Vance had the urge to follow her. There was a fire in her heart, fear and determination and a heaviness that often accompanied him to the committee meetings with his father where he was asked to speak. It was the feeling he was familiar with. The feeling of something too large to handle on his shoulders.
Drew blinked up at him, "it's just the two of us now. It's been quiet a while since it's been just the two of us."
Knowing what she meant, Vance couldn't keep looking at her.
"Don't you think I have waited long enough for an answer?"
Vance didn't know what do with her confession at the end of last year but now, he knew. He knew clearly. Even if he did not get together with Ash or could not sort between his attraction and the mate thing, even if Ash wasn't in the picture, he knew his answer. Now that he had laid eyes on Ash, felt the first gust of wonder and curiosity pass by him when he was busy sleeping, he knew he was to give Drew the answer that had been dragging on for the summer.
He prepared a response that would let her down gently.
She saw it too. For she walked around the table and sat down beside him. "I am ready."
She looked nervous. Perhaps she knew. But as soon as Vance opened his mouth, Drew's mouth was over him, wrapped around him. He pushed her on relflex and pushed her hard enough to throw her across the room. Drew flipped midair and landed on the table, a small smile on her. "I knew the answer all along. I don't want to hear it anymore."
And against all reason, he thought of Ash, feeling guilty for something he did not do.
Ash couldn't speak, couldn't shake off, couldn't persuade Karn. Karn, to his merit understood she wanted to be alone and walked behind her, without a word. This kind of coustesy made her even more uncomfortable. She slipped through the hole in the wall and screamed. "Bree."
Karn grunted. His sensitive ears must have hurt at her sudden outburst. Within moments Bree was before her. "Ash. What are you doing here?"
Ash looked about the dark forest, "I'd be of little help but I want to help. I was the one here so I figured I's be the best helper."
Bree looked at Karn behind her and back at her. She knew her insistence to he help, specially in the dark was foolish and unbeliavble but she needed time alone with Bree. Between her classes, Drew shutting door in her face and Bree being busy with the investigation, she won't get any time with Bree if she didn't make one.
"I'll help too." Karn added slowly. Ash wheeled around and told him, "go back."
Karn stepped back through the hole and said, "please don't go wandering on your own."
Though dark was considered dangerous for humans, Ash has never been afraid of the dark. She was much more comfortable with the darkness wrapping around them than than standing in the spotlight formed by the temple's dome. The darkness made sure no one could see them, it let her blend in the shadows and it gave her the warmth of existing without having to prove herself every walking movement. And now, this darkness enveloped her, giving her the privacy she wanted, to talk to Lady Bree.
Once Karn headed back, Ash asked Bree, "let's go back to where you were investigating."
Bree took a slow walk back and asked her, "what do you need to talk to me about? It seems urgent."
"It is urgent." She said and slipped out the two envelops from her bag, one addressed to her and another to Karn. "they both contain the same thing."
Lady Bree took the folder from her hands and pulled out the small stack of photos. Her eyes widened at the clear image of Vance bending over the body of a woman. then Vance stood up and Bree found him, sending him off. As she turned to Vance's image of killing a golem and others, her shock turned to confusion.
"You have to believe me when I say someone has been targetting Vance. I met him the next day, rather I met him right after the incident and he had no memory of it." Bree said checking over her shoulder. Karn wasn't around.
"What do you mean no memory of it?"
"It was like the person I found wasn't Vance at all."
"A shapeshifter?"
"That is my guess. A golem, a witch, or even a siren or selkie, someone who could have easily taken the form of another person."
"Or he was hypnotised." Ash suggested. Bree shook her head. "I thought the same initially. When he denied being at the backwaters, he couldn't remember where he was. I brought him to Akiye."
Akiye again. Ash was beginning to get suspicious of the witch. Lady Bree laughed, "Akiye did everything but it just annoyed Vance. Eventually he remembered that he was sending a message to me from the meeting room and ended up sleeping there. Karn confirmed that is where he found Vance when he came to the meeting room. You see some of us go to the council room if we don't have classes or need assignment or even some space."
"What was Karn doing on on campus last year?"
"On the last day of the uni, students come over with their families for a tour. Karn has been here enough times to know the place by heart. Vance had told him to come down after his tour was over."
"Where was Karlene?"
"She had gone to find Sven."
Silence fell between them.
A trickle of relief has started dripping into her gut. Vance wasn't involved but someone was targeting him. When she had spoken to him yesterday, he had been truthfully innocent of everything. A small part of her worried that the conversation she had with him, no matter how small and insignificant was all a hoax to stir her away from the truth.
Bree watched her silently, "you look relieved. Were you worried about Vance?"
Ash frowned, "how did you reach that conclusion? Shouldn't the conclusion be that I was worried about you?"
Bree said, "if were are worried about me, you would have taken this to the authories and cleared my name. Besides I have a boyfriend."
Ash did not touch the boyfriend part. She explained herself. "I wanted to be sure. Afterall, Vance had killed the golem. Saved my life."
Bree smiled softly. "I told you he was kind."
Ash had the feeling Lady Bree was subtly pitching her friend, by teasing and praising. Did she know something? Did she see something? Ash added quickly, "not every nice through."
Bree sighed. "what do we do about Karn?"
"If those photos made way into Karn's hands, it could affect their friendship. We have enough interracial spats as it is. We don't need to be the cause of the biggest one."
"If we cannot solve the problem of the club by this year, I have been told the club will disband next year."
Ash tore the photos into half, "definitely cannot let them fall in his hands."
"Thank you for such little faith in me." they heard from the back.
Ash turned around to see Karn walk towards them, his white short crop gleaming. "you didn't leave?"
"When I did not recieve the mail I was expecting and you were acying weird, I guessed you had seen those photos. I thought you would go straight to the high priestess or the chancellor but you actually went to B."
"You knew about this?" Lady Bree asked.
Karn shook his head. "I just found out a few days ago. I received a similar parcel on my first day. Came to my dormitory. I burnt it. But when the send must have seen me acting like nothing happened, they might have thought it was misplaced. So they sent another. I knew what was coming so I came to the meeting room for some privacy. though you were there, I didn't guess you'd actually look at the main in the short time it took me to go back and forth.
Ash opened her own folder. "that's because I received one too."
This is even more surprising. "they sent me one, I understand why. But why you?"
Bree nodded, "I am curious about that too."
Ash felt confused. Surely it could not be because of her crush. It had to be something else. One after another, odd things were happening around them and all of it revolved around the club and its members.
"The Kelpie, these photos, the golem and the impersonator. If we all tread carefully, we will have enough time to solve this matter.
Bree shook her head, "we don't. If we cannot revive the club fast enough, they will dissolve the student council completely by the next year."
Karn patted her shoulder, "then we will make another club and continue doing what we must. That's for friends are for."
"Don't call me that. That last person to call me that has been far too suspicious for me to swallow." She also remembered why she had been early to the meeting room in the first place. Ignoring their confused looked she continued, "I have good news for you there. The chancellor wants you and the club to handle the overflowing work for this years' representative elections. He needs something to show for your efforts, to reinstate the title of the student council."
"It will not be that easy."
Ash extended her arm. "It won't be which is why we should go back and discuss this with the others."
"What about the clues?" Karn asked, not following them immediately.
Bree said, "we'd look at all the people who have access to security footages. Someone who had the ability to take photographs in the air, or tree in the backwaters, undetected."
Akiye fulfiled the later requirements.
And this why she liked Lady Bree. Karn said, "if we tell the others to narrow down the list if warlocks and witches to someone with wind and earth magic, they'll ask her why."
Ash was quick to find a solution, "do not tell them. With the representative elections coming up, all of us have access to each years list of respresntatives. We focus our energy to leave a good impression of the matter and explain our side of the kelpie incident. The more people we talk to, the more questions it will raise."
"If it puts more eyes on us and less eyes on Vance, whoever is working against him will likely act again." Bree added. The women smiled at each other, an unsaid understanding pasisng between them. This time when the witch acts, they will be be looking out for specific people.
Lady Bree told Karn, "I will put you in-charge of the back buildings. Find out about the cameras and where their footage is stored. Who has access and if anyone who shouldn't be there was there or not."
Karn smiled a little. It set off his wolfish features. While Karn looked plain, his smile made him handsome. "Now I know whose my squad if I ever commit a murder."
"Don't give me that smile. I am not marching into werewolf territory for murder. Tresspassing is a bigger problem here."
Karn sighed, "I am jealous that Vance has friends like you and Drew. Meanwhile I have no idea where Karlene and Sven ran off to."
Ash fell into the background as they walked back. She felt a part of their group and still didn't. For once she was right in saying they were not friends. Not yet anyway.