Evergreen

“Alrighty, what did you all get?” I slammed the door behind me.

The two girls both sat on Val's bed, legs crossed.

“Ladies first,” Val said, leaning back on the bedframe. “Gotta save the best for last, you get it?”

“Best?” I raised an eyebrow. “You’re making this sound like a challenge.”

“I just want to see the shock on your face as I one-up both of you,” Val said.

Mary made a small sound from the corner that sounded suspiciously like a laugh in my direction, one she quickly buried.

“Fine,” I dropped into Val’s chair, letting it rock back. “You better be able to do more than just talk the talk. Mary?”

“R-Right.” Sorry girl, Val wanted to put hers off, and no way I’m revealing my key first.

She dug around in her frilly maid’s bag and pulled out a well-worn notebook. “The maids are always talking about Isaac and the royals, so I was able to overhear a few things…”

I leaned forward. If there was something maids across the world all loved to do, it was talk. Helped a ton whenever I needed some information back home. I’d just send Mary snooping around a bit, and get whatever I needed in a day.

I’d probably get along with them amazingly well.

“So, well, I heard that Isaac has a habit of disappearing pretty consistently… One of the maids said that he always leaves his dorm around six, and another said he seemed to head to Rathbone Hall pretty consistently half an hour later. Another said it was Durland, and a third mentioned Call Hall. I don’t think that all of these are very trustworthy reports, though. There wasn’t any information about when he’d come back, which makes me think that there's either an alternative exit out of the maid’s eyes, or he typically doesn’t leave until pretty late.”

Mary blushed as both of us stared. “Or, well, I… That’s what I heard anyway!”

“No, I’m impressed, girl.” Val leaned forward. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“She’s my personal maid for a reason. Don’t let her fool you.” Luckily, Mary’s… personality made it a bit too easy for people to doubt how capable she was.

Wow, sneaking off. What a rebel. But I do wonder. I glanced down toward my bag, where Isaac’s key sat wrapped in a spare velvet cloth. Is this thing’s lock somewhere around one of those halls?

“Anything else?” I asked.

“N-No…The maids changed the conversation to fashion after that.” Shocker.

“Ok, my turn.” Val leaned forward on the bed.

“I thought you wanted to save the best for last?” I scoffed.

“I did, but I think my information adds to hers a bit.” Val grinned. “And I got some insanely deep tea.”

“Insanely deep? Who did you get this from?”

“So many people,” Val grinned. “Now that Isaac’s been missing for a few days, people have been a lot more willing to talk.”

“About what?”

“About how our good guy prince may not have been as law-abiding as you would assume. Look at this.” Val pulled out a ragged piece of paper from her bag this time. “There’s been a string of missing relics from the palace in the last year, mostly old magic tools.”

“Isaac? He’s not that kind of prince.” I crossed my arms. “Just no.”

“Decide for yourself, I’m just the messenger.” Val passed over the list. “Old magical capacity testers, an ancient color marker, why steal those of all things?”

Capacity testers? Sure, those cost a pretty penny, but simply heading to a magic shop and using theirs instead cost practically nothing.

“I’m not the one who stole them,” Val shrugged. “But either way, there's been some rumors swirling. Isaac got seen sneaking out of the palace around a month ago, with a ginormous orb stuffed under a blanket to boot.”

“A magic detector…”

“Exactly, Ruby. And that's not the only rumor I heard linking him to the crimes. Multiple independent sources mentioned him carrying old magic tech at night! One rumor I could dismiss. Not seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” That wasn’t a number I could ignore. “That’s just so not Isaac.”

I couldn’t claim to know him well, but thievery? Granted, I’d never take him as the type to despise Prismas either, and every single rumor I heard said the exact opposite. Well, unless he was using them for his research…

“That’s not the only thing I heard either,” Val said. “Isaac apparently has a habit of sneaking out at night.”

Gods, did I know Isaac at all? “So that's what linked up with Mary’s rumors.”

Mary jumped a bit at the mention of her name. “That would make sense, Princess…”

“Not exactly.” Val furrowed her brows. “Have either of you ever been to downtown Vertana?”

I glanced toward Mary, who shook her head. “Guess that's a no.”

“Don’t. It’s disgusting, but there's two districts in particular Isaac got spotted at multiple times.” Val reached back into her bag, this time pulling out a map of the city. “There’s a place near the center of downtown called the Pongi district—”

“The red light district?” Mary meekly asked.

“That’s the one.” Val grabbed a pen and drew a small circle near the map’s center. “Name a crime, and someone probably did it in Pongi. Isaac’s been spotted in the area a lot.”

“Isaac? You sure?” If those words had come from nearly anyone else's mouth, I’d have dismissed them as baseless rumors. “Sure, he was a bit of a playboy at times, but red-light-district level of playboy?”

“Who else would it be?” Val drew a second circle on the map, this one half the size and right behind Pongi. “Here’s the second street.”

I leaned over the map. A part of me still wasn’t over Isaac apparently hitting up the red-light district every weekend, but I had to push that aside. “Is this a second red-light district or something?”

“W-Wefald Street? Hardly…”

“You’ve heard of it, Mary?” I asked.

“It’s famous, Princess,” Mary whispered. “That’s where all the kingdom’s magical artificers work.”

“You know a good amount about this place, Mary,” Val said. “Saves me the trouble of explaining things. But you’re missing part of the story. The magical artificers have lived in Wefald forever. Recently, there's also been an uptick of pawn shops.”

“Pawn shops? Why would that matter?”

“Think about it, Ruby.” Val packed the map back in her bag. “Missing expensive relics, brothels, pawn shops. Can you not see how they all connect?”

“No?” I tilted my head. “Why would he be using color verifiers at a brothel?”

“Princess,” Mary muttered. “Val’s saying Isaac’s selling the relics to get money for the red-light district.”

“Oh…” I let that hang in the air.

There's no way he wouldn’t have the money for this, though, right? If it was simply a matter of embezzling the funds, surely there was a better way to get around it than stealing relics?

And it still just fundamentally didn’t feel like something Isaac would do.

Nothing could take that feeling away from me.

“I like the guy and all, but the evidence is pretty clear.” Val lay on her bed, staring toward the ceiling.

“Not to me!” I said. “This investigation we’re on, I got a feeling that it’ll prove that too.”

“If you say so, girl. But I told you that I’d blow your mind.” Val’s confidence was almost contagious. “Mind blown yet?”

“Nope!”

“Ok then, Ruby, what did you find that's so mind-blowing?”

“Well, as for me…” I dug into my bag, bringing out the dingy key from last night. “I found this.”

“A key?” Mary asked.

“Not just a key, one hidden inside Isaac’s desk with a monochrome lock.”

“P-Princess! Did you actually—”

“Yep, and got away scot-free. Their security here is so dated it's insane.” I wasn’t going to tell her how close I was to getting caught. Not in a million years.

“So you really made it inside…” Val leaned forward. “Let me see.”

“Go crazy,” I tossed the key her way as Mary scooted closer. “As far as I can tell, there's nothing crazy about it.”

I’d spent half of last night testing whatever random thought came to mind. As far as I could tell, there were no secret magical circuits, nor a mythical core—nothing but rusty iron.

“Have you tried it anywhere?” Val pointed the key up toward the light.

“Yep, no dice.” It wasn’t anything remotely similar to our dorm locks, nor anything I could find on campus. “Could belong to the royal palace as far as I know.”

“I doubt that, Princess…” Mary said, still very flustered from learning of my break-in. I don’t wanna imagine how Mary would be if she knew the whole story. “All the royal palace's keys use mythril, the same as ours.”

“So we got a key without a lock, some missing magic gear, and the fact that Isaac is apparently sneaking around half of Vertana.” Val tossed the key back. “What are you planning to do with all that?”

“Easy.” I caught the key midair. “Find out what this—”

But my voice cut off as a scream came from somewhere outside. “You hear that?”

“Yeah…” Val jumped up and cracked open the door. “There’s a ton of people running—”

“Isaac!” A second scream cut through the door.

I could feel his key grow cold in my hands.

Why are they screaming Isaac’s name? That scream made it sound like the world was ending. Sure wasn’t a happy one.

“...Ruby?” Mary’s voice felt smaller than ever.

“Let’s head out.” I took a deep breath. Whatever was going on outside, clearly it had something to do with Isaac.

It didn’t sound like great news.