Return of the Runebound Professor

“What in the Damned Plains do we do?” Karina asked, looking more exhausted than anything else as she stared at the space where Noah and Jalen had been. “Even if Contessa comes back with an Enforcer, it’ll be too late.”

Moxie’s eyes flicked across her room, landing on the gourd resting on her bed. She kept herself from breathing a sigh of relief.

As long as that’s here, Noah is fine.

“Nothing,” Moxie replied. “He’ll be okay. We need to be more concerned with what comes next.”

“He’ll be – what? Are you insane? That was Jalen,” Karina hissed. “He’s a Rank 6. Vermil isn’t going to be able to fight him.”

“I think Moxie is right,” Lee said. She walked over to the door and pulled it open. “Just go back to bed. Don’t worry about it.”

“But…”

“It’s fine.” Moxie shook her head. “Besides, there’s quite literally nothing we can do. Like you said, that’s the head of the Linwick family. He’s way too powerful to try to fight against. All we can do is weather the storm.”

And all I can do is get you out of my room so Noah’s body doesn’t reform stark naked while you’re staring at him. That would be pretty difficult to explain.

“No. He’ll be fine.”

“It’s okay. He’ll be back soon,” Lee said, giving Karina a thumbs up. “If you’re worried about him, you can come by in the morning. Not too early, though. I want to sleep in.”

Karina blinked, looking from Lee to Moxie in complete befuddlement. She opened her mouth, then closed it again and let out a sigh. “I – okay. I guess. It’s not like there’s anything we can do. We can’t do anything against Jalen. Maybe ignoring the problem will solve it.”

She turned woodenly, heading back to her temporary lodgings in Noah’s room. Lee closed the door and turned to exchange a look with Moxie. Moxie’s false bravado evaporated and she started to pace around the room, tugging at her hair.

“This is bad. How do we fight another Rank 6? He’s going to kill Noah and then find out that Noah doesn’t stay dead, and then who knows what’ll happen. Damn it all. Why can’t the world just leave us alone?”

“Sneak in again?” Lee suggested. “We could blow up his house.”

“We can’t do that! Jalen is ancient,” Moxie said. She stopped by her table and stared at the papers on it, as if the solution was just hidden somewhere within them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. “He’s not the same as Evergreen. She was trying to make a point and was a family figurehead. The Linwicks didn’t do that, and you felt his domain. He’s too strong. We can’t fight him directly.”

“Can we get some of the Linwick family’s enemies to somehow cause shit?”

“Not an impossible solution,” Moxie muttered. She chewed her lower lip. “Normally, that would be my family. The Torrins are too busy right now, though. They won’t get into a bunch of trouble right now. The situation is too precarious already.”

“What do we do, then?” Lee asked worriedly. “And where is Noah? Why’s it taking so long?”

Moxie shook her head mutely. Scenarios were flashing through her mind, each worse than the last, but she refused to entertain any of them. Panicking would only make everything worse. All they could do for now was wait for Noah to return.

Minutes ticked by. They stretched into an hour, and that stretched into two hour. The worry that Moxie felt only grew the longer that Noah was missing. Death wasn’t exactly a big threat for him, but getting captured or imprisoned was.

“I don’t get it,” Moxie said, her hands clenched at her sides. Her eyes caught on the stuffed Mascot that sat on the corner of her bed and she grabbed it, hugging the plushie to her chest. “He couldn’t have been captured, right? He can just blow himself up if he needs to.”

“Maybe he’s just talking?” Lee offered, but she didn’t sound very confident in her own suggestion.

“For this long? There’s no way they’d still be talking. Something happened.”

“Maybe we could try to find Brayden. He’s got space magic. We could rescue Noah.” Lee paused. “Wait. I have Space Runes too. I don’t know exactly how to use them yet, but–”

“By the time you make it to the Linwick estate, who knows what could have happened.” Moxie shook her head. “Not to mention you’d never be able to find him. If Noah actually got captured, he’d be held somewhere and probably unconscious. If he wasn’t, he’d have blown himself up by now.”

“Maybe we should find an Enforcer like Contessa wanted to.”

“They clearly didn’t care. Nobody showed up.” Moxie started to pace again. “We’ll have to go to someone else. Maybe Father. He might be able to figure out where Noah is, and then we could try to get over there and break him out with your magic. Brayden might be able to help too.”

Lee started to nod, then froze. She sniffed at the air, then scrambled to her feet. “Jalen is coming.”

Moxie grabbed for her Runes and tossed the plushie onto the bed, dropping into a fighting stance. Lee readied herself beside Moxie. It was futile to go up against someone as powerful as Jalen, but Moxie didn’t care. Rank 6 mage or not, she wasn’t about to let someone kidnap Noah and then come back to gloat.

It’s not like we can run from someone with Space magic as powerful as Jalen. I’ll go down fighting rather than running like a coward.

Whorls of purple magic intertwined in the air before Moxie and Lee. They both tensed for Jalen’s return, but Jalen wasn’t the one that stepped out of the portal. It was Noah. The purple energy evaporated. Nobody followed him into the room.

Moxie practically threw herself forward, grabbing Noah and pressing her lips to his. He stiffened in surprise, then wrapped his arms around her back and returned it. Moxie held him as tightly as she could, as if letting go would let him disappear again.

“What in the Damned Plains happened?” Moxie asked when she finally, reluctantly, broke the kiss. “What did Jalen do? Where is he? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Noah said. “I’m sorry I worried you. I… uh, I think Jalen wine and dined me.”

“He what?”

Noah stepped back, and Moxie realized that he was holding a bottle. He held it out, and Moxie took it numbly, trying to put the pieces of what had happened together.

“I was confused too,” Noah said. “I thought he yanked me away from Arbitage to try and kill me safely, but instead he kind of just… complimented us. Then we played darts for two hours and he sent me back.”

“That’s it?” Moxie asked, not sure if she was meant to be pissed, relieved, or just pure confused. She settled for something in the middle of all three. “He played fucking darts with you?”

“Yeah. The bottle has orange juice in it. He gave it to me to share with the two of you.”

Moxie rubbed her forehead and wandered over to her bed, sitting down on it. Her head felt light. “You got kidnapped by the head of the Linwick family. A Rank 6 mage. And he kidnapped you because he wanted to play darts? That’s it?”

“Yeah, that kind of sums it up. I didn’t really get a chance to ask him what else he wanted or what the point of any of this was. He basically just said he was bored. I think he wanted the Records of the Deceased back, but either he forgot about that or it he’s biding his time, because he didn’t press too hard.”

“I am glad that you are not dead,” Lee declared. “What’s in the bottle? I want to drink it.”

Moxie felt like she was made out of rocks. She slowly popped the top of the bottle off and took a sniff at it. It really did just smell like orange juice. Too mentally drained to care any further, she took a drink.

It was, admittedly, good.

“I wish it was alcohol,” Moxie muttered. “I wouldn’t mind getting drunk right about now.”

Lee took the bottle from her hands. “Did you want more of this?”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“Thanks.” Lee stuck the bottle – the entire thing, glass and all – down her mouth and bit down. Glass cracked and shattered and she chewed a few times before swallowing. “Tasty. I like orange juice. It’s crunchy. Is Jalen going to give you more the next time he shows up?”

“Next time?” Moxie looked up, glaring. “He’s coming back?”

Noah cleared his throat. “I… may have agreed to meet him again next week.”

“Make sure he brings more orange juice,” Lee said. Her eyes narrowed. “And tell him that if he kidnaps you again, I’m going to kill everyone in his family that isn’t strong enough to stop me.”

Noah gave Lee a quick hug. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’ll be sure to pass the message along. If I had a way to get back and tell you what was happening earlier, I would have. This is definitely better than the alternative, though. Jalen turned out to be a surprisingly decent guy.”

“That’s fine. He didn’t smell too bad when he showed up, but he had you for so long that I thought he was trying to steal you,” Lee said. Her tone lightened back up as she shrugged. “You’re back now! It’s okay.”

“Do you think you could do me a favor?” Noah asked.

“Sure,” Lee said. “What is it?”

“I think I need to apologize to Moxie more thoroughly. Could you give us a little time?”

“Kay,” Lee said. “I’ll go tell Karina and Contessa that they don’t have to worry about Jalen anymore. Unless he’s still sending assassins?”

“He shouldn’t be. Probably,” Noah said. He didn’t sound too confident about it, but that was enough for Lee. She waved goodbye, then slipped out the door.

Noah walked up to the bed and sat down beside Moxie. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.

“I’m just glad you’re okay. I thought something had happened and you were unconscious or something,” Moxie said into his chest, pressing herself against him.

“It definitely could have gone a lot worse,” Noah said, his tone turning grim. “I guess we finally got a stroke of luck after all the unlucky ones. Jalen is crazy, but I don’t actually think he’s an enemy.”

“He better not be, considering you agreed to meet up with him again,” Moxie grumbled. “I’m still pissed at him, even if he’s not trying to kill you. Couldn’t he have just talked to us like a normal person without all the theatrics?”

“Sorry,” Noah said, giving Moxie a squeeze.

“I know it isn’t your fault. It’s fine.”

“Oh?” Noah pulled her chin up gently so that their eyes meet. “That means I don’t need to apologize, then?”

A tiny grin pulled across Moxie’s lips. “It depends what you had in mind.”

“I’d have to show you.”

“Go on, then,” Moxie said. “Show me.”

Noah showed her, and Moxie decided that she didn’t ever want Noah to apologize to her in any other way.

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