The summon quickly drew attention back to himself. “This is all very nice, but I want to go home.”

“We can do it, but it may take some time to override the old summoning magic,” Caleb warned.

“Fine,” the summon said, looking annoyed, “Is there any way to add something that stops nuisances from summoning me again?”

“Not really but the likelihood is slim,” Caleb answered.

“Only people who have met a summon and who exactly who they are summoning can summon that one again,” Alois explained, “Some make contracts, but since summons can show up that are younger than when you summoned them the first time it is rare.”

The summon looked bored halfway through Alois’ explanation. “That’s nice. Do any of you have some decent food to eat?”

Both Alois and Caleb looked at me. Rena was purposefully not looking at me and Keane was checked his pockets.

“I don’t have anything on me,” I told them.

“Really? Whenever I spy on you doing paperwork you seem to take cookies out of nowhere to snack on,” Alois brought up.

“Ignoring the fact that you were spying on me, those cookies were clearly in my desk.”

“Didn’t we have jerky among the wares in the wagon?” Caleb prompted, “And do you really eat cookies while doing paperwork?”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“There is jerky but I don’t think that is the kind of food he is after. Also, I can eat cookies whenever I want.”

“Okay, Ms. Cookie,” Caleb shrugged.

Autumn walked over. “Did you have any other food on the carriage?”

“We had standard travel rations and a small amount of fruits and vegetables so we wouldn’t be suspicious,” I answered.

“Good, I think I can make something with that,” Autumn announced, “It probably won’t be anything like a real meal, but it will be better than the rations here.”

“Just how bad were they?” Caleb asked.

A dark expression crossed Autumn’s features.

“How do you know how to cook again?” Alois asked.

“He is in my Culinary Therapeutics class,” I informed him, “I thought you knew all our secrets from spying on us so much.”

“You overestimate my free time,” Alois told her, “I still have to run errands for the Headmaster during all this. Not to mention classes and making sure none of you are making serious trade mistakes.”

“Is that why you were spying?” Rena asked.

“Can you guys be quiet and let Alois help me?” Caleb asked, “We still have to send the summon home, remember?”

The conversation cut off as Alois started helping Caleb set up the spell. The summon watched intently, winding some sort of string around his fingers absentmindedly.

Autumn and Keane were led back to the carriage by Rena to get ingredients to cook. Setting up the spell really would be a time consuming process. Right now they were working on the spell to release the first summoning magic, and they would have to follow quickly with the override magic or it would fail. 

Summoning magic wasn’t my strong suit so I made sure the two of them didn’t run out of energy.

After about an hour, Autumn, Keane, and Rena came back with the food. The summon seemed satisfied with Autumn’s efforts and ate everything he was offered. Autumn also hungrily ate his portion.

“The spell is almost finished,” I warned and turned to the summon, “Can you come a bit closer. Magic is easier the closer the object.”

“Object, huh,” he muttered as he moved closer, “Still, that food wasn’t too bad for something made from random scraps.”

Did he just call crates full of merchandise and standard food packed for travel ‘random scraps’? They certainly weren’t normal, but there were a lot of places I wanted to mentally retort.

The summon didn’t even glance my way as he began to be encased in magic, and I had to get back to supporting Caleb and Alois. Several seconds later the summon was completely encased, and then he disappeared.

“That is one problem solved,” I sighed and glanced over at the recently released hostages, “and one to go.”