I pinch the bridge of my nose and rub, I’m feeling the beginnings of a headache already, and she’s only been my apprentice for a minute.

James starts laughing, but doesn’t immediately reply, so I speak up.

“Princess, First of all, Conrad is looking for Reginald, not the actual amulet. Why would he need to ransack your place? As soon as he’s certain Reginald isn’t in your suite, he’ll go to the Mage Guild’s office, since that’s where he was last seen. Why would Reginald leave the amulet at your place? He either has it, or he can tell us where it is.”

“You could just ask me where Reginald is...” James wheezes.

“More importantly, princess,” I continue, ignoring James, “That was incredibly dumb. Using persuasion magic is a crime, that’s what he’d question you on, and I assume your answers would only get you into further trouble. Why would you volunteer to incriminate yourself?”

“No one cares about that!” The princess objects, “No one is going to punish me for something so petty! I only care about restoring my father’s soul to him, and proving that I never conspired with my brother to do anything like that!”

Typical nobles, I thought to myself, they tend to think the laws don’t apply to them if it’s something “small”. “You don’t think using persuasion spells is a big deal? Princess, it is a big deal when you can’t control your magic and start throwing it around. Yes, you’re lucky your family members all have wards to protect themselves against you, but what about everyone else you’ve used it on? Most people outside of the royal family can’t afford to buy enchanted rings with protection against every conceivable thing!”

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry. There you happy?” She says, “Now, let me go help! I want to get my hands on Reginald myself!” She yells. Because I'm watching for it, I feel faint mana tendrils extend outwards from her, and I slam my staff down in a dispel before the spell fully forms.

“Princess, you just tried to use persuasion magic again! As your master, I’m going to administer punishment for this.”

“Punishment?” The princess looks shocked. “Wait! You can’t punish me! I’m a princess!”

“And you’re my apprentice.” I reach out and put my hand on her shoulder, she flinches. “Relax, it’s not going to hurt, I’m just temporarily sealing away your magic, so you stop trying to get yourself arrested…” I explain, muttering.

I wrap a tight ward of mana threads around her mana core, forcibly sealing in her magic. If she were fully trained, she could break free of that restraint, but with her current level of skill, that was impossible.

“How dare you lay a hand on me?!”

“You’re my apprentice, I have the legal right to do this.” Why did she make me feel like a villain for doing something that was for her own good?

“What?! But… I only agreed to be your apprentice so that horrid man would remove his silence spell.”

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I take my hand off her shoulder as soon as the spell is done. “And this is better than being silenced, right? Just sit tight and answer the inquisitor's questions while I go chase down Reginald.”

“You’re just going to leave me here, with him?!”

“I don’t have much choice, you’ve surrendered your rights and left me with no way to protect you beyond what I just did.”

“Argh! This is bullshit. Let me help!”

“Sorry, I can’t.”

James finally stops laughing. “I’ll tell you where Reginald is, he’s sitting at the the Mage Guild’s branch office. I had him placed in a guest room under protective custody. You can’t just extract him from there, not without my cooperation.”

I sigh, I’d been afraid of that.

“And I’ll even consider letting the princess go. After all, I have a recording of her saying that, so I can always question her later if I want to.” James taps his inquisitor's badge. “This records everything that happens near me, and sends a copy to a crystal at the inquisitors' headquarters. Latest magi-tech right out of the labs,” He tells us with a smug look.

The princess looked stunned, “I didn’t know that was possible, I mean… I have a magic communicator device and a few recording devices, but one that does both? I want one!” She turns to look at me, “Make me one after we get my father’s soul back,” She commands me.

I snort, “You’re not my boss, princess, it’s the other way around.” I turn to Reginald, “So what do you want in exchange for handing over Reginald for questioning?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to be a part of this investigation. I don’t think you understand the severity of it. A soul stealing artifact? We’ll have to add new laws that prohibit that sort of thing. I also want to keep the artifact for research, after we’ve restored the king’s soul, of course.”

“All that for just giving up Reginald?” I ask. “That amulet belongs to the king, it was given to him.”

“I might also be willing to throw in an official pardon for the princess. I’m sure her father would trade the amulet to keep his daughter out of a null-magic prison for the next few years,” James points out nonchalantly.

“It’s pretty clear that Reginald is a Mage Guild operative,” I tell James, “Placed to betray his kingdom, incriminate the prince and princess, prevent the creation of a royal mage school? What’s to say this whole thing isn’t orchestrated by the Mage Guild to deliberately cause conflict?” I ask.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” James snorts, “You’ve been listening to too many conspiracy theories. There are much easier ways to prevent such a royal mage school from being created. One, we can pressure wizards with the threat of being expelled from the guild, making it difficult to find any teachers. Two, we can pressure this kingdom's neighbors, and use them as proxies; trade embargos, diplomatic threats… You’d find that no one wants one kingdom to suddenly start producing more mages, just like they wouldn’t want a kingdom to suddenly start growing the size of their army. And three, if all else fails, we can simply step in and take control, incorporating it into our system, forcing your kingdom to accept a quota of foreign students for the sake of balance, imposing heavy fees, etc. The whole thing will end up being an expensive tax burden with little benefit to your country and no one will want to emulate it. My point is, we wouldn’t stir up this much trouble for such a minor threat.”

The princess and I both just stared at James, stunned to see how quickly he dismissed the elder prince’s cunning plan and laid out ways to neuter it.

“So the Mage Guild isn’t behind all of this?” I ask.

“No, of course not. What a preposterous idea. We’d never use forbidden soul magics just to get our way. I won’t lie and say we’re going to simply allow such a thing to happen, but we’re a lot more subtle than this. No one wants a mess this big over such a trivial dispute!”

“Then… who’s behind all of this?” I ponder.

“What an interesting question. Perhaps you’d like the assistance of a trained inquisitor to discover the answer to that?” James asks sarcastically.