"So, this is a natural elixir, then?" the alchemist said, holding the glowing water vial and swirling it before her eyes.

The alchemist, a woman in her mid-twenties, was the fourth I had visited today. Judging by the state of her shop, a dark, mostly empty place on a side street with half-filled, dusty shelves, she was also the least well-off of the lot. Or the least prideful.

I hoped that combination would make her more willing to take a gamble. If nothing else, she might be too inexperienced to recognize the actual value of my offer.

"Yes," I nodded, trying to mimic Leon's bright, confident demeanor, "It is a natural elixir. Stable as it gets and with an inherent Aether alignment."

"Aether?" the alchemist frowned, "You don't see that too often."

"No, but it may also benefit any mage of any element," I replied, omitting that non-Aether mages would see far less improvement.

"Where did you find it?"

"How much is your curiosity worth?" I countered.

The alchemist scoffed, "I just want to make sure some other mage won't break down my door demanding their property back. Or that you're not selling me a poison."

"I did not steal it, and it is not poison," I replied, "And I am wearing an Academy uniform. Hardly the attire of some criminal, I would say."

She examined me for a few more seconds, then placed the vial back onto her counter, "Fine. How much?"

"Twenty gold per vial."

"Twenty?" she repeated with a hiss, her frown morphing into an outright scowl.

"Twenty."

"That's practically robbery!"

"I am providing you a rare, valuable alchemic mixture, one which several other alchemists have already expressed interest in purchasing. If you want it yourself, you will need to offer me a better deal, no? And if you are uninterested, I can always take my business elsewhere."

I stepped forward, reaching out to pluck the vial from the countertop. The entire thing was a show, an attempt to pressure the woman into paying more, and I hoped she would bite. Though two other alchemists did seem interested, I doubted either would pay more than fifteen or so gold pieces per vial.

The woman remained silent, so I decided to turn the metaphorical screws. I slipped the vial into my pocket, inclined my head, and said, "Have a good day."

I was halfway to the door when she shouted, "Wait! Twenty-twenty gold, right?"

Her voice sounded agonized, and I turned to face the woman, who chewed her bottom lip as she drummed her fingers on the counter.

"I'm not sure how many vials I can buy..." she said, "But...maybe we can cut a different deal?"

"What did you have in mind?"

An hour later, I was on my way back to the Academy with three fewer vials of Aether water than I had started. All told, I had made fifty gold pieces from the fourth alchemist. She had thrown in some basic alchemic tools and a reference book that had been gathering dust in her storage room, and I could not be happier about the deal.

Well, I could be, but I was starting to realize that dwelling on frustrations was an excellent way to slow progress. I also had just enough gold between my deal, my hunts, and some savings to pay off Julian with a handful of coins to spare, so I was in a good mood.

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While I now had a dozen separate topics to propose to the master, having the option to speak with him was probably the greatest advantage. Julian had a habit of dancing around a solid answer, but he was my mentor and seemed at least willing to humor my questions.

And if I was lucky, I could pry out more than the single additional lesson he had promised me months earlier. He might even let me work with him on his gravity magic research, which could prove invaluable.

I was a few hundred feet from the Academy when I felt it. Just on the edge of my senses was a now-familiar mana signature. Weak, flickering, and unmistakably Aether aligned, a pale shadow of my energy.

It was the fourth or fifth time I had encountered the unknown spy since I had settled on my "wait for them to make a mistake" strategy, and I reacted the same as I had the last few incidents. Rather than stop, look around, reach for my mana, or stretch out my senses to pinpoint the mana source, I continued to walk, trying to affect as casual and relaxed a demeanor as possible.

I shuffled along, drawing my cloak against the brisk midday air, and blew into my hands before rubbing them together. A shiver ran down my back, and I realized it was not as fake an act as intended, which only helped sell the illusion.

Slowly, almost painfully so, I walked closer to the Academy's main entrance. The spy was to my right, by the corner of the building. I had to push down the temptation to stop and look and instead reached as gently inward to prod my core and the mana within.

My Aether felt stable and still, ready for my command. Perfect.

When I stood only steps from the entrance, I paused and let out a long, overly theatrical sigh. I made a show of looking to the sky, then shook my head and turned to my left, following a path to the rear of the building.

It was a gamble, and I mentally crossed my fingers as I walked. I was most of the way to the cultivated forest behind the Academy when I felt the mana signature reappear a hundred feet to my side. It felt no different than before, barely strong enough to sense above the ambient Aether thrumming underfoot and possibly a few steps closer.

The trick to luring in a spy was to make them complacent. Comfortable spies made mistakes, and this one was no different. Of course, it might not be a spy, in which case all this work was pointless, but I was beyond the point of taking that chance.

I wandered, moving from place to place and tree to tree. Twice, I stopped, looking upward with a forlorn expression, or laid a hand on a tree trunk and let out another dramatic sigh. Again, the act felt too natural for my tastes, and I wondered if taking a break or confiding in someone might be beneficial.

All the while, the Aether signature grew closer and closer. A hundred feet shrunk to eighty, and eight became sixty, then fifty and forty. Finally, after almost a half-hour, I felt it creep to a stop about thirty feet behind me. At that range, I felt its mana grow more substantial, closer to a torch flickering in the wind than a dying candle.

I paused and tensed, then turned and cast Force Step.

Two months of daily practice had borne fruit. The spell had become second nature, and I could cast it with only a moment's focus. Sure, it still ate a portion of my reserves and could only throw me in one direction, but that was enough to eat up most of the gap with a single step.

The world blurred as I shot toward the pitifully weak mana signature, and my momentum carried me, sliding across the patchy grass and dirt.

A shape darted out from the roots of a tree, barely visible in the midday sun as it ran deeper into the forest. I drew on my mana again and took off after it, pulling my mana through my body as I ran.

Aether shuddered and threatened to break free with every step that smacked against hard dirt, but my core and channels were more than enough to weather the strain. My spell settled into place, and I felt my steps lighten as mana strengthened my body.

The shape wove through trees, underbrush, and half-melted snow like a phantom, and I followed it with unnatural grace. I ducked under low-hanging branches, slipped past trunks, and jumped over fallen limbs without breaking stride.

Whatever my unknown spy was, it was small enough and dark enough that it took all of my focus to track it. Even then, I had to rely mostly on my mana senses to keep up, and I knew it was a small miracle that I could follow it at all.

But despite its size, its speed, and the difficulty of the chase, I began to close the gap. As we ran, its pace slowed, and its mana signature waned, once more becoming like a candlelight. I could make out brief flashes of its body, noting the thin tail, the dark fur, the tiny frame, and the sharp, triangular ears. If I did not know any better, I might say that it was-

My spell broke apart as my core ran dry. I stumbled and nearly fell as my body returned to its normal, markedly lesser state. My right shoulder crashed into a tree, and I staggered to one side before hitting the ground. I returned to my feet in a second, ignoring the bruised joint, and threw my senses out in every direction, but the damage was done.

Still, better safe than sorry.

I scanned my surroundings, trying to detect wherever the shape had vanished. And I found nothing. There were no hints of Aether or flickers of a presence, no signs of a dark shape watching from the shadows. As it had multiple times before, my unseen friend had vanished into the forest as if it had never existed.

But when I turned to head back to my room, I felt something. There was a tremor near the edge of my senses, at a level so weak I would never have detected it without active focus.

It was so minute that I thought I had made a mistake. I turned toward the tremor and took a few steps in its direction, closing my eyes to hone in on the sensation.

I felt it shift again and opened my eyes with a smile.

Rather than sprint after the signature again, I drew on the remnants of my Aether and used Amelia's gifted ring to scrub me clean of dirt, grime, and body odor. With that done, I pulled every scrap of power inward and crept towards the tremor.

This was even more agonizingly slow of a process than pretending and waiting for it to make a mistake. But it was the best idea. If I was right, my target was too weak to run and was hoping I would not find it.

I planned to disappoint.

It took me another fifteen minutes to reach its location. Following it led me to a cluster of trees and, more specifically, to a hollow dug out underneath the largest of the bunch.

I stopped before it and glanced around for signs of another person, a mage, hostile magics, an ambush, or anything else that might signal this was a bad idea. When nothing materialized, and I found no hints of runes, enchantments, or physical traps, I knelt and looked inside.

Impenetrable shadows greeted me. I looked around, trying to penetrate its depths before giving up and holding out a hand. Flickering dregs of Aether drew into a small orb, too weak for an attack but just enough to illuminate the hollow.

It was small, maybe a foot high, about four feet deep, with a soft dirt floor. Roots and bits of green wove through the edges and down from the hollow's "roof." I could see white bones from long-dead animals here and there, and there was a faint smell of wet earth and animal musk.

And there, at the very back of the hollow, was a dark, furry mass.

I leaned closer, and the mass shifted. At its center, two bright green orbs blinked back at me, massive considering the size of the furry mound. Slits cut through the center of both, and as I watched, a small mouth opened, revealing tiny, white teeth.

Hiss

I blinked, and a laugh slipped past my lips. My mysterious spy was...a cat?