-Neith-

I didn't know why Cian was irritating me more than he usually did. I may have grown up in the village, but that didn't mean that I got on well with everyone. In fact, I think most people just put up with me to avoid making a scene. It's a fact which I'm slightly proud of, as it means that I don't think like them. I kept my opinions of the village between myself, my father, and Dalila.

"Last night? I can't say I remember much," Cian admitted with a sheepish chuckle. "I'm assuming you're talking about the village-wide nap which made the guard completely useless?"

"Obviously," I said with a sharp nod. "Are we holding you up?" I asked, as he turned around to look at the rest of the guard.

He jumped at the question and looked to the floor. "Oh, no. I'm not in any hurry, patrol isn't for a while."

I honestly had no clue how he got his job, he was a pushover, and he wasn't the best fighter. I had always assumed that it was a ploy by his mother, to get him onto another sleeping schedule so that she didn't need to see him. That wouldn't surprise me. That woman wasn't the kindest.

"What do you actually remember before blacking out?" Akuji asked, much to my surprise. Her voice was gentle, soothing even. I didn't like it. Or at least, I didn't like the fact she was using that tone now.

"Well, it was time for us to patrol the woods. We like to patrol in groups, but we would always start at the centre of the village, the elder's houses, and work our way outwards." He put his hands behind his back and kicked a stone from under his foot. "We were heading into the trees, when I noticed that there was a strange fog."

"Fog isn't uncommon," I interrupted. "What's so different about this one?" I ignored the disapproving glance I received from Akuji and shifted my weight to my right foot.

"This fog, it was as though there were lightning bolts scattered through it. The fog had veins of electric blue."

"Blue?" I interrupted again. I could tell by his tone that he was going to become poetic, he should've become a writer. "Like, this blue?" I pointed towards Akuji's eyes.

"Exactly," Cian said brightly. "What does that mean? How did you know that?"

I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. "It'll be sorted," I tried to assure. I gave a weak smile., which probably wasn't convincing. "Can you remember anything else?"

Cian bit his lip and put a hand to his chin. "There's something, but I'm not sure I can remember..."

"If I punch you, or turn you into a frog, do you think you'd remember?" I didn't like threatening, but it was clear as day that he was just humouring me. He was trying to stall as much as he could to get the information that he wanted.

"Alright, no need for that." He dropped his arms. "I remember a chuckle, and the smell of lavender."

My head twitched upwards, and a smile came across my face. "Thank you," I gave him a quick hug before grabbing Akuji's hand and pulling her away, leaving a startled Cian in our path.

"Bye Cian!" Akuji yelled behind us as she waved.

When we got a few feet away from the group, she turned to me. "What was that about?" she whispered.

"Which part? The threatening part, or the suddenly pulling you away part?" I asked casually.

"Both?"

"I knew he wasn't going to answer me unless I threatened him, at least not in a straightforward way." We rounded the corner onto my street. "As for pulling you away, I got the answers that I needed."

"That answer being Lavender?" Akuji's tone was clear confusion.

I nodded, and she let the discussion go until we got home.

I groaned as I held the door open for Akuji. "He really must have been upset," I muttered as the shrill notes of a lute hit my ears. "Bless you for needing to witness this."

My father could play the lute rather well, when he was sober and calm. Apparently, he seemed to be neither at this point in time as his fingers plucked and strummed the instrument which he was incredibly attached to. It had been a present from my grandmother when he first left home. She was a very keen musician, and she taught him how to play the instrument before he could even talk.

"Is there something wrong with his instrument?" Akuji asked innocently.

I laughed and shook my head. "There's something wrong with him, not the instrument." I hung my cloak on its hook and followed her into the living room. "I'm sorry that you've got to sleep on the settee again, unless you want to take my bed?"

I knew the answer before she opened her mouth. "Oh, no no, it's fine. I really don't want to intrude."

I turned away from her and let a small smile reach my lips. Even though I was certain that we had caused just as much trouble for her then she had caused us, she still insisted that she was alright with sleeping uncomfortable, she even did the dishes earlier.

"I think it was Javed who did the spell," I admitted. I stared at my fish; Sun and Moon, as they swam in circles in their tank. I had named them when I was eleven, so I forgave myself for their simple names, but they had lasted an incredibly long time. Their electric and navy-blue scales indicated why.

"Javed? But he's so young," Akuji commented. It sounded as though she couldn't bring herself to believe it. Even if he told her himself, she would still struggle. "Wouldn't it take a lot of power to make the entire guard fall asleep?"

I nodded; she did have a point. I sighed and turned to look at her, still wearing that same white dress, still looking nervous. "Children who practise magic can be very unpredictable," I started to explain. "Magic can manifest slowly at first, but once they start to learn, it can come out all at once. If the child is extremely powerful, then it could suggest that they do magic without knowing."

Akuji furrowed her eyebrows. "Could he really be that powerful?" She fidgeted with her fingers and sat down. "Are you born more powerful than others?"

I hummed in confirmation. "Yes, if you come from a magical family, or had an exceptionally good teacher, you could tap into magic from your bloodline." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I come from a pretty powerful family, and Musa is extremely powerful. It makes a lot more sense for Javed to be the one to do it."

I didn't want Akuji to know that I actually suspected Musa. The man was the kind of person who would do something so taboo as to raise an entire graveyard of the dead, why wouldn't he put an entire guard to sleep? I thought the timing was suspicious, and Javed had been using Lavender earlier today. It was too obvious. There weren't many magic users in the village, and so my uncle was my main suspect.

But Akuji seemed terrified of him. Despite her polite words and kind smiles, her shaking hands and speed when walking away from my house made it very clear that she was scared. I didn't blame her one bit.

"Are you going to tell your father?" Akuji asked with a wince.

I grimaced as the music invaded my mind. "Not today," I replied. "I value my ears." I joined her on the settee and reached behind me, pulling out a deck of cards. "Would you like a game or two?"

She bit her lip. "You'll have to teach me what kind of games you play here."

I waved her off as I shuffled the cards. "And you'll have to show me the games you play in Seastown."

I didn't see my father for the rest of the night, I only saw him the next morning when he came down for breakfast. I purposefully woke up early so that I could have a private conversation with him.

"Good morning," he greeted as he entered the kitchen. He had hesitated, only because it was rare, I was still here when it was time for his breakfast. "What are you planning?" He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "Good morning." I had my hands behind my back and watched him as he went about his usual morning routine. "What were you killing last night?"

He snorted and uttered a sarcastic laugh. "Good to know that my skills have improved. You know, I've really been working on trying to replicate the sound of a dying hyena."

I tried to stop the smile which wanted to creep onto my lips. "You did an excellent job," I told him before my expression turned serious. "I found something out last night."

He didn't turn to look at me as he filled his pan with water. "I would hope so, that was your intention, was it not?"

I huffed and shook my head. "It was a sleeping spell-"

"-Obviously."

"-And they used lavender." I stopped talking, expecting him to come to the same conclusion that I had. But all he did was look at me expectedly. "What?"

"Well, what did you actually learn?" he asked and crossed his arms. "Surely you didn't wake up early to tell me that they used lavender."

"Your porridge is boiling over," I pointed out with a scowl on my face. "Javed was using lavender yesterday."

"Shit!" he exclaimed and took the pan off the fire. "And? Lots of people use lavender." He sighed and shook his head. "If I say anything to Musa, he'll just think I'm picking on him."

"Why would he think that?" I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it.

"Because I relentlessly pick on him," he admitted. "But that's not the point. The point is, we can't jump to conclusions."

"You were willing to jump to conclusions yesterday." I pushed myself off the wall and passed him his bowl.

"I've had time to think about it. The result being that I really don't give any kind of care to what my brother does." He leant against the cabinets and stared at me. "You should try and do the same. I'm a wise man, you know?"

"Oh yes, the wisest man who doesn't realise he's about to be set on fire." I walked past him and back to my room, where I flopped onto my bed. Akuji would be awake soon, judging by my father's curses.

Dalila joined me for a few minutes before jumping off the bed and speeding downstairs. I sighed as I knew that was the end of my peace for this morning. I put on a suitable dress for the day and put my hair into a bun. Today was a day full of chores, and maybe some research into sleeping spells.

That did not go to plan. As soon as my father left the house for work, he came back. He marched through the door and destroyed anything in his path like a tornado.

"Neith, who did you talk to yesterday?" he asked as he held me by my shoulders. "Answer very carefully, who did you talk to?"

I looked to Akuji for some advice on how I could deal with my father, for reasons I didn't even know. "We talked to Cian," I answered hurriedly. "Why? What's wrong?"

My father ran his hand through his hair and started to pace. He stopped in front of Akuji and did the same for her, asking the same question with the same answer.

"Dad, you know I wouldn't lie to you," I told him, trying not to be insulted. "Why did you have to ask her?" I tried to mask the negative emotions which I felt.

"Because I wanted to make sure that there wasn't something wrong with you," my dad responded quickly, nearly too quickly. "There's been another attack on the guards."

"Are they alright?" Akuji interrupted, her voice frantic. Her left hand reached to rub against her other arm, a habit which I had taken notice of since she arrived.

I tried to hide the small smile; it wasn't a time to smile. Akuji's concern for people that she didn't know just made my heart warm in a way I wasn't used to.

"The entire guard?" I asked slowly. "The entire guard was attacked. All at once?"

"I know," my father snapped. "It's improbable and impossible. There is no way you could attack the entirety of the guard, especially where they were."

"I guess they were in the forest," I muttered before rushing to grab my cloak, and the spare one which I handed to Akuji. "I guess we're going on an investigation."

"An investigation?" Akuji called after my father and I as we left the house. She scurried behind us, wrapping herself in the fabric and pulling her hood up. "How do you know they were in the forest?" she whispered to me.

"It would be easier to poison, or attack, the guard if they were all together in the centre of the village, they separate before they get to the forest, going in pairs or something. It means that they can be more efficient. Someone must be purposefully doing it if they went to the lengths to attack the whole forest."

Akuji opened her mouth a few times, but each time she closed it. I wanted to know what she was curious about, but I also knew that she ran the risk of annoying me.

My father walked slightly ahead as he led us to the trees. The bright red was the same as usual. The colour cast both a romantic and horrifying shade over the grass. I couldn't tell if it was passionate or foreboding, the colour of blood or the colour of strawberries.

There were no signs of life or disturbances, the path was just as it had been a few days before. There was nothing obvious about the situation.

So, I muttered a small spell and pulled out some lepidolite from my pocket. I then saw the world in grayscale, it was a trick that not many knew. Not many people in the village anyway, I had no reference for what anyone knew outside of it.

"Your eyes," Akuji gasped and raised her hands, as though she were about to cup my face. "They're-"

"Like yours," I finished for her. "Yeah, I'm using magic. So, the magic in me is centred around my eyes right now." I didn't know why I was explaining this to her. I knew that she had no knowledge of magic prior to waking up in the middle of our village. It was a shame her first experience with it was such a dark one. "I'm looking for clues."

"Thank you, miss obvious," my father yelled back at me. He was crouched by the roots of a tree, inspecting the dirt. "I don't see any tracks, maybe it was something in the air?"

"Nairn, sir, you didn't actually tell us how they were attacked," Akuji trailed off a little.

Her question surprised me, but it was a pleasant surprise. She had a good point; they could've been verbally attacked and just had a rock thrown at them for all I knew. Though, I suppose that wouldn't have been enough to cause the panic which I had seen on my father's face earlier.

"Well, four of them are in the hospital right now," my father informed. "I don't think that the others are too bad, but yeah, I'm pretty sure that it was a violent attack and there'd be tracks."

"We'll find them," I tried to assure him. "There'll probably be signs on their body as well, to tell us what actually caused this."

My father shook his head. "That's the thing, there isn't." He stood up and stretched a little. His bones cracked and he sighed. "There weren't any signs of what caused it. It couldn't have been an accident though."

I wondered why we weren't at the hospital, checking out the guard's wounds and asking them what happened, but I kept my mouth shut and trained my eyes on the ground.

Akuji and I stayed together and walked a little further away from my father, who seemed very interested in the tree he was inspecting.

"Do you think we'll find anything?" she asked me quietly. "Your father seems really shaken up."

I nodded with a sigh. "Attacks don't just happen here," I stated. That was all I needed to say in order for my mind to swirl. "You don't know anything about it, do you?"

Akuji's eyes widened, and she stuttered. "N-no, how could I know anything about it?" Her hands started to fidget, and she was shaking.

I stopped in my tracks and looked in those crystal blue eyes, which probably matched my own at the moment. Her eyes were still blue because they were magical, they could be a potential hint. "Akuji, we don't have attacks, our guards don't fall asleep. All of this started when you came here." I tried to be as neutral as I could, but it was difficult. There were many more signs which would have meant she had something to do with it. "The only thing convincing me it wasn't you, is the fact that you were in our house through the night, and-" I stopped myself, I couldn't tell her that she was far too nice to have done something like that.