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“I apologize for intruding,” Lucien said from the other side of the door, not entering without permission. “I wanted to let you know that we should be making contact with Devyn shortly. Should you want to be there.”

They didn’t have to join them. Although it seemed as though Lucien had gone to the door by himself, which meant Celyn was still somewhere in the lobby, probably.

Marius guessed correctly. Madison eyed the hand being offered to him and ignored it. Not because he didn’t appreciate Marius, but because he didn’t want to put more strain on him.

Instead, once he was on his feet again, Madison reached out to ruffle Marius’s hair a bit.

“I’ll write you all the doctor’s notes you want. Maybe you can come home for a few days while you rest,” he shrugged. Obviously he meant home with him, and not cooped up in the Hall while Devyn fussed over Percy and everything else. Although he supposed Marius would want to fuss over Percy too… and they’d probably want him there to check on Percy too. Okay, so home was probably going to be the Hall.

“Whatever, you can do what you want,” he shrugged and practically stomped his way to the door. The faster they could get Devyn back, the better.

Celyn had retreated from being in the center of everything at the fountain, and had located a nice, quiet spot hiding behind the desk with Lukas. But when he saw Lucien return, he perked up a bit with the hopes that Marius would be there too. Not that Lukas and Lucien weren’t nice! He just had more familiarity with Marius.

Lucien, for Celyn’s sake, and so that Lukas could know what was going on first hand, moved over to the desk to set down the little device that was tracking the bird. There was a little blinking light on it, and it seemed to be getting stronger.

“Devyn, are you there?” he spoke normally, but lifted a hand to press a button on the ear piece he wore, and then pressed a button on the tracker. The intention seemed to be to let everyone close by hear Devyn, should he find the bird and be able to respond.

Celyn felt comfortable around Lukas. Lucien was nice! And he liked Marius, but he was obviously stressed and didn’t really seem like he knew how to be social (although neither did he), but Lukas was just so friendly and made things so comfortable that Celyn couldn’t help but be grateful that he could stay close to him.

Although once Marius came back into the lobby, he lifted a hand to wave in return. They didn’t really have time to talk, but Marius looked like he was a little more relaxed. Or maybe it was just because his hair looked brushed.

Madison waited near the desk with his arms crossed over his chest. He made sure to glare at anyone who looked like they were a little too curious about what they were talking about.

Lucien let out a small breath of relief when the communication came through. He didn’t know if the connection would last, or how much time they would have, so he knew he’d have to keep things short and to the point.

“That, I’ll have to explain later. We need you to come back. There was an incident at Sessrumnir. Percy may be in trouble. How soon do you think you can safely make it back to the Hall?”

He tried being succinct but there were so many things he wanted to say. It had been a long time since he’d spoken to Devyn, and he happened to be very proud of his little device. But that would all have to wait until later.

Lucien knew that Devyn wasn’t snapping at him. He took no offense. He was just grateful that they were able to get in contact with him.

“Men in masks and black outfits broke in. They wanted information and need Percy alive to get it, but attacked him when he wouldn’t comply. Percy instructed Marius to run, so he came back to Alastor for help.”

He hoped all of that got through. He was speaking a little quicker than usual, but paused because he knew there was something important that would likely put even more urgency into Devyn’s step.

“Devyn. Princess can’t help him right now. They did something to stop her.”

There was no denying that Percy wasn’t a fighter. In the worst situations, Princess was always by his side to help him. She got him to places faster, she pulled him and Devyn literally out of danger, she dealt blows that Percy was unable, or maybe unwilling, to do himself.

Without Princess, he had nothing but his strength as a Knight to defend himself. But even that could only go so far.

“********--” Madison sputtered and tried pushing around Lucien so he could grab the device to yell into.

“Are you ******** insane? I am not treating you for a busted lung or cardiac arrest, do you understand-- Is this thing on? Can he hear me? Can you tell him he’s not going to be any help showing up dead!” Madison barked as Lucien very gently, but firmly, pushed Madison out of the way so he wouldn’t be yelling so close to his already sensitive ears. Or risk damaging the device.

“Perhaps he is by a river upstream and has procured a very fast boat and skilled helmsman,” Lucien mused as he held the transponder out of reach of the very irritated doctor.

Whether or not Devyn heard anything that Madison said would be up to Devyn to confirm. Lucien was not one to force Devyn’s hand in any matter, despite his concern.

“We shall look for you to arrive in one hour. Keep the device with you, it should act as a means of communication. If there is anything we can do to help prepare, let us know.”

Celyn didn’t know what everyone was looking so stressed for. He knew he got chills from the voice of the man on the other side of the communication device. He could only assume that an hour must have been a ridiculously short amount of time.

He glanced to Marius, wondering if there was anything he could do to help, but he kept his mouth shut, not wanting to say anything that would be considered not worth anyone’s time.

There was only a brief pause that could have possibly indicated that Lucien was at least slightly offended by calling his beautiful little sparrow ’this thing’, but he didn’t chastise Devyn. For now. He was too distracted to understand the beauty of his work, after all.

“Throw it into the air, it should follow you,” he said, because he would rather it not be left somewhere to the elements. If it didn’t work and it got caught in a tree, then he would just have to deal with that later.

“We will be ready,” Lucien promised and turned to the others with a nod. Other than Madison’s sputtering, but mumbling about how he needed to gather medical supplies and was going to take everything from Devyn’s stash, and Celyn looking a little lost but attentive, the others seemed ready for whatever battle would take place in an hour’s time.

“Please try to get in contact with Valhalla if you haven’t already, Mr. Lukas,” Lucien requested and then took a step back from the desk to start going through his own supplies.

“I’m going to have to prepare for casualties,” Madison sputtered in disbelief as if everyone had clearly lost their minds. He was still in shock over Devyn deciding he would be there in one hour, but he caught the look on Marius and Celyn’s faces and let out a heavy sigh.

“Not like that! Just injuries. For ******** sake. And what the ******** did you do to your wrist?” he barked at Celyn when he caught sight of him again. Celyn immediately squeaked and hid behind Lukas, whom he had apparently deemed the safest person to be around for whatever reason.

Madison rolled his eyes and turned towards the door of the Hall, but then stopped after a few steps and turned back -- he was just pacing as he tried to figure out what he needed to do first.

“Did you already contact Atrius? <********>!”

Celyn stared with wide eyes at the crazed doctor from behind Lukas’ elbow. He also exchanged a glance with Marius and nodded to indicate that he would like to help too, but didn’t know what he could do other than get in the way.

“Marius. Celyn. Would it be possible for you to draw a map of Sessrumnir, and the most likely locations we should look for wherever they’ve taken Percy. If they need information from within Sessrumnir, then they should likely remain there.”

Lucien had already worked on pulling his hair up into a ponytail so it would stay out of the way. As for any map making, he had what looked like a light slate with a glowing grid stretching across it.

“If you draw, it should automatically adjust to what you are thinking,” he explained as he held the matching pen out for either Marius or Celyn to take. Sure enough, if they drew a line with the intention of drawing a hallway, it would automatically shift into blueprints for a passageway, allowing adjustments to be easily made for width and length.

“Why the ******** would it be bad-- oh stop, I’m not being that bad,” Madison turned from Lukas to deflate a little under Marius’ helpless look. He wasn’t trying to be a pain! For once! He was just very flustered and trying to figure out what to do while they waited, and wonder how much damage Devyn was going to do to his body in the race to get there.

“Yes, yes, send Atrius messages. Definitely update him. Quickly,” Madison flapped his hands as if that would clearly indicate the need to go as fast as possible.

“It’s not that bad,” Celyn insisted to Marius while Madison was ranting about something else. He gave a sympathetic look up at Lukas as well, feeling bad for not being able to help more. Oh, but he could at least help with a map.

“Do you want to sit down? I’m a little tired of standing on my feet,” he said to Marius, hoping that he would take that as fulfilling a favor for him, and not a request to take care of himself more. Marius seemed a bit too stubborn to think about himself, first. So if he could think about someone else, then maybe…?

“They’re probably trying to get into the vault if they need information. Well. Restricted information. It’s not like it’s that difficult to get into any of the libraries, but the vault has centuries of secrets from all over the universe from Senshi and Knights who wanted a safe place to store things,” he explained, gently reaching to nudge Marius’s hand so that he was still controlling the pen, but any little details could be added. It was amazing to see such technology. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but it didn’t seem to take much effort to make a replica of the hallway outside of Percy’s rooms.

“The last couple of times things like this have happened. Um… I think there were people who tried getting in soon after Percy became a Knight. And before that, when the last Knight--... oh…”

He was too young to remember it, but he knew it was still a sore spot for his grandfather and the rest of the Council and those who had been at Sessrumnir at the time.

Lucien watched the two as they worked, letting Madison do as he pleased. His eyes narrowed a little as Celyn told them about the vault and other times something like this happened.

“The last Knight of Sessrumnir also refused to allow access,” he surmised with confirmation from Celyn in the form of a little nod.

His frown deepened and he glanced up at the stained glass mandalas that filtered colored light into the Hall. He hoped they had at least an hour still left on the clock.