Once again assuming the demipersona of a blond Academy student, Dana entered the Magisterium’s east woods. Playing to expectations had got luz this far - Sen Jerome’s had let the hierobite walk out of the fortress and the Magisterium’s had let the student wander around the campus - but now it was time to play against them.

  Unlike last time, there weren’t packs of mercenaries patrolling the paths and infesting the trees. Whether this was a positive development, because Dana didn’t have access to Mei’s skills to circumvent them, or a negative, because no guards meant nothing worth protecting, was yet to be determined.

  Creeping alongside the main path got Dana up to Bruce College’s unguarded front door, which meant the chances of Dwayne being held here were near zero, but lu had to check anyway. Lu found a window, muttered a spell to deepen luz night vision, and peered inside. From Magdala and Dwayne’s descriptions of the place, the college should have been full of laboratory tables and experiments, but the experiments were gone, and most of the tables were now stacked up against the walls, leaving behind a pile of crates and a pair of buckets. Mouth dry, Dana went to the side door, picked the lock, entered. Inside, it was even more clear that the building was empty. Even the mysterious project behind the glass partition was gone.

  Certain that lu was wasting luz time, Dana turned to the crates and buckets. Full of ordinary water, the latter were unremarkable, and, at first, so seemed the former. However, the first crate Dana opened contained four fist sized crystal chunks, each of which felt rubbery like azade, though they didn’t glow like that material did in moonlight. What was more interesting were the strange symbols painted on the side of each crate. They resembled the chalk signs Circle informants drew on city corners. Perhaps it was a minor eccentricity of whoever had bought the contents, but Dana was compelled to touch each crate and trace them. When luz fingers touched the fifth crate, a weak, ill vibration tried to reshape luz fingertips.

  After restoring luz fingertips, Dana wrapped luz skirt around luz fingers then cracked open the crate’s lid. The ill vibration poured out, almost tearing luz whole demipersona off before lu managed to shut the crate.

  Tytumber. The crates were full of tytumber.

  Dana returned to the first crate, picked up one of the crystals, then closed luz eyes. With all luz senses focused on it, the ill vibration was more apparent, making this nearly inert tytumber. Four chunks of active tytumber was more than enough to suppress a mage for three days straight, but, Dana checked the remaining crates, they’d somehow gone through nine whole crates in fifteen days. Still, the important thing was that the ersatz Rodion had been right. They had Dwayne.

  Tracking the tytumber should be easy now; someone had to come here to pick it up and take it to Dwayne’s location; all Dana had to do was wait.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  A key turned in the lock.

  Apparently, not long.

  Dana was in cover behind a table before someone tall and lanky jogged over to the crates, lantern in hand, knapsack on their back. Engaging luz medisus, Dana could see the new arrival was lay, born female, had brown wavy hair and brown eyes, was a little malnourished, but still had a musculature consistent with a high level of regular physical activity. Mei had described this person: Sioned Hughes, roofrunner.

  “Crap, which one was it?” Sioned adjusted a cracked clay mask over her face as she held the lantern up to the crates. “Two days ago. Three days ago.” Like all lay people, she couldn’t sense tytumber. The signs painted on the crates had to be for her. “That’s yesterday.” She stopped at the one filled with active tytumber. “Today. Oh, wow they made a lot of little ones too.” Probably for the cenobites. “Okay, let’s just grab these,” she collected the largest chunks of tytumber, “and go. Dean’s getting impatient.”

  As Sioned tipped the tytumber into her knapsack, Dana planned how lu would follow. All lu had to do was exit out the side door and follow the roofrunner’s lantern light at a safe distance.

  “Okay, go.”

  Sioned raced across the room and was soon out the door.

  For Phons sake.

  Dana scurried after her, but lu had built this demipersona to play on Souran aesthetics, not for athletics. Not for the last time, lu wished that Mei were here; not only was the hunter fast, she could fall back on tracking while all Dana had was pursuit. At least, lu could do something about these short legs and shallow lungs, which were working so hard it was a wonder Sioned hadn’t heard lu bellowing behind her.

  “hFo-beinae-kater,” Dana muttered between breaths, “bao-dasum-sen-kuang.”

  Longer legs and deeper lungs transformed Dana’s gait from a pathetic scurry to a loping, comfortable run, which solved the stealth issue, but it still took all Dana had to keep up. With all luz focus on Sioned, Dana didn’t notice until the roofrunner found a road and barreled up it, that her course was, in fact, the same course Rodion had used to take food to an inattentive Dwayne and a ravenous Mei.

  Sioned was headed to the Tower.

  No need to keep up. “hFo-fue-hu.”

  As luz body resettled back into the student demipersona, Dana stepped off the road to approach the Tower from the old horse stable side. Perhaps this was a drop site for the tytumber; Dwayne couldn’t possibly be held here. However, the Tower was guarded by a squad of cenobites in chain mail, and when Sioned knocked on the Tower door, it was Dean Bruce who opened it so the conclusion was: Dwayne was here. Imprisoning a mage in his own tower, while romantic, was something only an amateur or a fool would do. No wonder neither Dana nor Magdala had succeeded in finding him.

  Enough of that. Dana had to help him. What next?

  Could lu compromise the tytumber? No, Qe mages heard a high-pitched tone in the material’s presence; the dean would notice its absence. Could lu scratch a message into it? Too risky; the dean might realize her only security precaution, secrecy, had failed her. Could lu replace Sioned? Also too risky. Unlike Elm and River, Sioned wasn’t part of a paramilitary organization rife with rules and protocol; impersonating her would require days, if not weeks, of observation to get right. However, there were other things prisoners needed: food, water, waste disposal; Those Dana could backtrack. Lu would find a place to slip Dwayne a message only he would see.