Chapter 506: Think of Blood as a chain (1)
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-One Week Later-
Two weeks before Lochxen resumed for the second half of the semester, Caius received a message he had long been waiting for from Anne and Lea Gilligan;
They were back.
The two had been away from the Capital for a month and the way they said it during check-ins with Caius—since it was mostly for him that they were on their adventure—they seemed to be having a lot of fun.
Lea had gotten the chance to explore the wilderness, pacifying and befriending many Magical beasts while reuniting with those she had long been acquainted with. The exact details she hadn’t told Caius through the Loqui-Link, and he already knew he was going to be regaled with a lot of tales.
Anne had spent most of her time in Libraries and Citadels, researching lost languages to decipher the manuscripts Caius had entrusted to her. That seemed like just her idea of fun though and she was never without a wide grin on her face when she told Caius about it during their calls. Caius suspected she had gotten sidetracked a lot in her deciphering duties and he couldn’t even be mad. Her excited face was far too cute for that.
Now, they were back. There were still two weeks to Lochxen’s resumption and they could still have continued for a while longer. Caius couldn’t help but hope that their earlier return meant they had completed the deciphering of Allegra’s Manuscript.
When he got into a Carriage to head over and meet them, Caius was joined by Arlette.
"You’re coming with?" Caius asked her.
"What, you don’t want me to come?" She asked him in turn, "Gonna get into some mischief?"
"Well, mischief is a given," Caius said, "You’re more than welcome. Just thought you’d be busy."
"Eh, the others got it," Arlette said with a smile, "Let’s go."
Even while she was talking, Caius was already pulling the Carriage out of the Estate and starting on the way. Anne and Lea weren’t at Lochxen—in the private residence they shared on the Academy grounds—and were instead at their home in the Capital.
They gave Caius exact directions and with all the landmarks, he found his way, pulling into a courtyard in front of a massive Mansion. It wasn’t an Estate with many, many buildings to house staff and more but it was still a testament to affluence all the same. And it was very fitting as only two people—excluding their workers—actually lived here.
From the moment they drew close, Caius could already hear sounds: growls, roars, cackles, caws, cries, and more that were lost in the volume of the much louder sounds.
Caius couldn’t help but smile at those sounds and the image of the menagerie Lea had at the mansion to keep her various tamed Beasts in. Already, it was clear what freedom the Mansion provided over the private residence at Lochxen where she definitely wouldn’t have been able to have so many Beasts close.
There were Woods behind the Mansion, and even though he couldn’t actually explore and observe it properly at the moment, Caius had a strong inclination that it had been grown by Lea on purpose to create something of a natural habitat for her Beasts.
As Caius stepped out of the Carriage, he heard a loud *Craw* and he looked toward the direction it was coming from, raising his arm just in time for Karen, Lea’s Sonic Raven, to land on it.
"Good to see you again," Caius said with a smile to the Raven who regarded him with its intelligent eyes, then nipped affectionately at his ear before flying away.
"Caius," Anne’s familiar voice called from the main entrance to the Mansion.
Caius’s smile remained as he looked over at her,
"Anne," he greeted, and was already walking toward her to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close, planting a deep kiss on her lips.
The sound that came from Anne wasn’t one of surprise but a delighted moan as she instantly locked her arms around his neck, leaning into the kiss and letting the pleasure of it sweep her off her feet. Almost literally too because her knees went so weak as she went limp in Caius’s arms.
When they separated, Caius only then seemed to notice what she had on: It was a silk leisure robe and by how she had felt in his arms, she had worn very little underneath.
She had on her glasses as always, her hair in a loose bun, and more locks falling off in what could only be described as an orderly disorderliness.
"Arlette," Anne said as she only then seemed to notice Caius hadn’t come alone. That said, her tone wasn’t one of surprise but really expectation.
"Hello, Anne," Arlette greeted and the two hugged, kissing each other’s cheeks with far more familiarity than Caius knew they shared.
Sure, they both taught at Lochxen, but Arlette was new to the role and had far less teaching tenure than Anne Gilligan. Also, Arlette never did engage with her fellow professors, and Caius struggled to think of even one of them she actually considered a friend.
"Oh come in, come in," Anne said, sounding like she had realized she wasn’t being a good host. Even though Caius and Arlette had only been there for a minute.
The Mansion felt lived in.
It was spotless—kept so by workers—but there was evidence all over that it wasn’t exactly a recent development for Anne and Lea’s living. Caius wondered if they were once a complete family here, with Lea’s father— technically, still Anne’s husband.
When they climbed the stairs and soon arrived at a tall and massive set of double doors, Caius couldn’t help but think that was an interesting choice of doors for a study. It seemed more fitting for an entrance to a much larger space— Like a massive bedroom, for instance.
And sure enough, when one of the doors was pulled open enough to allow entry, a massive bedroom was behind it.
"Arlette, would you like anything?" Anne asked, as if a bedroom was just the right place to entertain a guest.
Arlette gave no indications that she found this strange.
"No, I’m good," she said and then had a pointed look as she said, "I take it you were successful?"
"What gave it away?" Anne asked with a smirk as she sat at the end of the massive bed and crossed her long, smooth legs at leisure, "Our location or my barely concealed anticipation."
"Both," Arlette said with a smile.
"I did it. Well, actually, it’s ’We’ did it," Anne said, "Lea will hate it if I take all the credit."
"Where is she anyway?" Arlette asked and the grin on her face was very wide. Whatever Anne and Lea had succeeded at must have excited her a lot.
"She’ll be here soon," Anne said lightly with a wave of her hand, "I was going to wait but... really, how could I?"
"What is going on?" Caius eventually asked when his neck started getting sore looking between the two ladies,
"Is this about the Manuscripts. Did you finally decipher the Alchemical process to tame Demon Blood?"
That put a little dampener on Anne’s excitement.
"That has been a very frustrating task, I won’t lie. A lot of the Manuscripts are scraps, notes, experiments, hypotheses, and such. Really, it’s like a bunch of rough drafts put together and trying to sift through, while also decoding the language used, hasn’t been easy.
I’m sorry, Caius, but it’ll need more time."
"Oh," Caius said, a little disappointed but not completely disheartened,
"That’s fine. I didn’t think it would be easy anyway. But you’re so excited and you just said you succeeded at something."
Anne’s excitement returned in full force now.
"Yes," she answered,
"Succeeded at speeding up your Evolution even further."
