It had been a few minutes since Ulya had headed over to the secret room and there really wasn’t any reason that Noah could see to make her wait any longer. Nobody was paying him much attention at the moment, so he had a great opportunity to slip away.

He stepped into the crowd and made his way over to the hidden room that Otto had brought him to the previous advanced track meeting. Noah slipped into it to find Ulya sitting in one of the chairs, waiting for him.

He slung the grimoire off his shoulders and set it down beside a chair as he lowered himself into it. “Right. Let’s get this underway, shall we? I’m a bit limited on time and I have no idea what Jakob and Verrud are planning today.”

“Well… how does it work?” Ulya asked. “And if it helps, my puppet is in the other room keeping an eye on things. Verrud hasn’t shown up to the meeting and Jakob isn’t anywhere near your people. Neither are his students, though it looks like Yulin has been looking in their direction.”

Yulin? She seemed relatively intelligent. Could she be waiting for some sort of signal?

Noah shook his head. Sitting around in a secret room and wondering wasn’t going to do anyone any good. The sooner he got back out to rejoin the others, the better. He tapped the top of his grimoire. “It works by you telling me what runes you want and me seeing if I can get them to you.”

“That’s it?” Ulya blinked. “Nothing else?”

“I mean, if you ask for something I don’ t have, I can’t give it to you. I’d recommend sticking mostly with Rank 2 Runes if you can. I’ve got one or two higher rank ones floating around, but I’d really rather not give those away.”

Ulya squinted at Noah as if trying to find the trick in his words. His tapping grew faster as he waited for her to come to a decision.

“How many?” Ulya finally asked.

“They’re Rank 2s. I don’ t know. I’m not trying to give away my whole collection.” The grimoire trembled in approval at that, but Noah ignored it. “How many do you need?”

“It’s more about the type than the number. Silvertide gave me enough to rebuild. I’m trying to do more than just that now. I’m trying to improve. Do you have anything earth, metal, or crystal related?” Ulya asked after a moment of thought. “I could use all of those. The more, the better.”

“I’ve got nothing with crystal. I don’t think I’ve got metal either, but I have a stupid amount of earth.” Noah pulled the grimoire forward to rest it against his knees and placed a hand on the cover to pull it open.

Then he paused. His eyes narrowed and he leaned down to look at the grimore’s cover. “Runes, you hear me?”

The grimoire remained still.

“If I see a pair of tits, I’m ripping you in half,” Noah said. He leaned back, ignoring the baffled look on Ulya’s face, and flipped the grimoire open. Its pages rustled and Noah was relieved to see that it landed on one covered with a variety of Earth Runes.

He’d gotten quite a few of them during his hunting session before returning to Arbitage, and Moxie hadn’t ended up needing help making hers. Ulya had quite a selection to choose from. Her eyes widened as she read over the runes and she looked up to Noah.

“I can take any of these? Are you really just showing them to me?”

“I never fully got the thing where it’s taboo to show people a rune,” Noah said through a sigh. “I mean, if you’re going to copy its shape with one of your own runes, you’re going through a ton of work. You can have the damn thing if you want it that badly. They’re only Rank 2s.”

“Don’t let anyone in your family catch you saying that if you want to keep your blood where it is right now,” Ulya muttered. She leaned closer to the book and read over it for several seconds. “How many of these can I have again?”

“Four?” Noah offered, testing the waters to see how Ulya reacted. He still wasn’t fully sure where the value of runes actually landed when dealing with nobles. For people without an insider to speak to, runes were prohibitively expensive.

Ulya was part of a noble family, though. At least, Noah was pretty sure she was. He didn’t actually know. Now that he thought about it, there was a chance she wasn’t. It was a bit late to worry about that.

Her expression hadn’t changed too much at the number he’d offered, so he’d probably landed his guess roughly in a ballpark where it was reasonable.

“Deal. I’ll take these then,” Ulya said. She pointed to four of the Rank 2 Runes on the page. Noah couldn’t help but notice she’d chosen some of the ones that were the closest to perfect. He didn’t blame her — he would have done the same. He had enough runes to not be particularly concerned about the loss.

“Feel free. Don’t worry about damaging the grimoire. It can take it. Damn thing probably likes it.”

Ulya didn’t comment on that. She pressed her palm to the paper and closed her eyes in concentration. One after another, she drew the Earth Runes into her mindspace. One she finished, she looked back to Noah and rocked back.

He closed the grimoire and moved it out of the way again. “Good. Now that that’s over, before I head back to the others, do you have anything interesting or important for me? If I’m paying you, I expect results.”

“There really isn’t much to report yet. I’m keeping an ear to the walls,” Ulya said apologetically. “From what I can tell, it really seems like Jakob isn’t doing anything. He hasn’t looked in Moxie’s direction a single time. As I mentioned before, the only one paying any attention to anyone is Yulin.”

“Have you noticed her doing anything aggressive? Maybe looking to other people?”

Uyla shook her head. “No. It’s curiosity more than anything else. She’s started to stand and sat back down like four times this meal. Marley is beside her, but he’s more focused on his meal than anything else. From what I’ve heard of their conversation, the only thing they’ve talked about is preparing for the exam coming up.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“No mention of my students? And how damn perceptive is your puppet?”

A grin flickered across her lips and she rose to her feet. “Very. And no, nothing. It’s as if they’re completely ignoring you.”

Noah rubbed his chin and stood as well. It was possible that Jakob and Verrud had backed off because of how badly things had gone during the previous meeting. It was the smart move to do. Throwing yourself over and over again into a fight you’d lost multiple times generally wasn’t a strategy that worked for anyone other than him.

That’s a bit concerning. It means they’re a lot smarter than I was hoping. Even if Verrud hasn’t realized I know what he’s up to, if he’s toning down how overt his attempts are, then it’s a lot more likely he’s going to try to really screw us during the actual exam. This could be just to lull us into a false sense of security.

Noah pressed his lips together. It was so much easier to just cause chaos and distract people than it was to actually deal with scheming planners. Part of him was tempted to somehow pull Father into things, just to see the shitshow it would cause.

That was a godawful idea, but it was an amusing one. A small grin pulled at the corners of Noah’s lips and he shook his head before nodding toward the door. “Stay here for another minute or so. I’m heading back to the others. Pleasure doing business with you — and I hope you don’t expect runes every meeting. I’m not made of money.”

Ulya coughed into her fist. “I’m not delusional. This is useful, even if I just end up using them for energy alone. Power is hard to come by. I’ll hold my end of the deal up.”

Noah inclined his head once more before stepping out of the room. The muted roar of the room hit him all at once as he closed the door behind him and worked his way through the crowd to rejoin Moxie and the others.

Ulya’s information looked to be correct. Nobody was really bothering his group. One student was off to the side, speaking with Todd at the edge of their little pack, but the conversation seemed to be polite at best and nobody else was close enough to make anything of it.

“Anything interesting happen?” Noah asked as he joined Moxie.

She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s kind of boring if I’m going to be honest. Not that I’m complaining. I was just prepared to deal with a whole lot more bullshit. I highly doubt they just gave up, though.”

“Same,” Noah agreed. “I’m leaning toward them having decided that it wasn’t worth trying at the advanced track meeting so soon after the last one. Unless they’re doing something that we’ve completely missed, I think they might be holding off until the next meeting or the exam itself.”

“The exam is the best time to try anything if that’s their plan. We won’t be there to interfere… but Alexandra beat Yulin. Unless Marley is considerably more powerful than her, they shouldn’t have a chance.”

“We don’t have any way to know if they’ve got more backup or not,” Noah said, his gaze scanning over the room. Aside from them, the majority of the other professors were moving around and mingling while their students sparred. “And we really aren’t getting that many of our own.”

“We’ve got Silvertide.”

“True,” Noah said. “I haven’t seen Tyler fight, but if he’s Silvertide’s student, I’m sure he can hold his own. Wouldn’t hurt to have a bit more backup on our field if we can get it, though.”

Moxie’s eyebrow arched. “You want to start mingling with other professors? Look at you. You’re actually starting to act like a noble.”

“Don’t insult me.” Noah gagged and Moxie snickered.

“It isn’t a bad idea. If we could get George and Fiona on our side, that wouldn’t hurt. They’ve got a lot of respect from the other students. Nobody has even tried to challenge Fiona.”

“Nobody is challenging our students either,” Noah pointed out.

“Do you really think anyone would so soon after the last meeting? If it had been anyone, it would have been someone with Jakob. It’ll take other people a bit more time to feel things out and try to get a better understanding of everyone’s strength before they try more. It’s hard to do that when we’re standing behind the kids like a brick wall.

Moxie had a point. Noah scrunched his nose in annoyance. No matter how much he wanted to protect them, the kids needed to handle some things on their own. He couldn’t get allies for them and if they were constantly floating around, no random students would approach. Especially not with Vermil’s reputation.

“Maybe we should back up a bit,” Noah said. “Give them room to breathe — but not too far.”

Moxie nodded. “I wanted to wait until you got back, but I’m in agreement. Lee’s still next to them, but she’s a lot more approachable than we are as long as you don’t plan to challenge her to an eat-off.”

They both took a few steps away from the kids, letting their conversation fall off as they headed toward the crowd. Finding a tall table nearby, the two of them settled in to watch.

A few minutes passed and the crowd started to tighten. Nobody had approached their students yet, but Noah didn’t miss a few glances being thrown in their direction. He and Moxie had definitely been scaring the other kids off.

Noah’s vibration imbuements warned him of someone walking up behind them and he turned, tapping Moxie on the shoulder as he did. He was prepared to face off against Jakob or Antony — but it was Silvertide that stood before them.

“Vermil. Moxie.” Silvertide inclined his head in greeting. His face was deadly serious. “I’m afraid I come bearing news.”

“Just news?” Noah asked, pushing away from the table with a frown. “What is it?”

“The Enforcers that went out looking for Wizen have found him. He’s figured out how to use the key and has been preparing a ritual to activate it.” Silvertide replied grimly. “We will be leaving in thirty minutes, when the mass portal our Space Mages are making has breached his defenses.”

Noah nearly choked on air. “I — what? That fast?”

“They are Enforcers, Vermil,” Silvertide said dryly. “Their title is not earned by chance. Enforcers are some of the most competent mages in Arbitage.”

It was sudden, but he had known the Enforcers were searching for Wizen. He just didn’t think they’d find him this quickly. Noah shook the reeling surprise away. It wasn’t going to help anyone. If anything, it was a good thing that Wizen had been located this early on.

At least they caught him before he managed to pull off whatever he’s trying to do with the key.

“Right. I know why you’re here, then.” Noah did a quick check of his belongings, but he had everything he needed. “I promised Brayden I’d back him up.”

“Not just you,” Moxie said. “I’m coming.”

“As am I.”

Noah’s senses tingled at the same time as he heard Lee speak. They all turned as she emerged from a shadow at their side.

“How good is your hearing?” Moxie asked in disbelief.

“Really good,” Lee replied. She nodded over her shoulder to the kids. “I already let the others know something was going on. They’re going to head back early. Don’t worry.”

Noah blew out a breath. There was no point arguing with Lee or Moxie. They were both Rank 4s and more than capable warriors — and neither of them were going to turn back when they set their mind to something.

“Just make sure to leave the really dangerous stuff to me, yeah?” Noah asked.

“Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get myself killed,” Moxie said with a snort. “I’ll leave the worst of the fighting to the people who are meant to do it. Extra backup isn’t going to hurt, though.”

“It most certainly won’t,” Silvertide agreed. “I trust the three of you are coming, then?”

Noah took one last look around the party, then blew out a breath and gave Silvertide a firm nod. “Yeah. We’re coming.”

“Then we march,” Silvertide said, spinning to stride out of the room. “Wizen must be stopped.”