I sat on the sill looking out the window Saben had snuck out of almost two months ago. It wasn't quite noon yet, and both Seth and Owen were still asleep.

I was a little worried about Owen. He'd been stung twice, but was also like five times my size. He should have woken up by now.

Seth, on the other hand, always slept like the dead.

Naturally I took advantage of their sleepiness to search the whole house. I searched every room, every floor, even the basement and Benjamin's office.

I found nothing.

John was the only person that it felt like he actually lived here. As a trusted minion, he maintained the house and made everything look normal. Lived in. I knew there should be more here, but there was nothing.

Not only did I find nothing, the whole place gave me the vibe of being a façade. This was a place for people to look, while the real business happened elsewhere. Rather like shipping plates and cups with a magical egg hidden inside. Benjamin was the type who would show you one thing with one hand, while he was doing something else entirely with the other.

If he confessed so much to Seth, it was because it still fit with whatever his end goal really was. Did I believe he was searching for the murderer of Seth's mom? Meh, maybe. What he was doing was not how you search for a murderer. Like, at all. Especially not if you care about the bait.

As for saving Saben's life, well, I kinda believe that one. The kid was jumpy and scared. He knew he was in over his head. Getting him out of the city might have been a good move for Saben's safety.

But Benny Boy would only have done that if it moved his own plans forward. There was still something Saben could be used for. Could it be Seth keeping the wind talent? If that was enough, maybe. Maybe keeping him out of reach of Thurstan? Nah, that's not it. Thurstan didn't care about Blaise, and didn't need to keep her in reach. Saben would be no different.

Benjamin was making use of what people were already doing. He wasn't Thurstan's boss, he was more of an enabler. He was the guy with a stick knocking hornet's nests into his enemies tea parties. He wasn't doing the stinging, but he was arranging for it to happen.

The part I cared about was the fact that Benjamin had an awful lot of control over Seth. He put Saben in a place of his choosing. He had blackmail on Booth. He had a string on Blaise through his influence on Thurstan. These were people Seth cared about.

And I cared about Seth and the kids, which meant those strings touched me. Unacceptable.

I didn't like the feeling of a trap forming around me. Of course, I could just leave. Up and out. Not my problem.

Right. Go live in the woods and hunt rabbits. Not.

Hmm, maybe join Tom and his band of misfits? That'd leave me fighting gladiator battles in an Empress sponsored Multi Level Marketing scam. Hard no.

Life with Seth was cushy and I liked it. I was learning about magic and fed every day. My bed was warm and the company entertaining.

I sighed. I wanted my life to stay cushy and lazy. You know, like the last month has been, but maybe a little lazier.

Owen suddenly stirred, and then jerked upright with a shout. He glanced around breathing heavily. Finally his gaze landed on me and Seth.

"I'm all right. You both are all right, too." He took a deep breath and made the effort to calm himself.

I jumped down from the window sill directly onto Seth's face and then sat there. Within a few seconds he was pushing me off. Seth sat up as Owen swung his legs over the side of the bed and buried his face in his hands.

"Hey, man, are you all right?" Seth asked.

Owen dropped his hands. "No. No, I'm not. You all left me fighting that thing on my own. Just because I'm better than you at fighting doesn't mean I'm actually good at it yet. The first time I held a sword was at the start of school. I've had like a month of practice. That's it. You can't be expecting me to face down men and monsters all the time. I'm going to get killed."

You go Owen! Stand up for yourself against your weakling friends who can't help you in a fight anyway!

"You're right. I'm sorry things went down that way." Seth tossed the covers onto my head and stood up. "We need to stop what we're doing anyway. I think we should stay on campus and not get involved in things for at least a little while."

Owen snorted. "I'm fine with that. Blaise won't be, and good luck getting Duvessa to stay put."

True that. I wonder how the mischief twins fared on their own? Did the Skulls attack them as planned? If not, Blaise would be so disappointed.

"Where are we?" Owen asked as he looked around.

"We're at my guardian's place," Seth answered. He paused a moment before adding, "Benjamin."

Owen looked grim. "One of the names from Selendrith. One of the suspicious people. You said that Arnold thinks he's the one behind the thefts."

"Yes," Seth answered. Arnold had been right, but nobody was saying that.

"Why here? Why not back at school?"

Seth fidgeted. "I think he knew what we were doing. I don't know how, but he's keeping tabs on us. Or, at least me. He showed up and…" Seth gave Owen a pared down version of events. He left out everything Benjamin had told him on the ride here.

I was happy Seth was being discreet. While Owen was probably a safe bet to confess all his myriad sins to, if Blaise thought Seth was complicit, she might end him. Duvessa couldn't keep a secret to save anyone's life, including her own, and Selendrith would drop the whole group like a plague potato.

Stolen novel; please report.

Booth would be chill, and would want to know how it was done.

The best time to tell them would be after the powers had been returned.

The boys headed to the kitchen where John made them cheese sandwiches and called a taxi for them.

Bastard didn't feed me.

Seth gave me some of his sandwich, so I pulled the cheese out and shredded bits of bread all over the floor for John to clean up later.

We got back to school about mid afternoon. Owen headed off to his dorm, but Seth settled on a bench outside of the Water tower. He spent a lot of time staring. At the sky. At the gate. At the ground. Then he'd get up and pace around for a bit before parking his butt back on the bench.

I left him to sort himself out, and took a nap. Lightly, of course.

The others didn't come back until nearly nightfall. We didn't see Booth or Selendrith arrive, despite having a clear view of the school gate. Either they didn't come in the gate, or Seth and I were too distracted.

We did see Duvessa rock up to the gatehouse, with extra guards, no less. Blaise was with her and they made a stir in the courtyard. I recognized both babysitters, as well as two new guards.

Duvessa waved away her babysitters and stalked past Seth. As she passed she whispered loudly, "Meeting in my room, right now. Where are the others?"

"I don't know," Seth said and stood up.

"Ugh!" Duvessa cried, and turned to one of the new babysitters. "Robin, deliver a message to Booth, Selendrith, and Owen to meet in my room in five minutes."

"Miss, I'm a bodyguard, not a messenger," the woman said. She was dressed plainly, with no obvious armor, and the only weapons she had were a pair of knives.

"But I need a message delivered!"

"I'll Message them," Seth said. "I'll use the spell. As long as they're outside, they'll get it."

"Right! Yes! See?" Duvessa whirled on Robin. "He can do it! How about you, Robin?" She said accusingly to the other new guard, a man also dressed plainly without conspicuous weaponry.

"Miss, my name is not Robin, and neither is hers."

Well okay then. Am I surprised by this turn of events? No. No I am not.

"Robins are annoying and wake you up in the morning! All of you are Robins!" She made a shooing gesture at them, before turning and marching off. "Five minutes!" Duvessa called over her shoulder to Seth.

Seth watched them go. "I don't get it."

What's to get? Duvessa marches to the beat of her own kazoo. At least calling all her babysitters 'Robin' was better than calling them babysitters. In her mind, anyway.

It took a lot more than five minutes for everyone to collect at Duvessa's room. Selendrith was last, and arrived just as Seth stepped outside to go look for her. The two new guards waited outside Duvessa's suite and nodded to both Seth and Selendrith as they entered.

Duvessa was sprawled on her overstuffed chair, Owen, Blaise, and Booth were on the velvet couch. Selendrith took the chair by the desk, leaving Seth to take the floor by the low cherry table.

I sat in the middle of the table and scanned the room for my nemesis, that blasted raven. He was perched on the handle of the glass door heading out to the balcony.

"I hope your half of our adventure was successful," Duvessa said. "Nana was furious with me and I am now officially grounded. Robin is going to be following me everywhere from now on, until Nana is satisfied I won't cause more trouble."

"I thought their–" Booth started, but cut off at a sharp headshake from Blaise. "Right. Well, my family is moved, as safe as I can make them, and settled." He stared at the floor, not meeting anyone's gaze. "I want to say thank you for all your help." Booth opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but paused.

After a moment Selendrith cleared her throat and Booth shot her a look. "And I owe all of you an apology."

Be still my heart. An apology from Booth? I think I might be dead.

"Of course you do!" Duvessa cried as she sat up straight. "I told you to trust the plan! If you wanted to fight the bad guys, you just had to wait a few more seconds!"

"It was a good fight," Blaise said. "We kicked ass. They were not expecting it."

"And after that, this happened!" Duvessa stood up and cast a summon. A full sized black tiger materialized from the shadows and sat next to Seth on the plush rug.

I remembered the cat Duvessa had summoned when we first met. It wasn't much bigger than me at the time, about the size of a lynx. This tiger dwarfed that little kitty.

"Woah!" Owen and Seth said together.

"That's huge!" Seth added. Indeed, this was way more than Duvessa's typical juice.

"Could that be from the scorpions?" Owen asked.

"I bet it was," Seth said. "When we killed the scorpion summons, you must have gotten the power back, Duvessa. This is a lot, though."

"You killed summons? That's got to be the reason you never noticed your power being less," Blaise said. "The berries inflated it, and then the Skull jerks stole the extra power, and not much of your regular power. I bet they took that capy-thing you summoned."

"Capybara. They are such sweet animals," Duvessa said. "It didn't deserve to be taken by those jerks." She dismissed the tiger. "I'm still missing some. I used to be able to do more than thirty sparrows at a time, and I'm in the twenty range now. But I can do so much more volume, now."

"Is it worth it to eat more berries then?" Booth asked. "My power didn't stay inflated like that, but I didn't eat as many."

"No," Selendrith said. "The berries are actually pretty dangerous for humans, especially those with talents. The are a confirmed source of mana burnout."

"So her talent didn't burn out because someone else had it?" Booth asked.

Selendrith shrugged. "High mana concentrations are dangerous, and can have unexpected results. Instead of getting more power, she might have lost her talent, evolved into something other than human, or some other effect that we don't know about."

"It's fine. Everything worked out like it should," Duvessa said.

"No, things are not how they should be," Blaise said, exasperated.

"Where are the rest of the berries?" Duvessa asked.

Selendrith shook her head. "You already had your three. The rest are in a preservation jar. If we need them I can get them, but they are not handy."

Owen shook his head. "Y'all are lucky. Don't be messing with those anymore."

Duvessa groaned and flopped back into the chair.

I was thinking I might want to have some more of those berries. Me being a beast, it'll probably be fine. I didn't think I'd evolve into something too weird. On the other paw, staying a cub was good too.

"They're taking other people's powers too," Seth was explaining. "We fought scorpions that were made of your shadows, as well as smoke, water, and whatever else Ned was able to capture."

"We need to find out how they're doing that," Blaise said.

"We did find out," Seth said. "So, this is what happened…"

They talked about events until well into the night. Duvessa's and Blaise's fight was not actually as one sided as Blaise presented it. Duvessa's grandmother had intervened when she saw the conflict. With her help the gang members were quickly captured. Her grandmother was also furious that Duvessa was deliberately becoming a decoy target.

That, along with the incident with Hellena, led to Duvessa being assigned around the clock babysitters, and she was not allowed to leave campus for any reason until further notice.

"That's for the best, really," Seth said. "We need to let things calm down for a while." Maybe if he repeated it enough times, it would sink in and the girls wouldn't do anything stupid.

Blaise huffed. "You can let things calm down. I intend to keep messing with Hellena until I get my power back."

Duvessa gasped. "You'd go on adventures without me?"

"I can't just let it go. We need to head up the north mountain and find out what Hellena is doing up there," Blaise said. "And we should raid that gang's clubhouse and take that cup."

Seth sighed. He knew it was too much to ask. He shook his head anyway. "No. We do nothing. This is too much for us, and one guy is already dead. Let it go."

Booth snorted. "I give it a week, tops."

"Perhaps you could send your brother Brand to the mountain? Is he done at the East Well yet?" Selendrith asked.

"Right!" Blaise said enthusiastically. "I do have the twinned ink. I can write him a letter. If he agrees, I'll go up there with him."

Booth walked a coin over his knuckles. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm pretty sure the Skull Gang has a bounty out for me right now."

Owen looked at him speculatively. "How much you figure you're worth?"

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