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Last of The Fae Chapter 149: Moving Day
🕑 Added 2025-04-15 18:37:56 +0000 UTC"Everyone, please remain calm!" Mirabel’s voice rang out across the towering arches and echoing halls of the Atrium Laboratory. Her tone was commanding, but beneath the calm veneer, a thin edge of strain betrayed her fury. "I assure you—this farce will be over shortly."
The crystalline walls of the central alchemical chamber shimmered under the silver magelights catching the trembling air as if the building itself sensed the violation. Reaching into her pocket Mirabel quickly pulled out the crystalline device Thane had given her a prototype that promised near-instant communication and would revolutionize the entire world.
“I do hope you’re not referring to an official audit by the British Ministry of Magic as some kind of mockery, Ms. Garlick.”
The voice was unfamiliar—clipped, self-satisfied, the verbal equivalent of a scalpel. From the upper walkway, a man emerged in dark green ministry robes with golden trim, his steps ringing out across the steel grating. Flanked by two burly guards, he descended the catwalk with a leisurely pace that suggested he thought himself the master of the room. Despite his frail build, his presence grated with the weight of unchecked authority.
Mirabel turned to face him quickly stashing the device after sending Thane a message, her expression already taut with disdain. His slicked-back hair gleamed unnaturally under the lights, and his thin, angular face looked like it had been carved from wax. His watery eyes didn’t blink as he smiled with unsettling patience.
“And you are?” she asked, her voice as cold as the alchemical freezing chambers behind her.
“Harold Glinden,” he announced, clasping his hands behind his back. “Head of the Department of Magical Agriculture and Alchemical Administration.”
Mirabel blinked once, slowly. Her frown deepened, her jaw tightening ever so slightly. “A department that, until yesterday, didn’t exist.”
Harold’s lips parted in a grin that revealed teeth too white and gums too red. “Minister Fudge simply saw the need for oversight in an industry experiencing... exponential innovation. With the growing presence of genetically altered reagents and promises of miracle elixirs, a centralized body was overdue.”
“No doubt.” Mirabel’s tone sharpened as she glanced down to the laboratory floor. Dozens of green-robed agents weaved between workbenches and cauldrons, scooping armfuls of powdered ingredients, coded scrolls, and enchanted glassware into hovering carts. A four-month prototype project involving frost-resistant dragon kelp collapsed into a tangled mess of runes as an agent carelessly yanked its support glyph free. Sparks fizzled in the air like dying stars.
Mirabel’s eyes burned with helpless rage. “Do you have a warrant for the destruction of property your men are currently carrying out?”
Harold didn’t so much as blink. Instead, he pulled a scroll from inside his robe with exaggerated care, unfolding it as if presenting a cherished family heirloom. He passed it to her with two fingers.
Mirabel read quickly, her eyes flicking from line to line as the color drained from her face and was immediately replaced by a flush of rage. She clenched the parchment until the edges crumpled in her fingers.
“Negligence of Public Safety and Consumer Fraud?” she repeated, voice rising. “You’re accusing us of criminal negligence?”
“We are investigating,” Harold corrected with faux civility, clasping his hands again. “Fae Inc.’s use of genetically modified alchemical bases may pose long-term side effects to consumers. It’s my responsibility to determine whether your company failed to investigate the risks, or worse—chose to cover them up.”
Behind him, one of the guards began pushing a cart loaded with dozens of samples, some of which pulsed with active enchantments, threatening to destabilize.
Mirabel stepped forward, her heels clicking against the polished black stone floor as she closed the distance between her and Harold with purposeful grace. She stopped just inches from him, and when she spoke again, it was through clenched teeth.
“When you see Fudge next, tell the spineless, sniveling coward he will rue the day he tried to cripple us.”
“Was that a threat, Ms. Garlick?” Harold asked, though the tone of amusement faltered slightly as his guards stepped in, placing a protective wall of muscle between him and the alchemist.
But then the air changed.
A weight settled over the room—intangible, yet unbearable. Like the first moment before a lightning strike or the breathless silence between the beats of a heart, the atmosphere grew heavy. Every living soul in the Atrium Laboratory froze. Even the enchanted carts halted mid-hover. The guards paled. Harold’s smirk vanished.
It was instinctual.
Primordial.
An oppressive presence spread like an oil slick, viscous and vast. It crawled over the skin, into lungs, and down spines. It wasn’t simply fear—it was hierarchy. Whatever had arrived was a predator, and everyone else knew—they were prey.
Mirabel’s hair shifted slightly in the charged air as she turned her head slowly.
Her expression had gone neutral.
And for the first time since Harold Glinden had entered the room, he took a step back.
The doors to the Gateway hissed open with a low mechanical groan, and the echo of approaching footsteps drew every eye upward. Thane Fae stepped out onto the catwalk, framed in the sterile overhead lighting like a judgment made manifest. His robes were immaculate, his gait purposeful, but it was his expression—stone-faced, severe, and utterly unflinching—that sent a fresh ripple of tension cascading through the already-frozen room.
He stopped at the center of the walkway, hands resting at his sides, and his gaze swept the laboratory below.
His eyes narrowed.
The wreckage stared back. Half-dismantled potion stations, shattered vials littering the floor like stained glass. Tonics smoldering from disrupted containment runes. Personal items swept into piles with no care. What had once been a proud nexus of alchemical innovation now looked like a battlefield dressed in bureaucratic colors.
Thane inhaled slowly. The breath wasn't loud, but everyone felt it.
Then the weight returned.
His aura surged—not in anger, but with the gravitas of a tidal shift, pressing down like a falling sky. Even those who had stood tall under Mirabel’s voice now found their knees buckling beneath the pressure. The air thickened, silence deepened, and Harold’s guards unconsciously took a step back.
When Thane finally spoke, his voice was low and solemn—but it rang with the clarity of a bell tolling in a quiet cathedral.
"All employees of Fae Incorporated... you are hereby suspended with pay until further notice."
A pause.
"In light of certain recent developments, the company will be undergoing a major transition. All of your positions, titles, and compensation will remain secure. You will receive missives within the coming days outlining your reassignments and expectations. For now, you are dismissed for the day."
He let the words hang there, a balm of order in the chaos.
"And... I apologize," he added, his tone tightening, "that any of you had to endure such hostility while simply trying to earn a living—to support yourselves and your families. You deserved better."
For a moment, no one moved. The tension had not broken; it had simply been transformed—from fear to awe.
Then, slowly, people began to shift, gathering their things with the reverent quiet of those leaving a funeral. One by one, employees made their way to the emergency Gateway circles glowing softly along the perimeter, vanishing in twinkles of white-blue light, leaving only the echo of their departure.
But before the final rings could clear, an indignant voice rang out, cracking like cheap glass in the heavy silence.
“W-wait! They can’t just leave!” Harold burst out, stepping forward with a mix of panic and disbelief, his outrage briefly granting him resistance to the oppressive energy still lingering in the air. “All employees must submit themselves to questioning!”
Thane turned his head slowly, locking eyes with the man.
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t sneer.
He simply descended the final steps of the catwalk and came to stand beside Mirabel—who, for the first time in hours, allowed herself to exhale, tension draining from her shoulders at his presence.
“Correction,” Thane said, his voice calm but steel-lined. “All active employees are suspended. As of this moment, every individual on these premises is a private citizen with no binding professional obligation to Fae Incorporated."
He folded his hands in front of him, ever the image of control.
"As such, any questions you or your department may wish to pose must be answered on a strictly voluntary basis. You will not coerce them.”
Harold sputtered for a moment, clearly struggling to find a new angle of attack. His lips curled in frustration. “That’s... that’s a very shaky interpretation of ministry protocol, Lord Fae. And frankly, it doesn’t reflect well on your company if this is how its founder operates—shielding his workers like they have something to hide.”
Thane gave him a long, measured look. He didn’t blink.
“No,” he said softly. “It reflects poorly on the minister because he's clearly forgotten that authority does not justify cruelty. I built this company to improve lives, not to hand them over to opportunists with a badge and a vendetta.”
Harold’s face twisted into a scowl, but he wisely said nothing more.
Mirabel tilted her head toward Thane and muttered under her breath, “You always did have a flair for timing.”
Thane didn’t respond, but for the briefest of moments, his eyes flickered with something warm—an ember beneath the frost, "Come on let's leave the bureaucrats to their work, we have a plane to catch."
