"Did you get him?"
Robin didn't answer.
Through the scope, the mage was still standing. Which was wrong. The shot had been perfect. Robin had felt the mana discharge, the rifle kick against his shoulder with that soft, almost apologetic thump it made when the projectile left the barrel. He'd watched the man's head snap back slightly.
And now the man was looking down at something near his feet.
Robin adjusted the scope. The lenses were extraordinary, a gift from the professor along with the rifle itself. At twelve hundred meters, he could count the stitches on the target's coat, the individual strands of silver in his hair, even the way the morning light caught—
The mage bent down and picked something up off the cobblestones.
Robin's stomach dropped.
"Hey. Fox. Did you get him?"
Vance's voice came from somewhere behind him, muffled by the invisibility cloak but still carrying that edge of impatience that meant he was getting bored. Vance got bored easily. It was one of his less endearing qualities.
"Why are you still crouching?" Vance continued. "Target's down, yeah? We should be moving. The professor said—"
"I missed."
Silence.
Robin could practically hear Vance blinking.
"You missed?"
"Yes."
"You? You missed?"
"That's what I said."
"How? You have the rifle that the professor personally handed us. The one that he said—and I'm quoting here, because I remember this very clearly—'can wound a dragon.' That rifle. The one you're holding right now. You missed with it?"
Robin's grip tightened on the stock. "I know what rifle it is."
"Do you? Because I'm starting to wonder. The scope on that thing can pick out a target at two thousand meters. We're at twelve hundred. That's well inside its sweet spot. You have clear light, barely any wind, and a stationary silhouette! And you're telling me you missed?"
"I'm telling you he's still standing."
"Then you missed!"
"I didn't—" Robin caught himself. Forced his voice lower. "The shot was clean. I watched it hit. His head went back a little."
"...A little?"
"Yes. A little."
It sounded ridiculous when said aloud.
Vance made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had any humor in it. "You know what this is? This is nerves. First big job since you stopped being an adventurer, nice payday on the line, and you're choking. It happens. Unprofessional, but it happens. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to take a breath. You're going to line up another shot. And you're going to not miss this time. Because I did not wake up at dawn to sit on this roof and watch you fumble the easiest contract we've ever taken."
Robin wanted to argue and explain that something was wrong, that the math didn't add up, that he'd seen the shot connect.
Instead, he said, "Shut up."
"Excuse me?"
"I said shut up. I need to focus."
The silence from Vance was heavy with offense, but Robin didn't care. He had a bad feeling. A cold, crawling sensation in his gut that had nothing to do with the morning chill. The only logical explanation was that he'd missed. Maybe the wind had caught the projectile. Maybe he'd flinched at the last second without realizing it. Maybe the scope wasn't as perfectly calibrated as the professor had claimed.
And if he hadn't missed...
He didn't want to think about what that meant.
Robin settled back into position. Pressed his eye to the scope. Found the target again.
The mage had straightened up. He was looking around the plaza now, taking in his surroundings with an expression of mild curiosity. Near the fountain, a young woman with a sword was saying something to a young man who looked vaguely ill. Children were playing some kind of chasing game near the monument, their laughter carrying faintly across the distance. A flower seller was rearranging her display. Life continued, oblivious to the fact that someone had just tried to end one of its participants.
Robin exhaled. Let half the breath out. Held the rest.
His finger found the trigger crystal.
The rifle was warm against his cheek now, the mana crystal pulsing with a soft glow as it drew in ambient energy. The runes along the barrel—nothing more than heat-responsive status markers—were already beginning to flare to life, anticipating the shot.
Robin had never handled a weapon this advanced. Had never even seen one. The moment he equipped it, his relevant stats spiked—an honest, full hundred-level jump's worth of power—which meant it was the real deal.
The professor hadn't explained the mechanism, only pointed to the etched runes and said that if they ever turned red, the rifle had hit its operational limit.
Right now, they glowed a cautious yellow, which meant he had two shots left.
This can wound a dragon, he reminded himself. Whatever went wrong the first time, it won't happen again.
He applied pressure to the crystal. Slowly. Smoothly. The way his father had taught him, back when the weapons were simpler and the targets were rabbits instead of people.
The mana built in the barrel. He could feel it, a rising heat that stopped just short of uncomfortable. The runes flared bright, then brighter, cycling through patterns too complex to follow.
Steady.
Steady.
Now.
The rifle pulsed.
The projectile left the barrel in a ripple of bent light, wrapped in layers of enchantment that made it nearly invisible, silent and impossible to detect. It crossed twelve hundred meters in less than a second, faster than any arrow, faster than any spell Robin had ever seen cast.
Robin watched.
The mage's hand moved.
Just... moved. A casual gesture. An afterthought. His arm came up, his fingers closed around something, and then he was examining the space between his thumb and forefinger with an expression of polite interest.
Did he just...
Robin's pulse was suddenly very loud in his ears.
Did he just catch it?
"Please tell me you got him this time."
Vance's voice came from far away. Robin barely heard it. He was too busy watching the mage turn the projectile over in his hand, studying it the way someone might study an unusual coin they'd found on the street.
He caught it.
He caught the bullet.
The bullet that was designed to wound dragons. The very one that left the barrel at speeds no human eye should be able to track was wrapped in so many layers of stealth enchantment that most mages wouldn't even know it existed until it was already inside their skull.
He'd caught it barehanded.
And it had looked like nothing. Like swatting a fly or plucking a flower.
The fuck?
"I don't think we should have taken this job, man."
"What?"
"This job. I don't think—"
"Are you serious right now?" Vance's voice was rising. "Are you actually serious? This is the easiest money we've ever been offered. Show up, point the magic rifle, collect the payment. Three steps. A child could do it. And you're getting cold feet now?"
"Something's wrong."
"Yeah, something's wrong. You missed twice! That's what's wrong! The professor is going to want his rifle back, and he's going to want to know why the target is still breathing, and I'm going to have to explain that my partner apparently forgot how to shoot!"
Robin wasn't listening anymore.
Through the scope, the mage had finished examining the projectile. He'd tucked it away somewhere—a pocket, maybe—and now he was looking around again. Scanning the plaza with those calm, unhurried eyes. Taking in the fountain. The flower seller. The children chasing pigeons. The buildings ringing the square.
His gaze swept across the rooftops.
And stopped.
Robin's heart forgot how to beat.
The mage was looking directly at him. Not in his general direction. Not at the building. At him. Through twelve hundred meters of open air, past every piece of cover, through the scope that was supposed to work in only one direction.
Their eyes met.
Or did they?
Robin's breath caught. He forced himself to stay still, to think. The distance was absurd. No one could pick out a face at eighteen hundred yards, not even with mage-sight, or with enhancement spells stacked ten deep. And besides, he was wearing the cloak. The invisibility cloak he'd kept from his adventuring days. Old habits. Paranoid habits. But they kept him alive.
The mage couldn't be looking at him. He was looking at the rooftop, maybe. At a bird. At a cloud that happened to be in the same general direction. Robin was invisible, he was over a mile away, and he was letting his nerves get the better of him like some green recruit on his first job.
Get a grip.
As if to prove the point, the mage looked away. Turned to the two young people standing beside him and started talking to them.
Robin let out a slow breath. His hands were shaking. That was embarrassing. He was better than this.
See? Nothing. You're jumping at shadows.
He reached for the rifle again. Steadied himself. Maybe a third shot—
The mage raised his arm.
And pointed.
Directly at Robin. Precisely at Robin. His finger extended like an arrow, and the two young people turned to follow the gesture, squinting up at the rooftop eighteen hundred yards away as if they might actually be able to see something there.
Argh!!!
Robin let go of the rifle. Threw himself backward. Hit the gravel hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs and didn't care.
"What the—what are you doing?" Vance's invisible voice was sharp with alarm. "What's happening? Why did you—"
"He saw me!"
"Who saw you?"
"The mage!" Robin's voice came out strangled. "He saw me! He looked right at me!"
"That's impossible."
"He caught a bullet out of the air!"
"That's—"
"With his bare hand! While it was moving faster than sound! So maybe we can stop using the word 'impossible' today, because I don't think it means what we thought it meant!"
A pause.
"From twelve hundred meters away," Vance said slowly. "You're telling me he spotted you. Through your scope. From over a mile out."
"Yes."
"Are you out of your mind?"
Robin wanted to laugh. It felt like the appropriate response. "Probably. Yeah. Probably I am."
Silence.
Robin could practically feel Vance's anger coiling up behind the cloak. When the voice finally came, it was low and tight.
"Graceful," Vance said. "That's what I was. Graceful. You remember that word, Fox? Because I'm not sure you do."
"Vance—"
"You were done. Retired. Sitting in that miserable little room you call a flat, staring at walls and pretending you weren't drinking yourself into an early grave. And who showed up? Who knocked on your door with an opportunity? Who said, 'Hey, I know a guy who's got work, good work, the kind that pays enough to matter'?"
"This isn't the time—"
"Me! I did that! I vouched for you! Told the professor you were reliable, that you still had it, that the great Fox hadn't lost his edge just because he'd hung up his adventuring gear. And this is what I get? You flinching at shadows and telling me we should walk away from the easiest job we've ever—"
Vance stopped.
Robin had stopped listening three seconds ago.
Because there was someone standing behind Vance.
The man hadn't been there a moment ago. Robin was certain of that. He'd been watching the rooftop, tracking every angle, every approach. There was no ladder. No stairwell access within thirty feet. No sound of footsteps, no sign of some sort of teleportation spell, no displacement of air.
The mage was simply there.
He stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, head tilted slightly to one side, examining Vance, poor soul, with an expression of mild curiosity. The morning light caught the silver in his hair. Up close, he looked much younger than Robin had expected. And completely unbothered by the fact that he'd just appeared on a rooftop a mile from where he'd been standing.
Robin's throat locked.
The invisibility cloak was still wrapped around him. He knew, with absolute certainty, that the mage could see him anyway. That the cloak meant nothing and had meant nothing since the moment their eyes met through the scope.
But he couldn't make himself take it off. The fabric against his fur and skin was the only thing keeping his hands from shaking.
It was already too late for Vance.
That thought arrived cold and certain. Robin recognized it from his adventuring days, when you learned to accept what was coming before it actually arrived. Vance was going to die. Or worse. And there was nothing Robin could do to stop it.
Vance had good instincts. Better than good. The man had survived a decade as a sellsword by knowing when something was behind him, and those instincts hadn't dulled with age.
He went quiet mid-sentence.
Then he turned around.
The mage smiled.
"Well," he said pleasantly. "Hello there."
Vance's hand moved before his brain caught up. Robin had seen him draw that sword a hundred times—fast, smooth, this was the motion of a man who'd practiced until it was as natural as breathing. A level 245 swordsman. The blade was already clearing the scabbard, already angling toward the mage's throat.
The mage's hand came up.
It wasn't fast or rushed. Just a casual gesture, like he was brushing away a fly.
Light bloomed from his palm. Soft and golden and warm, like sunlight through honey. It touched Vance.
And Vance was gone.
His clothes collapsed.
They didn't fall slowly. They dropped all at once, as if the person wearing them had simply ceased to exist between one heartbeat and the next. The sword clattered against the rooftop tiles, still half-drawn. The coat crumpled into a heap. The boots tipped over sideways.
Robin stared.
A croak came from somewhere under the coat.
Something moved.
A toad crawled out from beneath the fabric. It was fat and brown and utterly ordinary, the sort you'd find in any garden pond. It blinked up at the morning sky with bulging yellow eyes, looking confused in the way only a creature with a brain the size of a pea could look confused.
Polymorph spell.
The word surfaced from somewhere deep, from stories he'd heard as a child. His father's voice, low and serious by the firelight: If you ever see a mage do something to a person's body—make it smaller, make it different, make it not human anymore—you run. You don't look back. You don't try to be clever. You run.
Robin had laughed at that. He'd been, what, eight? Nine? Old enough to think he was brave. Like the witches in the stories? The ones who turn princes into frogs?
Those aren't just stories, boy. That's high circle magic. And if you ever meet someone who can do it, you're looking at a mage who knows more about your body than the best physicians in the kingdom. Every bone. Every organ. Every thread of muscle and nerve. They have to, see? To change a thing, you have to understand what it is. Completely. And then they have to know the creature they're making you into just as well. Two complete blueprints, held in the mind at once, and the power to bridge the gap between them.
His father had leaned closer then, and the firelight had made his face strange.
Most mages spend their whole lives just trying to learn enough to light a candle without burning down the house. A mage who can reshape flesh? That's not talent, son. That's obsession. Decades of study. And the mana cost alone would kill an ordinary practitioner three times over.
Robin hadn't run into many mages in his career. The ones he had met were scholars, mostly. Academics who could manage a few utility spells and charged too much for the privilege. The gap between them and what he'd just witnessed was the gap between a child's scribble and a master's portrait.
You couldn't just turn someone into a toad. You couldn't do it casually. You couldn't do it with a wave of your hand and a pleasant smile, like you were performing a party trick.
And yet.
A toad was there. And Vance wasn't.
The mage reached into his coat and pulled out something that glinted in the morning light. Robin's eyes, trained by years of assessing artifacts and enchantments, automatically tried to identify it.
A mirror. Small, palm-sized, with a silver frame that seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it.
The toad seemed to realize, belatedly, that something had gone very wrong. It blinked its bulbous eyes once, then twice, taking in the world from its new perspective approximately two inches off the ground. Then it did what any sensible toad would do and tried to hop away from the terrifying mage who'd just transformed it.
The mage watched it go for a moment.
Then he bent down, scooped it up with one hand, and held it in front of the mirror.
The glass rippled.
The toad vanished into it.
Gone. Just like that. Vance—or what was left of Vance—sucked into a pocket mirror like spare change dropped into a purse.
The mage tucked the mirror back into his coat.
Then he turned to look at Robin.
***
Sael stared at the person in the cloak.
Or rather, at the space where a person in a cloak would have been, if that person hadn't been attempting—somewhat optimistically—to remain invisible.
The cloak itself was decent work. Middle-tier enchantment, probably picked up secondhand from an adventurer's estate sale or liberated from someone who no longer needed it. It bent light competently enough. Muffled sound. Did all the things an invisibility cloak was supposed to do.
The problem was that Sael could see through it as easily as looking through a window.
The young man underneath was frozen in place, barely breathing. His hands—russet-furred, the fingers somewhere between human and animal—were gripping the edges of the cloak like a child clutching a blanket during a thunderstorm. As if the fabric might protect him.
Perhaps he thinks he can't be seen, Sael thought. That would be awkward. For both of us, really, but mostly for him.
He should probably clarify.
Sael cleared his throat politely. "I would like to point out, young man, that I can see you."
A beat of silence.
Then the cloak came off.
Feytouched, he noted. Also called Beastkin by the less polite. One of those who looked like human and animal hybrids. This one was a fox. Russet fur covered his hands and crept up his neck. His ears were pointed and sat higher on his head than human ears should. A tail, bushy and nervous, twitched behind him.
He was young. Maybe mid-twenties. Dark eyes. And Level 218.
Those eyes flicked from Sael to the spot where his companion had been standing. Then back to Sael.
The feytouched was doing math. Sael could see it happening. A mage able to use a spell as advanced as a transformation one meant he was himself quite advanced. Certainly more than anything this young fox could reasonably take on. The rifle was useless at this range. The sword was with his partner. Who was currently a toad. In a mirror.
Sael watched the exact moment the decision was made.
"Why did you shoot me?" he asked.
The fox's ears flattened. He growled as his weight shifted almost imperceptibly to the balls of his feet. And then...
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Which was smart, but ultimately silly, because he made it approximately seven steps before the roof became quicksand.
Not literally, of course. That would have been messy. But the gravel turned soft beneath the feytouched's feet, each step sinking deeper than the last, until he was knee-deep in what had been solid surface moments before. His tail bristled. His ears flattened.
He tried to pull himself forward. Failed. Tried to pull himself backward. Also failed.
"That was a genuine question," Sael said, walking over. The gravel remained perfectly solid beneath his own feet. "I really would like to know. Was it personal? Professional? A case of mistaken identity? I've been told I have one of those faces."
This felt important to him.
Sael wasn't sure why. He'd been shot at before. Stabbed, even. Once, memorably, someone had tried to poison his wine at a tavern. That had been awkward for everyone involved, especially when he'd calmly finished the glass and asked for a refill.
But this. This bothered him.
Not quite anger. He wasn't angry. Anger required heat, passion, the kind of emotional investment he'd long since burnt himself out of. Hopefully.
No, this was different. This was...offense.
Someone had tried to kill him. Specifically. Deliberately. With planning and forethought and a custom-made rifle that probably cost more than most people earned in a year.
And he wanted to know why.
The fox stared at him. Said nothing.
Sael waited. Five seconds. Ten. The young fox's tail was still bristled, ears still flat against his skull. His breathing was shallow and rapid.
Sael sighed.
"Suit yourself." He started walking forward, hands rising toward the feytouched's temples. "Apologies for the intrusion."
"Wait! wait, wait, wait!"
Sael paused, hands hovering inches from the fox's head.
The words came out in a rush. Frantic. Stumbling over each other like they were racing to escape. "We were engaged by Professor Aldric Eryndor of the Astra Academy to kill the mage accompanying Ilsa Eryndor upon arrival!"
Sael's hands stopped.
His arms hung there, suspended in the air like he'd forgotten what he was doing with them. "Hmm," he said eventually. "You're surprisingly sound of mind and smart for someone in your position."
The fox's ears perked up slightly. Still nervous, but the edge of panic had dulled. "Thank you, sir. I'm a professional."
"Are you, now."
"My father always told me—" The words were coming easier now, though still quick and nervous. "—he always said, if someone's stronger than you, don't fight back. Don't get clever. Don't try to be a hero. Just cooperate. Your life is worth more than your pride. He worked as a courier for mages, you see. Got caught in the middle of a dispute once. Almost died. Would have, if he'd tried to fight. So he taught me. Recognize when you're outmatched. Swallow the pride. Live to work another day."
Sael lowered his hands. "That's reasonable advice."
"He was a practical man."
"And yet you gave that information away rather quickly for a professional."
The fox's tail gave a small, embarrassed flick behind him. "Well, sir, with all due respect. There's not much to boast about in being professional if I'm dead. Or turned into a toad and stuck in your mirror for the rest of my natural life, however long that might be for a toad—"
"Twelve years," Sael said. "Fifteen if properly cared for. Twenty-three is the recorded maximum, though that particular specimen was kept by a druid who may have been cheating."
The fox blinked. "I... thank you for telling me that, sir."
"You're welcome."
"My point is," the fox continued, rallying admirably, "being professional implies I'm still around to be professional again tomorrow, and I'm rather fond of that possibility."
Sael considered this.
He had a point.
"You have a point," Sael told him, because credit where credit was due.
"Thank you, sir." The relief in the young man's voice was palpable, washing over his words like a wave. "Could you—I mean, would you please not kill me? Or turn me into something? I have a sister, you see. She's twelve years old. She depends on me for everything. I know that's probably not your concern and you've got no reason to care about my family situation, but I thought I should mention it just in case it might make a difference—"
"I'm not going to kill you."
The fox's ears perked up completely, standing at full attention. "You're not?"
"No."
"Or turn me into—"
"No."
A beat of silence passed between them.
"Thank you, sir," the fox said quietly, and there was some emotion in his voice now. "Really. I mean that. Thank you."
Sael waved one hand in a casual gesture and the gravel beneath the feytouched's legs solidified again. Not that it actually freed him from his predicament, Sael had simply made the gravel solid while the young man's legs were still embedded in it. It was a different kind of stuck, but stuck nonetheless.
"I do have another question for you, though," Sael said.
The fox straightened up as much as he could manage while still knee-deep in enchanted rooftop, his posture becoming alert and attentive. "Anything, sir. Whatever you want to know."
"How did the professor know I was coming to the city?"
"He communicates with us through a special magical paper, sir."
Sael tilted his head with interest. "A special paper?"
"Yes, sir. It's in my pocket, actually. Left side. The inner one, not the outer."
Sael stepped forward and reached into the indicated pocket without ceremony. His fingers found a folded square of parchment, no larger than his palm, tucked away safely. He pulled it out and unfolded it carefully.
The paper revealed itself to be covered in writing, two distinctly different hands visible in the ink. One was neat and precise, the letters formed with academic care. The other was messier, more hurried, like someone writing quickly while worried about being interrupted. The neat handwriting was giving instructions in clipped sentences—times, locations, a physical description that matched Sael's appearance with unsettling accuracy right down to the color of his coat.
"Correspondence Parchment," the fox supplied helpfully. "That's what it's called, or at least that's what the professor told us. The professor has one piece of the pair. We have the other piece. When he writes something on his piece, we see it appear on ours. When we write something on ours, he sees it appear on his. Back and forth, like a conversation but on paper."
Sael stared at the parchment in his hands, turning it over slowly and examining it from multiple angles. He held it up to catch the fading afternoon light.
"That's..." He traced one finger along the edge where faint runes glimmered in a pattern only visible when you knew to look for them. "That's actually quite elegant work, now that I'm looking at it properly."
"Sir?"
"The enchantment work, I mean. It's paired, obviously. Sympathetic magic at its core, each piece resonating with its twin across whatever distance separates them. But the execution of it—" He turned the paper again, admiring the craftsmanship. "—this is layered. Multiple redundancies built into the spell structure. And the range would have to be considerable to work reliably across an entire city and beyond. Whoever crafted this pair knew exactly what they were doing."
The fox watched him with nervous eyes, probably not entirely sure whether Sael's interest in the magical theory was a good sign or a bad one.
Sael lowered the paper and his eyes went distant as he thought through the implications. "That Shaye lady must have had one of these parchments. She would have used it to warn the professor about what happened in Gatsby. About my existence and the fact that I'd be accompanying Ilsa."
"Yes indeed, sir." The fox's tail gave a small wag, almost eager now that the conversation had shifted to safer topics. "That's exactly right. She sent word yesterday evening, according to what the professor told us. The professor contacted us this morning with the contract details and your description."
Sael looked at him properly.
The fox's tail stopped wagging immediately.
"What?" the fox said, suddenly worried again. "Did I say something wrong, sir?"
"Nothing," Sael said, a faint smile touching his lips. "You're just surprisingly pleasant to talk to, considering you tried to kill me less than five minutes ago."