I had left Gandalf, sorry, Seth, when he got all waffley and wasn’t going to take advantage of a perfect opportunity. Seriously, when stuff is handed to you, you take it.

The wall of water putting out the Fire Tower was heavy and nearly squashed me flat when I ran through it. It was probably because I was so small. I was still not used to this whole ‘I’m a cat now’ nonsense, but I was getting there.

Inside was an archway similar to the courtyard entrance. The tower was made of obsidian and a table made of the same black volcanic glass was the only object in the foyer. The boy who’d walked through the flames was still standing there, an obsidian key in his hand.

“What just happened out there?” the boy asked a girl that came through right after I did.

“Tsunami girl put out the fire,” the girl said, and grabbed a key. “We should hurry up before it catches fire again. She might think it’s funny to leave everyone in here.”

There had been a bunch of keys on the table, but they were disappearing quickly as students rushed in to take them. I leapt up to the table and snagged one myself. Some kid shouted and tried to take it from me, but I pulled it away from him and got away.

Let me say, not having pockets sucks.

Seth had no idea how to properly case a job so I took off on my own to get a sense of what we were dealing with. From what he’d described to that Owen kid, this whole gauntlet thing was a series of mini heists. Break in, steal a key, escape. The only kicker was the magic.

I had no fucking clue about that shit.

I made the circuit, spending a minute or two looking at each tower, watching the students trying to get in. Some were crazy with the magic powers. Some were subtle and looked like normal people but shit just worked for them. They were casting magic there too, even if I couldn’t see what it did.

There was more than just the towers in the courtyard too. Most of the spaces around the towers were covered with paver stones, but there were sections of gardens and benches and lawn. The walls were not just walls either. Some sections of the walls were actually buildings with windows and balconies. There were banners hanging on the walls too, and overall it was a very aesthetically pleasing place. Not counting the burning, freezing, crackling, and whatever other crap the towers were doing.

All right. I had a feel for the place now, and could probably make a decent go at a couple of these. Off I went to find my magical tour guide, Gandalf. Seth! His name is Seth. I really needed to try to think of him that way.

I found him sitting outside one of the back towers. I wasn’t sure which powers this one was supposed to have, but I recalled that it had a bad-for-you-continuing-to-live type effect.

I was concerned for the kid, just sitting there when a timed event was running. Did he get hurt? I behaved in my best feline manner and shoved against him.

“Hey kitty,” Seth said. He sounded defeated.

Ugh, none of that shit, kid. I hopped up in his lap, shoved my face into his (man, this cat stuff was turning out to be rather fun) and dropped the obsidian key on his chest.

“What the– how did you get this?”

Like I could talk. I meowed and rubbed my cheek against his. That– that actually felt really good. I should do that more. Embrace the catness!

I jumped down and sat looking from the tower in front of us to him and back. I didn’t know how to make my question more obvious.

“I can’t get in. My wind power doesn’t do anything to protect me from the death magic.”

Death magic. Yup, it’s a thing here.

Okay kid, so what else did you try then? Not that he could hear me. I can answer that though, probably nothing. I’d never get this done in time if I have to pantomime everything to this kid.

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Ah, wait a second. Saben had packed Seth’s knapsack and told him to bring it. Saben was a sharp pencil, I bet he packed useful goodies.

Seth was sitting down so I just climbed into the knapsack. He got a little miffed when I started knocking stuff out of it though. And I was right. Saben is the smart one and he did pack the good stuff.

Let’s start simple. I took an apple, probably intended for lunch, and rolled it into the tower.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

I ignored him. I followed the apple by several feet. I figured the apple would rot or something when it crossed into the death magic zone.

It didn’t.

I felt a thrumming in my whiskers just as Seth snatched me up and held me tightly. “Don’t go in there, it’s dangerous!”

The apple rolled unimpeded into the tower doorway and under the table with the keys.

Well then. Apples are immune to death magic. Who knew?

The interesting piece was that I could feel the barrier in my whiskers. I’d need to pay more attention to that. But first, Seth.

I heaved a sigh and looked at him in my best “Really?” look. I squirmed down and went back to the knapsack.

“Don’t you dare throw more of my lunch in there, you crazy beast.”

Oh, I’m the crazy one? Crazy freaking magic land begs to differ, thank you very much.

I pulled out the spidersilk grappling hook. I then hooked it to the obsidian key and pulled a little. If the apple didn’t rot, the grappling hook and line should be fine too.

“Oh.” Seth’s eyes were wide. He turned to look in the tower again. “Oh. You think that’ll actually work? I thought we had to use magic to get in?”

Well, I didn’t actually read the student handbook. Dick move, guys, putting the details to important things like this in there. Also a genius way to get kids to read a stupid handbook, honestly, but still dickish.

He looked over at the healer who was watching him curiously. She made no move to stop him.

So Seth got to work. He wasn’t a great throw. He did manage to stab the apple and drag it back. The sharp claws had nearly cut it through. After a half dozen tries, I put my claws on his leg and gave him a light poke. He jumped and looked at me and I tried to blow. Cats mouths don’t form that nice circle like when you’re blowing out candles, but Seth got the idea anyway.

“Right. I should use my wind to guide it better.”

And there it was. A couple more tries and he had it, a bone skeleton key. Little baby’s first pilfering! Right. Next one. Time’s a wastin’.

Seth quickly scooped up everything into the knapsack and trotted over to the next tower. This one was a neighbor to the previous tower, and similarly had no obvious defense. Seth went right to the grappling hook. Honestly, I didn’t think that trick would work here, but I watched the results anyway.

There was a barrier. I could sense it in my whiskers if I was focused on it. The hook would fly through the air like it was going the distance, and then land on the ground a couple feet in front of us. It was bizarre to watch. It was some kind of event-horizon space-twisty shit.

Yeah. We weren’t getting that key this way. But I had noticed something earlier.

This tower had windows. And one of the upper floor windows was open. And more, there were birds landing on the roof of this tower. That meant that this twisty shit stopped before the roof, and probably before that window. We just needed to get to it.

Credit to Seth, he was really diligently trying every method to get that hook in the door.

“You brought a grappling hook?” Owen’s incredulous question got my attention.

“It’s useful,” Seth answered, sounding like it was obvious.

Smartass boy, it wasn’t his idea to bring it.

“I thought you’d just be using your wind to carry the keys to you without going in,” Owen said.

Seth sighed. “My control isn’t nearly good enough for that. The keys are flat on a flat surface. My wind just brushes past them. Next year, maybe I could.”

Owen looked speculatively at the grappling hook, then at the table in the foyer. “That won’t work here.”

“You got a better idea?”

“No. My power can’t do anything here.”

Stupid kids. If their first idea doesn’t work, they don’t try anything else. I’ll be spoon feeding these guys the whole way. Ugh, they’re kids. Be nice. Seth was what, thirteen? Fourteen? Owen looked a bit older, maybe fifteen? I should think of these guys as my interns. Nah, this was crazy magic land so they’d be apprentices here.

I poked Seth again to get his attention.

“Ouch, stop doing that.” Seth rubbed his leg and glared at me.

I looked from him, to the top of the tower, and back to him. This time I had to repeat it a few times before he caught on.

“We go in the window?” he asked.

“Woah.” Owen looked up at the top of the tower, then back at me. “Did your cat really come up with that on her own?”

“She’s my familiar. She’s really smart for a cat.”

For a cat? You little shit, I’m smarter than you. I got you two keys already. Just for that, you figure this one out kid.