When Seth was leaving after class he spotted Arnold heading towards the library. He hesitated a moment before deciding to run after Arnold instead of heading straight for the school gate.

"Hey!" Seth called. "Can I talk to you?"

Arnold glanced back at Seth and kept walking. He even sped up a little.

"C'mon man. Don't be like that. I have something important to tell you," Seth said.

Arnold stopped and shook his head. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't like you."

"I promise I don't like you either. But you know what this is about."

"Fine then. Speak quickly, and let me be on my way."

Seth considered his options for starting. He decided to just lay it out. "You were right."

"I'm always right. What of it?"

"No, I mean you were right about talents getting stolen," Seth explained.

Arnold flicked his hands wide. "And? If that's all you wanted to say, then stop wasting my time."

"Stop being such an asshole. I have proof that a woman named Hellena has Blaise's water power. I want to know if you can do something to get the power back from Hellena."

"Go on," Arnold said. Seth had his complete attention now.

Seth gave a quick rundown of them using the gulliants and comparing the signatures. He didn't mention the Palace or anything he felt might be questionable.

Arnold stared at him intently the whole time he was talking. It was disconcerting. When Seth lapsed into silence, it stretched for an uncomfortably long time, and Arnold's stare never wavered.

"Well?" Seth finally asked.

"Well what?" Arnold asked.

"How do we get Blaise's power back from Hellena? You've done it, right?"

"I told you before, I didn't do anything. You'd have to ask Hellena that, and I bet she won't talk."

Seth shook his head. "She won't talk to me at all. About anything, and I was trying to be helpful."

"Color me surprised that other people don't like you either."

This was a waste of time. "Are you going to help Blaise or not?"

"I don't know what you think I can do. I told you ages ago we need to know what the artifact is and what it does. Without that, everything we try is just guesswork. We could end up destroying the power or killing both of them."

"What about Professor Marjorie? What's going on with her and the research? Can they get Hellena in there for testing? Get some new data points or something?"

Arnold pressed his lips tightly and just shook his head.

"Fine. Whatever." Seth felt stupid for reaching out and stalked away.

"Seth," Arnold called after him.

Hopeful, Seth turned around.

"I think the guy that had my power died."

Seth digested that statement, and its implications.

"Some of my power died with him," Arnold continued. "It's been permanently weakened by whatever they did. I've been hoping to figure out how to heal it if I could find out how they took it in the first place. But I don't have anything right now." He paused and then said, "Thanks for telling me." Arnold sounded like he was in physical pain saying those words.

Seth just nodded and left. There was nothing more to say anyway. He had his answer on how to get the power back to Saben. And it was not a price Seth was willing to pay.

Mau had been walking on her own until now, and she jumped up onto his shoulder and then draped herself like a boa.

"Thanks, Mau," Seth whispered and scratched her head. She was such a calming force for him, and he was grateful to her. She always knew when he could use some support.

The others were already at the gate waiting for him, and he put all thoughts of stolen talents out of his mind for now.

Seth wondered where in the city Owen was familiar enough with to want to lead them there. It turned out the place was very close to the southern gate, and was in the first market district by the city entrance.

"I was thinking, that if we can't spend too much time out of the city because of class, we might be able to do something else," Owen said as they walked. "We did mostly honest work this weekend. I thought we could do more of that."

Booth was shaking his head. "That was way too much work for not enough money. I don't want to do that again."

"This is usually worth more money," Owen said.

Near the front gate to the city were a series of pens with sheep and goats and a common green where several horses were grazing. The shops in the area looked to cater to farmers specifically. There were seed warehouses, a blacksmith with scythes out front, and more. Seth had never explored this part of the city, he'd only passed through it.

Owen led them inside what looked like a horse seller's hall. A mezzanine overlooked an arena filled with sand and hoofprints. A dozen or so people were grouped in twos and threes at tall tables and a pair of waitresses delivered drinks. Seth looked past the crowd into the arena, but no horses or other animals were there now. That was not what Owen had brought them to see.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

There was a long wall opposite the arena, and it was covered in papers nailed to the wall. Owen led them over and started looking through the notices.

"What are these?" Booth asked.

"These are job listings. People in rural areas sometimes need somebody to do things for them, that they can't do themselves. Like this one here. This farmer has a group of wolves harassing his sheep. He's offering a bounty for whoever can kill or capture the wolf pack. He wants to see the wolves or the pelts, and a month with no attacks on his sheep. He's paying two bur a wolf." Owen scowled. "He's a cheapskate. He should be paying at least eight bur, or a full deener if one of the wolves has become a magic beast."

"Is this mostly hunting, then?" Seth asked. Locating and killing wolves might not be so bad.

"It varies. Sometimes they're just notices. Like this one, a toddler has been spotted at the Below entrance south of Rosia and they're asking anyone who knows who the toddler might be to contact them," Owen said.

"Who loses a toddler?" Seth asked.

"Some people are stupid or just don't care," Booth said. "Or someone took him and then dumped him there. People are shitty."

Mau paced up and down the wall, studying the bulletins. Seth wondered if she could understand them.

"This one is for building a wall," Owen said. "You don't know any spells that could do that, do you, Seth?"

"I don't. This one is about a group of ogres near Laureli who are killing travelers. Two crowns per ogre, alive or dead, and a half crown for any villager returned alive," Seth read. That was Lady Jonetta's village. Well, Lord Thurstan's now.

There were a few dozen notices. Quite a few were animal bounties.

"This one looks really good," Booth said. "Half a crown for any magic beast captured alive, up to two dozen. A preference for mammals and predators. Reward paid by Isolde. Isn't that the ritual geometry teacher?"

"Yeah, it is," Seth said. "She has a side business of selling familiars. She does the ritual for you and everything. She just had a couple of toads and a bat last time I saw."

"At half a crown? We could make bank," Booth said. "We should do this one."

Owen nodded. "We could spend a couple of hours a night hunting, and still be back for class." He looked straight at Booth. "And you won't need to fence that stuff. You should return it, instead."

"Return it," Booth said, deadpan. "I'll wait to see how we do."

Seth knew Booth would never return what he took, but he didn't think it was worth the argument. If Owen wanted to push the point, Seth would be happy with that.

He quickly started making a mental list. "We need to plan out what we need to do, and how to do it. We need supplies, like catchpoles and cages. We need to know where to find the beasts. Wandering aimlessly through the mountains every night as winter is starting doesn't sound like a good time."

"You're overthinking this," Booth said.

"No, I'm not," Seth replied. "You remember the trouble we had with that badger, Owen, and that wasn't even magical."

"We just need to use the whistle," Booth argued. "We don't need to be spending money on stuff like cages. If the hyena woman can get them to follow her around like that, we can just do that too."

"Do you know how to use the whistle?" Seth asked. "How long do you figure she spent training those things? More than an hour, I'm sure. I don't think a wild animal will hang around that long."

"Fine. I'll let you figure out the whistle then. You can practice with it on Mau," Booth said.

"All right. And how many beasts do we need to find? Is four enough? That'd give you two crowns," Seth said.

"I need money too," Owen said. "I need a whole crown to get that sword I found fixed. That's why I thought this would work."

"I thought you liked the old crappy swords?" Booth asked.

Owen shook his head. "I like the old ones, not the broken ones. My power can make it better, but it can't fix it. The blade is corroded enough that I'm concerned it would shatter if dropped. My power doesn't work on anything I'm not holding."

Seth nodded. "And getting disarmed is a thing. But a crown? You can buy a couple new swords for that."

"It's magic. That makes it hard to work with, I guess," Owen said.

"That old thing?" Booth said surprised. "That was a lucky find. Or you're getting scammed."

Seth looked back at the bulletins. "So, three crowns would be six beasts. Is that enough?"

"That would be a minimum," Booth said. "But that should work."

Owen was looking at the board some more. "Do you think we could take an ogre? I bet they'd be easier to find than beasts. People might have hunted out the areas near the city."

Seth shook his head. "Do you know any combat spells yet? No? How about you Booth?"

"I don't. The money is better for the ogres, but I think finding beasts is the safer option," Booth said.

"We should learn at least a couple of combat spells first. What if we encounter another wyvern?" Owen said.

"Shit. Good point," Booth said.

"We've got prep work to do then. We need to find magic beasts in the nearby area, that someone else hasn't captured or killed yet. We need the means and ability to capture that beast. We need to be able to get it back to the city. And we need to be able to defend ourselves," Seth said. "Are we including the girls in this? Duvessa and Selendrith were both a big help against that wyvern."

Owen brightened. "Yeah, I'd like to. I liked the mountain hike."

"All right. Let me make copies of these to show them," Seth said. He pulled ink and paper from his school bag and made copies of all the most interesting bulletins. Another patron looking through the bulletins glared at them.

Outside the horse sellers hall, Booth nudged some straw out of the way with his foot and then turned to Seth. "You've got the best shot of figuring this out," Booth said and handed Seth the whistle.

Seth examined the jeweled dog whistle. It was white, and looked like the gems were growing out of the whistle. It hung from a gold box chain necklace.

"I'll take a couple of days to practice with this, we'll find some spells we can use in the library, and then we'll give it a try on, say, Thursday?" Seth suggested.

"Thursday is good," Booth said as he started walking. "And I want to talk about Ned a bit. I'm thinking we're going to need to bust into the Skull Gang's house to find that ring."

"Do you think we could take him if we found him alone in the streets?" Seth asked.

"Not with that barrier thing he's got," Owen said. "I thought I broke my hand for a bit there."

"We'll need a counter to that then. Unless you think you could pickpocket him, Booth?" Seth asked.

Booth looked skeptical. "I'd need a big distraction, something Mau level. There's a chance he'd notice anyway, because he knows what I can do. They all do."

"Mau level?" Seth asked. His cat perked up at the description.

"She has a flair for the dramatic and getting everyone looking at her. It works nice. If she weren't such a pain in the ass, I might be tempted to get a familiar myself," Booth said.

Mau was giving Booth the stink eye now.

"That barrier is against fast things, so we hit him slow," Seth said as they turned down a carriageway towards the school. "Do you know if those work against magic?"

Booth and Owen both shook their heads.

"Once we get your siblings out of town, we can tackle that," Seth said. "We should all come up with some plans in the meantime."

"I'm gonna head that way and make sure they're fine," Booth said. "And I'm gonna clock Hayfield."

"Do you want company?" Owen asked.

"Nah, not this time."

"Okay. I've got homework to get done anyway," Seth said.