Anna story continues in today’s installment…
Day 57: ‘I’m going to need to go shopping though,’ she told herself.
‘I’m going to need to go shopping though,’ she told herself. Anna knew that before she went shopping she would have to do a little snooping around to figure out where Marcus and Christopher were hanging around. While she was relieved they hadn’t come any closer to her home, she worried that it was some sort of elaborate trap.
Anna decided that was the first thing she needed to do. “Then I will stock up on everything I need for a lengthy stay at home so I can study the materials I brought back with me and not have to go out for a while.”
She set her list to the side and went to get her tools. As she gathered her supplies, she mulled over the situation. At the moment she could see if there was anyone approaching her section of town if she looked, but the alarms on the barriers of the area were something she had to be within visual range to notice.
“It was how Marcus managed to surprise me when I ran into him.”
Anna placed her scrying items on the table. “Perhaps an alarm of sorts, something only I can here to let me know if they are in this part of town before they get close so I can watch them even if they are just skirting the edges.” She nodded to herself, liking the idea. There was one spell she thought would work, she just didn’t have the components on hand.
Pulling the list close, she jotted down the few items she would need on her shopping list. ‘I’ll cover that before I get into my studies.’
Plan in mind, Anna assembled her scrying bowl and peered into the water to see the images presented. They were much clearer when she could use freshly combined ingredients rather than the premade ones she used on her trip. In the bowl she saw Marcus speaking to someone wearing the uniform of the Official guard. While Anna didn’t know what each stripe and star meant, the man had enough of them that she knew he was rather high up in the command structure. She frowned. ‘Those sort of guards almost never leave the capitol city.’
“And there has been no sign of her since the café,” Marcus told him. “No magical signature, no visual sightings. It is as though she disappeared.”
The uniformed man nodded but didn’t look pleased by the information. “It is imperative that we find her,” he said. “What do you need to expand your search?”
Marcus sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Anna could see that he had bags under his eyes and he looked as though he had not slept in weeks. More importantly, behind him, she could see the dome of the senate building. It was some distance away but that meant he could no longer be in her city, he had to be in the capitol.
‘He isn’t even here,’ Anna thought. After her efforts to sneak back into the city she almost felt cheated.
“I’ve left Christopher to maintain the search in case she is just hiding and will break cover,” Marcus said. “He has people watching all of the markets where she could get spell ingredients. She will not be able to pick up a silver coin without us knowing about it.”
“Good,” the uniformed man said with approval.
Ten til Midnight 