After the servant finally let me into the Belvan manor and led me up to Auro’s room, I felt an overwhelming sense of dread as I waited for my knocking to be heard.

“Alisone! An hour please!”

I sighed in relief beyond words upon hearing the cry. I hadn’t seen Auro in the chaos of everything back in the library, nor had I hoped for her to beat me back here. Not even when the servant had let it slip that she was here had I truly believed it.

“Auro? Let me in!”

From behind the door I heard a thud and footsteps as she ran to the door, hurled it open, and pulled me into a crushing hug.

“Good… to see… you too.”

Was everyone going to be like this after only a single life threatening incident?

“Pray, how did you get away?” She asked once she drew away. “Those were royal guards!”

So they were exactly who I thought they were then. The king’s own guards ransacking the library? It was a wonder I got out like I did.

“I’m pretty slippery when I want to be.” I said. “But how the hell did you get out? They were right on top of you!”

“Well, the back stairway of course! Nobody ever notices the back stairs on their first couple trips to the library, so I just snuck over in the confusion and walked out one of the back alley doors.”

“And so you just walked on out… Amazing. But what-”

Auro stuck a finger up to her mouth, gesturing at the hallway. Immediately understanding, Gideon and I stepped into the room and shut the door behind us. You never knew when people were eavesdropping, especially with multiple people in the house.

Auro’s room was larger than mine by a factor of two, but it somehow felt twice as empty, with only the bare minimum of furniture added. The only mark of personal touch was a stack of books neatly placed on a desk in the corner.

Still, it was one of the first few times I’d stepped foot into a girl’s room that wasn’t my sisters, so it felt weird.

Would she have let me in so willingly if I looked like Ryder rather than Saphry? Probably not. So on that line of reasoning, wasn’t just accepting like this kind of horrible morally? Did being Saphry now change that?

Ah, this wasn’t worth worrying about. There were more important things to fuss about.

“So what do you think they were doing?” I focused my attention back on Auro. “Why raid it like that?”

“It looked to me like they were going after a specific book.” A confident grin continued to tug at the corners of her mouth, the same smile as a kid who got away with some mischief. “In the banishment section too!”

“But why?” I looked up to make sure Gideon was paying attention. “If they just wanted to read it they could’ve just come during the day. I doubt they were all nobles after all.”

And if it wasn’t just to read it, and if it required the secrecy afforded, then the reasonable conclusion was that they just wanted to keep other people from reading it. In other words, they were stealing the books.

Auro said as much.

“Maybe the king wanted the book taken off the shelves?” She sat down on the bed with a small plop. “So he sent in his guards. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s done.”

“But then, why at night?” I asked. “King Esiland could’ve easily ordered it’s seizure during the day, and very few people would care. And by doing it like this, whatever ban he might want on the book isn’t official.”

“I’ve heard the king…” Auro glanced towards the door before lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve heard the king doesn’t really control the country. Maybe he couldn’t?”

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms under my chest with a frown.

It was true that I’d heard much about the king’s political situation, but both Fredrick and Andril hadn’t made it sound as bad as Auro implied. Of course, both of those two were probably pretty solidly in the king’s faction, and had the inherent bias that came with that, but it was still an important observation. Andril especially had made it sound like the king held power if he needed it, just that the ‘Royal Senate’ influenced the country’s policies more than desired. A king like that wouldn’t need noble approval to ban a book unless the situation was way worse than I judged.

“I refuse to believe it’s that bad.” I said. “The king has passed all these other laws like the magic restriction right? He wouldn’t need someone else’s approval to ban a book if he could do something like that.”

“Then… he just wanted it to be secret.” Auro said confidently. “Maybe it held some secret he didn’t want getting out, and banning it publicly would call undue attention to it.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Closer I think… but there’s still something that concerns me.”

Auro sighed.

“They weren’t that quiet about it, remember?” I said. “They slammed open the door and shouted the whole time. They weren’t even being careful with the books, just throwing them from shelves and tipping over bookcases. That’s not the work of people who don’t want to be found out, right?”

Auro tilted her head a little as she thought about it.

“So you think… they wanted to be found? Why?”

I snapped into a finger gun.

“And that’s the question.”

That was the only answer that made sense to me, that it was intended to be found out for some reason. Perhaps it was an intimidation thing? But in that case, why use official uniforms and iconography like they had? Surely the king wouldn’t want the common people pointing him out as a tyrant, right? It didn’t make any sense if you thought about it like that.

“So if they wanted to be found stealing a book… but the king didn’t want to make an official ban. Then that means…” Auro closed her eyes in consideration, looking for a second like a volcano about to blow before giving up and falling back down onto the bed. “I give up! Politics is such an evil game…”

“Pretty much.” I agreed. “Now if only we knew what book they were looking for… You didn’t manage to overhear any titles, did you?”

“I can’t say I did.” She replied, staring up at the wooden roof. “Though if it were in banishment I’d assume it had something to do with fighting demons, right?”

Could just be a horde of doppelgangers protecting themselves. Gideon joked.

For the sake of my sanity I ignored that possibility.

“Does the royal guard do a lot of demon fighting?”

“No.” Auro said. “That’s the job of the paladins.”

I didn’t want to vocalise it, but my next thoughts went immediately to ‘they’re protecting a demon’. It was a pretty ‘out there’ theory though.

“Auro… have you ever heard of demon cults?” I asked. “Groups of people worshipping a demon?”

Auro lulled her head over to stare at me as if I’d just produced a wessel out of my pants.

“No?” She raised an eyebrow. “Why in the depths would anyone do that? With everything that plagues the Lmeri, the very least we can do is not help the enemy…”

“The Lmeri?” I quickly shut my mouth again, realizing how stupid that question probably was. But unfortunately, she had already heard.

“Mankind. The old nation Verol used to lead.” Auro continued to stare at me. “Are you sure you’re alright? Are you tired?”

“Actually, yes.” I said truthfully. “I’m not really made for running, if you didn’t know…”

If it turned out that I’d have to stay in this body for a few more months, that problem would quickly be fixed given all the running I’d been doing recently, but for now the problem remained. Maybe, if I ended up here for a year or more Saphry might even be appreciative for my help in fixing this travesty, coming back as some magic resistant sorcerer with a strong emphasis on cardio. I figured she wouldn’t mind too much about that in particularly, given how she didn’t seem to care too strongly about anything anyway.

“You did almost collapse in the tunn…” She closed her eyes briefly. “Back before, that is.”

She jumped up and stretched.

“Why don’t you stay the night here then?” She offered. “We don’t have any unfilled rooms, but you could just stay in my room.”

Warning bells, signals of the barest of my morals, immediately began ringing in my mind.

“Oh no.” I said quickly. “It’s fine. I should probably be getting back to Marcolo anyway. I kind of just left him at the Maverick’s manor…”

“What were you doing at the Maverick’s manor?” She shook her head. “Never mind that. I insist! It’d be horrible if you just collapsed in the streets and were assaulted by strange men…”

Wait, what kind of city did she think we lived in? This didn’t seem to me like that kind of place at all… and I was from Chicago! I would know!

“I don’t think-” I started making my way around Auro, closer to the door.

“And we can send a note to Marcolo if you want, Alisone would be happy to.”

Truth be told, I wanted nothing more than to fall into that soft bed… but I had my reputation to worry about! Gideon probably wouldn’t think too highly of me if I just started taking advantage of my appearance like that.

“Like I said, it’s-”

Shouts and shrill bells outside the window stopped me mid sentence, as some commotion in the streets drew our attention. Metal ringing on metal cut through the night, and all of us crowded around the window to peek through the curtains.

Outside, a small group of four was walking down the avenue, a small flaming bird on one of their shoulders. As they got closer I could faintly make out what they said.

“Be on guard! Be on guard! Witch at large! Long silver hair! Blue eyes! Has stolen an important magical tome! Be on guard! Be on-”

I shut the curtains again, cursing under my breath. That was definitely me, though I didn’t really understand why they bothered. And what was that about me having ‘stolen a magical tome’? I hadn’t even taken anything!

My head shot up and to the side, only to find that Auro was biting her lip as she looked through the window. Slowly, she gave me a weak grin.

“I might’ve taken the book I was reading with me…”

“Auro!”

“I didn’t mean to! It was just in my hands when I left…”

I leaned against the wall again, this time resting my face in my hand.

What were the chances that she’d taken the one book they’d wanted as well? For me, regretfully high. And now, depending on how important it was for them to confiscate that book, they would be chasing me for it.

[Fuck].

“I guess I will be staying the night then.”

It’s probably for the best anyway. Gideon admitted. At least we can see if we can learn anything from that book.

Gideon was right about that, though dealing with searching guards was sure to be a pain. Thankfully, while they had more than I would’ve liked, it seemed like they didn’t have my exact identity, so it should just be a matter of staying out of the streets, but even that dreadfully reduced my options.

“Oh, great!” Auro began to dash off, but I grabbed her hand before she could get too far.

“Just… Why were you reading into banishment anyway? You weren’t trying to…” I sighed once I saw the poorly concealed emotions play across her face. “You were, weren't you.”

She’d been reading in order to banish that house demon, wasn’t she? Even after all that trouble, she’d already decided to go back already. Unbelievable.

“Well…” I saw her cheeks turn a little red before she jerked her hand out of mine. “You looked like you really wanted that book!”

“Well I’m definitely going to try again then.” I said. “Can’t let you go alone after all.”

“Great! Just let me go tell Alisone and we can start studying!”

She rushed outside, the door softly shutting itself behind her.

“I never would’ve guessed that saying ‘hi’ would get me into so much trouble.” I said. “But it looks like we’ll be getting those transmutation books after all.”

Worth.

“I’m just saying.” I removed the drake from my head and held him in front of me. “If it turns out that we need another, different form of strange magic in order for the transmutation to work after this, I might just throw myself off the mountain.”

I mean, we only need a single lemon. Gideon remarked. Once we have transmutation, what else could we possibly need?

“Well, if you say it like that.” I said. “A whole lot.”