Seth headed up a floor to his own dorm room. Mau perched on his shoulder with her long tail wrapped around his neck.

Booth was in some serious trouble. That guy, Jimmy, didn't admit he took Duvessa's shadows, but he didn't really deny it either. Seth thought about ways they could be connected to Saben's power loss too. If they could take her power and use it, then someone might have Saben's and Blaise's powers.

Blaise's power wasn't subtle. Seth figured he just had to look at all the gang members and find the wet one.

Unless they were the buyers and not the thieves. Could they be getting Duvessa's powers from someone else?

Seth opened the door to his dorm room to find Isaac already at the single desk.

"Hey. I've got some work to get done, do you mind if I take the desk tonight?" Seth asked. Mau hopped to the floor and under the bed.

"I'm working." Isaac didn't glance at him.

Seth sighed. Isaac was so much friendlier with everyone else around, and so curt with him when they were alone. Seth opened his trunk and pulled out his sleeping clothes. He supposed he could try to work on his bed. His ink bottle was an Everfull, though. If he fell asleep and it spilled, that would be a disaster.

Maybe Isaac would be more cooperative if Seth could show that he was helping solve the thefts and not the one doing the stealing. "I was expecting Professor Marjorie to be redoing the mana tree readings in combat class today. I was surprised she didn't."

"They've locked down the mana tree and several other things." Isaac didn't bother looking up.

"What? Why?" Seth asked. "I'm sure Arnold told you about the professor having the wrong copies. Why wouldn't they be fixing that?"

"After the incident at the East Well, the faculty and the authorities are concerned about more attacks."

"They think what happened at the Well was an attack?" Seth asked. He stared at Isaac's back with one hand hovering over his trunk lock.

"I don't know what they think," Isaac said curtly. "The mana tree is unavailable until further notice. You do know that's the only one left in the whole kingdom, right?" Isaac turned around to look at Seth. "All the others were destroyed."

Seth puzzled that over for a bit. "Why would anyone care about a mana mapping tool? The only thing they do is make a picture of a mana tree, right? Why destroy those?"

"How should I know?" Isaac turned back to the desk.

Seth watched Isaac for a moment as Mau hopped up on the bed. Seth considered the small room. There was no way he could work out how to find that ring with Isaac here.

"It's my turn with the desk tonight, Isaac. You've had it all week."

"Tough shit. I'm busy."

Seth realized there was no win scenario here. Impulsively he shoved his clothes in his school bag. After locking his trunk he left the room and headed downstairs to outside, Mau trailing behind him.

"I need a place to think. I have some things to talk to you about too, Mau. I don't want people around." Seth considered the training rooms over the dining hall. He got shorter usage times with those than the other students, a drawback of being on probation. He didn't want the hassle of needing to re-up the room even if the place wasn't terribly crowded this late in the evening. There was the library, but that had the same drawbacks and was even less private. But it was quieter.

He also had access to the Towers. The Circle Tower was a hard no. It was crowded and he'd be questioned. The Wind Tower was a strong possibility, but also crowded. He had a key to Fire, but wasn't interested in going there. That left the Celestial Tower. It was the quietest space he knew of. Seth had only seen a handful of students there at any time, and quite often it was empty.

As Seth headed to the Tower, he wondered if there were time restrictions on the Tower keys, preventing access off hours. That was the kind of thing that would be in the handbook that he still hadn't read yet. Thankfully, the door opened for him.

The common area was deserted. Seth circled the space until he spotted a reading alcove in a far corner. It had a couch and low table on a plush area rug and was tucked behind a bookcase. It felt very private. Perfect.

Seth sat down on the rug in front of the table and pulled out paper and ink.

Mau hopped onto the low table and watched him. "Meow," she said firmly.

"I'm not doing homework. I need to figure out how to help Booth."

'Before,' she signed and meowed again.

"You want to talk about something before that?"

'Yes.'

"I have no idea how we can do that."

She tilted her head and looked disgusted.

Seth felt sheepish. "We are having a conversation already, aren't we?"

Mau rolled her eyes and nodded.

"Alright. What do you want to talk about?"

She mimed biting him.

"You want to know what I was upset about when you bit me?"

'Yes.'

Yeah, he should tell Mau. Seth stared at the rug and briefly gave her an overview. He didn't get into details, just named names and the major events. He told her his father had gone to meet Lord Thurstan's wife, Lady Jonetta, when he was murdered by a long time family friend and Palace Guard named Gavin. He told her about Benjamin having rescued him. As much as he hated thinking about it and remembering, Seth knew it was the only way to finish it. These things were still causing problems for him, and could be dangerous to Saben too. As Seth told the story Mau climbed into his lap.

She stayed put for a few minutes after he'd tapered off. Then she nuzzled his cheek and hopped back up on the table.

'Now. This. Mau.'

"I don't understand."

'Yes.'

Seth stared at her blankly. "Yes I don't understand?"

'Yes.'

"You want me to understand something?"

'Yes.' She made a rolling motion with her paw and then flicked her ear in 'Tell me more.'

"Tell you more of what I don't understand?"

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'No,' the cat shook her head.

"More."

'Yes.'

"Oh! More signs!"

'Yes!' Mau was emphatic.

Seth thought about it for a moment. "We should probably figure out signs that don't look like you're dancing around when you try to talk to me."

Mau nodded enthusiastically.

"All right. How complicated can we get with this? I know you're really smart, but this won't be too much, right?"

This time she showed teeth when she firmly said 'No.'

"I'm sorry, that offended you?"

'Yes.'

Of course it would. Seth knew better, too. He'd known for a while. "You're not a three month old silver leopard cub, are you?" Seth said. "If you were, you'd be much too young to understand all this."

Mau cocked her head, and nodded 'Yes,' and then rolled her paw, 'more.'

"Did you mean 'yes you are, and you're more'? It's the horns, isn't it? What the big one had, those blue horns. They make you more than the silver leopard."

Mau thought for a second before nodding.

"You can understand everything, can't you?"

'Yes.'

"Do you think we should help Booth?"

'Yes. More.'

"There's more you want to say about that?"

'Yes.'

"All right. Let's work out a vocabulary. We'll start with simple stuff, and a way for you to say you want to be more complicated about it. I don't think we can make up signs for too much vocabulary tonight. We'd probably both forget it all by morning."

Mau chuckled that wheezy laugh she had and they got to work.

Over the course of the next couple of hours they worked out various signs and Mau also managed to convey that Professor Marjorie was being sabotaged. Seth had to write the name of every person he knew in the Circle Tower before Mau was able to get him to understand Jay was the culprit.

"Jay! Is that why Reginald was saying 'Jay' over and over? You were trying to get him to tell us that?"

'Yes!' Mau growled in frustration as she nodded.

"Reginald the Second is just a shadow of the original. He's not terribly smart."

Mau rolled her eyes and flexed the claws on one paw.

"Oh, be nice. He's not that bad."

'Next this,' Mau tapped the paper.

"Right. The Palace layout." Seth got to drawing the layout as best as he could remember it. Mau wanted every door, every window, and every closet on the drawing. Seth's memory wasn't that precise but he did his best. Then they discussed some strategies they could use to crash the party.

"You know," Seth said, tapping thoughtfully on the map he'd drawn. "The easiest way to get inside is if we were supposed to be there."

Mau's ears were up and alert. 'Yes. Tell me more.'

"Well, I can think of a couple of ways. Getting into the guardhouse long enough to search it is going to be the most tricky."

'Owen.'

"Yeah, I'm thinking that too. So here's what I've got for ideas…"

It was after midnight when Seth put his papers and ink away. "We should go back." Seth didn't want to. Isaac would probably raise a stink about being woken up and Seth was too tired to deal with it. He lay down on the thick rug for a moment.

----------------------------------------

I looked at the kid as he literally passed out on the floor in under three seconds. He's had a long couple of days, and the next few would probably be just as long.

He knew I was more than a cat. He would figure out that I was more than the magic horned leopard too, I was sure. But we'd go with the 'horns are what's special' idea for now.

I wasn't completely fine with our current vocabulary, but the poor kid was starting to have trouble keeping track of some of the signs. We'd practice those and add more later.

Right now I needed to figure out how this magic ring works. It can make duplicates? What shit! This thing was crazy.

I wasn't worried about Seth waking up and seeing me, so I just moved to the other side of the table.

Okay! I channeled mana into the ring just like I did when using my amulet. Magic ring duplicate!

Nothing.

More mana then. Copy!

Nope.

I put everything I had into the ring.

Reproduce! Spawn! Make babies!

Nada.

And now I was almost out of mana. Not that I had a ton. Would I need to channel mana from my amulet? I'd done that earlier today.

While using the crutch earlier I realized that, for me at least, using a vault was the same as activating the healing power in Seth's amulet. I was connecting my amulet to Seth's in a similar way to how the crutch was connecting me to my amulet. The flow of mana from one to the next made it clear to me how I could use items and activate vaults.

I could also move mana between my amulet and Seth's like we shared the same mana signature. I didn't know if that was because both amulets were made from the same horn, or because there was a 'soul link' between us.

I needed to work on that connection to Seth through the familiar link a little more. With practice, I thought I might be able to move mana through that link too. Seth, you're gonna get upgraded from pet wizard to mana battery. Someday. Once I figure out how to cast.

Mana manipulation was literally the casting of the spell. You used your mana during the motions and the words. Until I could draw sigils or speak, I would need to find a different way.

But I could use items and I understood how casting worked now. My participation trophy of the day.

And this fucking ring was going to work for me as soon as I figured it out.

Maybe I needed a ring to copy it onto? It couldn't create one out of thin air?

That made sense. Hmm. Seth didn't have any rings. I wondered if I could find one around here somewhere.

The common area here was a combination of comfy living room and library. There were a few interesting instruments on the tops of the bookcases–things like balance scales, a sextant, a large prism, and more. None of them were radiating magic, so I couldn't tell if they were ordinary tools or just not powerful enough for me to sense their mana from my position on the floor.

None of that mattered though. There were no rings here.

What's a cat to do? Go upstairs and search people's personal belongings of course.

Wait a second. I had promised Professor Kaban that I wouldn't go where Seth wasn't allowed. If I got caught, Seth would have consequences. Fine then. Publicly accessible personal belongings. Unless I still couldn't find anything and then bedrooms were back on the table.

I headed upstairs. Similar to the other towers, these were classrooms and offices. Different from the other towers, many were empty and unused. And unused rooms did not contain jewellery.

I did spot a bit of brass pipe in a box of random junk in a classroom. When I saw it I wondered just how sharp my claws were. Not that I truly expected it to work, but I was lazy and didn't want to search all night.

So as carefully as I could, I sliced off a thin ring of brass from the pipe. What shit. My claws were sharp enough to slice metal. That had to be magic bullshit.

I was now certain I could use my claws to walk up any wall. The only drawback was that I would be leaving holes everywhere, so that wasn't a thing I should do casually. Intentionally was fine though. Wait a second, if they were that sharp, I might slide down any wall I tried to climb.

Inconvenient. Eh, I'll worry about that later.

Right now I had a ring to experiment with. A jagged, ugly, brass ring. I was delighted anyway.

My mana had recovered enough by the time I was done to give it another go. This time I focused on copying the skull ring onto the brass ring. I pictured it as exactly like the skull ring. And I felt it do something. Power moved from the master ring to the brass ring.

Was this success?

I headed out of the classroom and towards the elevating platforms. I'd test it out on one of the locked offices on the first floor.

When I got off the platform, instinct and habit were the only things that had me scurrying for cover when I heard voices.

Professors Laur and Kaban had just shut the door to the tower and were heading for the platform I'd just vacated. It was the wee hours of the morning! What were they doing wandering around so late at night? Yes, I'm a hypocrite. I can accept that about myself with pride.

"It's definitely in the city," Professor Kaban was saying. He sounded pissed. "The longer we wait, the more entrenched it will get."

"You know as well as I do we have to be patient. If we spook it we could be years trying to track it down again," Professor Laur said calmly.

"We'll go–" the rest of what Professor Kaban was saying cut off as the platform went up.

Huh. Sounds like those guys have a problem of their own they're working on. As long as they weren't hunting me, it was none of my business. I'm just an innocent little leopard cub.

At least the professors didn't spot Seth sleeping on the rug back there.

Not to get distracted, I tested out the brass ring. I pulled off the cord with my amulet and the skull ring strung on it and headed to the door. The brass ring worked just like the master did. I put my amulet back on, making sure the skull ring was buried in my fur.

Then I headed over to Seth and curled up to get some sleep.

So. This part of my plan almost works.

Almost. Because now I had to find a skull ring to copy the master onto.