I gave this situation a bit of thought. I believed this building to be the one in the blueprints I had memorized. I'd have to take a better look around to confirm it though.

This building started life as a prison, but was now a holding facility for familiars. Pet prison, basically. Things change and stay the same.

A guy that was being shady and whom I had the passing thought that he was participating in trafficking of some sort had those blueprints.

Trafficking was pretty much confirmed to me. Missing familiars? If they'd actually escaped and wandered off into the city, someone would have spotted them and either picked them up and returned them or reported them.

Well, maybe not. I might think it weird that animals with magic powers were wandering around loose, but that didn't mean it was weird here. Familiars were not strange or unusual in the city, and there were plenty of people with exotic beasts as pets. Eh, maybe not plenty. I really hope not anyway. I don't want to run into more hyenas.

Manticores were strange though. He definitely would have been reported if he'd been seen wandering the city. His charming personality absolutely demanded it. Speaking of personality, I wondered if the manticore was the Scorpius guy the voices in the stone were talking about. If I remembered correctly, he'd been missing for a while.

So if that guy had gotten loose, he didn't wander the city. Which means he went somewhere specific. Or someone took him somewhere specific. Was it somewhere in this facility? Or were they taken to another location?

I remembered Professor Laur talking about badly behaved familiars going missing. So familiars could go missing from the school grounds. That tells me that this is actually a bigger ring than just here at the Menagerie.

That wingman guy I stole the stone from could be involved. Or he could have been investigating the situation. I kinda felt bad for stealing his magic rock for a moment.

Nah. It didn't make sense that a student would be a major investigator in a ring like this. Also, that guy didn't have a familiar of his own. While that would mean he wouldn't be at risk of losing a familiar during the investigation, it also limited his ability to interact with other familiars. Because familiars can talk to familiars.

So the questions here were who was trafficking the familiars, what were they doing with them, why familiars, and what that wingman guy's involvement was.

I brought my attention back to Robin. She was making a pulling motion over a fountain of water in the atrium, like she was pulling a string out of it. And a string made of water pulled out of it. It formed into a small snake, maybe half an arm in length and only a finger wide. She'd just finished creating a dozen or so of the snakes out of water.

"These guys are just for me to keep track of everyone," Robin said. "They don't fight, won't bite, don't talk, don't do anything but follow you. They will let me know everything that is going on. The way to let me know is to just touch the snake and it will return to me. If you catch one of the missing familiars, if something goes wrong or bad, or you need me to come to you, tell the snake and then touch it. When it returns to me I'll get the message."

"These are amazing!" Duvessa said as she tried to pick up the water snake that had slithered over to her. Her fingers passed through the summons and the snake darted back to Robin.

"No! Please don't touch them unless you intend to send me a message." The snake touched Robin and then splashed to the floor. "They make a mess and I don't have time to mop right now."

Louis was bouncing back and forth in his water bubble and shaking his head at Duvessa. He rolled his bubble over the water on the floor and it absorbed into his bubble.

Reginald was posing amongst the statues.

"Let's cover this quickly," Robin said. She had resummoned the water snake and now led them to the second floor. She walked quickly backwards as she talked. "Some of these are actual wild animals. They are not bonded so they can be unpredictable and might be aggressive. Do not, I repeat, do not do anything that might harm yourselves, or the animals. If you cannot easily capture it with the catch pole, send my summons back to me and I'll come to you."

Robin stopped and gave a quick demonstration on how to use the catch pole. "Don't bother trying this on the fire hound, he'll just burn through the rope. For him, just call me. Once you catch one, stay put and send my summon. Now, these hallways. Each wing is a big U. On the inner part of the U are habitats, and the outer part are cages. These guys have been loose long enough that they could be anywhere. They should not be able to leave the wing, or the building, but they have surprised us before. We'll search this wing and then meet back here."

Robin stopped at an interior metal gate and gazed around at everyone. "No questions? Great! Louis, you stay here at the door. We'll do two teams of two, and then me. One group will go down the left hall, the other will go right, I'll go through the habitats. Keep an eye out for them visiting other beasts in their pens. They might not be wandering the halls. Let's hurry."

Seth put me down, and I let him. I kinda didn't plan to stay with him. There were a couple of marked places on the blueprint that I thought warranted more attention.

Duvessa took off, trotting to the left.

"Duvessa, a moment please. I'll go with you," Arnold called. He trotted after her, stepping right in front of Owen as he did so.

"Good!" Robin said and turned to Seth and Owen and pointed down the other hallway. "You two go that way and we'll catch these guys!"

Owen looked like he was going to follow after Duvessa and Arnold. Poor kid looked so conflicted. After a second he joined Seth. I wondered what Arnold wanted to talk to Duvessa about. Eh, I'd find out later. Duvessa liked talking.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I mentally compared the layout of this wing to the blueprint I'd seen. I was now sure this was the same building, but it had been changed since the blueprint had been drawn. For example, the habitats in the center of the U had once been a double row of cells. Now the cells had been opened up and soil brought in for bushes and plants. And that one even had water! Was that a turtle in there?

At some point in time, someone had put a lot of thought and effort into this facility. The small cells had been modified into miniature terrariums for a variety of creatures. Bigger creatures had cells that had been expanded by knocking holes into neighboring cells. Little cards attached outside each door had what I guessed was information about the animal, care schedule, and a list of bullet points.

A lot of the cells were empty, with the cards blank. We checked them anyway. One of the easiest ways to escape was for everyone to think you were already gone and then to follow them out.

I let Seth and Owen get ahead of me. They were being quick and methodical, and I wasn't super interested in putting critters back in cages. So I was taking my time and looking around.

I did notice that all the creatures in this section were natural animals. There were ferrets, foxes, what looked like groundhogs, and others. Some of them were actually non-magical critters. I expected some of the non-magic chickens from the mountain would end up here the same way.

They didn't explicitly state this in Seth's zoology class, but there was a category difference between normally not magic animals and normally yes magic animals. Cats, dogs, rabbits, these were normal animals. Any of them could have magic, but none of them were magic. Then there were manticores, wyverns, unicorns, etc. These were magic beasts and all of them always had magic.

The manticore was the only yes magic beast I'd seen here so far.

That surprised me. I'd seen enough crazy magic monsters so far that I expected them to be all over the place. But they probably didn't make good familiars, so there could be some self selection going on here.

I'd never seen Duvessa summon a shadow of a naturally magic beast, only normal animals. I had the hunch there was a reason for it. Even that woman Robin only summoned normal snakes of water.

Seth and Owen were quite a ways ahead now. And I was coming up to where I'd need to sneak anyway. One of the spots on the blueprint that had notes on it was nearby. Not that I memorized the notes since I couldn't read them anyway, but I remembered where they were.

The minutes ticked by. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," I meowed.

I heard a commotion in the distance. That sounded like a monkey screaming. I sat down.

"I promise I won't turn you in," I lied. "I just want to talk. I've got questions." I moved on to the next cell.

"What's the deal here, anyway? Why bust out and then just hang around inside? Is someone letting you out and then ditching you?" I asked.

"Shut up, fuzzface," a lizard in a glass tank hissed.

"No, thank you," I said. "You are so polite in your requests, I almost couldn't refuse. What the fuck is going on here?"

"Shaddup, shaddup, shaddup," the lizard said. It repeated as it rhythmically nodded its head.

I sighed. "Why is it so difficult to have a conversation in this place? Does magic make beasts mental?" Oh that was a scary thought. What if mana rotted your brain? Nah, the humans I've met weren't crazy. Mostly.

I heard snickering coming from a gap in the cells. That was where I was headed anyway, so I checked it out. Honestly, it took me a minute to spot him. My whiskers let me know he was there before my eyes did.

This gap looked like it was a storage closet, but the door had been removed. According to the blueprint, this also connected with a hidden passage in the ceiling. And on top of a stack of boxes was a black tom cat.

He was grizzled, and old. There were rips in his ears and scars on his face. He still had both eyes but that looked like it had been a near thing.

"Good morning. You're one of the missing," I said. "My name's Mau."

"Morning? It's getting dark, kid. I'm Tom. You gonna call the humans over?" The cat sounded like a heavy smoker.

I looked down the hall. Owen was pointing to something and Seth was fiddling with the catch pole.

"I don't see any reason to," I said.

Tom stretched and jumped down. He was a good sized tom cat, but I was just a little bit bigger. "Are you a silver leopard? A snow leopard variant?"

"Something like that. I'm not entirely sure myself."

Tom sat beside me, and we watched the boys attempt to capture an animal.

"I don't see what they're trying to catch. Is it the fox?" I asked.

"No, the badger is over there. The fox is down stairs."

"Hmm. I thought I heard the monkey a moment ago. That leaves just the fire hound."

Tom nodded. "They won't find the fire hound. He left."

"Oh? Is that what y'all were doing? Covering the hound's escape?"

"Not exactly. The monkey and badger are not fully aware yet. Their cages were opened and they wandered out. The fox would like to leave, but is fine staying and hoping for a decent familiar bond. The hound volunteered for a new employment opportunity."

"Sounds mysterious."

Tom chuckled. "I suppose. Some secrets aren't mine to tell."

"When I heard about the escape, I was concerned that someone had bad intentions." I didn't know where Tom was yet on the scale of sketch, but he was on it somewhere. Whether he was protecting or profiting was the big question.

Tom watched me. "I don't see it that way. As long as the ones that go want to, no harm done. No snitches here."

I got it. "Inmates don't talk to the guards. So nothing nefarious is happening here?"

"Oh, there is." Tom faced me seriously. "But for now, I believe my beasts are being as well looked after as possible while they," he paused and considered, "expand their horizons."

"Your beasts?"

"Damn straight. I had been the familiar of a former Director of this place for more than fifty years. When she died, I stayed."

I nodded. "Would the familiars at school disappearing be related to these employment opportunities?"

Tom examined a paw and flexed his claws. "They shouldn't be. Bound familiars cannot participate. It would require unbinding them first, and most would refuse that."

Okay, so that was probably something else. It was also good to know that it was possible to unbind a familiar. If I wanted to be free of Seth, I could. Then I wondered if a familiar could be forcefully unbound. I decided I didn't like that idea.

And whatever is going on is a participation event. The animals that go are doing something as a group. "Are you the one facilitating these excursions?"

"I would be foolish to answer that no matter what the answer is."

I might have huffed a little bit. I tried not to. Because I knew the answer anyway.

We watched Owen dive after the badger as Seth reset his catch pole for the third time. "He's going to get bit."