Drat, I should have gone after him! Why didn’t I?

  Casimir sprinted through the trees of the Golden Poplar Forest, plowing through any branch or dry bush he could, and dodging any he couldn’t trample underfoot.

  I was too complacent and foolish to think he wouldn’t fall prey to him!

  The chilly autumn air whipped through his silver hair and stung his face as he followed the clear path of snapped twigs and freshly disturbed underbrush that led him to a secluded glade.

  Peering into the grassy clearing, he spotted a lone figure lying in the grass, waning away like the sun sinking into the horizon. His target was near and he left the victim’s life dimming.

  “Quigley!” Casimir rushed over to the young man with the vigor and pallor of bleached bone.

  Quigley’s eyes snapped on to him, reddened and watered from tears, with fear and pain etched onto his face.

  Another poisoning. Casimir’s fingers slid across the side of Quigley’s jaw.

  He’s cold and his pulse is faint.

  “Hhh…hckk.” Quigley’s chest heaved as he struggled to gather enough air into his lungs.

  “No, don’t talk.” Casimir’s hand drifted down to Quigley’s swollen abdomen. Unlike his heart, it pulsed with a violent, erratic beat and the sting of hostile Aether pricked Casimir’s finger tips. His Aether heart is also failing.

  Casimir’s gaze darted to the empty glass bottle that rested inches away from Quigley’s hand. And his master is nowhere in sight. Why did you have to be so trusting?

  “Focus on breathing.” Casimir pulled out his black med kit from his inner uniform pocket.“I’m preparing the antidote, hold on!”

  Using the muted red sun and inferior half moon for light, he grabbed a bottle of Halocin, and attached the filter to a needle.

  Steady! He broke the glass ampoule with one flick of his finger, snatched the needle he prepared by his side, and drew the antidote.

  “You’re going to feel a pinch, but it will pass.” Casimir pushed air out of the needle and drove it into the meatiest part of Quigley’s scrawny right arm.

  It’s a good thing that I don’t need to find a vein for this.

  His attention shifted to Quigley’s face. It remained twisted in the same way that he found him, deathly pale with a mouth agape, drawing in and out futile shallow breaths.

  “I’ve seen worse, the antidote should be working, shortly.” Casimir peered through Quigley’s horn-rimmed glasses into his glossy brown eyes, and dread ate at his mind.

  Quigley’s breath faltered.

  “Quigley, don’t give up!” Casimir started chest compressions. “Your family is waiting for you and your friends!”

  Quigley’s sweat-drenched, collared shirt was cold to the touch, and yet not a shiver came from him.

  “One, two…come on!”

  Casimir continued and with every push, he refused to let the harsh truth win in his mind.

  “Blast it!” He looked at Quigley’s face again.

  The light in his eyes dimmed.

  Casimir bared his teeth and slammed a fist into his forehead.

  “Again! I failed, again…”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  He is dead.

  Mercilessly, the world refused to stop, and a twig snapping due north of the treeline surrounding the glade, putting Casimir on guard. After a hesitant glance at the poor man, he left Quigley’s side to investigate. As he drew near, Casimir experienced an odd sensation crawling on his face like that of a millipede with legs made from toothpicks. On his pain scale it barely registered as a one, but alarm bells still rang in his mind.

  Blast it, there is an unnatural surge of Aether in the air! That blighter is here! Casimir scanned over the grassy clearing, and he spied a faint purple glow hovering above a dried bush between two golden, poplar trees.

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  A darkness pattern! He pressed the trigger mechanism hidden underneath his sleeves and fired three needles across the clearing, towards the purple light. The bush rustled and Casimir caught the glimpse of a hooded figure darting behind a nearby tree.

  “Woow now, you almost took my eye out,” called out a smooth voice. “You are the most trigger-happy bill collector I ran into. I know I don’t owe that much.”

  “This has gone beyond overdue Weaver licensing fees. By order of the Emperor and by my authority as an Inquisitor, you are under arrest for manslaughter, child endangerment, and for distributing consumables without a license. Hands out where I can see them, Jett!” Casimir inched forward with his right hand, resting on the trigger of his needle launcher.

  “So an Aetherless whelp like you can arrest me… No, do you realize how embarrassing that would be for me?” Jett laughed.

  Casimir’s silver hair began to stand on end as Aether prickled his skin with greater intensity. All of his pores, including the ones under the Aether-resistant padding of his uniform, burned as if hot safety pins were lodged into them. His pain scale jumped to a four.

  Enough Aether to drop a man and rising air pressure. A wind pattern?

  Casimir kept his gaze on the tree Jett was hiding behind. “Don’t make this harder on yourself! Attacking an Inquisitor is guaranteed execution.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  The air around Jett’s hiding spot picked up and cracked with a loud boom. Then a raging gale consisting of wind and Aether spawned from Jett’s position, and ripped through the golden leaves of the underbrush with a wailing howl.

  So it is Lightstep, possibly paired with a Physical Enhancement pattern. Casimir reached for a billiard-size capsule in his black, vest pocket.

  The roaring tempest raced toward Casimir, tearing up the terrain and kicking up the soil within its wake.

  Casimir threw the capsule in front of him, shattering it on the ground and releasing an opaque cloud of black powder that concealed his movements. Afterward, he leaped out of the gale’s path, narrowly evading it.

  The Aether from the passing attack knocked Casimir onto his side, he recovered with a roll and spun around to the direction of where the violent gust struck ground.

  There, Casimir witnessed his assailant skidding to a stop, his stunning emerald cloak, embroidered with golden spiders undulated in the wind.

  Jett raised his foot and checked it as if he stepped on a bug. “A miss, how?!”

  Taking advantage of his opponent’s confusion, Casimir fired a set of needles at Jett’s back, but the man spun on his heels and deflected them with his cloak.

  Jett hissed, while shielding his body with the hem of his cloak. “Damn Inquis, even the weak ones are annoying!”

  When Jett lowered his hand, Casimir finally got a good look at his face. He appeared to be a few years Casimir’s senior, possibly in his mid 20s, and had a suave face and pert smile that could swindle an old heiress out of her money. However, it was his shoulder-length, dark-brown hair that caught Casimir’s eye.

  A common-born Weaver! But, he murdered… Anger flared up within Casimir and blood rushed to his face.

  “Tsk, you should have been dead, regardless,” Jett said, emitting a thread of glowing purple Aether and drawing a pentagon in the air.

  Casimir scrutinized Jett’s hand as he swiftly interlocked another pentagon, creating the beginnings of a symmetrical pattern. An Umbra Shield. Can’t let that happen.

  Jett continued, “How unlucky being born with passable Aether resistance and not an—”

  Casimir chucked another smoke bomb at Jett, interrupting his pattern, and forcing him to shield himself with his cape.

  “Damn it!”

  With Jett’s vision obscured, Casimir broke into a full sprint and circled behind him. Another surge of Aether came from Jett, then he heard several loud blasts.

  Umbra Bolts, better end this quickly.

  Casimir grabbed Jett from behind the waist and fell back with him, lifting him off his feet and slamming Jett’s back to the ground with a thud. Quickly, Casimir ended their struggle by slapping the cuffs on him.

  “All this time I thought you were a noble exploiting commoner upstarts, but you are just a self-made Weaver pulling up the ladder from behind you,” Casimir scoffed while fishing around Jett’s pockets. “Disgraceful.”

  “Hmph, says the Mindrattler who can’t wield a lick of Aether,” Jett sneered.

  “Inquis,” Casimir muttered. When his hand curled around a glass cylindrical bottle, he pulled it out from Jett’s pocket, and studied its contents.

  It appears to be identical to the one Quigley was holding, but we won’t be able to determine if it is a clear match until Nikola analyzes it.

  Casimir returned to Quigley and knelt beside him, while the man’s lifeless eyes stared back at him.

  I’m sorry I was not able to save you in time, but hopefully, this ends here with you.

  He gently closed Quigley’s eyes with his hand and sat in silence.

  Just when Casimir had time to reflect, heavy footsteps trampling over fallen leaves alerted him to another presence approaching from the woods. Casimir rose to his feet and turned to face the treeline to the east. An imposing middle-aged man in a black trench coat emerged from the shadows of the trees. His stature was built like a monolith, topped with slick black hair and a glorious mustache occupied the majority of his face.

  Casimir waved. “Uncle Iker.”

  Iker’s cold dark eyes observed the torn up landscape. “I see you successfully caught the suspect.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the boy…”

  Casimir shook his head.

  “Hrmph,” Iker’s hard, chiseled features softened when he saw what remained of Quigley. “At least we will be able to give the boy’s family some closure. Unfortunately, the other families will still have to wait.”

  “There was no sign of the missing students in his hideout?” Casimir asked.

  Iker’s stoic face creased into a scowl, when his gaze fell on Jett. “I only found one. His Aether heart was missing.”

  Casimir visage darkened as he rubbed his square chin. “I remember Sully telling me about a case involving a master making pills from his apprentices’ Aether hearts. Could this be it?”

  “It is possible. Once Sully gets a hold of him we’ll find out soon enough.”