Tabitha glances at him.

"High impact. Caused the rain. Testing defenses?"

"I think so. It sounded like she was trying to get my elementals to batter it open, too."

The room is dead silent for an awkwardly long time, everyone staring at Raafi.

"Right. I was. Um. My attention was elsewhere." Blush. "At the time, but. Yes. The next thing to happen was the sudden appearance of three wind elementals."

"Distracted everyone," Tabitha adds. "Let the lewd golems break our line."

"Those were yours?" Colbert asks Raafi intently, baffled, and ever-so-slightly accusatory.

"Mhm. I wasn't expecting them to be that alarming."

"I don't know if I should be impressed or just terrified!" Kirche says, sounding far more the former than the latter, and also turned on. Then she sobers somewhat. "...which really puts things in perspective, how easily Fouquet slaughtered them. F- Dear me."

"They aren't dangerous; they'll follow directions. But yes, that was -" he shakes his head. "We were badly outclassed."

"Aren't dang---" Colbert sputters. "They're elementals. They're the most dangerous beings in this world, capricious and unpredictable, indifferent to human life and powerful enough to destroy cities on a whim! We're lucky to be alive!"

"I wouldn't've summoned them if they wouldn't have been under control. I don't know if your magic allows for that but mine does."

"..it, its true," Scyelen speaks up. "Raafi has told me about a lot of his abilities, and, um, this was one of them. It's... reliable?"

Colbert gives Scyelen a kindly look. "I'm afraid you've been misinformed Miss Vallière. Elementals are simply too dangerous to be 'used' in any manner, reliably. Attempts to bargain with them require significant expertise and no small amount of luck, and have only ever succeeded on their terms. Every mage who has ever attempted to bind an elemental to serve them has only achieved a disastrous tragedy of one sort or another. Your familiar is extremely lucky to be alive."

Raafi just rolls his eyes.

"It is increasingly obvious that Fouquet was playing with us, yes," Henrietta says, getting them back on topic. "After destroying one of the elementals, Fouquet dropped Scyelen and I into a concealed water cage which she had formed underground, and I obviously didn't see anything that happened between that and Raafi's rescue attempt."

Henrietta shoots Scyelen a look. "I'm very impressed with how well you kept your wits about you, by the way. Thank you for being there for me, Scyelen."

As Scyelen blushes and smiles, squirming under the princess's gaze, Kirche interjects with a slightly tangential question of her own.

"Yeah, about that. How did such a shy and chaste girl as you endure whatever that potion in the fog was?"

Scyelen gapes at her. (Shy? Okay. Chaste?! Is that really how Kirche sees her? It should even be a compliment: affirmation that she's hidden her deviancy well. So why does she want to scream that Kirche couldn't be more wrong about her?)

"I, of course, am well learned in the art of channeling my carnal passions to productive ends!" If this were an anime, all the adults in the room would have a sweat-drop on their heads. "But out of everyone, you were the only other person there who kept control of yourself to the same degree. Were you mysteriously immune for some reason?"

"Um, no?" Scyelen replies in a tiny, confused voice. "I wasn't immune."

"Then I am definitely impressed and confused! Even Tabitha said she felt like her brains would try to melt out of her loins if her womanly charms didn't get some immediate attention. You've met Tabitha!"

(Tabitha herself conspicuously doesn't react to this, which sort of proves Kirche's point.)

"But I always feel that w-" Scyelen locks up as she realizes what just came out of her mouth. She dives behind Raafi and buries her face in Raafi's back, trying to vanish.

Kirche, of course, is absolutely delighted by Scyelen's slip.

"Kirche, that was cruel." He half-turns to put an arm around Scyelen's shoulders.

Kirche flails her hands in a negating gesture. "No no! I'm not. I meant it. I'm impressed."

"I think we should keep this discussion on point," Henrietta cuts in, blushing herself. "Please leave delicate matters to a more appropriate venue."

"Anyway. Who saw what happened next? What was Fouquet doing while I was trapped in her underground water cage?"

"That's when she was baiting the elementals into attacking the tower - I'd told them to go for her after she destroyed the first one, they wouldn't've done anything else, but they aren't very smart and I didn't tell them to avoid it."

"Began attack run with Sylphid. Fouquet noticed prior to visual contact. Killed elementals. Shielded instead of dodged."

Glance.

"Princess in line of fire."

"Mmhmm. You know this part - I saw that she'd moved the cage and tried to teleport in to get you, and she pulled us into the air and threw me and Scyelen out of it."

"Yes, thank you for the attempt," Henrietta says to Raafi. "Even if that cage certainly wasn't big enough for three."

She frowns. "Fouquet threw Scyelen out as well. Forgive me for speculating, but... Fouquet's target was obviously not any of us. Her ultimate objective was the Flagon. She tried several methods of breaching the Vault, but none were effective. She only succeeded in her objective because Scyelen is a loyal friend to me and as of that very moment, a line-class Void mage."

Henrietta waits for the surprise on that point to die down.

"Her second element is Wind!" Kirche chimes in helpfully.

"Indeed. So. Scyelen's ability must have been accounted for in Fouquet's plans."

"Mmhmm. Who knew about her?"

"Scyelen, was that truly the first time you cast a line-class spell?" Henrietta asks.

(Scyelen nods.)

"No one knew, then. Not even Scyelen. As for the people who knew she's a Void mage at all, I believe they're all in this room right now?"

"Hm."

"...Raafi's familiar runes worked," Scyelen says, because that is the next thing that happened.

"Mmhmm. We'll want to talk tactics sometime. Privately, if someone here is passing information to Fouquet."