The Mind Meld potion wore off right on time. Noah was pulled out of Lee’s mind and back into Moxie’s room where she sat in wait.

“How’d it go?” Moxie asked.

“Well,” Noah replied. “Got the rune I needed and everything is fine with Lee’s rune. Nothing to worry about right now. We can focus entirely on dealing with the advanced track meeting tonight.”

And I can kill the time by trying to figure out what Rune I’m going to make.

“You can do that,” Lee said as she stood up and stretched her arms over her head with a long yawn. “I’m going to get breakfast.”

“It’s midday,” Moxie said. “This would be lunch.”

“Lunch makes it sound so close to dinner, and that’s the end of the eating for the day,” Lee replied. She scratched at a cheek, then wiped her nose with the back of a hand. “If this is breakfast, then I still have two more meals.”

It was hard to argue with that impeccable logic. All Noah and Moxie could do was nod their understanding of Lee’s sage words as she pulled the window open and slipped out, dropping to the ground and sinking into a shadow before zipping off in pursuit of what was likely her third breakfast of the day.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say her emotion was gluttony,” Moxie said with a shake of her head. “You know, I still wonder what exactly it was that made Lee so different from the other demons.”

“My best thought is her lack of a proper Demon Rune for a long time – or perhaps the lack of advancing it. We haven’t really seen other demons at her Rank before. Maybe they’re all… kind of like that.”

A shudder ran down Moxie’s back at the thought. “I love Lee, but I don’t know if I can stand by the idea of entire cities of Lees walking around in the Damned Plains. Forget the big scary demons like Azel – just one city of Lees with absolutely no malicious intent would be enough to completely destroy all four Bastions.”

“It would probably bring about the greatest famine the world has ever seen,” Noah agreed with a nod. He pushed himself upright and took a page out of Lee’s book, stretching his arms out before leaning down and reaching for his toes to work a knot out of his back. “On another topic, how are your runes doing?”

“Well,” Moxie replied. “I’ve been doing a good amount of hunting and meditation to push them to where they need to be. I’ve filled out the rest of my roster as well.”

“You have? Unique runes?”

“No, duplicates. I’m going for a Rank 4 Rune that focuses on blooming or flowering plants. I haven’t figured out the exact final composition, but it’ll need a lot of earth and plant related runes, both of which I have.”

“Sounds good. I can’t help much with the first part, but when it comes time to combine them, let me know if you have any trouble and need to Sunder it back apart.”

“I will. You can count on it. I don’t plan on leaving myself with a sub-par Rank 4 Rune when I’ve got access to one of the most unfair runes in existence,” Moxie said with a snicker. “But what about you? Space Runes… not exactly an easy medium to work with. I take it I’d be reaching if I said you’ve got a plan?”

“Reaching pretty far,” Noah agreed. He reached down and snagged his grimoire, lugging it onto Moxie’s bed and flipping it open to leaf through the pages. “I know the general direction I want to go. My first Rank 4 is Natural Disaster – so I want the others to all be different kinds of disasters. Maybe I could do some duplicates, but I still need the initial one.”

“So you’re going for Disaster as your Rank 5, I take it?”

Noah nodded. “It seems like it would fit the current path pretty well. I don’t know how things will change between now and then, though. Who knows what it’ll actually end up being. I can’t plan for that – but I can see that Space Runes are really powerful. I’m also starting to get jealous of everyone teleporting around.”

“Don’t forget they also consume a huge amount of energy as well,” Moxie reminded Noah. “But yes, Space Runes are powerful for obvious reasons. Maybe ask Jalen about them? He’s clearly got some, and they’re probably fairly high rank.”

Considering how often Jalen teleported around, he definitely was. Noah wasn’t so sure he wanted to ask Jalen for help with regard to runes. Their relationship was built off the fact that Jalen found him entertaining.

If he started asking the older mage for handouts or advice, there was a chance that he’d get bored. Jalen had made it clear he had absolutely no plans of fighting any battles for Noah.

I’d probably have to find something to trade for the runes or information. Maybe I could make him give it up over a game of darts or something? That’s honestly the most likely way I’d get anything from him… but then I’d have to bet something myself, and probably been practicing darts since we last played.

“What are you thinking?” Moxie asked.

“That Jalen has probably been practicing playing darts.”

She blinked, confusion passing over her features. “What? I thought we were talking about asking him for Space Runes.”

“We were.”

Moxie squinted at Noah. She shook her head and shrugged. “Right. Well, I’m not going to poke into that rabbit hole. I can try to help you with the theory portion, but I don’t know all that much about natural or unnatural disasters. They’re both pretty broad concepts. What kind of disasters are there that involve space?”If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Well, I’ve got two ideas right now. You know what a black hole is?”

“An area of collapsing space. I’ve heard of Space Rune users working with them before, but there’s a reason almost everyone that has said runes only uses them for transportation. They end up killing themselves with their magic more often than anyone else.”

“Brayden doesn’t.”

“Brayden is special,” Moxie said. “But he also seems to use his runes mostly for mobility and to create barriers of condensed space. Basically defensive and utility applications that he uses offensively. That’s different from trying to literally collapse space.”

Noah nodded. “Right. But you have heard of them? That’s what I’m thinking for one Rune. Black hole. It might be a bit too powerful for a Rank 4, though. I may have to find a weaker version of it. Either way, something to do with increasing the density of space in a small area until it collapses.”

“Remind me not to be anywhere near you when you start on that,” Moxie said dryly. “Where are you even going to get the runes to do that, though? What do Space Runes combine with to create something that can collapse space?”

“I haven’t figured that bit out yet. Brayden might have some advice, and I think I could wheedle it out of Jalen if I approach things the right way. Then it’ll just be a matter of getting my hands on the runes. Until then, I’ll just split up the Space Rune I got from Lee and make enough copies to fuel the rest of my combinations.”

“Going to feed some to your book?”

“Probably. Why?”

“It looks hungry.”

Noah glanced down at the grimoire. It had raised its own front cover, and the eye on its center was looking straight up at him. He let out a surprised curse and yanked his hand back. The grimoire fluttered, possibly either in amusement or annoyance, then closed itself and returned to plain leather.

“Damn it,” Noah muttered as he shook his hand off. “Why is everything and everyone I know perpetually hungry?”

“I’m not,” Moxie said defensively.

Noah squinted at her, then turned to pick his grimore up. “You never know. Maybe you’ll start taking lessons from Lee. I don’t know if I can trust anyone.”

Moxie rolled her eyes and poked him in the side of his stomach. He jumped, nearly dropping the grimore, and spun to glare at her. She gave him an innocent look.

“What?”

“You are a brat,” Noah said, slinging the grimoire over his back and picking up his travel bag. “Want to go try to scope out the advanced track area before the other professors get there? There’s someone I’m keeping an eye out for.”

“Really?” Moxie asked, tilting her head to the side. “Who? Godrick?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don’t actually know the name of the person. I kind of need money, especially if I want to go around buying runes to combine with my Space Rune,” Noah said. He rifled through his bag and pulled out the badge that they’d gotten in the auction some time ago. “I think it’s time to try to find the owner of this thing.”

“Ahh,” Moxie said, her eyes lighting with understanding. “The one who had the Violet Transference Rune. You think they’re in the advanced track?”

Noah shrugged in response. “Maybe? They’re probably either there, an Enforcer, or someone else high up in Arbitage’s ranks. They seemed to imply it wouldn’t be hard for me to find them, but we haven’t seen any traces of them yet.”

“Probably because they assumed we ran in the same circles they did,” Moxie said with a knowing nod. “I bet you’re right. I honestly have no clue what kind of rune Violet Transference would even be. Something with space, maybe?”

“Space magic is purple, and the name sounds pretty space-y. Could be that,” Noah said with a nod. “We’ll just have to keep an eye out. We’ll get to know the advanced track professors better after today and the Enforcers tomorrow. With any luck, our rich friend will be in one of those two groups.”

“As good a guess as any. We’ll go hunting for him if not. Just don’t get too caught up looking and forget about the kids. We still have to pick them up from the transport cannon before the meeting actually starts.”

“I know. We’ve still got a few hours before then, though. More than enough time to kill snooping around.” Noah turned his head to look back at Moxie as he stepped ahead of her to pull the door open.

She’d been midway through parting her lips to respond when she stopped, a furrow creasing her brow as she looked past Noah’s shoulder. He followed her gaze across the hall. Ulya sat, her head leaned against the hooded figure of one of her puppets, and her eyes fluttering to fight off sleep.

A start jolted Ulya awake and she jerked her gaze up. She scrambled to her feet, brushing her clothes off hurriedly as they watched on in bemusement.

“I just got here,” Ulya said lamely.

“Is something wrong?” Noah asked.

“No. Why would something be wrong?”

“Considering something has been or gone at least slightly wrong every other time we’ve met, I’d say it’s a fair guess.”

“That’s… okay, it is fair,” Ulya admitted as she rubbed the back of her neck. “But no. Nothing is wrong. I just came to pick you both up for the advanced track meeting. Contessa said you’d be in here. I was going to ask if you were busy, but she looked like she was in a big hurry so I didn’t bother her long.

“So why were you just sitting outside? You could have knocked,” Moxie said.

“Well, you had a very soft white cat sitting outside the door. I… got a little distracted petting it.”

I think I found what Contessa was in a hurry about.

“How long were you petting it if you were falling asleep?” Moxie asked, squinting at Ulya.

“Not that long. A few minutes.” Ulya coughed into her fist. “I just started to drift off because I was a little tired. I’ve been working a lot.”

The bags under her eyes told the same story. She looked better than she had when Wizen’s clones had first become a problem, but not by much.

“I see,” Noah said slowly. “So… you came to get us? This early?”

“Oh, yes. Right. I was going to bring you to a meeting,” Ulya said, a flash of panic running through her features. “I forgot.”

“A meeting?” Noah asked. “I thought the meeting was at night.”

“Not that one.” Ulya shook her head and winced. “There’s another professor in the program that wanted to talk with both of you. He’s been waiting for a bit.”

Noah and Moxie exchanged a glance.

“Might as well,” Noah said with a shrug. This was as good a spot as any to feel out how the advanced track felt about them and their standing. Meeting with someone one on one would be much more beneficial than trying to figure anything out in a group setting. “I’m sure he hasn’t been waiting for all that long.”

Judging by the look on Ulya’s face, that probably wasn’t true. That was hardly his fault. Noah didn’t mind waiting as long as he wasn’t the one doing it.

“Lead the way, then,” Noah said. “And did you see where the cat went?”

“No,” Ulya replied. “I think I dozed off and it left.”

Noah let out a thoughtful grunt as they started off down the hall. Mascot going missing was rarely a good sign, but he got the feeling the cat would turn up again sooner rather than later.