“Sorry, what?” Amelia asked. “Did you say you kicked Cecil Lockridge out of his window?”

“I… might have said that, yeah. If you’ll give me a moment, I can explain.” William wished his mouth would always listen to his brain. It was pretty good at it, but it still slipped up occasionally. This caused him to sometimes say stupid things, but it didn’t usually lead to situations like this.

Amelia shook her head. “It’s not that we didn’t know you were connected to the incident, but we expected that the older man in your group, Dong Xin, was the one who actually performed the assassination.”

“Whoa now, assassination is a strong word. We didn’t go there with any intent to kill him. It just turned out he was a horrible person who deserved to die.”

“...While I am not particularly fond of the policies he enforced, I wonder what specific transgression was revealed to you?” Amelia herself had need to flee from Ostana because she was an ‘unlicensed wizard’... specifically because she wasn’t rich enough to buy her way into the guild.

“He admitted to burning all of the information the guild kept on the Demon King, and acted as if he wasn’t a threat. So, either he was massively stupid or an intentional traitor. Either way, it’s better without him.”

Amelia slammed her fist on the table. “He did what? That idiot!” Then she straightened in her chair and took a few moments to calm herself down. “Okay, so that happened. How could it have been you? You were twelve.”

“I don’t want to use the same answer for everything… but it was ki. To be clear, I’d been training since I was six, and the wards in the room didn’t really do much to prevent attacks of that sort. The guards weren’t really that good either.”

“Yeah, I’d heard the capabilities of the Ostana wizard’s guild had been falling steadily.” She shook her head again, as if to clear it out. “Given all of that, why is your group here?”

“Well, we came here with a similar goal to the one we had in Ostana… though that one didn’t actually accomplish our goal there. We need to meet with somebody trustworthy and important about a certain matter.” William paused for a moment. “I think I trust you enough to say this, and you may have already guessed. It’s about the Demon King.”

Amelia nodded. “Go on.”

“Well, based on various factors, we know he’ll be coming back soon. Within two dozen years. We’d thought to go around informing various leaders of this, but our first stop turned out to be the worst possible one.”

“Okay. I believe you.”

“That seems… too easy. You didn’t even ask for any of the evidence yet.”

Amelia smiled. “That’s because we already had a pretty good idea about that. It’s good to know that somebody else cares too.”

“Well… that makes part of our trip pointless. However, we still would like as many people as possible to be coordinated in stopping the Demon King… and we have an idea of how to permanently kill him.”

“Really? I’d love to hear about it, but I honestly don’t have the authority to do much with that information, at least not directly. However, I can certainly get your group a meeting with my teacher who is both very trustworthy and has authority here. As for this current meeting…” She took a deep breath, and William was shocked by the sudden return of the other sounds, “...We’re basically done here. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

-----

Dong Xin had kept William updated on their progress, which had mostly been absolutely nothing. However, this time he had something to say. “Today, a messenger came to tell us that we had a meeting scheduled with the Archmage, even though we were previously having trouble meeting with anybody more important than secretaries.” Dong Xin looked at William, his eyes indicating that he thought William was connected.

“Well, as you know I have been having discussions with a member of the guild. She seems to be the apprentice of someone important. Also…” William explained approximately what had happened earlier that day.

Dong Xin shook his head. “Well. Things certainly seem to happen around you. I’m not sure whether that’s necessarily a good thing, but nothing happening doesn’t particularly lead to progress either.”

-----

William supposed that since everything had been cleared up, he could join in on the negotiations. However, he wasn’t asked to, and he decided not to volunteer. He looked young, and was physically young, so it felt somewhat in appropriate. William also didn’t want to give up the chance to spend as much time at the library as he could. He thought that the private libraries which the wizards guild almost certainly have would contain some pretty nice information as well, but he could only guess.

He was somewhat surprised to see Amelia again, but not unhappy. When he saw her again he started off with, “I thought you were done investigating me?”

“That’s true. Is having me around so bothersome?”

William could tell she was joking, at least mostly. “You just seemed very busy. Now it’s not even really official business.”

“That’s true, but I was kind of hoping to see if you had any other good ideas. Some people really liked your idea with the disks.”

“Those sound like people I’d want to meet. I can’t say if I would think of anything else good, though. Plus, I don’t imagine you’d want to give out too much information to someone who isn’t a member of the guild.” William at least hoped they didn’t give out information too freely… mostly because of the demons.

“Well, the guild is open to members of all levels of skill and with talent in different fields joining. Unlike the one in Ostana, where you just have to buy your way into their little circle.”

“That… does sound interesting. However, I really am not very good at magic. I’m not sure if I would be qualified. I also have other responsibilities, though obviously I don’t look like it right now.” William nodded. “I will certainly consider it, and if there are no conflicts I would be pleased to join.”

“Good,” Amelia smiled, “we can always use more people.”