He had tried to do his own but he wasn't good at all at it, at least for now. All his attempts ended up in failures. There was also the problem that he hadn't mastered a great variety of spells yet so even if he did make his own wands, they wouldn't be that useful.

Instead, it seemed a better idea to just ask someone like penny who knew what she was doing to make some for him. She received coins she could use to make her own things and buy spell components and in exchange, he received working wands and talismans.

Over the period between his visit to Love and the new year, he would have quite a few made by her for him. If he had to really fight a mage, he felt it would best if he had his own magic tools to go against them. Once he was able to craft his own, he would be able to carry as many as he wanted in his bag.

By the new year, he would have collected five firebomb talismans, a wand that was supposed to shoot a lightning bolt, one that could dig a ten feet deep pit into the ground, one that should send the surrounding vegetation in to hold onto his target and one that called a strong gust of wind.

The activation words weren't hard to remember so he was sure he would not forget any of them.

He didn't know how useful all of those would be but he found it better than having nothing at all.

He had thought a lot about his mock fight with Penny and came up with a few ideas he wanted to work on and points he needed to improve in order to fight mages less dangerously. He couldn't just let himself get hit all the time and rely on his armor, he needed to be more alert and react faster.

The most apparent problem when facing a mage was the variety of unexpected things they could get out of their pockets. Any opponent would always have many tricks but mages were different. If someone used a technique he didn't know against him, Emp could just improvise a counter with something he did know. This would not work against magic.

Heinrich was right, the only good way to fight a mage was to be just as prepared as they were. He needed to show up with just as many tricks and counters for anything he could think of and everything he didn't think of too.

This was a hard task and Emp was struggling with it. His progress was slow but at least, he felt like he had made some advance. He worked very hard and with the help of Penny and Heinrich, he had learned most of the easiest spells there were, at least one of each affinity he had. Hopefully, if he kept his focus high enough, he would be able to react with either his new tools, an appropriate magic to counter or even simply move out of the way before it was too late.

What was most important for him was to learn to recognize a few important words in magic language in order to recognize what sort of thing was about to be thrown at him. For example, he now knew what "burn" sounded like when casting a spell. That way, whatever the spell was, at least he would be able to guess it was related to fire before it was too late since almost all of those spells included the word "burn".

That was the hardest part because there were so many types of spells and more than one spell casting language. He had just started learning so the only two words he recognized in a reliable way were "burn" and "light". He knew "burn" because it was easy and "light" because illusions where often related to light. That was the thing he felt he needed to watch out for the most.

He still had a long way to go. Hopefully, Ninoslav would not reappear soon, or even better, not at all.

After he was done with Penny, he walked back to his room. On his way, he tried to not think too much about his problems. He felt as if nothing went as he wanted ever since Mable kissed his cheek. Everything he said was wrong and everything he didn't say was a weight on his heart. The new year was almost there but he didn't really feel like feasting.

After what happened in the flower shop, Mable had been ignoring him, sulking even. She did talk to him but only in short sentences to tell him what she wanted of him as a guard. She was usually a very straightforward person so this silent treatment was very unlike her. She didn't usually keep anything to herself and shared her thoughts the moment she had them. He believed she was keeping silent on purpose to annoy him.

Emp felt bitter about it and refused to apologize for something he was certain wasn't a fault of his own.

Harriett had told him what he had done wrong but he really felt this was ridiculous.

"While master was on an outing with a girl, he stopped to buy flowers for another girl whom she had never heard of and never met. Then, in a single sentence, master confessed his love for the both of them in the most unromantic way there ever was. Miss Mable wanted to be angry about miss Calla but couldn't because you suddenly told her you liked her. She couldn't be happy about it either because she was angry about the sudden appearance of miss Calla."

Why would she be angry about Calla though? It wasn't like he had cheated anyone since no one aside from him seemed to want to be honest with their feelings at all. It wasn't like he had hid anything from her on purpose, Calla just never showed up in a conversation before. The moment she came into question, he was honest with her and told her exactly who she was. From his own point of view, she had no reason at all to be angry. If anything, she was just rejecting him.

Aglaya hadn't managed to appease Mable either and could only watch with a disappointed air at the quarreling duo.

Speaking of Aglaya, she was waiting at his door. It seemed that she had kept her annoyance to herself for long enough and decided that enough was enough. When she saw him, she walked straight up to him and stood directly in his path with a severe look and a serious pose. She had her hands on her hips as if she was about to scold some children except she was barely any taller than him now.

With Celtine on his shoulders, they would have been taller for sure but she wasn't there. She didn't feel like riding on his shoulder since he told her the results of his conversation with Love. Instead, she stayed in her room all the time, to sulk alone he imagined. Because he trusted her so much, he told her about almost everything that was said in there including that he couldn't give up on everyone else for her. It seemed that Love's suggestion once again caused him trouble since now he was walking alone.

He felt quite bitter about it, if he had shut his mouth at least she would still be on his shoulder. Then again, he would have felt like he was hiding things from her and he didn't want that. He disliked lies and secrets a whole lot. It made sense considering every Muraciers hated lies. he really was just like them after all.

Aglaya didn't pay attention to the bad mood he was in and blamed him anyway.

"Emp, this has gone on for long enough, you should apologize already. The new year is in just a few days and this is a bad way to start it."

"No," He answered with a frown. "I'm not apologizing because I did nothing wrong. She's the one who's overreacting."

"Emp! Aren't you supposed to be the one of the two who's more mature and reliable? How come you're so stubborn on this?"

Emp crossed his arms and c.o.c.ked his head to the side with a perplexed pout. How was "he" the stubborn one in this?

"I'm not being stubborn I'm being honest. Apologizing would mean that I regret what I said and that I am in the wrong for saying it but I'm not. What should I have done instead, lie to her face? No way I'm ever doing that."

Aglaya snorted in frustration.

"What happened that day in the end, why are you both like this?"

"Mable didn't tell you?"

"No, at first, she was too fl.u.s.tered and then, she started complaining and it kept going on and on. I was never able to get the story out of her."

"What are you even here for then? You're accusing me without even knowing what happened."

"I felt you were more sensible than her and be easier to convince to make up with her. Obviously this isn't the case. At least tell me what happened."

Emp took a deep breath and told her what had happened the way he remembered it.

"We went together in Love's temple and everything was fine but on the way back we stopped at a flower shop. I had told her I needed to stop there on the way back before we even went to the temple. I needed flowers for Calla."

Aglaya interrupted him when she heard an unknown name.

"Who's Calla?"

"See? That's the question that messed everything up. I wasn't hiding her from Mable she just never came up in a conversation before. I answered honestly to her question, I told Mable that Calla was a girl I met before her because she lives close to my mother's house. I... I told her I liked Calla just as much as I liked her."

Aglaya's eyebrows rose in chock and she choked on her own surprise.

"You what?"

"I told Mable I liked them both." He repeated. "I'm not apologizing because those are my true feelings, I'm not denying them now that I said it. What else did she want me to do? Hide Calla from her or pretend like she was no one important to me?"

"But, what? Why did you never mention her before?" Aglaya was baffled by that strange occurance.

"I told you, she just never came up in any conversation, I wasn't purposefully hiding her."

"Emp you silly idiot! Stupid airhead! When there's something like that, you need to warn the others first, you don't just dump the info on them out of nowhere! Even less if you're telling them you like them in the same breath! That's just not something you do!"

"Warn her of what? For all I know, there's nothing between either Mable and I or Calla and I."

Aglaya seemed like she wanted to retort something but no sound came out of her mouth. It was obvious she was very displeased by his words though.

Emp took another breath to calm himself and tried to express himself better.

"In order to tell either Mable or Calla that there was another girl I liked beside them, even if there was nothing between us, I would have needed to know I felt such a thing in the first place. I felt nothing at all for a long time, do you remember that? Because I had two souls, My emotions never surfaced and after the problem was fixed, it took me a really long time to make sense of everything I was feeling. Mable was the one who woke up the love in me, before that day where she was attacked, I had no idea I liked her or Calla or anyone else. Now I can't get rid of the feeling.

I did like Love told me to, I did like I always do and I was honest with everyone. Now, Celtine won't get out of her room, Mable doesn't talk to me and even Harriett is acting strangely.

It's not like I hid something like having a lover or even a wife. I just told her I held feelings for the both of them but instead of talking with me she got upset on her own. I don't even know how she really feels about me because she refuses to say anything related to this ever since that night she woke my heart. What am I supposed to understand? What am I supposed to do? What does she want from me? I don't know."

Aglaya released a heavy sigh and rubbed her forehead as she stared at Emp and his slumped shoulders.

"Seriously, you both like each-other and you got in a fight for such a ridiculous thing. Could you bring this Calla here so that we can all talk this out together? Where is she even, how come we never met each other?"

Emp made a difficult expression.

"I don't know if I can, it would be hard to do. She lives quite far from here. I know you think she lives close by because I said she lives close to my mother and I helped her make a new armor for me not long ago but this isn't the case. I can't tell you where they are or how I met them so often even though they are far for the same reason I couldn't tell you all about where I fought the unnameable of chaos."

"Another secret?"

Aglaya seemed rather displeased, she understood it wasn't entirely his fault but that sort of thing was complicating things a lot for her.

"I do hate secrets but I hate lies even more. Since I promised I would not tell, like for my name, I will never tell even if I want to. I do understand your point however. If everyone meeting each other can help, I will do my best to find a solution and make it happen. It won't be before the new year though, that's just impossible."

"Fine, in the meantime, I will try to make Mable understand that she's being silly. Hopefully, she will forgive you and apologize before the new year."