It took them three more days to arrive at the outskirts of Kingston in the late afternoon, the sun just beginning its transition to the orange of dusk.

Known as the royal city, Kingston is the second largest city in Eidolon, just after the massive coastal city of Prismarine. Home to the Royal Palace, Kingston is the governing center for the Kingdom of Eidolon.

The city follows a somewhat concentric layout, the average height of the buildings steadily decreasing the further from the center. In the middle of the city, encircled by towering walls, is a special district comprised of the Royal Palace and other government buildings. Though now old and withered, the walls used to be the last defense against invasions in the age of uncertainty.

Their destinations, the Royal House of Magic and Royal Palace, are both located within the special district, and require special permits to enter. They have no such permit, and have no intention of getting such permits. After all, infiltration is part of their profession.

After speaking to Bruno about his theory, they brought it up to Thomas, who agreed that it was the only plausible explanation. But still, to think that a member of their family has betrayed them is simply outrageous. If true, it would undermine the trust and love which they’ve spent so long to build.

“Alright, we’ll have to split up for the moment,” said Thomas as they all sat inside Otto’s wagon, parked in a quiet alleyway on the outskirts of town. “We’re probably in time to meet with Sir Allison Lapland, though finding Gracie would probably have to wait until tomorrow.”

“It’s a big operation to infiltrate the Royal Palace, to do it with just a few people like we are is going to be very difficult,” Bruno explained. “We’ll need all hands on deck tomorrow, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll have to make a run for it.”

“Understood.”

“Alright,” Thomas continued. “Kana, you’ll be leading the four apprentices to meet Sir Allison Lapland. The rest of you, you’re going to be looking for a place to stay for the night. I’ll be accompanying Otto to see some of his acquaintances in town. We meet at the northern checkpoint at sundown. Understood?”

“Understood!”

*****

A dozen or so guards stood at the northern checkpoint, lazily checking the papers of the row of people moving through the wide gates. The people’s love for the current monarch and the many years of peace has loosened the security, and sneaking by should not be too difficult.

“Should we scale the wall?” Asked Saya, looking up at the towering stone wall before her.

"We could..." Idris replied, standing next to her. "It's is a little high but..."

"It's not that bad," Saya replied.

"For you maybe..."

"Ehehe..."

Some thirty paces tall, the wall was once the primary defense against unwanted visitors. The top of the wall used to be filled with emplacements and cannon batteries, but is now mostly empty.

Scaling the wall should not be too difficult, the originally smooth stone wall, now pitted and chipped from centuries of weathering, made for many footholds and things to grab. Though in broad daylight, it might be a little difficult to go unnoticed.

“No,” Kana answered. “We have forgeries.”

“We have what?” Saya asked

“Forgeries,” Kana said with a smirk, holding up five pieces of stamped paper, identical to the permits the guards had been checking.

“Wait we can make those?”

“Of course we can make those.”

It seems that infiltration might have be unnecessary this time, as they simply walked right through the gates, the guards not bothering to take even a second look at their fake permits.

But, to be fair, even if they did, they probably wouldn’t find any difference.

Juno, their gardener and an extremely skilled forger, makes all of the fake paperwork and identities needed for many of their contracts. She rarely takes part in missions, but is still the backbone of much of their operations.

Though, this year, she hasn’t been very busy with forgeries, since none of their contracts really requires it. So she was more than happy to finally make a few forged permits for them to take to Kingston, if not our of boredom.

It didn’t take them long to arrive at the Royal House of Magic, a massive, pristine building located in the eastern sector of the inner city. The walls and pillars are built with a glistening white stone, the roofing tiles out of orange clay from the south.

Sections of the walls and roofing are colored grey, covered in a layer of scale-like flaps, which expand and contract with temperature, naturally cooling the building when hot and keeping it warm when cold.

Powerful enchantments create a boundary around the building and its grounds, more so for keeping magic from flowing out than flowing in, allowing students to practice and experiment without fear of affecting the outside.

They stepped through the broad front doors as the sun went down, the crowds of students surging out past them after the ringing of the bell.

“Feels a bit like a home…” whispered Saya from besides Idris.

During their earliest apprentice days, when they took part in less contracts and focused more on training, they lived everyday by the bell. It was lessons in the morning, practice after lunch, and group study after dinner, all by the bell.

Even now, when they’re so close to their graduation, studying is still a big part of their lives. There always seemed to be more knowledge to learn, more moves to practice, and more skills to master.

An older gentleman with a monocle and grayish hair approached them from the crowd, a calming smile on his face.

“Welcome to the Royal House of Magic. You must be here to see Sir Allison Lapland?” The man spoked in a calm, gentle voice, in an accent fitting only for those at the very top of the societal hierarchy. “I was informed that there would be special visitors today.”

“Yes, that would be us,” Kana replied with a slight bow.

“Very well, follow me please.”

They were led up a few flights of stairs and down some hallways, the amount of people growing lesser by the minute.

Through the big glass windows, Idris could see the grounds of the institute, lush with grass and trees. The sweeping wings of the building encircled a spacious courtyard, with gardens and flowers, parks and designated practice areas for magic. The size of the institute dwarfed even their massive manor, but Idris was sure the flowers here aren't half as good as their’s.

Soon they stopped before a set of doors, built from the finest wood found in the kingdom.

The man gently knocked on the hard wood, then stood back and waited for a reply.

“Please, come in,” a deep, muffled voice sounded from within.

Gently he heaved open the doors, revealing a spacious office.

The otherwise luxurious room is only sparsely furnished with a few simple bookshelves and desks.

Old books and yellowing scrolls filled the shelves, and a big, thin carpet covered the marble flooring.

Sir Allison Lapland sat behind his desk, a simple wooden table of cheap wood, looking at them out of his big round spectacles, his hand gently stroking his white beard.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Thank you,” said Kana to the man.

“Mr. Knowles, some tea for our visitors too, please,” said Sir Allison Lapland to the man with a soothing calmness.

“Yes, of course.”

“Thank you.”

He bowed before leaving the room, closing the doors behind him.

“Good evening,” Sir Allison Lapland greeted them as he stood up and walked around his table. “Please, have a seat. Howard informed me of your visit.”

He gestured to the couches surrounding a little table at the center of the room.

They each sat down in a couch as Sir Allison Lapland walked over, adjusting his white robes, before sitting down in a couch of his own.

“Welcome to the Royal House of Magic,” said Sir Allison in his light, yet strangely deep, but somehow calming voice. “I am Sir Allison Lapland, headmaster of this institute. Your graciousness must be…”

“I am Kana, this young lady is Saya, and this gentleman is Idris,” replied Kana respectfully.

They did not use false identities this time. The assassins of Rose have no names, what they usually call each other are like nicknames for otherwise nameless people. Whenever a proper identity is required, a false one is always created. So, using their nicknames isn’t that big of a deal, especially for a meeting with a supposed friend like this one.

“May I ask who you represent?” Sir Allison asked.

“We represent ourselves,” Kana answered.

Sir Allison smiled. A wise, knowing smile. “Very well. What brings you here?”

“We have, in recent times, crossed paths, quite unfortunately, with an ability known as ‘persistent control’. We would like to hear your expertise on the matter,” explained Kana, laying out a piece of paper with their research summarized.

“Persistent control…” Sir Allison muttered to himself as he gently picked up the paper and quickly skimmed the writing. “I must say it is not a matter I am awfully familiar with, but I do have a little insight.”

“Could you please elaborate further on anything we might have not found in our research?” Kana asked.

“Well…” said Sir Allison, adjusting his glasses while gently stroking his beard. “Your research seems to cover much of the known information on this otherwise very rare ability. But I think you have perhaps understated the extremely difficult nature of it. Here, you estimate there to be half a dozen or so people with this ability in Eidolon, while, humbly, I believe there should effectively be only one or two.”

“Why so?”

“Persistent control is distinctly different from telepathy, or, dare I say, mind control. Mind control, at its core, simply orders a person subconsciously to perform a certain action, an order which the subject is able, to a degree, resist. Persistent control completely takes over control of a being’s entire consciousness. It’s not limited to just humans, one can control almost any living organism,” Sir Allison explained. “However, the more complex an organism, the more difficult it is to control. To control another human, one would, by reasoning, need a second brain to do it.”

Saya quietly got out her notebook and began writing.

“Fascinating…” Kana mumbled. “Sources have pointed to you as possibly having this ability, is that true?”

“Yes it certainly is,” Sir Allison said with a smile. “Albeit very limited.”

“How so?”

“I have never attempted to perfect the technique, and as such, I can only take over control of insects and small animals,” said Sir Allison as he got to his feet. “Would you like a demonstration?”

“Of course, please.”

He walked to one of his bookshelves, reached up and grabbed a small cage from one of the upper shelves, which he then brought back to the table.

Inside the cage crafted from strands of bamboo sat a little starling, its little head darting from one person to the next, its eyes examining them intently.

There was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” ordered Sir Allison.

Mr. Knowles stepped through the door, a tea set in his hands. He gently set down the tray on the table, and poured four cups of a dark red tea.

“Thank you, Mr. Knowles,” said Sir Allison as Mr. Knowles bowed and swiftly made his exit. He turned back to his guests, gesturing with a sweep of the hand. “Please, have some tea.”

Idris picked up his cup and sipped the aromatic liquid as the others did the same. The initially bitter taste put a wrinkle on his face, but the aftertaste was rather pleasantly sweet. He felt a strange, warm tingle in his chest which made him shiver a little.

“This is tea grown in our botanist labs. It has magical properties which restores a mage’s reserves of mana,” Sir Allison explained as he set down his cup. “Mr. Knowles will be gifting you a some boxes of it when you leave.”

“That’s far too kind of you.”

“Just formalities,” replied Sir Allison. “Now then, on with the demonstration.”

Sir Allison lifted the lid to the little cage, reached his finger in, which the little bird deftly hopped on to, and gently lifted it out into the air.

“This is Star, my starling,” whispered Sir Allison. “Please watch carefully.”

Idris and Saya leaned forward in their seats, staring at the little bird as Sir Allison closed his eyes.

The bird froze for a moment, twitched, wobbled a few times before finding its footing, then turned its head in a very un-bird-like way to look at them.

“Hello,” said Star.

“Haaaaaa?” Saya gargled, completely throwing formalities out the window. “Did… did it just talk?”

Though talking through a bird, he still sounded very much like Sir Allison, not losing much of his wise aura.

“Starlings can speak by themselves,” Star, or rather, Sir Allison continued in a much more relaxed tone, the awkward tension having been shattered by Saya’s flabbergasted cry. “Starlings are fantastic mimics, which is one of the reasons they are used frequently in telepathy training and demonstrations here.”

Saya stared aghast at the little bird.

“Saya, you’ve seen mind control before…” said Idris, giving her a little nudge.

“But it doesn’t usually make animals talk!”

The little bird giggled. “She’s right. Most of mind control rarely extends to other animals, mainly because their brains function so differently from our’s. And even if it did, one would never be able to make an animal talk. However, persistent control appears to work in another way, therefore bypassing this difference.”

“I see…” mumbled Idris.

The little bird froze again, twitched again, and went back to turning its head like a bird would as Sir Allison opened his eyes.

“Any more questions?” He asked as he gently returned the little starling to its cage.

“Yes,” Kana replied hastily. “One last question.”

“And that would be…?”

“Would you happen to know anyone that might be a master of this skill, or someone who may be an expert in this field?”

Sir Allison smiled. “I do. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” Kana asked.

“Unless it is very very important.”

“It is.”

“For who?”

“...For us...” said Kana after a brief moment of thought.

“Who are you?” Sir Allison asked.

“We are us.”

Sir Allison Lapland paused, sighed, and slowly stroked his beard, before smiling again. “There are things I’m not being told. But that’s alright. Some things are best left hidden from the world,” he paused again. “Well… I figure I understand the situation, and I’ll tell you where to go. But first, tell me, you’re assassins of Rose, aren’t you?”

They froze, caught off-guard by Sir Allison’s sudden question. Idris exchanged glances with Saya, then Kana.

“…Yes…” Kana answered. "How do you know?"

“Very well…” Sir Allison nodded, not answering Kana's inquiry. “In the northern mountains, at the origin of the River of Atlas, where the air is thinner but the trees still lush and snow covers in winter, lives an old mage, a master, if you will, of telepathy. Not many know of him, he wiped himself from our memories. But he’s an old friend of mine, and I remember. He doesn’t like visitors, but search hard enough, and you’ll find him.”

“Thank you.”

“No need,” Sir Allison replied, standing up and walking back to his own desk. “Pardon my rudeness, but you must now leave, I have business to attend to.”

“Yes, of course,” said Kana, quickly tidying up the papers on the table and getting to her feet. “Thank you.”

Idris and Saya got up too, the latter gulping down her cup of tea first.

“You too have more business here in Kingston, don’t you?” Sir Allison asked from behind as they walked.

Kana halted her steps. “Yes, we do.”

“There’s been talks of other assassin clans being targeted by an unknown force. Ambushes, coordinated attacks, fires, bombings. Something inexplicable is happening, and I’m sure something similar has brought you here. Otherwise, why would the assassins of Rose venture thus far? For what other reason would nameless mages of such skill, whom I've never met before, visit me?”

Kana hesitated. “…Yes.”

Nothing escapes the wise gaze of the old mage. He’s been here too long, and knows too much to simply be ignorant.

“Be careful. Those mysterious tides crashing against you might be stronger than most realize,” Sir Allison paused for a moment. “Take care.”

“Thank you,” Kana said once more, before leaving the room.