21 A New Friend!

Seph's breath caught in her throat. It talked. The knife actually talked.

"You talked!" She exclaimed. "Please tell me that was you!"

'... It was me. You aren't imagining this.' The voice boomed through her head again. The voice that she had heard back in that class was indeed the knife!

She stared at it with wide eyes.

'You said something back there.' The dagger transmitted his thoughts, 'The spell you had found?'

Seph blinked. Oh, yes. The spell. "A... summoning spell. I was trying to summon a flower and—"

'A flower?' The knife scoffed.

Seph nodded slowly. "Y-yes. It was somewhat of an experiment."

Seph belonged to the school of thought that inferred that magic could, in fact, affect the living, but the spells that could do that were just not discovered yet. How else could Telepathy work? Some chalked it up to it affecting a person's 'mentality' instead of their 'being', but Seph could never get behind that theory. So, she had been trying to develop a spell that affected the living.

A moment of silence passed, before being shattered to bits by the knife's yell.

'Do I look like a flower to you?!' The dagger's outburst interrupted her thoughts. 'Do I sound like a flower?!'

It didn't. It sounded like a person. "... No?"

'You mean to say that you created a spell that helped those two idiot researchers summon a person into a dagger!? You ruined my life for... for a damn flower!?'

"A person?" Shit. Drat. In the name of the dirt on the Immortal's shoes, what did she do? "Shit."

'Shit? Is that all you can really say right now?' She could feel the knife glower. She had never been able to perceive emotions through telepathy before, but she was sure she felt that one through it. She was also sure she could have felt the glare even if the dagger didn't transmit it.

'Are you for- I'm here worried I might be dead already, and all you can say is shit?'

Shit. That's all she could think of too. What did she do? What did she even do?

'SAY SOMETHING FOR—'

"I WOULD IF YOU'D LET ME THINK!" Seph interrupted.

This opened up a whole new alcove of thoughts and implications. None of them were good.

… She had just yelled at the knife. Was her brain plotting against her to make things worse?

"I-... Drat, I didn't mean to-" Words, Seph, find your words! "I shouldn't have shouted at you, I'm sorry..."

The knife didn't respond.

This was overwhelming her. What had she done?! Caused a person to—

Seph rubbed her temples. No. No panicking. Calm down, think this through. Calm…

'For a bloody flower! I can't even…!' She heard the knife continue its outrage.

Seph took a deep breath.

First order of business, make sure no one was around to hear her mumblings. It was still class time, and that usually meant empty hallways in the academic spire, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Seph crawled out of the doorway and walked to the entrance of the passage and peeked her head out into the main hallway. The stairway on her right, that was clear. The hallway on the left seemed to be as desolate as she would have liked, too. Good.

Secondly... She had helped summon a person into a knife. Summoning. You need to put a mark on the things you summon before you get back. She had tried to put a mark on the flower she was planning to summon, but a flower is a Living and the mark wouldn't set. So, this person would not have a mark. That meant that he had no summoning ticket back home.

"Krys and Jach—did they come up with something to send you back?" She looked at the knife. It was a person. She was holding a person in her hand.

'... You think I'd still be here if they—'

"I asked if they had a plan, not if they had implemented one!" Knife sass was not something she was willing to handle at the moment.

'It won't work.' The knife replied.

"Are you sure?"

'They aren't skilled enough to pull it off, of course it's not going to work!' The knife yelled. 'You've got quite the galls too! Making such a mess and then pushing the clean-up onto others?!'

Drat. But he wasn't wrong, it was her fault. Hell, fault was an understatement.

"... I don't even know how to apologise. I'm sorry? That feels so..." Seph muttered and moved back to her doorsill perch.

'You're literally kidnapping me on top of that.'

"I'm not going to go through with it!" Seph raised her hands. "Look, I don't think I can ever apologise enough for this."

'No, you can't.' The knife pointed out. Seph frowned.

"Well, can we figure all of that out later?" She suggested. "We need to figure out how to get you back to Jach and Krys, and we need to figure that out quick."

'Just hand me back over to them.' The knife spat out.

It was now her turn to glare at the dagger.

"And put my friends' lives in more danger than they are already in? Let Lyk Silfter—The Lyk Silfter—know that we sabotaged his little plan? He'll sell US out! At best, we'd be hanged for treason, and he would still come after you!" She exclaimed. "We need a plan. An actual plan that can get you back while not throwing us under the carriage."

That was easier said than done. Seph couldn't directly hand the knife over—that would be bad—but she still needed to get it back somehow.

"We need to get a message to Krys or Jach. If one of them finds me with the knife, I can maybe talk myself out of it. I'd even get an excuse for Yurel." She nodded. "I can't think of a way to send it, though. Do you have any ideas?"

She looked expectantly at the knife, who just grumbled in response.

Seph found herself furrowing her brow. "Are you going to answer?"

'I don't want to talk to you.' The knife replied.

"... You can be mad at me. You have every right to," Seph declared. "But you do realise that if we don't work together right now, I WILL hand you over to Yurel. I would much rather live with that than the guilt of endangering my friends' lives."

The knife stayed silent.

"So? Will you work with me or what?" Seph asked.

'... Fine. FINE! I'll work with you.' The knife relented. 'But I'm not forgiving you.'

"... That'll have to do." Seph let out a breath. She extended a hand towards the knife. "I'm Seph. What's your name?"

'Yeah, I know you have the same name as my sister. That's even more annoying.' The knife grumbled. '... Kyvas.'

Seph blinked. Kidnapped by someone sharing the name of their loved one. Great. She did not want to know how that would feel like.

'The quill thing. How about that?' Kyvas suggested. 'Wouldn't that get a message across to them?'

A valid suggestion. "Students can't send missive's to teachers." But a pointless one.

The only other way they could get a message sent was in person, and that was something they had crossed out already. What if she raised an alarm instead? Sure, she'd get caught by the school, but she could still—

'I can send one. Krys taught me how to emulate the rings.' Kyvas interrupted her thought.

—Or they could do that!