It was dawn when the carriage rolled through the school gate. Seth tried to get Mau up, but she just growled at him and kept her eyes shut. So he put her in his knapsack and let her sleep.

  "You reckon it's too early to drop the rabbits at Professor Isolde's?" Owen asked.

  "Hard to say. She's been up every other time we've dropped by," Seth said.

  Owen nodded. "May as well, then."

  "That fucking bird," Booth snarled abruptly..

  Seth followed Booth's gaze to the raven perched on the back of one of the shadow horses. Reginald the First stared at the boys with one eye and fluffed out his feathers. He was wearing a diamond bracelet as a necklace.

  "It looks good on him," Seth said, and clapped Booth on the back. "Let him keep it. He stole it fair and square."

  Seth walked to the back of the carriage, ignoring the girls who were arguing with Duvessa's guards, to where Owen was already unloading the rabbits.

  "Lunch in the city is not dangerous!" Duvessa exclaimed.

  "Having lunch where you hope to encounter a mercenary that nearly killed your friends is dangerous!" one of her guards exclaimed back. "One more word about it and neither of us are leaving you here alone."

  Owen put down the cage with the rabbits and watched the conversation. When he opened his mouth to interject, Seth shushed him.

  "Leave them be. We have enough on our plate," Seth said. "Duvessa will overfill it if we let her. Let them deal with that." He picked up one of the empty cages and started for Isolde's rooms.

  "Come on," Booth said. "Let's go get paid." He picked up the other empty cage, leaving the one with the two rabbits for Owen.

  When Isolde answered her door, which took so long Seth realized she probably was sleeping, she was rumpled and dirty, but fully dressed. Seth wondered if she'd slept in her clothes.

  "Do you have any idea what the fuck time it is? It's the ass crack of dawn. Don't you have better things to do than bother me?"

  "Pardon, ma'am," Owen said. "We got two magic rabbits. Quick things, I dunno if they got a formal name."

  Professor Isolde glared at the three of them.

  "We also have the cages you loaned us," Seth offered helpfully.

  Her eyes locked onto Seth. "You boys are the crazy bastards that caught the sickle weasels."

  "Yes, ma'am," the boys agreed.

  "Fine then, bring them in." The professor walked away from the door and led them to the storage bedroom. There were leaves and sticks and dirt all over the place. It looked like she'd been ripping up bushes and dragging them around her suite.

  "What the hell happened in here?" Booth asked.

  "A wood troll. I thought it was small and young. It wasn't. I thought I was helping it out. It disagreed." She sighed as she looked around. "Obnoxious fucker."

  They put the empty cages and the rabbits in the storage bedroom. At least one of the crates in there was broken and spilling silvery rocks on the floor. Most of the other cages in here were also damaged. There was no sign of the weasels they'd caught a few days ago.

  "Same rate as last time." Professor Isolde paused before handing Seth a small bag of coins. "Wait a second. You're in one of my Ritual Geometry classes, right? Your name is Seth?"

  "Yes?"

  "Yeah, thought so." She handed over the coins. "Don't be letting beast hunting get in the way of doing your work for my class. You need to be doing the homework. I'm not the only one checking it, so I can't cover for you. Get it done."

  Seth had never missed an assignment. "Of course."

  "Right then. Beat it."

  Outside her door, Seth handed the money to Booth, who dumped the coins into his palm and handed Owen his share.

  "That's it. I'll be spending today finding a new place. You go get your sword fixed," Booth told Owen.

  "There's still three weeks left of the month Jimmy gave you," Seth said. "We will need to find that ring by then. How long do you figure you need to get your siblings moved?"

  "A week or two at least. But once I get them away, I don't think it matters. They can't do much to me here in school, and as long as they don't know where the family is, there's nothing they can do to me."

  "Does that mean we got nothing to do with the Skulls no more?" Owen asked, relieved. "We don't need to search their house?"

  Booth thought about it for a moment then shook his head. "No. We should still make plans to get that ring back from Ned. They might have figured out he has it already though."

  "We also need to know what they're using to take Duvessa's power, and get what they took back," Seth added. "The girls will insist."

  Owen shook his head. "Somebody's going to get hurt."

  "It is very dangerous. If we're seriously going to do that, we need plans. Good ones," Seth said. "We need information for that. Where it might be, how to get in, what security is like. And most importantly, how to get out."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "I'll see what I can do once the sibs are safe," Booth said. "We can't rely on Duvessa, or her shadows."

  Seth shuddered at the thought of Duvessa's last reconnaissance effort. "Do you want help looking for a new place?"

  Booth shook his head. "The less people with me the less I'll be noticed. Keeping it secret is the most important bit. And besides," Booth met Seth's gaze directly. "Someone has been keeping tabs on us and knows what we've been up to."

  "Yeah, we need to figure that out," Seth agreed. "Good luck then."

  As Booth left, Owen perked up. "We can do training today then?" he asked, looking at Seth. He loved the fighting practices they did.

  Seth hated them. "I'm going to pass on that today. I'm going to practice spells. I want to see if I can learn Light today."

  I had a busy day and a boring carriage ride, so I sacked out. And slept. And slept.

  I woke up in a sack.

  I'd like to say I was totally calm about it, and listened to my surroundings, got my bearings, and climbed out.

  I'd be a liar.

  Well, I am a liar. And a thief. A good one too. But I did, in fact, freak out.

  Fortunately, I quickly realized the top was open. Well, side, since I knocked the bag over. And I was happy I hadn't accidentally shredded Seth's school bag.

  We were outside in the little corner of the quad that the kids like to use for practice. The air was chilly compared to the warm knapsack, and it was late afternoon. Seth was by himself, practicing spellcasting. His spellbook was still open on the ground, and a couple of other books were nearby.

  "Good afternoon sleepyhead. You've been sleeping most of the day," Seth told me. "I didn't want to leave you locked in the dorm or have you stuck in there or alone when Isaac got back. But when you wouldn't wake up I thought I'd just take you with me."

  Well then, go go kitty power nap! For like fourteen hours. Sheesh.

  Seth picked up his book and sat down next to me. "I've got a couple of things I wanted to show you." He pulled out a couple of spell stones, and the activation wand. "I'm hoping I can use this wand to make casting faster. To do that I'd need Selendrith's grandfather to carve it for me, or learn to do it myself."

  I shook my head vigorously.

  "Yeah, I know. I can't afford having it carved though. I think I'm going to stop doing training with Owen and Booth. Instead, I'm going to look for spells and learn as many as I can. Maybe I can find ones Selendrith doesn't have and trade those for getting it carved."

  That was actually a good idea. Seth wasn't a physical kind of guy anyway.

  He looked around and when there was no one in sight he dropped his voice. "I am certain Benjamin was involved with that inn." He showed me the iron key that had the same sigil at the top as the one hidden in the bracelet that he was still wearing. "This is the key that opened that tunnel in the basement. It's a sigil key, like for the doors here in school."

  So a caster created it. 'Benjamin,' damn I didn't have a word for wizard, 'magic?'

  "I always thought he wasn't. I remember when Saben first went to school here. Benjamin had congratulated him and said he always wished he'd developed a talent. He could have been lying, but at the time, I didn't think so. I've also never seen him cast anything."

  'How,' I tried to think of a word for common, 'often stone monster box?' I didn't have words for a bunch of this.

  "You mean the troll illusion? You want to know how many he has? Stones and arrays like that are really expensive and hard to do. I wouldn't have expected Benjamin to afford one. He's always been financially modest, as far as I know."

  So not common then. Somebody had to be both well connected and wealthy to be funding this. Benny boy was the most likely culprit, but not the only candidate. 'How rich Thurstan?'

  "He's getting money from somewhere, more than just what his position and the town are giving him. All those magic lights and the improvements in Laureli take more money than I'd have expected him to have."

  They most likely had a backer, then. Probably the mysterious noble who commissioned the retrieval of the egg I hatched out of. That might not have been Thurstan then. He was just a tax collector.

  Well, as they say, follow the money. Could all this be about money? Was profit the actual goal? Money was power.

  'Benjamin and Thurstan selling magic?'

  Seth thought about that. "It's illegal for nobility to have a title and magic talent. They're really the only ones that could pay him the kind of money he's getting."

  'They keep secret.'

  Seth stretched his legs out in front of him and picked at the grass. "I suppose they could. If enough of them get talents, it'll be hard for the Crown to remove them all."

  That was a civil war in the making. If that happens, I'm convincing Seth to become a swim instructor and we'll go find a tropical beach. Or maybe a sailor and we go world exploring. Somewhere far from the mountains. No wars for me, thank you.

  "Hellena said she had to pay back a favor," Seth continued. "I thought they gave it to her because she was working for them. But if they're selling talents for money and favors, then that means there are more victims. Potentially lots more. But I haven't heard of any."

  I pointed my paw at him. 'Student.' I pointed at the Circle Tower. 'Secret. Sabotage.'

  "You're right. I'm not in any position to hear the secrets from the Circle Tower. And they would be keeping stuff like this as secret as they could. If someone like that thunder talent guy, Gregor, was worried someone would steal his talent, he'd start riots." He shredded a strand of grass and looked in the direction of the tower courtyard beyond the library, dining hall, and other buildings. From here we could see the tops of the towers, but little else.

  "That's probably why they kept telling Saben he'd burned his talent out. I would have thought there'd be rumors or something though. People hear things."

  'Not here,' I signed.

  "Yeah, if they're capturing people from somewhere else. Like those travelers the ogres were supposed to have eaten? You think they are actually magic theft victims?"

  Yuppers, I sure did. 'Arnold know?'

  "Yeah. I think he knows more than us. And Hugh would have reported to him, too. But Arnold still thinks I'm working for Benjamin and doesn't want to tell me anything."

  There were more people than Arnold to get info from. Like going to the source.

  How can I say this. 'Two sides, work for Benjamin?'

  "Two sides? Both sides? You want me to pretend to work for Benjamin?"

  I nodded. He had agents working on the inside of the school, Seth included after a fashion, so why not become a full double agent?

  "I don't think I can, Mau. What he did to Saben, to Blaise. I'm not sure I can get past that enough to work with him. He'll know I'm faking it."

  'You,' I mimed boxing, 'him?'

  Seth chuckled. "You must think I'm amazing if you think I can fight him."

  Gracious green apples, no I don't. You thinking you could was what I was worried about.

  "I'm a kid. He'd kick my ass." Hallelujah. The kid wasn't a turnip.

  Seth took a deep breath. "I want to know. I want to know why he did it to Saben. To me. He was my dad's friend. Once things settle down a bit with Booth and the others, if Benjamin's not back yet, I think we should go find him and make him answer a few questions for us."

  I was cool with that. But if we were walking into the lion's den like that, we were going to need some deadman switches to use for insurance.

  The thing was, I didn't think he was all that worried about exposure. His plans included flashy things like ogre illusions and kidnapping students in broad daylight.

  Welp, if the kids kept shaking the chaos tree, more things would fall out.