‘Hey!’ One of the cronies had woken up. ‘What are you doing to him?’
Nava looked up at the man, giving him one of her blank stares, but it was Mitsuko who spoke. ‘Don’t be foolish, Moritz Evered. She’s checking his pulse, as you’d have done if you hadn’t been paralysed from shock.’ Mitsuko raised her voice a little as Melissa appeared, dropping to one knee beside Siegmar. ‘Stand back, please. We’ll have this situation sorted out as soon as possible and we can continue with lunch.’
Melissa had finished – with a little help from Nava since Siegmar was a big man – pushing her patient into a recovery position. ‘He’s unconscious, but I can’t see any sign of injury.’ She looked up at Moritz Evered, another bulky-looking young man though nothing like the size of Siegmar. ‘What happened? Before he fell over, I mean. You asked if he was alright, didn’t you?’
‘Why should I answer questions from a support–’
‘Idiot!’ Mitsuko snapped. ‘Someone with Melissa Connelly’s knowledge and background is exactly who you want at a time like this. How do you expect to get through a battle alive if you don’t even know what support magicians are for? Answer her.’
‘Yes, President,’ Moritz mumbled. ‘He just stopped talking. In the middle of a word, he just stopped. He looked sick. White. Kind of nauseous. Then he fell over.’
Nava raised a hand and focused. ‘There’s no spell affecting him.’
‘Then we’ll have him taken over to the medical office and they can deal with him,’ Mitsuko said. She sighed. ‘I’m not going to get any lunch at all, am I?’
‘Come on, Chess. We’ll get Suki and Mel some sandwiches. That counter’s not closed at the moment.’
Mitsuko gave Nava a look of gratitude. ‘You’re a lifesaver, Nava.’
Nava set off for the vegetarian counter. ‘Not usually, no.’
235/3/29.
‘I said no one would listen, and now we have our first victim.’ Luca Newton’s gaze swept around the room. Most of the people looking back appeared confused. ‘Yesterday, one of the combat students collapsed due to overuse of Crystal Mana. That person is in isolation, undergoing withdrawal. They will miss at least two weeks of school. Luckily, they are in the early stages of dependency and they may entirely recover. It’s also possible that they end up unable to use sorcery at all once they’re off the drug.’
Luca was not saying who had fallen foul of the drug, but Nava knew. So, she figured, did Melissa and Rochester. They had been there when Siegmar Tate had collapsed. Nava had looked up the various indications of Crystal Mana use. One of them was sudden exhaustion once its effects wore off. Generally, a single dose was not a problem, but people who could afford to rarely stopped at one dose. They would chain them, delaying the loss of effects and the drain on their system. But it could result in an even worse hit when they eventually stopped. And, sometimes, the hit was really bad anyway. It seemed likely that Siegmar had been taking Crystal Mana all morning and had not remembered to take one at lunchtime. As a result, his system had crashed hard.
When Nava had gone to Mitsuko’s apartment the night before, she had learned that ‘tests were still being carried out.’ Courtney was handling the case and was, apparently, not saying much. That was irritating Mitsuko, but then Courtney was not exactly in Mitsuko’s best books anyway. When Courtney had arrived in the refectory, a couple of subordinates with a stretcher behind her, the first thing she had done was to ask Nava how she was involved. Mitsuko had been… somewhat vitriolic in reply. Nava had not had to say a word.
‘I hope,’ Luca continued, ‘that this is the last time I am required to make an announcement regarding Crystal Mana.’
Nava’s eyes caught Luca’s as the teacher made her statement. Luca moved quickly on to someone else, but a recognition had passed between them in that instant. They both knew that, no matter how much Luca hoped for it, this would not be the last announcement she had to make.
~~~
The atmosphere in the student council room was… tense. There were various items on the agenda for the meeting, but they all knew it would be the last one which would be the most important and the most divisive. It was.
‘I’d prefer to keep details on this case as quiet as possible,’ Courtney stated flatly.
Mitsuko’s reply came in her reasonable voice. It was almost impossible to tell how irritated she was. ‘I think you can keep the council apprised of the situation, Captain.’ Okay, so she was referring to Courtney by her SSF rank, so maybe it was a little more obvious once you thought about it. Melissa had been around Mitsuko long enough now that she was shrinking in her seat. ‘This situation is extremely serious. I can’t believe that Siegmar Tate is the only student hooked on that atrocious substance.’
‘No one’s given out the name of–’
‘I know you’re not that much of a fool, Courtney, so please don’t act like you are.’
‘But–’
‘Siegmar collapsed in full sight of most of the first years yesterday. He was not in class today. Those paying attention will have noticed that he suddenly became significantly more talented recently. The purpose of Crystal Mana is to temporarily increase talent in sorcery. If the entire school doesn’t yet know that he was using, they will by this time tomorrow. Now, what’s the current situation? What have you managed to find out?’
Courtney sighed. Looking down at the table with a furrowed brow, she began. ‘Siegmar Tate is saying nothing. He refuses to acknowledge even taking the drug. Idiot. The tests indicate that he was using for around two days. If he hadn’t suffered a bad crash after missing a dose, I doubt we’d
