At midnight, the campus of Brightfire was a dark, sinister place.

With a new moon and a cloudy sky, no light of star or moon shone down, leaving much of the university in blackness. Certain streets and buildings were lit by firelight from braziers and hearths, glowing forceballs, and magical lamps, but these were only the most-travelled avenues and busiest centres of the campus. All else was in darkness.

A campus bar called the Emperor’s Tavern was alive with activity.

Unsurprisingly, the building’s exterior was dark and the structure was squat, but inside, it bloomed with life: a sea of bright colour, cheery music, loud laughter, and drinking.

Lots of drinking.

Brightfire wasn’t an easy place to live in with its harsh climate, attitudes, and it was even harder to study in.

A ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude was built into the university’s core values, and that philosophy was so stark and vicious for most students to live under, that even Chancellor Baelin of Generasi might have given it pause.

While the southern wizard school in the city at the centre of creation had high levels of attrition as students advanced through the years, most young wizards who left did so because they failed to achieve or maintain the standards needed to pass.

Injury wasn't unheard of, but safety policies prevented anyone from using barbaric magics from the past, keeping death among the school’s young wizards from being commonplace.

Brightfire’s philosophies considered such safety policies—apart from a few—to be weaknesses.

“Death is the reward of the incompetent,” muttered Professor Yolvin as he stumbled drunkenly from the Emperor’s Tavern, his boots crunching slush and snow. “Uklaw, my student, may you find less fire in the after-world, incompetence or not!”

The night had found the professor—along with many of his colleagues—drowning their grief at the passing of more unfortunate students with goblet after goblet of fiery potato wine. The stresses of university life at Brightfire brought a constant stream of staff and students through the doors of the campus tavern, eager to toast surviving yet another day, or week at the brutal institution.

Magic and discipline were common in Brightfire.

Healthy livers and old age were not.

Bleary-eyed, the old professor stumbled down the street, pulling his wool coat tightly around him. A storm of thick white flakes was falling, swirling past forceballs lighting the boulevards.

He swayed from side to side at a crossroads, looking this way and that.

“Home?” he choked out, immediately frowning; his wife had never liked what she called, ‘the stink’ of vodka and she’d likely open hell on him if he came stumbling through the door, reeking and…

He looked down, squinting at yellow bits of food and spittle clinging to the front of his coat.

“Now when did that happen?” he muttered, slurring his words. “It’s no matter. A bath, the office, then some strong blood magic tonic to dull the aftereffects of all that beautiful vodka, then home in the morning. No smell? No hell.”

The professor turned to the right—the opposite direction from home—and began staggering toward his office in the Tower of Beasts.

Something flickered at the corner of his eye.

He fell forward, landing in a mound of frigid slush. His eyes blinked rapidly beneath long grey eyebrows, his head and neck turning slowly, moving from side to side as if moving through cold mud.

“Hello! Hello?” he called, sobering slightly. “It’s late and I’m too drunk for your foolish pranks! Hello?”

He peered into the gloom. An alleyway, shrouded in darkness, yawned open beside him; flickering light from the main street reaching only a little ways down the sideroad.

Squinting, and peering into the darkness for a time…

…dread grew in his breast.

“I-if there’s someone there, this is not funny! Show yourself,” he slurred, his voice shakier than when he’d first called out.

No one replied.

The hairs on the back of Yolvin’s neck rose, as his mind began conjuring monsters born of darkness. Brightfire was safe from the thieves and thugs of the city, but other dangers could roam the campus on a dark and snowy night.

Demons had escaped summoning circles in Brightfire before, and monsters had slipped free of their breeding pens to stalk the night for food. Three short years before, a youthling, iron-drak had broken its collar and hunted on campus for four nights before being captured.

Shuddering, the professor stumbled to his feet and turned away from the alley. He was no combat wizard, and was looking forward to a fat pension and a lazy retirement. He had no interest in throwing his life down the gullet of some escaped beast or demon.

As he once again tottered through the snow—trying to quicken his pace—unseen eyes watched him disappearing down the boulevard.

Within the alleyway, several invisible figures hovered inches above the snow.

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Alex Roth, the Fool of Thameland was in their midst, holding tightly to his aeld staff. Behind him loomed the invisible iron golem, Claygon, while the young wizard was flanked by Theresa and Brutus.

Around them were four members of the Guild of the Red Mouse, folk they had met earlier that evening in the darkened storehouse in Sorkovo.

The thieves had offered no names to identify themselves by, only these codewords: Mouse, Rat, Fox and Crow.

Mouse was the smallest, a slight woman who spoke quietly and walked silently. Rat was a lanky man with vicious eyes and a belt full of knives. Fox was a red-haired youth with a long sword at his side and Crow was their mage, who carried a short staff in one hand.

They wore black from head to toe. Over their shoulders, hung sacks emitting an aura of transmutation magic.

What their purpose was, Alex did not know.

The young wizard carried an empty satchel—along with another one holding his potions—and Claygon had an enormous, empty pack strapped across one shoulder.

Alex had come prepared to loot the library and fill the satchels with whatever useful spell-guides he could get his hands on. There was no way he was leaving there empty handed.

“No alarm,” Mouse whispered, her voice barely audible above the wind. “Good job, stranger.”

“Congratulate him after we get inside,” Crow countered. “That’ll be the hard part.”

“Actually, the hard part’ll be getting out of the library with our skins intact, but meh, details,” Alex said, his casual tone masking the rapid thumping of his heart.

He glanced up at the library, reminded uncomfortably of when he and the mercenaries he’d hired infiltrated Kaz-Mowang’s palace. Here he was, doing it again, penetrating some secure building with a group of folk who preferred to keep a good distance between them and the law.

Alex remembered Kaz-Mowang and Yantrahpretaye.

‘Traveller, please make it easier than last time,’ he prayed.

“Alright, everyone, time to head to the library. I want all of you to touch my cloak and keep holding it. Don’t move, don’t let go, don’t do anything unless I say so, got it? We don’t want anyone getting left behind,” he whispered.

“Are you sure you can get us in there?” Crow asked. “I don’t much fancy becoming an ice sculpture.”

“We’ll be fine,” Alex said, not completely sure. “Just do as I say.”

“And Crow?” Rat spoke up. “Remember, no fire magic, okay?”

“You don’t need to tell me that again,” Crow said testily. “Same goes for you, Alexander. No fire.”

“I wasn’t going to use fire, because…you know, it’s a library,” Alex said. “But you sound especially nervous? Anything I should know about?”

“The library has magic that counters fire…very violent magic,” Crow said grimly. “Portals suck the air out of any floor that a fire is detected on, then ice magic flash-freezes everything.”

“They sure like a lot of ice in that library,” Alex grumbled.

“If…it beats…fire…then…it would be good…for a library…” Claygon said.

Alex felt one of the thieves startle beside him.

“A talking golem,” Rat grumbled. “Never going to get used to that.”

“This…talking golem…might save…your life…” Claygon whispered.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to us needing to save anybody else’s life,” Alex whispered. “Now—as I said before—hold on tight.”

He felt hands quickly clutch his cloak, then he teleported closer to the library.

They hovered in front of the massive building, watching from a distance. No guards were close to the tower, the only people around were a few bleary eyed students going through the front door.

In the distance, iron-watchers circled, riding atop their deadly mounts, but none approached.

Not yet, at least.

Alex took in the tower, searching for windows, none were apparent.

‘An extra bit of security,’ he thought. ‘You can’t teleport to where you can’t see, at least most people can’t.’

He looked down at the building’s front entrance.

‘Time for the hard way, then.’

Teleporting in front of the tower’s front doors, the burglars hovered a few feet behind students cautiously making their way to the entrance. The doors were made of dark wood—reinforced with black stone—and carved with a fresco of a horde of golem knights being led by battle wizards to victory.

Glyphs radiating a vast amount of power glowed around the doors’ frame, promising death and all manner of nasty fates, but didn’t activate as the students got closer.

Instead, the doors parted, revealing a large foyer and—beyond them—iron doors painted black.

The entrance doors began swinging shut behind the students, while in front of them, the black doors opened.

Forceball light filled the foyer, shining on rows of books lining dark shelves: the first floor of Brightfire’s library.

‘Now!’ Alex thought.

Praying to the Traveller that alarms wouldn’t sound, he called on Hannah’s power and teleported past the foyer, bypassing glyphs built in the door frames.

The world disappeared.

Lights from dozens of lands flowed by.

Then, they were in a dim place that smelled of old parchment, wood and leather.

Fear and excitement coursed through his body as one, he felt his companions appear an instant later. They held their breaths; floating just beyond the entrance to the library’s first floor.

No sound of alarms exploding around them.

No magic striking them, freezing them in place.

They were in.

Before anyone could even whisper, Alex teleported them to the centre of the room, high above the students before anyone could discover them. He examined their surroundings closely; Brightfire’s library was extensive and elaborate, with soaring ceilings and wooden bridges that criss-crossed each other above. The first ‘floor’ alone was—probably five to six stories tall—an open space surrounded by looping walkways and bookshelves spiralling up the inner walls of the tower.

Above, the ceiling was crafted from a single piece of black stone, polished to a reflective sheen. The walkways led to doors carved in the ceiling, no doubt leading to the next level of the library.

Alex teleported to the ceiling, eyeing a doorway leading to the next floor, he breathed a sigh of relief; the door was crystal clear, its glass etched with protective enchantments.

Their power would be more than enough to bar most wizards from entering with conventional magic, but he had something more potent in mind.

Everyone was silent as he teleported again, right past the crystal door, appearing on the second floor.

They froze.

Guarding the second floor was an iron golem-knight, it seemed to be staring right at the invisible party.

Crow hissed a curse beneath his breath, Alex expected alarms to start screaming.

But none came.

Theresa snickered behind him.

“Don’t worry, even if he could see through our magic, it wouldn’t matter,” she whispered. “He’s asleep, I can hear him snoring in his armour.”

More than one sigh of relief escaped the burglars.

“Well, let’s hope the guards on the upper floors will be just as accommodating,” Alex whispered, examining the second floor.

It was nearly an exact copy of the first, except its walls were higher and the ceiling door was protected by glyphs that were more powerful.

Alex wasted no time, he teleported to the stairs and peeked through the next door, then vanished, taking everyone to the third floor of the Brightfire library.

They appeared again, floating in the higher section of the tower, surrounded by hundreds of spell-guides.

“Here we are,” Crow said. “First stop. All of you, go get what we came for, I want us ready to meet in the centre of the room in under five minutes. Got it?”

“Got it,” the guild members said, releasing Alex’s cloak.

“Five minutes, eh?” the young wizard looked up at the next floor, a gleam in his eye. “Alright, the third floor won’t have much of any interest to us. Though soon? Soon, we can begin our own ‘shopping’.”

“You…mean…stealing…father,” Claygon pointed out.

Alex sighed. “That was the joke, Claygon. That was indeed the joke.”