99

"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"

Eirian's scream shook the manor.

Chenzhou, searching the first floor with Yuze, his agents, and Li and his guards, froze, then looked around wildly as Yuze, Fox, and Snake raced back out of the hallway they'd just entered.

"Was that Eirian?"

"Who else would it be?"

"Where is she?"

"I didn't see her!"

"The first hallway and rooms are empty."

"Same for the second."

"We didn't get through all the rooms in the third."

"Why the hell not?" Li snaps, more animated than Chenzhou's ever seen him.

"It's- There was-" The guard trips over himself in the face of Li's ire, as surprised as Chenzhou.

A senior guard breaks in. "The fourth hallway and rooms are clear, but it turns into another hallway, and we didn't get those rooms."

"There's another staircase in the back," Fox adds. 

"We didn't get to the second floor." Snake frowned, daggers in her hands.

As one, they head for the stairs, all attempts at secrecy and security forgotten.

"Which hall?" Yuze looked around. "There are even more hallways up here. How the hell does that make sense?"

"Who even built this place?" One of Li's guards shrieked, kicking in a door to find an empty room with another door.

"Eirian! Eirian, where are you?"

"Call out," Yuze yells. 

They listen, but there's no response but silence. 

"Search every room until you find her!" Chenzhou snaps, and they start kicking in every door they see. 

They only make it through the first hallway when Li suddenly yells at everyone to stop. "Get back in the hallway."

"Did you find her?" Chenzhou's starting to look a little wild-eyed with worry.

"Get a headcount," Li snaps at his senior guard, and it only takes a minute for all of them to realize why.

"Where the hell are Miki and Kang?"

"They were with me downstairs." A stuttering young soldier offers. "They came upstairs."

"Did they?" Another guard asks.

"Miki, Kang, call out!" Li roars. 

Again, they get back nothing but silence.

"Shit."

"It's the ghost." Someone hisses.

"Shut up." Someone else snaps.

"He's right. It got Miki and Kang, and we didn't even see it!" 

The situation is rapidly devolving. If panic sets in and they lose their heads, it'll only make the situation more dangerous. 

"Calm down," Li orders, trying to cut them off before they spiral beyond the point of recovery. "We haven't seen anything yet. They probably took a wrong turn and got lost. We need to find them before we do anything else."

"We need to find Eirian." Chenzhou's grip on Huaban tightened. "She screamed. She might be injured." The worry for her was cold and painful in his chest. He'd never considered that bringing her to the Camelia could possibly get her killed.

Especially after seeing her magic. Magic was so rare and so storied that it was hard to imagine something that it couldn't defeat.

And her magic had saved Chenzhou, saved the Camelia, and everyone in it.

It was hard to remind himself that there were plenty of people with magic who'd died at the hands of people who'd turned out to have strong magic. 

They'd even died at the hands of people who had no magic at all.

"If we lose our heads, no one will be able to help her." Li managed to be calmer when he spoke to Chenzhou, respectful despite the heightened emotions of the situation.

"This house doesn't make sense," Fox murmured. "The layout is wrong."

"Can a ghost change the layout of a house?" Yuze wondered. 

"It's a ghost," Snake said.

"It's a ghost." One of Li's guards said, somehow meaning the complete opposite.

"So basically, we know nothing." Yuze sighed. "You know what would be useful right now?" He whispered to Chenzhou.

"Eirian's magic." Chenzhou had been thinking the same thing. "But why hasn't she used it?"

Yuze frowned. "Does it not work on ghosts?"

They turned to Li. "Does magic work on ghosts?"

Li sighed. "Sir, how would I know?"

"Right." Chenzhou paused. Li was correct; he realized when he stopped to think about it. They needed to find the missing guards; they'd been missing for less time and had fewer ways to protect themselves. Maybe Eirian's magic didn't work on ghosts, but it could at least protect her.

BOOM.

A door and part of the wall it was installed in exploded, sending shards of wood through the air. 

Chenzhou and Yuze found themselves shoved aside by Li and his men, pushing them out of the way of the splinters. 

Eirian burst through the opening, skidding to a stop when she saw them. "Chenzhou?"

"Eirian!" Chenzhou shoved his way through the guards to reach her. She looked unharmed, if a bit disheveled, and very surprised to see them.

Eirian looked him over quickly. "What are you doing in here?"

Chenzhou grabbed her arm. "You ran in alone!" 

"So, you followed me in?" Eirian squawked. "Why would you do something that stupid?"

"That was said," Li muttered, because he'd been the one saying it while chasing Chenzhou and Yuze into the manor. 

"You went in alone! You made the stupid decision first!" Chenzhou spoke without thinking, only realizing as he shut his mouth that it wasn't the most intelligent argument he could have made.

Eirian's expression clearly said she'd heard it too, and the flat look she gave him was almost comical with her hair and robes in disarray. 

Yuze cleared his throat. "What were you chasing? You took off before anyone could catch up."

"The ghost." Every pair of eyes snapped to her, and Eirian shifted back at the sudden attention.

"You saw it?" Chenzhou asked.

Eirian nodded. "Just a piece of white cloth, like part of a robe. But it moved like someone was still wearing it. And it ran from me."

"Oh god, it was the ghost!" The young soldier who'd been on the edge of panic gasped.

Eirian turned to him. "What was the ghost?"

"We're missing two soldiers," Yuze answered. "They disappeared while we were searching for you."

"I swear, they came up the stairs with us, Lord Rong." One of the more senior soldiers sounded much firmer than his younger counterpart.

"If they came up the stairs with us, that means there were only a few minutes for the ghost to snatch them." Fox's voice was muffled by his ever-present mask.

"They have to be somewhere in this house," Li added.

"We could lose more people if we split up to search again." The worry hadn't left now that Eirian was back. Now, Chenzhou was worried about the two young soldiers who probably had families back at the Camelia depending on them.

"It'll take too long to do it together." Snake shook her head. 

Flames started to appear around Eirian.

~ tbc