Page 1 of At the Mercy of Midnight
ONE
Amelia Winslow had spent a lifetime studying the mysteries of the arcane, but as she stood in the crumbling Ruins of Veilthorne, she felt only the sharp bite of frustration. Silas Finley, the insufferable prick, was currently blocking her view of their first real discovery.
A breathtaking find, ruined only by the fact she had to share it withhim.
“Finley, you’re in the way,” Amelia snapped, elbowing him as he loitered before one of the few stone walls still erect in the outer rims of the ruins. It leaned precariously, but what still stood depicted a series of glyphs in an ancient language which could only have been made by the lost Gemino Tribe.
“Funny,” Silas said without looking her way, sketching in his open journal, “I was going to say the same. And since I was here first…”
“You werenothere first,” Amelia argued haughtily.
They had arrived within minutes of each other, Amelia and her team from the Northern border, and Silas from the Southern, but he was apparently ready to die on the hill that he had ‘beaten her to it’.
“Time is relative, Winslow,” Silas said with infuriating calm, glancing up from his journal to squint at the glyphs, “and in my perception, I arrived first, thus making me lead scholar on this site.”
Amelia scoffed at the reference to the last time they had butted heads in such a juvenile manner, insisting that the first to arrive at a conference to discuss magical decay would be the lead speaker. Silas hadactuallyarrived first in that instance, though she had refused to let him take the lead on such an important topic, to which she was presenting her paper on midnight interference on their magical devices.
“Your perception is as flawed as your paper on Waystones,” Amelia quipped.
That did it, his pencil slowing against his paper.
Silas turned his head, finally glancing at her. “Ah, that biting Winslow charm. I was beginning to miss it, truly.”
“Truth hurts,” she said with a sweet smile that held no sweetness whatsoever.
He closed his journal with a snap and turned to face her. “I made one minor translation error…sixyears ago.”
Amelia mirrored his stance. “One error that would’ve flung travellers into the ocean instead of their intended location.”
Silas exhaled through a grin and turned back to the glyphs. “Go on, then. I’ll let you have that one if it helps you sleep.”
“Shall I list the other examples I have in descending order of sheer embarrassment, or would you prefer them chronologically?”
He raised a hand at her in mock-defensiveness. “Sheath your weapons, Winslow. Or shall I recount your infamous midnight theory? You know, the one about stabilising magic withunstabletime anomalies?”
“Still not retracted,” Amelia said lightly, the familiar pulsing in her veins at the back and forth they would share whenever they found themselves thrown together. “The midnight surges hold a magic we know little of. It could be the key to correcting some of the irregularities we’re experiencing if harnessed.”
Silas scoffed as he reopened his notebook. “Entirely missing the fact that the midnight anomalydisruptsall our instruments.”
“As does proximity to the Monoliths, yet that’s where the magic originates. Not the quickest bunny in the forest, are you, Finley?”
Silas tilted his head, leaning closer and speaking in a lower tone. “Careful, Winslow. I bite.”
For an odd moment, her heart leapt in her chest and words died in her throat, which was a rarity for her.
“Might I suggest,” came a deep voice from behind, dry as aged parchment.
They both turned to see Halpert, Amelia’s mentor, standing behind them with a compass in hand. “…That you both find a way to work together,” he continued, tapping at the compass with a modicum of a frown. “I don’t fancy thepaperwork that would come with explaining why one of our lead scholars did not make it out.”
He finally raised his head, green eyes twinkling at them. “We don’t have long in the Rift, so let’s not waste time on academic pissing contests, hm?”
The older man levelled them both with his knowing gaze. Amelia had worked with Halpert for many years in the Lux Spire, a prestigious university studying arcane physics. When Amelia was asked to put together a small team for the excavation, he had been first on her list. He had only agreed to come along as a guide and mentor, joking that he was‘far past his academic prime’.
Amelia turned her head and met Silas’ eyes. Shrugging, she shifted back to the wall and opened her own notebook to start describing the glyph discovery. Silas also silently returned to his work and thus they spent the next hour in an uneasy truce. Because Halpert was right. Time was of the essence when one didn’t want to linger in a place like the Rift.
It was a place where magic was at its most unstable, and glitches occurred all the time, often in the midnight hours. Some warnings of venturing into the slice of land in the centre of Aethrial were all undoubtedly myths, born of wild stories from travellers hoping to sell books. Over the years, the number of stories mounted of people going missing, always at midnight. Emphasis onstories.
Amelia knew that the Rift was simply a dangerous and barren wasteland, and you risked your life by venturing beyond the borders. Compasses went haywire, disrupted by the energy created by the Monoliths. Waystone chips ceased working, eliminating the possibility of a hasty exit. Arcane lamps shorted out, which could leave one shrouded in sudden darkness at night. That led to its own significant problems: Rift Crawlers. Disturbing creatures with a hard exoskeleton that only attackedin absolute darkness. Very few had ever seen one outright in order to describe it, but Amelia had seen rough sketches of them, and hoped never to see one with her own eyes.
