The Bane of Light

Planning

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At the rate that Paris Arobynn was using it, he made me detest my name even more than I already did. The planning session was the first time I was willingly indulging in a real conversation with him, and by Gods would I make it the last. He kept slipping it into every sentence. A 'Eula' or 'Eulalia' between every other word, as if testing it and attempting to get it situated into his lexicon.  He had used it four times in the last few minutes, and by Gods was I regretting every decision I had ever made, that lead up to this blasted moment.

I despised my name as it was, angry with the way it was soft and filled with gentle vowels. The name 'Eulalia' was smooth and flouncy, rolling off the tongue easily. I wanted a name that was harsh, and biting, so that it discourage others to use it.  But no, my mother had been most faulty in the choosing of my title. 'Eulalia' meant well spoken, I was just a sharp-tongued and rude. Two completely different things.

"So, Eulal-..." Paris began, but I cut him off before he could finish sounding out my name. It was now the fifth time he had used it in this conversation, relishing in his ability to do so. I would soon cut his tongue off if he continued implementing it into every sentence. He was driving me mad.

"To have this work, we need precision and a plan" I rudely interrupted Paris, an enchanted piece of chalk scribbling my words on the blackboard behind me. We sat in an abandoned classroom, the double doors boarded up and charmed to lock in the name of secrecy. Paris sat on a desk in the front of the room, his legs swinging as he leaned back on his muscular arms. They flexed as he shifted his weight on them.

"First things first, we need to visit the morgue" I announced to him, looking up from my notebook. His mouth tightened at the mention of visiting the Necromancy Wing. The same wing where his recently deceased girl friend lay dead.

"But this is not an excuse for you to go down there and mope about Aline. Death is a common enough occurrence that I will not tolerate any tears once we get down there" I demanded to Paris. We had one chance before the removed the body from the school premise. If they caught us with her body off campus, it would be charged as tampering with evidence. 

The Bureau of Magic would have our tails if we were, and besides, it's much easier to sneak into a school laboratory, than one in a government facility. I refused to waste our one chance because Paris couldn't stop with his infantile, ridiculously sentimental behavior. Dead meant dead; his whining would not bring her back.

For Mages and Witches, death was as common as the flu. For creatures who were vessels of pure energy, that came in the shape of magic, I was surprised that there weren't more of us dropping dead like flies. Before anything, we were human. Humans were never meant to tame magic, our bodies being weak vessels for such intense power. It was like placing a hand-grenade into a porcelain doll and expecting it to withstand the explosion. Not all could endure the intensity either, which is why magic related deaths surpassed every other form of death.

Paris and I played out the plan, repeating it till it was engrained into our minds. There was no room for slip-ups. Or atleast for me there wasn't. One look at me breaking into the Necromancy wing would be all the evidence they needed to convict me of a murder that I, for once, did not commit. Even more so if we missed our chance here, and were caught in the Bureau of Magic's laboratory.

Though considerably easier than breaking onto government property, we still had problems to deal with. The main issue was making sure none of the Archaeological History tracts were down there. Because of them, the security on the Necromancy Wing was tighter than ever.

The two tracts had a waging war going on. Necromancers would break into the Archeological Labratories to steal bones, complaining that the History Tracts always got the better funding and the better equipment, which they did. I knew since I looked at the finance records while snooping around in the schools archives.