Chapter 556: She’s Like The Wind

Owyn could only watch as Arc fled the room.

He was about to go after her when her Father stopped him with three words.

"Let her go."

He’d seen Arc like this before, with Amarena, and while he’d wondered many times what could drive her against her parents, he’d been careful not to bring it up. But now, she clearly needed help, and her own Father was telling him not to help her?

"I don’t know what’s going on between you," Owyn said, "But I’m not leaving her alone." He dropped the sheets and went for the door.

Arc’s father let out an appreciative grunt and met him in the hallway the moment he stepped through.

Owyn was surprised; he hadn’t even felt Arc’s Father wielding magic, and yet he just appeared in front of him as if he’d been there all along. The giant looked back quickly to the room to confirm it wasn’t just an illusion or something, before growling, "Move."

"You’re in no condition for a fight," he replied.

"I know you healed me, and I don’t want to fight you, but if you don’t move, I will move you."

"You cannot," Kir said, as if it were simply a fact.

Trying to prove him wrong, Owyn punched the metatron’s face. It was like punching a mountain. Arc’s Father remained unmoved, and a moment later, Owyn felt the tingle of pain that meant healing magic was being applied to his arm. For the sake of his pride, he bit back a cry as he pulled his arm back.

"How can you treat her like this?" Owyn snarled.

"You wouldn’t understand."

"Why not?"

"Because you’re not a parent."

"At least I talk to her. Why won’t any of you do that?" He meant the adults of the House of Stars, and Arc’s Father seemed to understand.

"Because we don’t know what to do with her. What she needs. Who she’s becoming and who she’ll be once she remembers..."

"Remembers what?" Why tell him any of this?

"Something terrible," Kir Gale replied, before sighing. "Something for her to work out without us, since that seems to be what she wants. I suspect you’ll find out soon enough..." He put a hand on Owyn’s shoulder for a moment before stepping past him. "If you care about her, try to keep an open mind."

With that, he disappeared, leaving only the impression of his hand on Owyn’s shoulder. No longer restrained, Owyn charged away from the office, looking for any sign of Arc’s passage. He tried asking a couple of students. The first pair hadn’t seen her, but close to the first-floor stairwell, he ran into a human girl who had.

He followed her directions as far as he could, turning to look for anyone he could ask, when suddenly a sharp tug, filled with pain that felt like it passed through his very soul, came with a single word.

"Help..." It was Arc’s voice.

He had a sense of wooden floors and chandeliers, but more importantly he finally had a sense of direction he knew would bring him to her, and he took it, arriving at a double-doored room. Flinging open the doors, he charged in and stopped, gasping.

Arc lay on the floor, no, not on the floor, partially through it, just as a massive chandelier was partially through her, as if it had suddenly appeared inside her body. Her arm had a wide bruise, and might have been broken from the way she cradled it, but otherwise she looked fine if disheveled.

"Owyn!" she called out, trying to move, only for her body to turn about some invisible axis as she passed through floor and chandelier alike, while remaining largely fixed in place.

"What happened?"

Before she could answer, Owyn heard footsteps. From around the corner, Raven came running, pulling Snow behind her. Just as Owyn thought that Arc might have called out to them, too, from up the hall, a pair of students in gray appeared, one a silvery foxkin and the other angelic to judge from his hair and wings.

All of them had the same question, and while it was a bit awkward, Owyn was happy to meet Arc’s siblings, Cory and Sylvia.

"It would seem our sister is finally finding her nature again," Sylvie said cryptically once Arc explained the situation.

"But why would someone in the school want to kill her?" Snow asked.

"Exactly! I’d make a much better target," Cory boasted. "No one could sneak up on me."

"That would make you a worse target, fool," Sylvie flicked her brother’s ear.

"Could we just figure out how to get me the fuck out of here?" Arc shouted.

"Oh beans... Maybe we should move the chandelier first?" Snow suggested.

"Good idea," Owyn jumped into action, easily tossing aside the thing with a loud set of clangs and bangs. As he did, he felt a little drag, and Arc was moved about a meter into the air, where she hovered and rotated. "Oh shit."

"What the Hell is going on here?" a female voice snapped from the doorway.

It took a moment for Owyn to recognize the professor who spoke. It was one of the history professors, and behind her were students and teachers alike, staring into the room and whispering amongst themselves. Even his roommate was there, looking more concerned than Owyn had ever seen him. Almost all of them were in casual clothes, given that school wouldn’t start again until tomorrow.

"It’s not what it looks like!" Cory raised his hands. Some of the students outside started chuckling, and Owyn felt a spike of anger on Arc’s behalf.

"So you’re telling me I’m not seeing Miss Gale turning about in the air helplessly and a half-destroyed room? You know the rules about hazing. You are trusted to enforce them."

"It’s not their fault!" Arc raised her voice. "I- My magic did this, but I don’t know how!"

The Professor’s eyes lit up, glowing a brighter yellow as she channeled mana into them. "It can’t be..."

Stepping into the room, the Professor tried to grab Arc, only for her hand to pass through the girl’s leg as she continued to turn slowly about an invisible point.

"Stop waving your arms around like it’s doing anything!" the Professor snapped when Arc’s flailing caused an arm to fly through her head. She’d started roving her hand through Arc, and Arc’s reaction was something close to embarrassed panic.

Finally, she seemed to find what she was looking for, and when she next moved her arm, she was dragging Arc down, only whatever she was grasping slipped through her hand, "Stop fighting me!" Char snarled. She pulled out her hand before doing something that made it glow with mana, before once more sticking it into Arc and seizing whatever it was that let her move her. She had to grab for it several times, just to bring Arc to floor-level, but the moment she accomplished that, she remembered that they had an audience.

"Be on your way," the Professor raised her voice. "I have the situation in hand."

The students started to depart, but the three professors chose that moment to enter the room. Arc’s siblings stood their ground, and while Snow tried to sneak away, Raven wasn’t letting her leave either. Professor Char clearly didn’t want the company, but after she was forced to admit that her version of "in hand" meant figuring out how to drain Arc of mana so that the effect she was under would wear off, she was able to convince the other professors to leave.

Unfortunately, Arc said she couldn’t feel herself losing mana very fast. She definitely was using it, but it just wasn’t obeying her.

Snow had the idea of fetching someone named Kyan, and Raven agreed to accompany her in retrieving them.

Once they were gone, the Professor asked Arc exactly how she ended up in her situation. Though Arc was clearly uncomfortable admitting it, in the end, she told her an abbreviated version of the story, leaving out the reason she’d been in emotional distress.

"Are you sure someone tried to murder you, though?" the Professor asked.

"I know what I felt!" Arc said. "And it’s not like I know how my magic works well enough to do that!" she gestured at the chandelier, which gave Owyn an idea.

"There’s an easy way to prove it," Owyn said. He walked over to the chain of the chandelier and picked it up near the break, only to immediately drop it as it started to burn his hand.

Char held her chin. "It seems someone melted the chain..." After reconfirming the shortness of the time Arc was in the room before the attack, she added, "It would take someone with true knowledge of fire to do it that quickly..."

A moment later, Snow and Raven arrived with a dwarf in tow. Kyan wore her grey uniform with some flame-like accessories, drawing suspicious looks from Arc and Professor Char as soon as she entered.

"Was it you?" the Professor asked the moment Kyan stopped, gawking at the damage.

"What?" she asked.

"Did you try to kill me?" Arc asked.

"What?!" Kyan squeaked. "No! Why would I try to kill family?"