Chapter 27 – In which characters make a quick animal handling check

Vern spent the past two days studying.

His studies included everything from ancient history to most recent economic research.

It was to cross-examine what knowledge was lost, what changed, and what was discovered.

But what he studied the most was information about magic guilds and all of their members, which Crimo gave him.

His notes were full of short examinations of temperament and character, summary of skills, achievements and his personal thoughts.

This would soon play a crucial role in his plan for the next Magic Exchange.

Just when Vern was about to take out more paper, as the reserve he kept on the table ran out, he heard something tumbling on the floor together with quiet curses.

He frowned, stood up and then stuck his head out of the room.

Of course, Vern was still pretending to be sick and hiding in his room, so he wouldn’t normally do that, but that voice was very familiar to him.

Outside of the room, he found Sangria crouching on the floor, sucking on one finger, while trying to do something with his other hand.

He was also mumbling:

“No, no, come here. I just want to take a look at it… ah, fuck…”

There was a tumble of moving clothes on the floor, making very quiet hissing noises.

Vern considered for a moment if he should interfere or not, but when a few seconds later Sangria ended up sucking a second finger, he made his decision.

“Master Sangria.”

“Ah! Young Master…!”

Sangria almost jumped and then looked around, as if searching for potential threats.

Vern didn’t pay him any attention, he picked up a hem of the clothes laying on the floor and looked underneath.

As he expected, he was met with the glare of a few months old kitten.

“What are you doing, Master Sangria?”

“Ah, that… I found it hiding under the window and saw it’s hurt, so I picked it up and tried to help it, but…”

Vern indeed noticed that the back legs of the kitten didn’t look very well and the kitten seemed to try to offset the weight, by standing more on the front legs, which gave it a very weird look.

“Okay. I’ll take it to my room. You, Master Sangria, fetch some soft meat.”

“...Soft meat?”

“Fish or chicken, something which is easy to shred in small pieces.”

“And you Young Master are going to…”

Vern didn’t reply, he just quickly grabbed the clothes, wrapped the kitten with it and then without a word strolled into the room with a thrashing tumble in arms.

A few minutes later, Sangria was back with both a boiled chicken and cooked tuna, apparently he couldn’t decide which one to take, so he took both.

He found Vern in a staring contest with a kitten who hid between fabrics.

“Um, I have meat, so now…”

“Good, now make it into small portions and feed it, while I take a closer look at its legs.”

“But–”

“It is highly possible it will bite or claw the feeder. Master Sangria is already hurt, so it won’t be much if you get hurt more.”

“Young Master Vern is very… pragmatic.”

“If I was pragmatic I would tell you to take gloves or take the gloves myself to feed it, Master Sangria.”

Sangria was stunned for a moment and then exclaimed:

“That’s right! Gloves! Why aren’t we just wearing gloves?”

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“Because it would take you another minute to find them and I think that this kitten just peed on my desk.”

“... Young Master, what do gloves have to do with your desk?”

“You looking for them risks disgracing my desk even more. Also the kitten is hungry, so serve it food.”

Sangria made a dubious expression, but finally followed Vern's orders.

While he fed the kitten, who was easily lured out from the cloth pile when it saw food, Vern examined its legs.

It seemed that it was caught in some thorny trap. Its left leg was especially in a brutal state.

Vern wasn’t a doctor, so he hoped he was wrong, but it seemed that the kitten may never regain full-mobility of its left back leg.

“You will need to hold it tight.”

“Yes..?”

Sangria, who was avoiding little claws that tried to rip a piece of chicken from his fingers, blinked.

Vern didn’t reply as he was already pulling out the first aid tools he kept in almost every drawer in the room.

Immediately he got to cleaning and attending to the kitten’s wounds.

Kitten obviously wasn’t too happy about it.

It took about 30 minutes and a deep cut on Sangria’s cheek to deal with it.

As Vern observed the kitten who was happily eating the rest of tuna Sangria brought before, he mused:

“We could just cast a sleep spell on it.”

“And why didn't we do that, Young Master Vern?”

Sangria asked in a tired voice, while he put a gauze to his cheek.

“I was so distressed I forgot.”

“... Young Master doesn’t look anxious at all.”

“I’m good at hiding my emotions. Especially when dealing with very stressful things.”

“Is a kitten a very stressful thing?”

“Yes.”

Vern liked cats a lot, so it was very distressing for him to see a hurt kitten.

Sangria observed him for a moment in silence and then said:

“Young Master is surprisingly good at handling animals.”

There were a few times when the kitten started to truly freak out, and in those moments it was Vern who managed to calm it down.

“... I heard a story about someone who picked up an injured wolf cub and how he dealt with it. So I took a few tips from that.”

That someone being Am and that injured wolf cub apparently was a divine beast.

Apparently, because in Vern’s opinion it didn’t behave very divine beast-like.

It would follow Am everywhere, ask to be petted, or to play with it.

Vern never saw it talk or show any wise behavior.

When he once lost a divine crystal Am gave him as a gift and asked the divine wolf if it saw it, it just made a stupid expression, as if it couldn’t understand what he was saying.

No, maybe it understood him, but was pretending not to, because it ate the crystal itself!

Vern, who just discovered a scheme from 300 years ago, was brought back to reality by Sangria’s question:

“From whom Young Master heard that story?”

“...Ah…it was from the book.”

“Young Master ‘heard’ that story from the book.”

“It was a talking book.”

Sangria just looked at Vern in utter disbelief.

“Really? A talking book.”

“Yeah, they’re rare, but they do exist.”

“I didn’t expect that you could find such a thing here.”

“This house hides many mysteries, Master Sangria.”

“Indeed…”

For a moment, Sangria’s gaze flickered to that of burning curiosity, the obsession that so often could be seen among mages, but it quickly disappeared.

“What was the talking book about? Just about raising a wolf?”

“Oh no, it was about all sorts of stuff. It was just the life and thoughts of one very wise man…”

Vern didn’t know it, but for a moment his face turned so wistful and his gaze so full of sorrow, Sangria choked on the words he was about to say.

He decided to wait.

After a moment, Vern suddenly turned towards Sangria, the sorrow in his eyes replaced by a mischievous glint.

“I think that man might have liked Master Sangria.”

“Why?”

“Because Master Sangria is a bit like that cat.”

Vern pointed at the kitten, who was now very carefully looking around, while it hid under the clothes it was brought in.

Sangria looked at the cat, which didn’t resemble him at all.

His hair was pale blond, while the cat's fur was a mix of black and white splashes with occasional touches of red.

Even their eyes didn’t match, his deep-red, the cat's green.

“You both look like strays.”

Vern answered to his confused look.

“Excuse me?”

Sangria looked down on himself, checking his clothes.

They were neat and clean.

He looked in the mirror on the apparatus table, but besides a bit scattered hair, there was also nothing which would prompt him to say ‘stray’.

If there was someone who would fit this description here, it would be the skeleton that dragged itself out of the grave four days ago, called Vern.

The mentioned skeleton just grinned and said:

“Maybe it's just my feelings.”

He didn’t explain.

He just observed how Sangria carefully maneuvered between furniture in the room, always on slight alert, just like the kitten sneaked around the objects on the desk.

Crash!

Ah, and there goes his coffee cup. Sacrificed to a little furry god.

*-*-*

Amara strolled through the temple’s garden in thought.

He was alone, Phlox ran off to prepare everything for the speech he was supposed to do today.

The head priest Rasin was very unhappy he couldn’t make a ‘show’ of so-called ‘delivering justice’, but because it was announced that the Saint himself would deliver a speech, he couldn’t just say ‘show canceled, we lost our sacrifice somewhere’.

Therefore, from the speech about sin and repentance, it changed to Amara reassuring citizens that all the rumors about the assassin and him almost dying are false and blasphemous.

It was quite funny to see Rasin prepare the speech denouncing the rumors he himself spread.

‘But for him to spread those rumors means…’

Amara’s thoughts were cut off when from the bushes suddenly a small head looked out.

Amara blinked and then immediately turned around.

He just remembered that Phlox was terrible with schedules, so he better went check on her, less he would have to make two speeches at the same time or something…

“Brother Amara.”

Oh, fuck.

Amara froze.

Should he turn around? He will turn around and then what?

No, maybe he should pretend he didn’t hear anything and just go?

Useless, if you’re going to pretend you didn’t hear then why did you stop?

“You don’t have to worry about that thing anymore.”

The little head behind him, that may or may not be his not-blood-related younger brother, was talking.

What was he supposed to do? What would Ver and Saf do? Would they just talk?

Amara, who was always the youngest one, was not equipped to suddenly deal with having a younger sibling.

But, wait. That thing? Worry?

What the little may-be-his-younger-brother was talking about?

Amara turned around and was about to ask, but the little head was gone.

It seemed that Laven left while Amara had an identity crisis.

*-*-*

Saffra, sitting in Craya’s cramped room, folded her arms and frowned.

Analyzing all the clues, she came to one conclusion.

She turned to Mimosa, who was putting cookies on Saffra’s plate.

“Where is the closest secret passage to the murder scene.”

“Secret passage…? Down the corridor.”

“Okay, let’s go then!”

“Where?”

Saffra stood up and headed to the door as she answered:

“To the secret passage.”

When all she received in reply were bewildered looks, she explained:

“We don’t live in a damn mystery novel. Why should we look for more clues when all we have to do is to check!”

Unlike her younger brother, Saffra enjoyed hunting much more than quietly gathering evidence to break the opponent with just the weight of facts.

She was a woman of action.

And she led her little squad of hunting dogs (and an unintended cat) to the secret passage.