Seth was awoken abruptly by a shoe hitting his head. It still took him several seconds to realize there was someone banging on his dorm room door.

"Get that." Isaac ordered.

"Why me?" Seth asked, even as he pushed aside his blankets.

"I'm comfortable. It's probably for you anyway."

Seth sighed and got up. Despite his efforts not to disturb Mau, she grumbled and repositioned after he left the bed. He ran his fingers through his short brown hair, doing his best to tame the worst of his bed head. His bed clothes were a simple shirt and loose shorts. He wasn't getting dressed for this guest, so he hoped not being naked was good enough.

"Duvessa?" He asked after opening the door. She was in her sleeping clothes too. Seth glanced over at his window. It was still dark, with just the faint glow of predawn. "It's crazy early and a Saturday. What are you doing here?"

"I am holding a meeting. You need to be there or everything is ruined." She turned and stalked away.

"Wait, what? Duvessa!" Seth called after her, and stepped into the hallway.

"Be there!" She yelled back.

"Be WHERE?"

"Oh! Uh, my room!"

Seth closed the door and face palmed. Well, no point trying to sleep anymore. He opened his chest and pulled out the only clothes he had that were not sleeping clothes or uniforms.

"What the hell was that about?" Isaac asked.

"I dunno. Only way to find out is to go, I guess." Once he was dressed, Seth scooped up Mau and headed to the washrooms. Mau demonstrated her displeasure by being completely boneless the whole time.

Not long afterwards he was leaning against the wall in the hallway outside Duvessa's room. Isaac had come too, and was standing with his arms crossed. The room was in a different building to Seth's own tiny room. Mau was still pretending to not have bones.

Booth showed up before Duvessa, and so did Owen.

"You all look tired," Owen said.

"Ya think?" Booth said. He slid down the wall to sit with his knees bent.

Duvessa stormed up a moment later. She paused in surprise when she saw Isaac. "Oh! I intended it to be just the people that were there that day, but I guess this works too!"

She swept into her room and then graciously invited them inside.

Booth stopped in the doorway and looked around. "Sweet," he whispered.

When Booth moved aside and Seth could enter he was instantly envious. This wasn't a room at all, but a full suite. The boys entered a living area that had a plump chair next to a tall reading lamp with a stained glass lampshade, a velvet couch in front of a cherry table, and a wide desk also made of cherry. There was another lamp, this one had a leather shade with dark cut outs. A glass door opened onto a balcony, and Seth could see a separate bedroom and her own private washroom through another solid door. Duvessa also had no roommate.

"How did you score a room like this?" Booth asked, looking around. He poked at the plump chair and then flopped down in it. He looked small in the big cushions.

"My grandmother is a former student and still has some pull in the school. Naturally I should get my own space," Duvessa said matter of factly.

"Paying for it probably helps," Isaac said.

Owen nodded. "Money."

"Well, of course people pay for what they have," Duvessa cocked her head at Isaac, clearly confused. "She also makes considerable donations every year."

"Never mind," Seth interrupted. "Why did you call a meeting so crazy early?"

"I couldn't sleep. There has been no meaningful solution to Blaise's missing mana. Therefore it is we who must do something." She walked over to the wall next to her desk where a large board was hung. It was covered in scraps of paper, bad drawings, and somewhat legible text. Bits of string were pinned to the board. "I've been investigating," she declared dramatically.

Seth put Mau down on the back of the chair Booth was lounging on and then walked over to study her board. "What do you mean, 'investigating'?" he asked.

"I think you've all seen my shadow sparrows before." Duvessa held out a hand and summoned a small bird shadow in her palm. "I can use my shadows to listen and watch what's going on in different places," Duvessa began. "There are limitations, however. But I've sent my sparrows to watch and wait in several key locations."

She pointed to a piece of paper that looked like the hand drawn map of a blind cartographer. Seth couldn't identify any locations on the map, save for the blue squiggle in the middle he thought was the lake.

"What are these locations, Duvessa?" Seth asked.

She pointed to a red X next to the blue squiggle. "The location near the lake where Blaise was found. I've had a sparrow there ever since, waiting for the bad guys to come back." She pointed to another X beside a colored in black square. "This is where the hyena was, that's the bridge, and the tunnel. This spot over here is the shop she was taken from." Last she pointed to a location that also had a pin with a string tying it to another piece of paper. "And this is the carver shop where she bought her pendant."

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"You got sparrows at all of those?" Booth asked. "Does it get confusing in your head keeping track of all that?"

"It doesn't," Duvessa said.

"Why the carver shop, Duvessa?" Seth asked. "And why isn't Blaise here?"

"The carver shop because that's where it started," Duvessa said. "Blaise isn't here because she's upset. Her family will be here tomorrow, and they will be deciding if she will stay at school or not. So we need to fix this today."

Everyone was silent for a long moment.

"She lost her power." Owen broke the silence. "Hard to do magic school without it."

Seth glanced at Isaac, he was still leaning against the door and his expression hadn't changed. He already knew. Booth was surprised though.

"Why didn't Blaise say anything to us?" Owen asked.

"She was told yesterday," Duvessa said. "She didn't want to talk to anyone."

"Is that why Blaise isn't here? She doesn't want," Seth waved at everyone, "what we're doing now?"

"I didn't want to make her more upset. I haven't been able to sleep either," Duvessa said. "So we are going to fix it." She pointed to a paper with squares on it. "I listened in on a discussion about her power. They said she still has the power, but not the mana. We just need to refill her mana, and bam. Solved."

"It doesn't work that way," Isaac said.

"Oh?" Duvessa turned to Isaac. "How do you know?"

"Because it doesn't. They'd have fixed that already if that was the problem. The city is surrounded by Mana Wells, so refilling a mana pool would not be a problem. It doesn't work."

"If we can't just refill her mana, then we need to find out where it went," Duvessa said.

"It didn't just wander off, Duvessa," Isaac said.

"Somebody must know something," she insisted.

Could this be the same thing that happened to Saben? Or was it different? Just because they both lost their power doesn't mean they lost it the same way. It was very suspicious though.

Seth glanced over at Mau who was sitting on the table looking at the wall of papers and string. A thought suddenly struck him. "Duvessa, where's Reginald?"

"He's on a mission," she answered absently. "Look at the smart kitty! You know exactly what's going on here, don't you!" She gave Mau head scratches.

"So, what do we do?" Owen asked.

"Well, I've also been watching the crafter that made the pendant." Duvessa pointed to a frowning stick figure with glasses. "I think he was hired to sabotage her power and he used the pendant to do it," Duvessa declared.

Seth considered that. Could it be the pendant, like Duvessa thought? Saben didn't have anything like that, so if it was the pendant then this was different from what happened to Saben.

"I can't see a reason why he would agree to do that though? It's not worth the damage to his reputation." Seth asked.

Duvessa waved her hand. "I don't know, but that doesn't matter. The answer is in his shop somewhere. We just need to go in and find it."

"You want to break into the crafter's shop?" Booth asked.

"What would we be looking for? I don't like the idea of stealing from somebody." Owen asked.

"I want to look at his papers. Other than that, we'll know it when we see it. It should have a lot of ocean mana in it, just like Blaise's power," Duvessa said confidently. "We aren't stealing anything, just looking. I have a plan!"

This felt like a stretch to Seth. He looked at the others, wanting to gauge how on board they were with Duvessa's ideas. Isaac was shaking his head. Owen looked really confused. Booth was interested, a bit of greed in his eye.

"I'm in," Booth said. Seth was sure the reason had little to do with Blaise.

"This feels wrong to me," Owen said. "I don't think we should be busting into someone's shop on a hunch."

"Well, consider this then," Duvessa said. "We were the only ones who knew we were picking up the pendant that day. Yet, the kidnappers knew she would have it, and that her power would be at its weakest. They knew." Duvessa pointed at Owen. "Did you tell anyone about going to pick it up that day?"

"No."

"Who would I tell?" Booth asked when she pointed at him.

"I didn't know anything about it and didn't go with any of you," Isaac said.

"I did write about it in a letter to my brother," Seth said. "But I mailed that letter like an hour before she was taken. Our mail system is pretty good, but not that good."

"So that means it had to be the crafter," Duvessa announced. She pointed to the stick figure on the board. "He must have done something to the pendant and made it drain all her mana. And he was in league with the kidnappers." Now she pointed to a paper on the far side of the board that was covered in what looked like dancing squiggles.

"What about the kidnappers? Did your sparrows find anything on them?" Seth asked.

Duvessa shook her head. "Blaise already knows all about that. It was the rival house."

Seth could follow Duvessa's logic, even though she didn't explain most of it. She thought that the crafter either made an item that would permanently drain Blaise's mana, or that he tipped off the kidnappers by telling them that she was getting the pendant made. If she'd had all of her mana, she would not have been easy to take. And Duvessa thought that there would be a receipt or log of this transaction somewhere that they could find. It was a potential lead, but a really thin one in Seth's opinion.

"I think this is the wrong track," Seth said. "We don't have the information we need to act on this yet. We should find out more about this crafter, and what exactly Blaise's test results were. Also keep in mind there are smart people with more experience than any of us working on this too. We should be working with them, not randomly raiding a local business because we find it questionable. We also have the kidnappers to be looking into and I think they're the most suspicious out of everything. If you want to help, there are far more productive ways to do it."

"Seth, I know you're younger than the rest of us," Duvessa said, "it's okay to want to trust in the teachers here. But we need to be able to look out for ourselves too."

"That's right," Booth said. "I know you've got good reason to be scared, but don't hold us back."

"I'm not sure about this either," Owen said.

"I'm out," Isaac said. "I won't say anything, but I'm not doing this." With that, Isaac left the room.

"This is the best we've got right now for a way to help Blaise," Duvessa said. She stepped in close to Owen and laid her hand on his arm. "We're all friends, and friends help each other, right?"

"Yes," Owen answered.

Duvessa patted his arm and looked up at him earnestly. "Please help us."

For some reason Owen started blushing. "Of course."

Mau choked a little and shook her head. Seth thought she seemed to be laughing.

Booth turned to Seth.

"So, are you in or out Seth?"