Chapter 204: Conspiracy

Treeka wasn’t with Dema, because Dema was currently on her way to search the storage compartment of carriage five together with Montaparte. It reminded Theora that she and Bell would still need to find a way to break into the engine room somehow.

Treeka also wasn’t in the diner, not in any of the communal areas they passed so far, and, obviously, not in the Lavish. Theora was starting to get worried when they entered the lounge and didn’t find her there either, but Ulber casually dropped a hint while making a drink for Dr. Alp — “She’s down in the infirmary.”

Dr. Alp grunted in affirmation. “I’m taking a break, and she was kind enough to look after Rita again,” he explained, looking very tired.

“Can we go down there too?” Theora asked. “Without disturbing Rita?”

“Yes. Just be careful around her. Treeka knows what to look out for. A bit of company probably won’t do harm.”

Bell nodded and carried herself down the ladder by her tendrils, with Theora following shortly after.

Indeed they found Treeka’s pot on the infirmary counter, a small magical remote placed next to her little bench in the moss under her canopy. “Ah. I’m getting company? Who’d have thought that was possible.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Theora lamented, even though she could certainly understand Treeka’s misgivings. “I wasn’t aware you were alone.”

“I’m not,” Treeka said, gesturing to Rita’s bed. Rita was sound asleep, but still haunted by clouds — they hung below the ceiling, echoing low thunders and faint lightning. “That’s why I’m here. Didn’t want her to be alone, either.”

It looked like Rita was sleeping soundly. Her wrinkled face lay calm under magical devices, hands resting beside her above the blanket. 

“Any improvement?” Bell asked after taking a seat next to the bed.

Treeka shook her head. “It’s weird. According to Dr. Alp, this is not a deterioration of her pre-existing conditions, but something completely new. He’s at a loss as to what’s causing it, which sadly can’t mean many good things — although he knows it’s magical in nature. Some kind of rare phenomenon maybe? He’s looking to get her transferred to a proper hospital at the next stop — at least she doesn’t appear to be getting worse, either… for now.”

“Ah… so things don’t look totally grim, then?” Bell asked, sounding a bit relieved.

Treeka nodded. “It should be okay. Maybe. Dr. Alp seems very… distressed, though. Keeps saying ‘this shouldn’t be happening,’ and things like that…”

“The cause is magical in nature…” Theora scratched her head. “Could the same thing have happened to Fentanyle’s body?”

“I asked that too,” Treeka said with a nod. “But, no. The phenomena are apparently so different in nature that he was baffled I would even suggest it. He said it was like asking if the result of being crushed by a boulder was the same as getting measles, because both are ‘non-magical’…” Treeka shrugged. “Either way, do you want to stick around? Omi will come to fetch me soon, once Dr. Alp’s break is over. You could tell me how your day went so far in the meantime?”

“Well, it feels like today was a mess,” Bell admitted as Theora settled down. “Omi, Log, and Poxie are hiding something — they seem to have done something to Fentanyle, but according to Montaparte, they couldn’t have killed her. All of them are missing the relevant magical abilities.”

“And even then, they don’t give off the impression that they wanted Fentanyle to die,” Theora added. “They seem heartbroken about it.”

Bell nodded. “We tried to press them, but got nothing. They just ran away after hugging the entire time.”

Treeka tilted her head. “They hugged? Because they were heartbroken? To console each other?”

“Huh…” Bell scratched her chin with a tendril. “I mean, it seemed more like they hugged because they finally could?”

“They couldn’t hug before?”

“I think they were just hesitant to do it openly for some reason,” Bell speculated.

Treeka nodded. “And that’s all you found out today?”

“No,” Theora said, and with pride in her voice added, “we also found out that Fentanyle probably had undisclosed abilities not mentioned in her sheet. Ah… we should ask Omi what they are…”

“Yep. And then Theora went on a tangent doing the impossible.”

“You make me sound unreasonable,” Theora pouted. “We were just wondering what would happen if you used a hidden ability. Like Fentanyle might have.”

“And?”

“Nothing interesting,” Bell said dryly. “Or rather, exactly what you’d expect — you’ll be kicked from the train.”

“So,” Treeka started with a frown, “since your working theory is that Fentanyle didn’t actually die on the train — are you saying she might have gotten kicked out after using a hidden skill?”

It was when these words were spoken that all three of them paused. 

“Wait—” Bell started as the pieces were fusing together in her head.

“What did Omi say again?” Treeka asked, getting up to look back at Rita. “When we talked in the communal area of carriage five—”

“She said ‘being taken care of’ felt ‘oppressive’ to her,” Theora answered, following the same thoughts. She remembered when they’d first encountered her, the cane tapping along the floor, the clouds at the ceiling, Omi and Rita talking about their caretakers.

Bell nodded, her bioluminescence flaring from excitement. “She complained that Fentanyle saw her own worries as ‘more important’, if I recall correctly. And at the funeral—”

At the funeral, her wings drifting in the winds, when Omi had held her speech about her late caretaker… “She said that Fentanyle ‘believed she was the only one’ who could keep Omi safe,” Theora recollected. Of course. “And then I heard Log say ‘She’ll be ours soon,’ during her argument with Fentanyle in the diner.”

“She was referring to Omi,” Bell said, letting herself sink into her chair. Her tendrils waved in the air for a few moments as she kept her eyes firmly shut, collecting her thoughts. “Alright. How about this — Fentanyle wants to protect Omi, because Omi belongs to a persecuted people. Fentanyle wants to keep Omi from getting ‘into the wrong hands’, so to speak—”

“Except the ‘wrong hands’ are any hands that aren’t hers,” Treeka agrees. She was pacing up and down her pot. “She’s against Omi’s relationship with Poxie and Log, doesn’t think they can protect her. So the three devise a plan to get her kicked off the train, by… hm. Maybe Omi filled out the sheet for Fentanyle or something?”

“Or Fentanyle just forgot,” Bell added. “Either way, their plan succeeds, and Fentanyle is off the train.”

“That doesn’t explain the body, though,” Theora said. “But it would explain why Log and Fentanyle met up that night, and why they got into a fight. Would explain how Fentanyle got these injuries, and why she is no longer on the train.”

It all suddenly made sense.

“Except we failed,” a voice rang out from the ladder, and all heads turned to face it.

It was Omi. She shuffled down and slowly stepped into the infirmary floor, threw a sad glance at Rita, then looked at the group. “Our plan to get Fen kicked off the train failed.”

Bell stood up. “So that means — you knew there were things on her sheet she left out?”

“Of course.” Omi pulled a wing in front of her, as if to hide behind it. “She’s always been really careful and kept things close to her chest, there are many things only I ever knew.”

Treeka approached the ledge of her pot, getting as close to Omi as she could; even though Omi was on the other side of the room. “So that means…”

“Obviously she wasn’t going to enter this train run by people she doesn’t know and still give them all kinds of information about us…” Omi hid the other half of her body behind the second wing. “She kept some of her strongest information gathering Skills and combat abilities off the sheet.”

“Ah…” Bell let out, soft and comforting. “And then you…”

Omi looked around shiftily, reluctant but clearly wanting to continue talking. Bell read the gesture and created a barrage of barriers around them, both soundproof and opaque.

Omi still hesitated. 

“It shields from magical surveillance too,” Bell offered. “I have a mana vacuum between two layers. No signals go through.”

“That wouldn’t stop everyone,” Omi said grimly before sighing in defeat. She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “At first I was just anxious,” she murmured. “Raquina had been so adamant that we need to declare everything. I was worried about Fen, so I asked her and then the engine caretaker what would happen if I forgot anything and still used the ability. And that’s when they told me that using undeclared abilities will lead to expulsion… So then one evening when Fentanyle got really ugly about my girlfriends, I started to think of the plan…”

“And you set it in motion that night,” Theora supplied. “Why?”

“Because new passengers meant we had an easier time hiding what we did in the commotion,” Omi answered. “Then at night, Log picked a fight with her in the Lavish, thinking she could get her to use one of her stronger undeclared offensive skills. But Fentanyle was way too strong. Log gave her some surface scratches, not more. When she left, Fentanyle was still in the Lavish, licking her wounds. We thought it was the end of us, of our relationship… that Fen was going to put her foot down, hard. But… the next morning…”

“She was dead,” Treeka finished the sentence in a low voice, and Omi nodded with a sob. 

“We didn’t want to kill her. We thought if she got kicked off the train, we’d have a few weeks just to ourselves. And that—that if Log could defeat Fen, she’d see that there are other people who can take care of me too. That we can protect each other… but Log wasn’t strong enough and Fen taught her a lesson instead.”

“Alright, but why didn’t you tell anyone?” Bell asked. “This is all incredibly relevant information.”

At that, Omi pulled out an envelope from under her wings. Bell took it gingerly, opened it, and then showed the words to Theora and Treeka.

Don’t share what you did with anyone or you will die.

“The next morning,” Omi said, “all three of us woke up with letters like this next to us in our beds.”