Getting away from his house, undetected, without suspicion, had gone pleasantly smooth.
The public hadn't been alerted to his fugitive status yet and only the police were on the lookout for him. He hadn't had a chance to wash yet, but one of his grandfather's old cloaks had been enough to cover the blood on himself and his satchel.
It was evening now, the sun was just barely poking out beyond the horizon, the moon was beginning to glow and the stuffy spring air was making way for a fresh evening breeze.
Ed would probably feel a shiver if it wasn't for the mana he was circulating around his body. Like drinking a half dozen beers, mana relieved the chilling sensation, but rather than numbing him to the cold, it warmed him from within.
Choosing where to go was difficult. Ed only needed somewhere temporary until he could figure out a more long term plan and despite him wanting to drag others into his problems, resorted to the one place he knew he could stay undisturbed. The rooftop of Hardrada Plaza.
Part of him knew that it would be best if Freya stayed away from their meeting place, but in his heart of hearts, he hoped she'd hear what had happened and figure out this is where he'd go. He didn't want her help, he just wanted to explain himself, explain what happened, how it happened, what happened to him, not what he did.
The problem was, she'd be putting herself at risk and he didn't want that.
And while he sat there, debating morality, along with what he wanted versus what was best, the universe chose for him.
"At attention, soldier" a familiar voice chimed.
"Freya, I, uh..." Ed cleared his throat. "What are you doing here?"
Freya hadn't taken the normal route up to the roof, through their magically encrypted door. Judging by where she was stood, she must've jumped up from another building below using mana enhancement or used some sort of spell to elevate her up here. She hopped down from the ledge, overly relaxed, her hands in the pockets of her long red overcoat.
"Seems you're in a bit of a pickle aren't you. The police are on alert and a manhunt is being put together just for you, as we speak."
Ed scurried to his feet, "Freya, let me explain, it wasn't me okay, this thing a whole misunderstanding. I just turned up for a delivery and..." he stuttered for a moment. "... and everything just got so messed up."
Ed was hunched as he approached, hands-on show, spread out to demonstrate his lack of threat.
"Don't take another step," Freya's hand whipped out from its pocket, magic sequences wrapping around her wrist as she held out her palm. "I can smell the blood on you, Ed. I'll hear you out, but you move in a way I don't like, you lie to me or I sense even the slightest spark of mana, I'll blast you so hard your body will disintegrate before it hits the ground."
Ed backed up until he felt a small wall behind him. As he sat down, put his head in his hands and ran them through his dark brown hair, he huffed a heavy sigh, "this is so messed up. One minute everything's fine, I've signed up for the apprenticeship scheme, I'm learning magic and simply doing my job," he lifted his hand, raised his voice and became more animated. "Next thing I know, I'm framed for murder and my best friend is pointing some scary-ass magic at me!"
Freya's usually unwavering will faltered slightly, her kind demeanour giving way to her military training as she stepped forward and continued to coil up her spell, like a martial artist preparing their stance.
"Sorry, sorry, I'll ease up," said Ed as he cooled himself down. "Okay, I guess I'll start at the beginning."
Ed started from the moment he left Freya, to turning up at the job, the mysterious magic forming on his hands and finally how he ended up in their meeting place. He didn't know how long had passed, but it was completely dark now. Even if it was only a moment, Ed appreciated just how pretty the sky was at night, even from the dirty, brick-built roof of the Plaza.
"So let me get this straight," Freya began to pace. "You turned up at a murder scene, rolled around in the blood for a bit, found some writing on the wall telling you to open a package you're fully aware you shouldn't open - writing, by the way, that was left by a murder no less - then somehow ended up passing out and waking up with some weird looking magic circles on your hand. Then, just when you couldn't be any more stupid, you run from the police. Seriously, what were you thinking?"
"I was thinking about being arrested, jailed, or worse. Imagine if they arrested me as a suspect and it was released to the public. My chances of pleading my innocence weren't great in the first place, but if the police looked into these magic circles and if they were illegal, I'd be screwed and get locked up anyway. But imagine if it was completely unknown magic," Ed looked Freya dead in the eye, his jaw clenched. "I don't even know what would happen."
Freya stopped pacing and strolled over to Ed, "So what exactly did this magic do, teleport you from the police to your house? How did you activate it?"
"I guess that's what it did, yeah. One second I was being shot at, the next my face is wiping my living room floor. And I didn't activate it per se, it activated itself I guess. But when it somehow... manifested in me after the orb took a sample of my blood," replied Ed
"Okay, let me start by saying, if it wasn't for the fact you really do have some creepy looking magic circles on your hands, I probably wouldn't believe you," her sentence was broken by Ed sarcastically thanking her for her faith. "But besides that, I have to say the magic itself baffles me. I've never heard of teleportation magic, in fact, I've read reports of studies, experiments, even theoretical papers that all say it doesn't exist within our current understanding of magic. So in some messed up sense, you were right to be scared of the police and, therefore by proxy, the government discovered it, because if you really did possess teleportation magic, you'd be too valuable to them to be a free man."
Ed raised his eyebrows like a parent did when they said 'I told you so.'
"So, do you recognise these inscriptions? It doesn't look like anything I've seen before. Maybe similar to far eastern writing characters at a stretch, but that's a long stretch at best," said Ed.
Freya crouched down and grabbed Ed's hands, resting them on his knees. She ran her fingers over them, tracing the symbols, hoping to figure out some sort of pattern that she'd recognise. "Honestly Ed, same. I have no clue what sort of inscription this is, I've never seen it before. You said it activated itself right?"
"Yeah, just as I was being shot at. The circle glowed and I just wasn't there anymore" he replied.
Freya stood up and returned to the spot she'd been pacing at, "Well, since we don't know what the inscriptions are, we can't use them to figure out what exactly the magic is. You said you can feel your mana being more potent now and that there's more of it even, right?" Ed nodded, Freya continued her pace. "It's possible to store mana in crystals and use it to fuel magic without a person expelling any of their own mana, but it's not possible to amplify or supplant mana into a person with the use of magic. This magic... It doesn't follow the laws of magic at all. The only thing about it that makes sense is when you were in danger, you must've subconsciously drawn on your mana as a defence mechanism and activated that teleportation mumbo jumbo without realising."
"As I said, nothing is really making sense right now," Ed dragged himself to his feet. "I need to clear my name somehow, that's for certain. How I'm going to do it, however, I have no clue."
"Wait, you're planning to stick around?" Said Freya as a fierceness in her voice began to build.
"Of course, Jorvik's my home, I'm not leaving," Ed's voice rasped as he forced out the pain that came with his words. "I have nowhere to run to Freya, no family to help me, what do you propose I do, huh? All I have is this city!"
Freya could sense Ed was becoming emotional again, "You're wrong you know. You've got me."
Ed's felt his chest tighten, Freya said exactly what he'd hoped she would and yet he wished she hadn't said it, "Thank you, honestly, it means a lot. I'm just glad you still trust me," Ed squared his posture, attempting to appear assertive. "But I can't get you involved. I'll figure it out on my own, you have your deployment and your family, you can't get caught up in all of this."
Freya rolled her eyes, "Shut up Ed, stop being such a prideful goody two shoes," she turned toward the exit and herded him along with her. "Come on, I know a place you can hide that the police won't find you."
"Freya, I'm serious, you can't risk it" replied Ed.
"Don't worry, it won't fall back in me either" she retorted as she continued to walk off.
Ed puffed his cheeks and let out a huff through his pursed cheeks, "fine, but if things get too risky, I'm getting out of your way."
Rather than argue any further, he just accepted things as they were, as they always had been; Ed failing to win in an argument against Freya.
He followed Freya as she strolled off, unlocking the door with their sub-cipher and pausing to wait for Ed to catch up. At the bottom of the stairs, Freya peered around the corner, checking if the coast was clear while Ed locked the door.
As he scampered down the stairs, his voice rattled with each thump of his feet, "And how do you propose we get to wherever this hiding place is with all the police on the lookout for me?"
Before he could get a reply Freya walked out toward the opposite side of the corridor, toward a service entrance and gestured Ed to follow. She placed her palm in front of the doorknob and activated the locking cypher, rotating her hand as she turned the translucent dials with her fingers and thumb.
As they stepped through the door, it suddenly dawned on Ed what Freya's plan was. He'd seen the service entrance at the messenger guild before and occasionally seen janitors or supplies come through, but Ed had never been in there.
"These service tunnels run the entire way around the Plaza. Every store, restaurant and cafe will have an entrance to these. It's limited access for security reasons obviously, but there's not much security that I can't bypass as you know," there was a hint of smugness in her voice. "They're only really used for supplies and sanitation, the police will probably assume you won't have access to the area. We'll be safe here."
"If you say so. Not like I have anything better to offer," said Ed.
Each corridor was like a dimly lit basement, the colour of the walls only visible in the vicinity of the lamps every few metres on the wall. The sound of doors clanging could be heard as the echoes bounced off walls and filled vacant space, disguising the location of their origin.
"These tunnels connect to the city sewage system. We'll head down to the closest intersection and use them to get out of the Plaza, from there we're headed to the Skyrail." Freya said.
"The Skyrail? There's no way we can use that, it'll be crawling with police, there'll be checkpoints and all sorts." Ed said, making his point heard.
Freya turned her head toward Ed, still as nonchalant as always "sorry, I meant INTO the Skyrail, or rather the bridges it's built on."
"The bridges, Freya what are you on about?" he thought she was starting to sound a little like a crazy person.
"The Skyrail's network, that is, the levels and tiers of bridges it's built on, were originally intended to be manned for maintenance and repair work that might be needed in the future. For that purpose, it was built with a series of tunnels that could accommodate workshops, bunkhouses and small offices throughout the entire network," she paused as she opened the next door. "Nobody has access to them nowadays, in fact, nobody really knows they exist."
The door led to a manhole cover that Ed lifted out the way. They both climbed down the short ladder, landing with a splash in some stagnant water running below. It was damp, dark and stinky down here, Ed could feel the ick on his skin, everything about it made him feel dirty. Freya mumbled something to herself and stretched out her hand in front of her, palm faced up. A magic circle appeared as the spell sequence activated, glowing a faint white, before dissolving and releasing a ball of light into the air above Freya's palm.
"So if no one really knows about it, how do you know so much?" asked Ed.
"My family helped build the network, so, we still have blueprints archived in our library at home. My brothers and I used to be fascinated with them as kids and we used to imagine going away and making a secret base in them. They're engineers now." replied Freya as she pinched her nose, protecting it from the smell.
"Wait, your family helped build the Skyrail?" he stared at Freya, somewhat baffled. "Damn, I knew you came from a big shot family but not that big shot."
Ed was trying to guess how far they'd walked, how long they'd be walking for and how long was left. It was disorienting, everything looked the same, it was worse than the service tunnels.
They made small talk for a few minutes, the majority of which was Ed teasing Freya about how rich she was. She wasn't impressed when he asked if their butlers and housekeepers wiped their arses for them. It helped the time pass.
"We're here," said Freya, interrupting another quip from Ed.
She'd stopped walking and Ed strolled up alongside her, looking up at what was in front of them.
It was larger, more open than he expected. He thought it would be like a mine, small tunnels, marginally larger main shafts. It wasn't anything like he'd expected though.
A squared open space was on the level Ed stood, but up a few small steps a window and door fronted an old office, a desk, chair and generously sized bed still in there. Above, light shone through a drainage hole from the tracks, the moonlight illuminating the darkness below. It was cold, the air was still and the sound of running water and rattling tracks were everpresent.
He'd prefer somewhere a bit more cosey, but he was in no position to complain.
He stepped in front of Freya as he swung his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor.
"So, this is home for now, huh?"