I was happy and excited when Seth volunteered to ask Professor Isolde if they could borrow cages. I was sad and disappointed when the weasels weren't there anymore. Damn. Gone in a single day. I had questions I wanted to ask them.

I stared morosely at the empty bank of cages in Isolde's storage bedroom. Seth was talking to the Professor in the living room and she didn't immediately stop me when I wandered in. She did keep an eye on me though, so I kept my visit polite.

I was really hoping the weasels would be here. I couldn't get their powers to work for me. I did everything I saw them do. I even yelled 'I'll kill you!' the way they did. Nothing. I didn't know if that meant I didn't succeed in stealing their powers, or if I just hadn't figured out how to activate them yet.

It would be so much easier if I could get a 'Power Acquired' notification. Then I wouldn't wonder if I did it right. That would be life on easy mode.

Maybe the middle of a fight isn't the best time to experiment with a magical ability I'd only done once before and by accident.

Then there was the possibility I could only have one stolen power at a time. I didn't want to give up the chicken dodge, so maybe that was why it didn't work.

And if the weasels had been here, I could have tried again to steal their powers.

I wasn't going to fret over it. If I had the power, I'd figure it out. If I didn't, I'd have an opportunity to try again. Maybe even tomorrow if the kids' hunt went well. They could find some critter with a power I like better, too. The mini tornadoes were a bit conspicuous for my tastes anyway.

Seth sorted out the cages with Isolde. He'd pick them up in the morning.

When we finally got back to the dorm room, it was late, dark, and we were exhausted. I was so glad Isaac was gone again this weekend. I wanted to see that letter Seth got, the fancy Palace one with the purple wax, and with Isaac gone, Seth might read it now.

So when Seth pulled it out of his bag, I was excited. When he opened his trunk and put the letter in, I was disappointed. He got his sleeping clothes on, probably a good idea before the kid passed out, and then pulled out the wooden box that had his father's spyglass. And then, he pulled the letter out again. Dude, my heart can't take this rollercoaster.

Seth put the box and the letter on the desk and stared at them. The familiar link was a jumbled mess again. Poor kid had lots of emotions around those two things.

Seth looked up at the window, high above the desk. The window was inset in the thick wall and shaped like an arrow slit, but the window was a bit wider than I thought it should be for an arrow slit. The lights in the room reflected in the glass, making it impossible to see outside.

Abruptly Seth turned the lights out in the room, scooped up the box and the letter, and then jumped up on the desk. From there he climbed up to the window.

Seth sat cross legged in the window well with room to spare. Plenty of room for me, and I jumped up with him. With the lights out we could see the city at night. Some neighborhoods were lit up with magical lights, particularly around the Palace. The moonless sky lent an otherworldly glow to the magically lit city.

The castle was gorgeous at night. The Palace had been built as both a stronghold and a work of art. The lights were positioned to accentuate the graceful lines and solid walls.

Seth watched the castle. The view from this room couldn't have been more perfect.

"I can't believe Benjamin would do this, Mau," Seth said quietly. "My dad trusted him. I trusted him." He paused for a moment. "Saben didn't. Do you think Saben knows? Or did he just know Benjamin couldn't be trusted?"

Ah, so we would be sorting through this first. That was fine. I climbed up in his lap and tried to purr. And right on cue, Seth chuckled at my pitiful noises. Maybe one day I could make a passable purr, even if it could never be the real thing.

'More Dad and Benjamin,' I signed to Seth. This whole thing was an emotional minefield, and I knew full well I'd be setting a few off. I just wasn't savvy to this kind of shit. But the kid needed to sort himself out, so I'd try to help him.

Seth took a deep breath. "My dad introduced me to Benjamin just before we left the Palace. They'd been friends and business associates for years at that point. We would be traveling with Benjamin's caravans while my dad did research in different places. We did that for just over a year. We mostly traveled to the smaller towns outside Rosia, but we did spend over a month in Vernar, and then several weeks in Laureli. Gavin would join us from time to time, too."

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A Palace guard was off gallivanting with a merchant caravan? I questioned Seth on that one.

"Yeah. Usually he was doing Palace business and his travel lined up with ours. Looking back on it, I don't know."

'Dad friends bad,' I signed. Benjamin was a two timing asshole, and so was the Palace Guard guy that killed dad.

I could feel the stab of Seth's pain in the link. I felt bad about it, I didn't want to make him think less of his dad. But I also thought we needed to cover this.

"Yeah, they are. I wonder why he was friends with them."

The first answer that came to mind was that birds of a feather flocked together. Maybe dear old Dad was also a two timing asshole, or some kind of shady shitbag.

Of course, I couldn't tell Seth that.

I also didn't really believe it. Seth had a moral compass, and Saben had family loyalty. A shitbag dad wouldn't have instilled those values in both boys. If Dad was a shitbag, then chances were one of the boys would be a shitbag too. And as near as I could tell, both were good kids.

So my second thought was that Dad was doing roughly the same thing Seth was. He was trying to get to the bottom of a convoluted mystery.

'Dad look?' I asked and paced in my 'no vocabulary' circle.

"Look? You think my dad was looking for something, no, someone? You think my dad was investigating something?"

'Yes.' It made sense to me. Why else would he have backstabbing assholes around him, other than looking into those backstabbing assholes? While he could have been a pawn in whatever scheme happened to kill him, his killer died too. That sounded like a hit gone bad to me. And with Benjamin being all schemey too, it tracked.

"But what was he looking for? The power thefts didn't start until months later. Unless, do you think my dad knew about the artifact they're using to steal powers? Do you think he was trying to stop them from getting it?"

I shrugged. We were into wild guess territory.

"Dad was meeting with Thurstan's wife. Gavin killed Dad, the wife, and himself. Benjamin arrived just after. He could have known about it too. He rescued me. I had all of Dad's papers and things, so Benjamin could have read through all that. I never read them, and at the time I wasn't thinking about any of this. I have no idea where a lot of those things went."

Seth went quiet for a bit. The familiar link still echoed with grief, but the pain was shifting to anger. "Maybe I should ask Benjamin where those are now."

Yeah, anger is better than pain, but don't kick the hornet's nest stupidly, kid. 'Ask Saben.' Your brother has been sneaking out and meeting people. He's involved in this shit. Not that I had the words to say all that.

"Saben." Seth stared at me. "He knows. Maybe not everything, but he has to know a lot more about this. He's been nervous and jumpy. I thought it was because of his power, but now I'm not sure. He told me to stay at school and to leave all this stuff alone."

'Dad killed, dangerous,' I signed.

"Yeah. It makes me worried that he hasn't written back at all. I know mail is slow. But I was hoping for something by now." Seth leaned towards the window and looked to the west side of the city. "I wonder if either Gavin or Benjamin were ever my dad's friends. Honestly, I like the idea that my dad was playing them better than the idea they betrayed him."

Whatever helps you sleep at night, kid. In the end it didn't make much difference. Gavin was dead and Benjamin on the shit list. We were going to keep on the same track we were taking.

"How do you think they know what we're up to?" Seth asked. "It's not perfect, whatever they're doing, but someone is keeping track of us."

I'm a stranger to these lands, kid. I'm not going to know what kind of magical shit these people have access to. Actually, there was a listening stone under Isaac's bed. I thought that was connected to one other stone, but could it be connected to others, too? I should move that thing and bury it under a bush or something. I still needed to collect the other stone too, but we hadn't been back to the Menagerie yet.

I shrugged and stretched while Seth turned pensive. I gave him a minute before I turned to what I wanted to know.

I tapped a paw on the letter with the purple wax seal.

"So you want to know what this is?" he asked.

Ya think?

He chuckled at my enthusiastic nodding. "I'm pretty sure I know what it is. Princess Lily invited me to join a personal guard she was putting together. I'm pretty sure this is just the formal invitation for that."

You don't know that kid, open it! Actually, he was probably right. I didn't care. Open it!

Bastard didn't read it out loud.

Seth tipped the letter towards the faint light coming in the window. "It is an invitation, but it's a ways off yet. Princess Lily also plans to get permission to attend class here." Seth stared at the letter. His eyes weren't moving, so he wasn't reading it. "When we first left the Palace, I thought it was my fault. I thought it was because I became friends with Lily. I thought I'd gotten us kicked out and my dad in trouble." Seth let the letter drop and looked back at the window.

"I know that's not true. I know Dad had already planned on leaving, but one of the Queen's Ladies realized we were friends and she was so angry at Lily and me. She said it was wrong for us to be friends and tried to stop us from meeting, but I at least got to say goodbye. As we were leaving she told me Lily would forget all about me in no time, because I was just a peasant."

Well then. Some of the nobles here were classist sacks of shit. No surprise there.

"Dad told me not to listen to her. He said when I'm a wizard famous enough to walk into any royal court from Ice Fields to the Stinging Sea I'd know she was wrong. And that if Lily and I were really friends, she wouldn't forget me."

Seth looked down at the letter again. "She did forget me."

'I remember you,' I signed and rubbed up against him. 'What your name again?'

That got a chuckle. "Thanks, Mau."