“This is Okimoto D Cheffei,” Oddon said, handing over a photo.

  Raven took it and made a quick observation.

  The boy was fair-skinned (implying northern descent) with dark brown hair, silver eyes with prominent lashes, and a feline slant. On his right cheek, the rosette was disk-shaped with a distinct dip in the centre. His nose was narrow and slightly upturned and his lips were full. Defined cheekbones cut his face with angular lines. He had a sharp and slender jaw, and a long neck. Overall, this was an exquisite and gorgeous young man, to the point of blurring the lines between masculinity and femininity. The kind he’d most definitely never lose in a crowd.

  They were on one of the three highest balconies overlooking the examination. Across the curving face of the building from them, the Helldragons peered down from their own; the Anthians were on the balcony within the curve to their right, watching the examination grounds far beneath.

  “You can barely see the damn thing from here.” Zeriatha laughed, sitting close to the railing with the two twins. “Kianna, hand me those binoculars.”

  The twin daughters had been fighting over the thing. With a petulant sigh, the one who had it handed it over. Raven had always gotten those two confused, same hair, same clothes, same contemptible disposition.

  “Had yourself a good look?” Oddon asked.

  “What exactly do you expect me to do at this point?” Raven asked. “The chance to be rid of him has already slipped away. There are way too many people active throughout the university at this time.”

  “I know,” Oddon said. “This is for after the examination is finished. Once we successfully isolate him it will be your job to bring him to our home. Until then capture anyone inspecting Zenith’s disappearance.”

  With his instructions understood, Raven sank into the shadows, slipping far down through the darkness between the bricks of the campus until he circled to the exit facing the security office. Then, he slid within the shadows of each cobblestone crevice, snaking along the paths until he came into the security office, arriving to witness the back of a tall male figure close the door as he left.

  He turned his attention towards the room in the back where the Headmaster and three mages were plucking the shelves free of ritualistic items to use for tracking Zenith down.

  As a shadow crawler, all areas untouched by the light were his eyes, his ears, the tips of his fingers. A thousand eyes, seeing a thousand angles for attack, a thousand fingers tracing the bottom of their boots, ready to pull them into his dark airless paradise. Killing them would be easy, subduing them would prove quite problematic. As an assassin, he wasn’t used to jobs like this in which he couldn’t kill. Still, the bills needed paying. The short notice was also ridiculous with him only being summoned an hour in advance. All because the fool Odiggan had acted suddenly and took the sprite without informing anyone. As inconvenient as the current arrangement was, a job was still a job and he’d do his best with the task he was given.

  Dealing with Zenith had been easy as he was alone. It only took a few seconds for him to pass out after being yanked into the darkness. Dealing with three at the same time would be an immense pain. He was a ritual-bound entity, but his abilities had limits, one was that he could only pull one person under at a time.

  Before long, he drew up a plan.

  The mages soon left together, first heading to the male dormitory, then following Zenith’s trail back out with a ritual to visualise his footsteps.

  The four kept close, heads all down like a pack of bloodhounds. Across the parking spots they went, Raven stalking them through the shade of each parked vehicle before diving through the crevices in the cobblestone again. Only after circling the dormitory to the path by the canal did they stop, the trail ending abruptly. Now they were right where Raven had dealt with the man over an hour prior.

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  An irritating number of students were still in the area, many of them observing the mages curiously, whispering about what this may or may not be about.

  “Hand me the map.” Said the Headmaster.

  Obediently, one mage retrieved a rolled-up map from his robe and passed it on to him.

  With a swift motion, the Headmaster unrolled it before squatting to lay it over the earth.

  “Blast it!” The Headmaster cursed. “I need a hair of his, one of you go back to the security office and find one.”

  Raven smiled.

  “He was always a scruffy old bugger who never took care of himself.” One mage said, “There’s probably enough back there to make a wig for an alopecia patient. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  That mage broke from the group, striding back to the office.

  Immediately upon closing the door he was pulled under by Raven, paralysed and steadily suffocating. Once he was unconscious, Raven carried him to where he had Zenith, deep in the sewers below the university.

  The limp body was thrown onto a small platform right next to where Zenith lay face down and paralysed by a poison needle to the nape of the neck.

  Moving hastily, Raven retrieved another needle and pricked him before he awoke. He left him face down so that he’d never see who had gotten him.

  With one out the way, he planned further.

  “What’s taking him so long?” Growled the Headmaster. “Go get him one of you.”

  Another mage left for the security office and subsequently suffered the same fate as his two colleagues.

  This time before leaving Raven took a hair of his and ate it, shapeshifting into the mage as a part of his new strategy. He plucked a hair from Zenith as well before sinking back into his shadowy paradise and slipping back up to the office.

  Upon returning to the group he said, “I’ve got the hair with me, no clue where that bloke went.”

  “Goodness gracious, what’s with you people and walking out on the job?”

  Raven shrugged, “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know.” Mocked the Headmaster before taking and braiding the hair around a dart, then throwing it up into the air.

  The dart curved back down and hit the spot on the map that was right above the part of the sewer where Zenith was being kept.

  ”he’s in the guest dining room?” The Headmaster said, confused.

  They searched the dining room and found no trace of him.

  After blowing out a cloud of profanity the Headmaster performed the map ritual again, the dart landing in the same place.

  “He’s either on one of the higher floors, or down underground.” The mage with them said.

  “Okay then, I’ll head down while you two go up.” The Headmaster instructed.

  They ascended a level, searching a few lecture rooms.

  Raven waited for the right opportunity to vanish, mindful of the students still mucking about, the examination now minutes away.

  “I’ve got to use the loo,” Raven said.

  The mage laughed. “I told you all that beer would go right through you.”

  Raven produced a fake laugh of his own before entering the nearest bathroom where he slipped into the shadows once more.

  The lights were bright and ornate, casting styled patterns over the floorboards.

  . He resurfaced and cried out through the door, “Zenith’s here, he’s unconscious!”

  The mage heard him and came running, only to be pulled under and swiftly dealt with.

  After leaving him paralysed with the others, Raven expended little effort in adding the Headmaster to the pile as he had presumably suffered a stroke at the bottom of the stairs to the basement and was already unconscious, death pending.

  After pricking him, Raven hastily eliminated the blood clot in his brain having formerly been a surgeon. He didn’t do this out of the kindness of his own heart, he had to, lest the faculty be alerted to the old man’s death.

  “Good job.” Oddon praised.

  The examination had commenced, and far beneath the board of arch mages watched from the three lowest of the balconies, all unimpressed by the lackluster alteration a student made to a basic ritual.

  “Honey come here,” Zeriatha called.

  Oddon leaned in and she whispered to him.

  The model wife of the Orion family, elegant, poised, and conservative. To the world, she was a shining example of how a Coronatian woman ought to be. But Zeriatha was also a strange sort of creature. From the way Oddon always trembled at the sound of her voice, from the fact that he always gave out the most outlandish orders after a hushed conversation with her, Raven knew something was terrifying about her.

  “Take me to the mages.” He asked, walking back to Raven.

  Raven pulled him under and speedily brought him to the sewers.

  Oddon gasped for air, then recoiled into his arms from the smell.

  After retrieving a strange-looking tobacco pipe from his suit, he said, “Hold your breath, or stand at a distance.”

  Raven returned to the shadows and watched from within.

  Clouds of pink smoke came rolling forward from the pipe after Oddon put his lips to it.

  The smoke enveloped the captives and quickly faded away.

  He then said, after the last traces of pink vanished from the air, “You can come out now, please return them all to the security office after returning me to the balcony.”

  Raven pulled him under and carried him up.

  “Gosh darn it.” Oddon wheezed upon his return, catching his breath.

  “What did you do?” Raven asked.

  “Since when did I pay you to ask questions?”