A Cat, a Thief, and a Wizard

Seth was leaning against the campus outer wall where the group liked to meet. He leaned his head back and looked at the cloudy sky. He was the only one there, except for Mau, who was sleeping in the grass next to him. He was done with classes for the day, and his roommate Isaac was hogging the single desk in the dorm room. The library was busy this time of day, so Seth figured he could get some work done out here.

Instead, he was sitting on his history book. He'd intended to read up on the Flower Empress, but as the only book he had with him that was thick enough to block the chill from the ground it became his seat instead.

It was cold today. It would probably drop below freezing after nightfall.

He glanced down at Mau. She was curled in a perfect circle with her long tail covering her face and paws. Only her ears were sticking out. She wasn't touching him, but was within arms reach. Seth hadn't let her get any further away.

It had been days since she disappeared at the Menagerie, but he still hadn't forgiven her for scaring him. She'd told him where she'd gone, and what was going on with the familiars. She told him she wanted to find the teleportation point in the school and planned to go exploring.

He didn't let her.

She showed him how she'd hidden her location from him and taught him how to do it too. She promised to never do it again.

He didn't care. It would take a while before he was comfortable with her wandering off again.

He rested a hand on her warm fur. Since he wasn't going to read up on the Empress, he should practice the Bind spell instead. He thought he had all the components down, but it wasn't working for him.

He raised one hand and made the symbol. Drawing the sigil with mana required the correct position of all the fingers on his hand. Three in particular were important, and something about the way he moved them was wrong. He was recreating the sigil exactly, but the spell kept failing. At least, that was the weakest part of the spell he was aware of. For all he knew, he was messing up the incant too. He really hoped he could figure it out without needing to see the spell cast in person.

He had Light down. With enough focus, he could cast it reliably now. Barrier was becoming second nature too. A little more practice and he'd be able to start working on unstructured variants.

Seth let his hand drop. He was getting burned out practicing those spells. His brain needed a change of pace. He dragged over his school bag and pulled out a folder with papers in it.

He kept these on his person or locked in his trunk. Seth had seen Isaac going through his stuff a couple of times and that irked Seth enough to keep the folder with him.

These were the rudimentary plans he'd been making for getting the skull ring back from Ned, and raiding the Skull Gang's house to find whatever artifact they were using to take Duvessa's powers.

She hadn't lost anything new, to Seth's relief. Simply avoiding sending her shadows to spy on them had prevented any further losses.

But they needed more information about them to successfully raid their house.

There was the layout of the sections that Booth had been in. Mau had added details, too, though Seth didn't know how she knew those things. He also had descriptions and names of the gang members Booth knew.

There were fighters and thugs living there. At least some of them were trained. If the group wanted to go in and search the place, they didn't have a lot of options. They couldn't infiltrate it because too many gang members would recognize them, especially Booth and Duvessa. Disguises were risky, and illusions could be dispelled.

Seth also had no idea what defenses the building would have. If they had anything like the crystal spider Selendrith's grandfather had they'd be found out instantly, so just breaking in was out of the question.

The safest way to search would be to arrange for all the gang members to be out of the building. The problem with that plan was the objects they were looking for would likely leave with the gang.

He looked through his notes and tried to find some way to solve the puzzle. It didn't take long before he started to feel unproductive. Frustrated that he couldn't think of a new angle, Seth shoved the folder back in his bag. Maybe Booth would have ideas.

Seth glanced down at Mau, still sleeping soundly. He wondered if he should ask her for a plan. She was smart. She knew things. It felt weird asking a cub only a few months old how to raid a street gang's hideout. If he couldn't come up with something himself, she would. He wasn't sure she would help. She could be weirdly contrary about the strangest things.

Sighing, Seth pulled out Saben's student handbook. Saben had given it to him before school started and Seth had yet to read it. He didn't feel he needed to since Saben had given him a run down of everything in it anyway. But he wanted to be productive, so he may as well take a look at it.

Besides, Selendrith had said the required spells for the semester were in the book. Maybe one of them would be useful and easy to learn.

The handbook was pretty beat up. Saben hadn't used it gently before Seth got it, and Seth was no kinder to it. It generally lived in the bottom of his bag with other odds and ends. If it got too bad, he could just get a new one.

Seth opened to the title page, and there was a message there from his father to Saben.

"Saben, This is a new beginning for both of us. May your power let you see clearly. I'm proud of you. Dad"

It was written in Dad's slanted handwriting.

Seth just stared at it for several minutes. He hadn't realized Dad had given this to Saben. The two of them had been arguing a lot back then. Saben had been acting out a lot, and Dad wasn't tolerating it. Dad kept pushing Saben in ways Saben didn't want to go.

Seth and his father had similar interests. They both had a fascination with the stars. Saben thought they were stupid. Dad had taught Seth all the names of the stars, and all the constellations. Saben refused to learn any of them. He preferred to learn sword forms.

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When Saben got his talent, Dad had switched his focus to teaching Saben magic. Seth didn't mind, and liked watching the lessons too, but didn't pay much attention. That was probably where Saben learned that hokey and unstructured Wind Blade from, though Dad had taught Saben the real spell.

They still fought, though. In fact, they'd argued the day Saben went to school and Seth and Dad left Rosia. Seth tried to remember what they'd argued about.

"There you are!" Duvessa pulled the handbook out of his grasp and glanced at the cover. "I'm looking for Owen!"

"Hey, I was reading–"

In that moment something wet and stinky plopped onto Mau. She flipped upright with a yowl and launched herself straight up, higher than Duvessa was tall.

But not high enough for her flailing claws to grab hold of a cackling Reginald the Second.

Seth looked at the object the shadow raven had dropped on the sleeping feline. It was a muddy, remarkably stinky, used sock. He had no idea where the shadow raven could have gotten it.

Mau was spitting mad. Her back was arched and she walked stiff legged on her tippy toes with her claws out. Once she spotted the raven she raced up the nearby tree and leaped after Reginald, but missed. The two circled each other, both hissing.

Duvessa didn't even look at their antics. "Do you know where Owen is?"

"Yeah, he's in the Celestial Tower, practicing."

"Nooo! I need him right now. Ugh. Fine. You'll do. Come on, come with me." Duvessa handed him the handbook back, then grabbed his arm and tugged on it. "Hurry, hurry! We don't have time to dawdle! He'll be gone if we don't leave right now."

Seth scooped up his history book and shoved it and the handbook in his bag and trotted after Duvessa. He glanced back at Mau, who was rubbing herself in the grass. "Where are we going, and do I want to go with you?"

Duvessa gasped. "Of course you want to come! I can't go by myself, that would be too dangerous. I'd get grounded for sure."

"If you'd get grounded for going, then we shouldn't go." Seth slowed and made sure Mau was following.

"It's fine. Going into the city alone is what I would be grounded for. I'm not alone if you're with me. We're just going for lunch!"

"Lunch was hours ago." Seth sighed. He already knew he'd regret this. "We should stop at the Celestial Tower and get Owen. Do you know where Blaise or Selendrith are?"

"There's no time for that. I spent too long looking for you. Actually, I wasn't looking for you, I was looking for Owen or Booth, but I found you." Duvessa's stride lengthened. She was heading straight for the campus gate.

"Booth went into town. I really think we should get Owen." Seth veered towards the Celestial Tower.

Duvessa grabbed his arm and dragged him past it. "If we stop, we'll miss him for sure. We need to go right now. I asked the gate to fetch a taxi."

"Who are we meeting?" Seth asked.

"Shush! Not out here. I'll tell you inside the taxi."

Seth glanced back to make sure Mau was following. She was a distance behind him, and currently rolling in a puddle. The shadow raven was a few feet away screaming at Mau like she owed him money.

The cat was weird. The raven was weird. Seth stumbled as Duvessa dragged him along. Duvessa was weird. One of those three were about to get him into trouble.

More like all three were going to cause him trouble.

Outside the gate, Duvessa ran up to an all black coach. It wasn't nearly as nice as Duvessa's grandmother's carriage, but it was in good repair. Duvessa gave the coachman directions to an intersection at the far end of the market district.

The coachman's lip curled when a soaking wet and muddy Mau walked up to the coach. She shook vigorously, making all her fur poof out, before jumping inside. With a jerk, the coach took off.

"Alright. I'm here, and I am certain that whatever you've got planned is a bad idea," Seth said to Duvessa.

"It is not a bad idea! All of my ideas are good ones. And this one is good too." Duvessa scooted over and patted the seat for Mau to sit next to her.

"Duvessa, do I need to remind you about breaking into Selendrith's shop? The crystal spider? How about those magic berries, or your summons wandering off and you not seeing them again? The ogre?"

"I can't take credit for the wyvern or the ogre. Those were a group effort. But yes, the other ones were my ideas. The shop was especially good because now Selendrith is a friend too."

Seth stared in disbelief. "It wasn't a good idea. I don't think Selendrith ever forgave Booth for stealing from her."

"Oh, of course she did. Selendrith doesn't hold grudges. Anyway! We need a plan for what to do when we see him."

"See who, Duvessa?" Seth was afraid of the answer.

"That mean old mercenary of course! He is having lunch right now at that restaurant. This is our chance to question him. Or maybe we could get the table next to him and listen to his conversation. Oh, I know! We can follow him! We'll find his hideout and corner him!"

"No! Absolutely not!" Seth said in horror. "We are not, ever, under any circumstance, going to try and corner the guy that nearly killed us!"

"Pshaw. We're in the city! What can he do here?"

"Kill us! It's not hard to hide a body. He could just kill us in an alley and walk away! Being in a city is not a guarantee of safety!"

"You're being dramatic."

"I am not. You're being reckless. Did you forget that Blaise was taken here, in the middle of the day?"

"Worry wart. We can't be afraid of things that might happen."

"Worrying about not dying when people are happy to kill you is reasonable."

Duvessa huffed. "We need to know what they're up to. What are they doing next? What happened in Laureli? What are they doing about it?"

"Those are questions for your grandmother."

"Nana won't talk to me about it! Can you believe that? I was the one who told her about it all in the first place, and she won't tell me anything!"

"Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a good reason for that?"

"You're supposed to be my friend! What are you siding with her for?"

"Because she's right! Duvessa, we need to be careful. This is too big for us to be jumping in with no plan."

Duvessa shook her head at him. "We are in here right now to make a plan. That's the point."

"We'll be there in another minute!" Seth said exasperated. "How is that time to make a plan?"

"We would have had plenty of time if someone didn't freak out over the little stuff."

Seth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Duvessa was a lot most of the time. But sometimes she was a lot a lot. "Okay. We are going to meet the mercenary. Does he know we're coming?"

"Of course not. It would be hard to follow him home if he knew we were following him. He might go somewhere else."

"It's afternoon. He might go somewhere else anyway."

Duvessa didn't like that.

"Okay. So he is not expecting us, and he's at a restaurant. We go in and have lunch, well dinner, and see what he does. At least we can see who he talks to and maybe get an idea of what he's doing next. We don't follow him."

"See?" Duvessa said. "I knew you'd have a plan. That's why I brought you."

"You were looking for Owen, and you'd be grounded if you went alone."

"And here we are."