“I should’ve known. My dad always warned me to never consort with crooks.”
“When I was a pup, the bull who spawned me warned us to avoid entanglements with octars and valenos, because they are very dangerous. I believe this to be a similar lesson.”
I knew Trax was trying to relate, sending me pictures of a tiny tentacled creature burrowing into a Squalo’s skull to eat its brain, and another black and white creature who was built like a Squalo, only far bigger and stronger looking, but that really wasn’t helpful right now. I was trying to find Dathka, so her stealing from me was a slap in the face. It was insult atop of injury! We’d been nothing but polite and professional the entire time since Cutter shoved her off on us, and this was how she paid back our hospitality?
“To hell with her. Gerzog can feed Dathka to the ratlets for all I care. She got her snobby ass kidnapped with my enchanted bullet on her, so she can…” I trailed off as I realized theimplications implicit in my tirade. “She’s got my enchanted item on her.”
“Correct. I believe that is why we are upset.”
When Haddar had come through the gate, I’d been a few miles away in the Under Slump, and he’d still been able to track me down because I’d had one of his enchantments on my person. If she still had that single round in a cartridge loop or in a pocket, I should—theoretically at least—be able to do the same thing to her that Haddar had to me.
Because I’d been thinking hard, Trax caught most of that. “So wizards can follow their own magic the way I can follow a trail of blood. Splendid. Where is she?”
“I don’t really know how that works yet. I’ll have to figure that part out.”
“Excellent. Then we shall go to wherever she is and bite her for her thievery.”
“No, Trax. We’ve got to rescue her from Gerzog.”
“We shall rescue her andthenbite her.”
I’d get Trax straightened out on that later, because right now, I needed to learn how to sense my own enchantments at long range, and I needed to do it fast.
Thirty-Five
The thing most non-wizards don’t realize about working magic is how tiring it is. It’s not tube-crawling, Red-mining levels of physical exhaustion; magic takes its toll out on your mind. Now I was both types of tired. I’d been going nonstop for a day and a night, so after another hour of intensely focusing on my warming bowl—trying to sense its presence at increasingly greater distances—I was worn right out.
I’m embarrassed to admit that while sitting in the entryway, struggling to keep my eyes open while Trax carried the bowl off ever farther, I’d fallen asleep.
I was awakened sometime later by someone gently prodding my leg with their shoe. I snorted myself alert and saw that it was Azarin standing over me.
“For a moment, I thought you were dead there.” The concern was obvious in her voice.
“Never been better.”
She was looking haggard, but I was glad to see she was still in one piece. “Why are you sleeping on the remains of an Earth Elemental?”
The dirt had been softer than the tower’s bricks, but of the many things I had to catch her up on, that was the leastimportant. I looked over to see that Trax was standing a few feet away. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I thought that was a peculiar way to cast a spell, but I do not know how magic works.”
Fair enough, and I badly needed the nap. I rubbed my face and asked, “How are Bognar and Sifuso?”
“Lucky to be alive. They’re still at the church, resting. They’ll both be fine, but my air dagger wand was the only thing we had the sea priest would accept to barter for a healing. That church is supposed to be for the saint of sailors, but it’s more like saint greedy bastard, really.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I’d looted that wand off a defeated Frunza Tarlev student fair and square, and given it to her as a gift. “What about the Latrocinium?”
“They were watching us like hawks, until a messenger arrived, then they just up and left. One of the scum had been aggressively flirtatious with me the entire time. After getting their mysterious message, he wished me good luck in a very snide manner, before saying he’dsee me soon, which makes me think I might need to stab him sometime in the near future.”
“You might be onto something there. Carcalla’s sticking to our original deal and deadline. We’ve got until tomorrow to bring him the treasure or we’re still getting evicted.”
“That seedy pile of eagle shit! After all we’ve been through? Fuck! If eviction’s back on the table, why’re you lying on the floor?”
I popped up and dusted some dead earth monster dust off my back. “It’s a long story. Are Rade and Krachma here? Because it’ll be faster to explain it once.”
I’d told the student council, and Morton—as he was the only regular student remaining alive and uninjured, so I might as well include him—exactly what happened after we parted ways. The good news was, we’d found ourselves a tester. The bad news was… everything else.
“So, our only hope to avoid eviction, and likely worse is that Carcalla’s illegitimate daughter happens to be a rotten thief?” Azarin asked.
