The Order of...what? Thenio didn't remember ever hearing that name before.

Ariom was frowning. "So it's something to do with those fanatics? General Obarin mentioned the Order when he told me about this job, but from what he said, I was expecting something like ritual formations. Not...." He looked down at the papers he was holding. "...this."

"There are plenty of ritual formations that need analyzing, too," Garem said. "And we'd be happy to have your help with those. But if there's one case where we could seriously use a grandmaster enchanter with a void affinity, it's this one."

"You're trying to recruit me because of my affinity?" Ariom looked a little surprised by that. "Why? So I don't get killed in one of these explosions? But you should have safety gear for that, right?"

"We do. And not getting killed is obviously important," Mideis said drily. "But what we're really hoping is that you'll be able to stop the explosion in the first place so that we can get a decent look at the entire enchantment matrix."

"You mean the explosion isn't the main function?" Ariom asked, raising his eyebrows a little.

Mideis shook his head. "No. It just looks that way because that's the only part of the inscription that's left after...well...after the people 'turned into fireworks,' as you put it. The explosion seems to be a built-in security feature to prevent anyone from seeing the main part of the enchantment. It's set to go off when the person wearing the enchantment dies or when the inscription is scanned. That's why we're having such a hard time with the analysis."

"I see.... Well, that's still disturbing, but it's not quite as psychotic as I was originally thinking." Ariom looked down at the diagrams for a moment. Then he suddenly raised his head and looked at Thenio. "You don't have to stay and listen to this if you don't want to. I wasn't expecting this discussion to revolve around magic explosions. I can understand why it might be a bit...upsetting for you."

"Ah...well...." Thenio fidgeted a little, not sure how to respond. It was true that it wasn't a very comfortable topic. But this was also his first day of real assistant work, and he didn't like the idea of bailing out partway through just because the subject matter was a little difficult.

"Why don't you stay while we give Ariom a general overview of the situation?" Mideis suggested with an understanding smile. "Then maybe you can take the familiars out to the atrium for a bit while we go over a few of the less pleasant details."

"Oh...okay." It felt a little like admitting defeat, but considering how important it was for Thenio to keep his emotions under control right now, he knew it was probably better if he didn't hear exactly what happened when someone 'turned into fireworks.'

"All right, then," Mideis said, nodding. "Well, let's go back to the original question: Do you know anything about the Order of the Ravener? It's fine if you don't—it's not really public knowledge."

Thenio shook his head. "No. I've never heard of it. But a 'ravener' is something that eats a lot, right? Then...." He glanced at Garem. "Does it have something to do with demons?"

"That's right. Very good." Mideis said approvingly. "It's a group of people who have...shall we say...an unhealthy preoccupation with demons."

"There's no need to put it that nicely," Garem growled. "They're a bunch of lunatics, is what they are. Obsessed with power. And willing to steal and murder and mutilate themselves in order to get more of it."

"Well. Yes." Mideis gave Thenio an apologetic look. "The vice-captain has had to deal with them a lot, and as you can tell, he has some pretty hard feelings toward them. And for good reason, too—they're mixed up in a lot of nasty business. They're a very secretive bunch, so there's still a lot we don't know about the group, but it seems to have first been organized a few decades after the Rift Crisis. Those were chaotic times, and people did a lot of crazy things, just trying to survive and cope with the trauma of it all. Even now, it's common for people who have survived demon attacks to get a little obsessed with the idea of researching demons or trying to become combat wizards so they can take revenge. The Order is sort of an extreme version of that. They want to gain control over the demons in order to turn their own power against them."

"Or so they claim," Garem put in. "And they might have really meant it in the beginning. Maybe a few still do. But most of the people associated with the group now are only in it for their own gain. Greedy scumbags. They've got connections with all sorts of criminal organizations. Bribery, extortion, theft, smuggling, poaching, human trafficking.... You name it, they've done it. And are still doing it, most likely. No matter how many of them we crush, they just keep turning up. Like cockroaches."

Thenio was starting to understand why Garem had such a gloomy expression all the time....

Mideis nodded. "Like he says, the group has spread pretty widely in the criminal underground. But a lot of the smaller gangs working under them don't even know that they're affiliated with the Order. They're quite strict about controlling who has access to information. And even within the main group, there's a rigid hierarchy, with only the most elite members having full access to the group's knowledge and resources. This flesh enchantment we're trying to analyze is something that started showing up among the higher-ranking members a couple of years ago. It seems to be some kind of experiment that they're performing, since there are small variations in the enchantment from person to person. But we don't know what the end goal of the experiment is, since we haven't been able to see a complete inscription yet."

"We know where a few more of these enchanted members are, but we're just keeping tabs on them for now. Too dangerous to go after them without all the preparations in place. They've already cost us one good researcher, with several more seriously injured. Suicidal maniacs...." Garem's expression was extremely bitter.

"So what exactly is your plan?" Ariom asked, frowning. "Let's say I decide to help you out. How am I supposed to get access to these walking explosives while they're still intact?"

"That's one of the reasons we're working together with the Magic Corps on this," Garem explained. "Whenever we decide we're ready to go catch one of these guys, they've agreed to lend us some firepower to make the job easier."

"Or...lend us some icepower, more like." Mideis chuckled a little. "They've got a really good ice mage they're willing to let us use. She's a sixth rank sorceress with excellent magic control. We think her stasis magic will be able to temporarily prevent the explosion formation from triggering. But she can only keep it up for so long. That's why we need to have an enchanter who's capable of deactivating the formation ready and waiting before we go catch our research subject."

Ariom raised an eyebrow. "You seriously think that will work? Can she really use stasis magic at that level?"

"We won't know until we try," Garem said simply. "But probably. She's good. One of the best ice mages in the world."

Ariom still looked a bit skeptical, but he didn't say any more. Instead, he picked up his cup of fruit juice and took a slow sip.

There was a moment of silence.

"Iggy, why don't you finish your fish pie?" Ariom said finally, reaching up to give the dragon a light pat. "Then you and Thenio can take Amisi and Kino out to the atrium to play for a while, all right?"

"Mmm! Okay!" Iggy jumped down from Ariom's shoulder and started happily munching on his snacks again.

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Thenio sat on a bench in the atrium and watched while Iggy and Kino played together. They were 'playing bird,' as Iggy called it. Which meant that Kino was using his wind magic to make a toy bird fly around while Iggy chased after it. They were making sure to stay some distance away from where Thenio was sitting. This was partly to prevent Kino's magic from causing him problems. But it was also to avoid accidental collisions whenever Iggy lost control and went spinning through the air or crash landed on the ground. He was doing quite a lot of both. Thenio couldn't help worrying about him, but he wasn't interfering, since the little dragon didn't seem to be hurt and was obviously having a good time.

He heard a soft thump and turned to see that Amisi had just jumped up onto the other end of the bench. She padded confidently over to Thenio and climbed onto his lap.

"Oh, hi. Did you get tired of looking at the flowers?"

Amisi nodded. She'd been prowling around the garden patches, sniffing at the different plants. But apparently she'd had enough of that for now and decided to take a break.

Thenio waited for her to settle down and then started gently stroking her velvety brown fur. Amisi made a happy expression and closed her eyes. She even started purring when he began rubbing her neck and around her shoulder blades.

"You're really good at that," she said after a few minutes, her voice a bit distorted by the purrs.

Thenio smiled a little. "Well, I used to have a cat. So I've had some practice."

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Used to?"

"Yeah...well...." Thenio looked away. "My parents decided we couldn't keep her anymore. So they gave her away."

"And you were sad about that?"

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"Yeah, I was." Thenio shifted uncomfortably. "It wasn't really anything to be sad about, though. I went to visit her at her new home a few times, and she seemed really happy there. They gave her fancy toys and a climbing tower and a nice little house to sleep in and everything. She never got things like that when she lived with us. Just my little brother chasing her around and pulling on her tail. So it really was for the best."

"Just because it was good for her doesn't mean it was good for you." Amisi was still staring up at him with her unblinking orange eyes. "Why shouldn't you be sad about losing a pet you loved?"

"Because bad things happen when I get sad!" Thenio said, a little more sharply than he'd intended. "I lose control of my magic. And then people get hurt!"

His magic was acting up a little bit now, and Thenio took a few deep breaths to try to calm himself down.

"I wasn't happy about her leaving," he went on in a steadier voice. "But I was glad she got to live in a nicer place, with people who cared about her. And I'm especially glad that she was never around to get hurt whenever my magic exploded."

"So do you think you deserved to lose her? Did you deserve to be hurt? Because you hurt someone else?"

"I—" Thenio broke off, unsettled by the question.

Why was she asking that? No one else had ever asked him that before.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe I did."

Amisi simply looked at him for a long moment. Then she blinked and lowered her head. "You know that doesn't make sense. You don't deserve to be punished for something you had no control over."

Thenio looked away, across the atrium, where Iggy was flitting through the branches of the oak tree in pursuit of his toy bird. "Does it matter if it makes sense?"

"Maybe not." The taua laid her head down on Thenio's knee. "People's feelings rarely make sense. But just knowing they don't make sense can make a difference, you know?"

Thenio didn't say anything. He just lifted his hand and started gently scratching Amisi's large ears.

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Ariom waited until Thenio and the familiars were out of the reception room. Then he turned to Garem.

"You said you had actual images of those enchanted Order members...or what was left of them.... Do you have copies with you?"

Garem nodded and looked at Mideis, who pulled another set of papers out of his space pocket and handed them over.

Ariom looked down at the first one and grimaced. "Sending Thenio out with the familiars was a good idea. It's definitely better if he doesn't see these...."

The room fell silent as Ariom worked his way through the stack of papers, examining the images and comparing them against the diagrams and notes.

Finally, he looked up. "I can see some traces of the rest of the enchantment, but it's a little difficult to make sense of them without knowing what the main function of the matrix was. Do you really not have any ideas about it?"

"Well...I wouldn't say we don't have any...." Mideis looked at Garem, as though asking how much to reveal.

Garem sighed. "It's like I said earlier. The Order is all about gaining power. Everything they do revolves around that idea. So we can assume that this does, too. We just don't know exactly how. But...well, they say their goal is to harness the power of demons, right? And what's the main advantage that demons have over humans?"

"The fact that they can increase their power by absorbing the magic of other creatures?"

"Exactly." Mideis nodded. "That's the Order's ultimate goal. I mean, it's in their name, isn't it? 'Ravener.' One who devours. They're trying to find a way for humans to consume magic power like demons do. So we suspect these enchantments have something to do with that."

Ariom's cheek twitched, and his eyes widened slightly as he looked back down at the papers spread in front of him. "Consuming magic power...like demons, huh...?"

Mideis frowned. "What? Does that mean something to you?"

Ariom hesitated for a moment and then shook his head. "No, not really." He scowled at Mideis. "And stay out of my head, you nosy psychic."

"I wasn't in your head!" Mideis glared back at him. "We both know that you're perfectly capable of blocking my magic if you want to. But I've participated in enough interrogations to notice when someone's expression changes like yours did just now. Right when I mentioned humans consuming magic power."

"That...." Ariom looked away. "It just reminded me of something. It shouldn't be connected to this case at all. It's just...an odd coincidence."

"Hmm." Mideis narrowed his eyes, his expression skeptical. "Well, fine. You know better than to lie to us, so if you say it's not related...."

"It's not," Ariom repeated firmly. "And since we brought up your magic...." He glanced in the direction of the atrium. "Thenio's out of earshot, isn't he?"

"Changing the subject, huh...?" Mideis sighed. "Yes, he is. He's currently sitting on a bench in the atrium, and Amisi is on his lap getting her ears scratched. She says Thenio is an excellent ear scratcher."

"Iggy thinks so, too," Ariom said drily. "But were you able to learn anything about him apart from the fact that he's good at scratching ears?"

"Not as much as I expected. Chaos morphs can use different types of magic, can't they? Sort of like null affinities? Can he use mental magic as well? He was doing a pretty good job of blocking my probes. Even Amisi can't pick up very much from him."

Ariom's brow furrowed. "Really? I'm not aware that he can use mental magic.... I mean, even most null mages can't, and there was nothing about that in any of the chaos magic research material I've looked through." He tapped a finger on his knee thoughtfully. "And Thenio hasn't mentioned that he has that kind of ability.... Is it possible for him to be using mental magic without being aware of it?"

"It's possible, yes. It's actually pretty common for children with mental affinities to use magic without realizing it, especially something as basic as blocking a telepathic probe. We weren't being aggressive about it, so it wouldn't have taken much skill to block." Mideis shook his head. "It would be strange if he could do it without you noticing, though. I mean, you could tell that Amisi and I were using magic on him, right?"

"Yes, I could. And I appreciate your help with that, by the way. I can't use mental magic, so I couldn't test it on him by myself."

"What kind of test were you doing?" Garem asked. "Mideis told me you'd asked him to try using magic on the boy while we were here, but he didn't really explain why."

"Just to test Thenio's reaction to it," Ariom said. "I mentioned that he was sensitive to ambient magic, didn't I? Too much causes his magic to destabilize. But not all types of magic seem to affect him to the same extent. We've discovered that he tolerates life magic unusually well, for example. And...." He frowned again. "It looks like mental magic is the same. Mideis and Amisi were using quite a lot—more than enough to cause Thenio problems if it had been any other magic type. But it didn't seem to bother him. I really wasn't expecting that." He looked back at Mideis. "So what did you manage to pick up from him?"

"Just a few surface thoughts and emotions. He was nervous about serving the refreshments. He likes magic beasts. He's worried about messing up and disappointing you." Mideis shrugged. "He seems like a good kid, basically. Just...I don't know. There's something a little strange about him. I can't quite put my finger on what it is."

"What about Amisi?"

"She said pretty much the same thing. Except...." Mideis paused, looking thoughtful. "She said he felt...sad. Not that he's sad right now. It's like...he's been steeped in sadness. It's become a part of him." He shook his head a little. "Well, it's not the first time she's said that about someone. But it's rare for someone so young to have gone through enough hardship to get that way. She said it's like there's a huge shadow hanging over him. But she's not sure if it's a shadow that he's casting or one that's being cast onto him." He gave Ariom an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I know that probably doesn't help much. The way she describes things can be a little hard to understand."

"It's all right. Iggy's kind of the same way." Ariom was silent for a moment, fiddling with the stack of papers that were on the couch next to him. Then he looked at Garem. "Have you and Kino noticed anything in particular?"

Garem was silent for a moment, probably communicating with his familiar.

"Kino says he's jealous," he said finally. "He likes playing with Iggy and all, but Amisi is curled up on Thenio's lap getting petted, and Kino thinks it looks really nice. He wishes Thenio would pet him, too."

They both stared at him.

Garem shrugged. "Basically, Kino really likes him."

"Seriously? Kino?" Mideis looked shocked. "Kino the Aloof is saying he wants to sit on someone's lap and get petted? That kid is more unusual than I thought...."

"He just seems to have that effect on magic beasts," Ariom said. "I have yet to see one that didn't immediately like him. My uncle's revenant felt a little intimidated by Thenio's chaos magic at first, but even he had warmed up to him within a day or so."

"That's...interesting." Garem rubbed his chin. "Maybe I should look into chaos magic a little myself."

"Well, if you get any research data from the Association, let me take a look at it, will you? I'd like to know if they're willing to give a Royal Guard vice-captain any of the information that they inexplicably left out of what they sent me," Ariom said with a sour expression.

Garem raised an eyebrow. "The Association is hiding things about chaos magic, huh? Well, it's not that surprising. They might be the only organization in the world that's even more secretive than the Order of the Ravener. Though at least they're not running an international criminal ring...probably." He made a face. "Well, getting back to the topic at hand—what are your thoughts on the analysis job?"

Ariom didn't answer right away. He crossed his arms and stared down at the stack of diagram papers, a slight frown on his face.

"Give me a few days to study these more thoroughly," he said after a long pause. "I'll decide whether I'm willing to do the in-person analysis after that."

"Fair enough." Mideis gave a wry smile. "That's actually better than I was expecting. I was half sure you were going to turn us down right away."

"If it makes any difference..." Garem said slowly. "...General Obarin said to tell you that if you accept this job, he'll make sure that a certain firestorm mage isn't involved with it at all."

Ariom stiffened, and a dark expression briefly crossed his face. "I'll keep that in mind."

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Mideis and Garem didn't speak much as they loaded their familiars back into the carriage, said goodbye to Ariom and his housemates, and started back out onto the road.

They were about halfway back to the Guard headquarters when Mideis finally spoke up. "What do you think? Is there any chance he'll actually do it?"

Garem nodded. "I think there's a pretty high chance, actually."

"Really?" Mideis was startled by that response. He thought for a moment. "Does it have anything to do with his reaction to hearing about humans absorbing magic? That thing he didn't want to tell us about?"

"Exactly. Whatever he was thinking about right then, it's something important to him. The expression on his face...that was the look of a hunting hound catching a scent. And now that he's caught it, he won't let go of it easily. Stubborn fellow." Garem's face broke into an uncharacteristic grin that made him look years younger. "They'd both have fits if they heard me say it, but Ariom really is just like his father."