A Cat, a Thief, and a Wizard

"I know just what we can do next!" Duvessa announced as she sat between Blaise and Booth at the dining hall table. The starwood tabletop was empty until she dropped her bag on it. She leaned in and lowered her voice. "The weekend starts tomorrow and I have a lead."

Seth tried not to sigh. The lead was faint, nothing more than a glance and a hunch. The only reason she had it was he told her about it. Helena hadn't told her anything useful.

"Sounds exciting," Blaise said easily. "I'm game." She leaned back from the table to glance down the aisle. A moment later Owen and Selendrith joined them.

"I know, right?" Duvessa said. She then regaled them with a rather slanted recounting of their encounter earlier that day.

Seth didn't feel the need to temper her more exuberant descriptions. Instead he focused on keeping Mau off the table. She was insistent, but he kept pushing her back onto her seat. Then Duvessa got to the end.

"She is going after another regalia piece! We need to get to it first," Duvessa announced in a harsh whisper. "And we know where to look!"

"No, we don't know where to look," Seth said. "We have a guess. And I don't think we need to search for the regalia. We don't need to be involved in that."

Duvessa blinked and stared wide eyed at Seth. "What do you mean we don't need to be involved? We are involved! We are supposed to be interrupting the bad guy's plans! We can't just let them do whatever they want. We need to stand in their way!"

"Yeah, Seth, why wouldn't we get it first?" Blaise asked. "Anything that screws them up is good for us."

Seth shook his head. "We don't need to get in Helena's way. She is the one who got the power, not the one who took it. If we're chasing her, we're chasing the wrong person."

"She has my power. She is not the wrong person to chase," Blaise said. The fingers that had been drumming on the table clenched into a fist. "She's the right one. And the only one I care about."

"It feels like a distraction to me," Seth said. He pushed Mau back into her seat.

Owen stretched his legs out under the table and cocked his head thoughtfully. "Saying we go after the regalia that Helena is after, what do we do with it after?"

Booth perked up. "It must be worth a fortune."

"We would turn it over to the Crown of course," Duvessa said firmly.

"I bet there is a huge reward," Booth said, squinting at the imagined riches in his mind.

"If they don't decide you were the one to steal it in the first place," Blaise said, earning a glare from Booth.

"It can't be that hard to find. We just need to search the mountain near the waterfall," Duvessa said.

"I'm not doing that," Selendrith said. "That's a lot of mountain, a lot of area, and a lot of time I can do better things with."

"Yeah, I'm not doing that either," Booth said.

Duvessa was scandalized. "You have to help! We're a team! And teams stick together. I'm going to thwart the bad guys. We can start tomorrow."

"You can do what you want, Duvessa, but I'm moving my siblings tomorrow. I've got a safe place lined up finally. I was there today, and it's ready for them." Booth traced the grain lines in the table. "I just need to get them there without the Skulls knowing."

"I'll give a hand with that," Owen said. "Do you reckon you'll need a wagon or such to move everything?"

Duvessa frowned as she looked between them. Seth couldn't figure out if she was sulking because they weren't interested in her project, or if she was trying to solve the problem of moving young children.

"If you're moving them in secret, almost everything will have to be left behind," Selendrith said. "You can replace clothes and furniture anyway. You should only take irreplaceable things."

"There are a couple of things that were my grandma's that Alley would be devastated to leave behind," Booth said. "Beyond that and a couple of magical trinkets I picked up here and there, we don't have much anyway. We won't need a wagon or anything."

"Are you sure?" Duvessa asked. "I do have a coach available. Moving everyone would be very easy."

"I don't think we should use that," Blaise said.

"But it's black, a very neutral color. It'll blend right in," Duvessa argued.

"A countess's personal coach is not going to 'blend in'. Everyone in the city will be interested in what it's doing and where it's going," Selendrith said.

"Especially in the East Side," Seth added. He held a hand out at the edge of the table that Mau was trying to nose her way around.

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"Yeah, that ain't gonna work," Booth agreed.

Rather than be annoyed at being shot down, Duvessa tapped her chin. "I wish I'd thought to ask Nana if you and your family could stay with us for a little while. The townhouse is a little crowded, but we could make room for you."

Booth was shaking his head before she could finish talking. "I appreciate the offer, Duvessa. I'll keep it in mind if we get desperate, but I'd rather not uproot the little ones more than necessary. I want a permanent place for them, not something temporary."

Booth didn't mention that the majority of Duvessa's family probably wouldn't take kindly to her turning their home into an orphanage for street rats. Seth knew most people could be generous for a short time, but it would quickly turn to resentment. It was better to save that offer for a dire need.

"Then there's also my mom," Booth continued. "It's just better if we have our own place."

Mau abruptly stopped trying to get on the table. Seth glanced at her and said, "Dinner's here."

Dinner did arrive a moment later. Thick stew arrived in a big pot in the center with plates of hot bread and pitchers of mulled cider. Mau's dish was shredded beef in gravy.

"No, Mau. You still stink. Stay off the table."

Mau growled.

"We are eating at this table, too. You keep this up, I'll move your plate to the floor."

The cub was incensed. Her back arched and her fur stuck out. At least, in the places it wasn't still goopy or wet. Seth wished he'd had time to bathe her before dinner instead of the quick rinse he'd given her in the washroom.

"Fine. Only your front paws on the table though. Your butt stays on the seat." Seth moved Mau's nearly flat bowl to the edge of the table. "Don't knock this over or you'll be eating on the floor."

Mau shot him a side-eyed 'Really?'

Seth ignored her. "Do you have any ideas for moving them?" he asked Booth as he cut a piece of bread.

"I was thinking of having you all help me knock off all the shadows around the place, and spot any watchers," Booth said. "I can just walk them out if no one is looking."

"Oh, that sounds boring. We need a carriage or something more exciting. Maybe a taxi," Duvessa said. She waved the stew ladle in the air as she spoke, sending splashes of gravy everywhere.

"No, you don't," Selendrith said firmly as she arranged her silverware. "Exciting means dangerous. That's the opposite of what you want when moving children."

"Carriages are not dangerous! Why would you think they are?" Duvessa said, affronted. "I loved going for carriage rides as a small child. I expected that your siblings would find it exciting too, Booth."

Seth realized that they were being unfair to Duvessa. Sure, she tended to be over the top, but that didn't mean she wasn't giving genuine ideas. And a carriage might be useful.

"I wanted to ask if anyone knew how to cast illusions yet," Booth asked. "Ones big enough to hide me or the kids, or something."

"Illusions are difficult," Selendrith said. "They need both a rigid form and the flexibility to adapt to a changing environment. Then there are the components in an illusion. There's sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Touch is the absolute hardest, and almost no illusions have it. There is also the size of the illusion, and what it is designed to do."

"I take that as a no, you can't cast one yet?" Booth asked Selendrith.

"No, I can't. I'm still learning structure and theory."

"Can we do anything with those illusion spell stones? The ones with the ogre in them?" Seth asked.

Booth looked at him like he was an idiot. "An ogre walking through town is the worst thing that could happen. Everyone would be talking about it, everyone would be looking, and some 'helpful' adult would grab my siblings thinking they're 'rescuing' them. The whole city will know about it in under an hour. It's the furthest thing from secret as you can get."

Seth was already shaking his head. "No, I mean change the illusion in it. Can we make it not an ogre? Maybe a carriage? Or a manure cart? Then we could bring the kids out in Duvessa's coach disguised as a manure cart. No one would follow it."

"I could ask my grandfather," Selendrith said hesitantly, "but that type of thing can take a week or more, and I don't know what orders he's got ahead of you. Rush orders cost a lot more."

"I don't have that long. The end of the month Jimmy gave me is next week," Booth said, "and I can't afford a rush. So that's a no."

"Where are we moving them to?" Blaise asked as she examined her bread before tearing it more. Then she used a piece to scoop up a chunk of butter, and pressed the butter between the torn pieces before popping them into her mouth.

"I have a place in another district," Booth said as he ladled more stew.

"Well, that's evasive," Blaise said around the chunk of mashed bread and butter. "If you don't want us to help you move, just say so. I am perfectly happy heading to the waterfall with Duvessa."

"I get it," Seth said. "The fewer people who know where they are, the fewer people the Skulls can use to find them. On the other hand, Booth, we need to know where to take them if we get split up."

"Or to make a plan," Blaise said. "How old are your younger siblings? Do you think the youngest can walk all the way to the Palace? To the West Side? What if we don't find all the shadows? We all know they'll follow you and not the rest of us."

Seth thought that was a good point. "Duvessa, if they do have shadows watching Booth's house–"

"They do. I've seen them," Booth interjected.

"If we miss a shadow, will it follow us? Or would it do something else?" Seth asked.

"Well," Duvessa said stirring her stew, "that would depend on what they told the shadow to do when they summoned it. My spy shadows I have set to watch and listen, and usually follow. I send Reginald to collect them. I have others that are not really spy shadows, they are more like scouts. They go to a place, stay there a set amount of time, and come back. I set those to flee back to me if attacked, or I could set them to defend themselves."

"What would defending themselves be like? Do you have to give them fighting instructions?" Seth asked.

"No, they behave like the animals they are shadows of. So a dog will be more aggressive and a better fighter than a rabbit," Duvessa explained.

"Can you give control of your shadows to someone else?" Seth asked.

"Of course not. You can't give your wind to someone else. It works the same way," Duvessa said.

"Right. Can you change or control what a shadow does after you give it instructions?" Seth asked.

"While it is near me, yes. To get scout information, like what the shadow saw or stuff like that, I need to touch the shadow. But to have it do something else, I just need to want it to do something else. Generally I just need to see it for that."

Seth drummed his fingers on the table as he considered the situation. "All right. So we need to get five kids out of the basement, and to a location that Booth hasn't said yet. There are shadows watching the basement. We'll need to find out if there is someone nearby controlling the shadows."

"If they are controlling the shadows, that means whatever they used to steal the power might be there too," Blaise said, perking up at the idea.

"I don't think they'd do that," Seth said. "They probably have at least two shadows watching. One will follow Booth, the other will report back." Seth glanced over at Mau who was licking the bottom of her bowl clean. "I think I have an idea of how we can do this."