing, filled to the brim with metals or one overtaken by magical things. She saw some furs, some leathers, she saw things made out of them and the tools used to do just that.

  Bix paused.

  Lodovico put all her things down on a table before humming and looking around.

  "I think this will do," he breathed, and brought over a leather bag a little bigger than her pack had been and helped her put all of the stuff back in.

  "Perfect,” he breathed, when the latch closed without strain.

  Then they stood in silence. Bix, all the times she had seen Lodovico, it never seemed he was ever alone. He was either hand in hand with Iphigenia, debating with Cirillo, or being excitedly circled by one of his children. If Bix ran into him, he didn't do much of the talking. Though, he was one of the worst at giving her things that she never understood why.

  He also didn't look to be a threat, though Bix knew enough about the world now that Lodovico was a trained warrior with decorated status and a magical blade that could absorb an adversary’s attack as a defensive move, with the added benefit of holding onto the magical effect to be used or converted later.

  It was something she'd been itching to steal for a while to study.

  But it seemed to be glued to Lodovico's person.

  Lodovico handed her her new pack and sparkled at her.

  “Do you think you could take a walk with me?” he asked, in a very quiet tone. Bix glanced at the pack and then and him.

  She sighed and nodded.

  They walked a bit into the woods, made up of not pillars but trees. Deverie had corrected her on that.

  The area still felt overwhelming to the senses, but there was a beauty to it that she could appreciate now that it wasn’t so much a proof of everything being wrong.

  Lodovico, unlike Iphigenia and Cirillo, didn’t try to fill the silence as they walked. To be honest, that was a relief; Bix wasn’t really sure what she would say right then.

  Bix breathed in, and the air once again was a bit too sharp and a bit too smooth. It tickled her nose. There was never a lack of sound. If she closed her eyes, she thought she could hear every noise around her.

  They kept walking.

  There was a running line of water that they followed. She blinked at a strange thing with eyes that was too small to be a beast, staring at her before skittering away.

  How odd.

  Bix looked up, catching sight of the leaves falling. They weren’t green anymore. They were in shades of yellows and oranges, like flames.

  Lodovico picked up a stone and sent it gliding through the water. Bix paused, and he held out another stone to her. Bix hesitated, then tried it out. Hers didn’t glide; it plopped. Lodovico chuckled and found them both another. He tossed it slower this time as she examined how he did it.

  Again, hers didn’t glide as well as his, but it did glide a bit.

  Then Lodovico continued on, and Bix followed.

  They walked and they walked to the point Bix didn’t really think they were going anywhere. And then she realized they very well didn’t go anywhere when they ended up right back where they ran into each other.

  “Thank you for going on a walk with me,” Lodovico breathed. “I hope you’ll join me in the library tomorrow,” He offered, before disappearing.

  Bix stood there utterly baffled.

  She looked at her new sack and then at the setting sun.

  Tomorrow. She’d leave tomorrow.