Rising Shards

“Stop staring, Aira’s coming this way,” Kalei said.

Aira made her way to us with a cheery expression, as though she didn’t just get yelled at by Lillia.

“Greetings and salutations, Zeta Faleur, Oka Ohri, and Kalei Koridia.” Aira said.

“Full names, huh?” Kalei said.

Aira held up a stack of cards right in front of her smile, and the one on top had Oka’s name written on it in her cute handwriting, with stars on the side of it.

“I put everyone’s full names in our class on flash cards,” Aira said. “I studied them a lot to make sure I didn’t mess them up. It's a long story, but I had an intensely uncomfortable situation at a garden party with last names once and I'd rather not repeat it.”

Aira stood there grinning uncomfortably. For a second, I worried Lillia’s words would sink in with a delayed reaction. That had happened to me before and it was never pleasant. A few years earlier, a girl in gym class had hit me with a really specific set of insults when I messed up a mat ball kick that didn’t immediately hurt. Then I got back home and just started sobbing out of nowhere, freaking Stella out to the point she thought my fangs had come in early.

“What’s going on, Aira?” I asked.

“I need your help with something,” Aira said. “I’ve lost something very dear to me.”

“Want us to help you find it?” I asked.

“It’s…my kitty,” Aira said. “Eio ran away, and I’ve looked everywhere inside the school. I’m worried he’s gone too far from the campus.”

“Wait, you can have pets here?” Kalei asked. “I could have had Mishi here this whole time?”

While Kalei immediately called her mom to argue with her about having her dog at school, Aira continued as best as she could, not prepared for Kalei’s loud phone calls.

“I know you three are in the same group as me, so I hoped you could also search for Eio,” Aira said.

“Where do we start?” Oka asked.

“I hope this isn’t too far out of your way,” Aira said. “But I wanted to see if Razmus Marne knew where Eio went.”

I turned to Oka, who looked like she’d just made a major breakthrough.

“I’m getting him here,” Kalei said ominously as she hung up her phone. “So, what’s going on?”

“Razmus Marne!” Oka said. “Aira, that’s genius!”

“Excuse you.” Kalei said.

“Wait, who’s Razmus Marne?” I asked.

“The Wizard of the Weird Zone!” Oka said.

“…excuse you,” Kalei said.

“Knock that off,” Oka said. “There are some stories about a wizard who lives in his own node in the void who knows like, everything.”

Aira clapped, accidentally dropping her cards on the ground. Or purposefully dropped them, I couldn’t tell with Aira.

“Yes, exactly!” Aira said. “I had hoped at least one of you had heard about him.”

“He knows everything,” Oka said, lightly elbowing me for some reason. She winked at me, and mouthed “Ovie.”

“The stories I had read about him said he knew pretty much everything that could be known.” Aira said. “Even the ways of the great taxation gazelles. They have purple pants.”

Would this wizard give me some answers about Ovie and Jeans? Would I even want to know?

“How do we even know if he’s real?” Kalei asked. “Because that sounds kinda fake. How can someone have their own node and live in it?”

My heart skipped a beat suddenly as thoughts of Jeans crossed my mind some more.

“Dr. Diast might want to help us too, right?” Oka said, lightly elbowing me again.

“Stop elbowing me!” I said.

“Oka, please don’t ever play a card game,” Kalei said. “Your tells are horrible. I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but it’s obvious you’re talking about something.”

Oka looked downward.

Thinking about Jeans reminded me that I was also keeping stuff about Jeans from Kalei. I didn’t like keeping secrets from her either, but only Oka knew about it. And maybe Ovie but that was something I hadn’t even begun to unpack mentally. I told myself that I’d work up the nerve to tell Kalei soon about everything eventually.

We left for Diast’s office right away. With all the garbage on her office floor, there was barely enough room for all of us to enter. She sighed when she noticed we were there.

“I thought I put a note up saying to leave me alone today,” Diast said. “I mean, a nicer way of saying that.”

“Dr. Diast, we really need your help,” I said.

“…I’m listening.” Diast said, sifting through papers on her desk. "Oh, here's the note. Guess I forgot to hang it up."

“We need to go out and find something in the void, but it’s not like super dangerous.” I said. “Can we go and see Razmus Marne?”

Dr. Diast squinted as she stared at us with interlocked fingers.

“Why?” Diast asked.

“I lost my cat!” Aira said. “As our advisor and guide into the void, you probably know about Razmus Marne and how he’ll give you three secrets if you win his game! He could tell us where my cat is, and I would let you and the others get the other secrets!”

Diast continued to stare at us. Something dinged at the edge of the room in one of the piles.

“My pizza poppers,” Diast said. “They’re mine and you can’t have any. I don’t make the rules. Actually, I do make the rules, I’m your teacher, and a rule that’s pretty high up is these pizza poppers are for me.”

Diast made her way to one of the piles and moved things around to reveal an actual countertop in her office, with a microwave on top of it. Aira pouted slightly at Diast not offering us any food.

“Did you know that pizza poppers are actually very good for Cani?” Dr. Diast asked. “Something about the combo of fake pizza and grease actually helps increase fang energy. Too many can cause Fang Juice Disorder though, so like be mindful of that. Because that gets messy. And fang juice tastes horrible.”

Diast’s mood improved once the pizza poppers cooled down and she had a few.

“I will let you all know I hate Razmus Marne,” Diast said with a mouthful of pizza poppers. “And that he’s stupid and he won’t help anyone with anything.”

“But he’s a wizard!” I said.

“So are like, all of us, Zeta,” Diast said. “It’s arrogant to call yourself a wizard for the same powers we all have. Even if I’m just a Cani, I’m just as much of a wizard as him. Plus, he calls his place the Weird Zone and I cannot deal with how uncreative that is.”

“But the Weird Zone is like, actually weird,” Oka said. “Right?”

Diast scoffed.

“It’s just a spot over a pocket of condensed intense etherealis energy on a near dimensional strain, not even like a true node, just a half node that’s half in this world, something anyone with any idea of eternity weaving can do, a child’s clubhouse of a node,” Diast said. “But sure, let’s just call it ‘weird’.”

Aira’s lip trembled a bit. While I really wanted answers, seeing Aira cry would have made me feel horrible for suggesting we ask Diast. Luckily, she caved in seeing Aira.

“You only have four, and five if I help,” Diast said. “You’ll still need someone else that’s smart, Razmus only plays when there are at least seven players.”

“Well, Ko and Kai are out then,” Kalei said.

“Right?” Diast said. “You should see their grades!”

“I was kidding,” Kalei said. “Mostly kidding.”

“Oh,” Diast said. “I mean, pretend I didn’t say that.”

“How about Caya?” I asked.

Dr. Diast got quiet for a second. She put her head down on her desk.

“…Dr. Diast?” I asked.

“Oh, hey,” Diast said, not lifting her head up.

“Are you alright?” Oka asked.

“Sorry, I had a sudden rush of a little depression,” Diast said.

“Is it about Caya?”

“Ugh,” Diast said. “Can you all keep a secret, like for realsies?”

“Probably,” I said. “Is it something we shouldn’t be hearing?”

“I dunno,” Diast said. “It’s about one of your teachers.”

“I think we got that when you put your head down on your desk and said you were depressed right after we mentioned Caya.” Kalei said.

Diast rolled a little puzzle sphere on her desk.

“Is it something bad?” Aira asked.

“Well, depends on your definition I guess,” Diast said. “Oh also, Oka don’t tell your family this either. It’s about kind of family.”

“I don’t know if the non-Berin members of the family talk to me enough to get any secrets out of me,” Oka said.

“Perfect,” Diast said. “It’s about Caya.”

"I'm shocked." Kalei said, prompting an elbowing from Oka.

Sort of scary teacher Caya? Oka’s technical aunt Caya? I’d seen her and Diast talk a bit, they seemed generally friendly enough.

“We went to this school together a long time ago,” Diast said. “I was practically glued to Caya. But we drifted away after graduating.”

Dr. Diast rolled her puzzle thing off the desk, and used her gift to levitate it back to her.

“I didn’t reach out to her much, and she didn’t talk to me after she got caught up with those damn Kilanders. No offense, Oka.”

“Genuinely, none taken,” Oka said.

“Cool,” Diast said. “Caya and I used to be really close. But for a long while now, it’s like I’m a nobody to her. I don’t know if fame got to her head or whatever.”

“Maybe you should tell her how you’re feeling.” I said.

“You’d think, but I’m a coward,” Diast said. “The most serious talks I’ve had are about the slight raise teachers got. And what TV I’ve been watching. The non-Kilander ones, obviously.”

Diast pressed too hard on the puzzle sphere and it spun off the desk, and this time she let it fall into the garbage pile behind it.

“You’d have to convince her.” Dr. Diast asked. “I dunno if I could. But if you really could…”

“Yeah, she’s like family,” Oka said. “Of sorts.”

“If you actually get Caya to come with, and find one more in addition to her, one more smart student, I’ll go,” Diast said. “But I’m not waiting forever, just meet me back here in an hour if you actually do this.”

I tried to come up with a game plan of convincing Caya right away. She was never mean to me or anything, just really scary.

“Can Laenie join us?” Oka asked.

“I told her my plan, and she said her parents would be very mad if she came with,” Aira said. “She said she’d wait at our room if Eio would come back on his own.”

I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d want to come with us. I knew Ovie was smart, but that was not happening.

“It’s fine, I already got our teammate!” Aira said.

Aira pulled a card out of her bag. It had a picture of two middle aged guys on the front firmly shaking hands.

“Uncle to Uncle, happy birthday?” I read.

“Oh! Not that one!” Aira said.

Aira put that card away and pulled out a glittery card.

“Lillia Cadence!” Aira said.