Later, as I’m walking through the courtyard towards the dining room, I feel a brush of air against my waist. I look around but see nothing. My eyes narrowed, I feel for the pouch at my waist. It’s gone.

  “Noir,” I complain half-heartedly. I feel a flicker of amusement from his side of the Bond, but it’s not strong enough to pinpoint where he is. Sending a wave of Inspect outwards, I spot his blurred black form crouched only a few paces away.

  Knowing that if I show that I’ve noticed him, he’ll trigger Disappear again and send out the pulse to distract me, I pretend that I’m still searching for him. In the meantime, I send magic into the ground beneath my feet.

  “Got you,” I smile, twisting around as claws of earth wrap around his feet and tail. He growls, a disappointed look on his face.

  Thought I had you that time, he sighs mentally. I release the bonds of earth and he stands up.

  “Move further away next time. Maybe even fly, if you can maintain your invisibility,” I suggest, moving over to stroke his nose – and retrieve my pouch. Not that there’s anything hugely important in it, but I’ll need it for Aingeal to hide in when we leave tomorrow.

  Flying draws too much attention, he tells me.

  “Then you’ll have to figure out how to creep quietly on the ground. But staying in place is just asking for trouble. Still, well done – I didn’t hear you coming and if I hadn’t felt a hint of a breeze, I wouldn't have known you’d taken the pouch.”

  Noir is still only level 1 – that was an intentional choice. Not only has he been practising a lot with his two Skills, but he’s also been exercising his stats manually. Any Energy he gains has been going to giving himself the ‘shortcut’ to the next stat point. I’m determined that he, at least, will reach twenty in each stat before he starts levelling. With only two points per level, he really needs the boost to start with.

  It’s hard to know what his points are when he can’t interpret the numbers for me, but I’ve noticed his mental speech improving, so I suspect he’s at least picked up a point or two in Intelligence or Wisdom – possibly both. And he’s definitely gained a few points in his physical stats over the journey – the strain of flying for hours on end while pulling a balloon has done him good.

  I haven’t given him any other Skills yet, but he’s picked up a couple of his own – Flight and Stealth. Flight is for obvious reasons and though at present all it does is make his flight a little smoother, faster, and more efficient, I can imagine that it will be a useful enhancement for later. Stealth is a natural result of him making every effort to conceal his presence, and succeeding surprisingly well for a black dragon the size of a pony. It’s not helped by the fact that he’s put on a hand of height since absorbing the Class stone, though – he’s now closing in on the size and height of his brother.

  Speaking of, I look around for Ivor – the two are normally not far from each other. Looking upwards, I see the white alcaoris perched on top of the roof like an immense bird. From the curve of Ivor’s neck and the emotions in the Bond, the alcaoris is sulking. Again.

  If you come down here, Ivor, I’ll stroke you too, I offer. For a moment, the white figure doesn’t move. Then he spreads his wings and glides down. I cast an eye at where he was sitting but I don’t see any signs of damage. Maybe the Titanbends built their manor so it could support the weight of their companions.

  “Hey,” I tell Ivor chidingly when he lands on the gravel, pointedly standing a pace away. “Don’t be jealous of your brother. He’s the one who got the short stick to begin with.”

  Ivor swings his head to gaze at Noir, then sends me a complicated feeling. Relief mixes with jealousy, combines with concern, winds around a sense of supportiveness, but I sense that at its core is fear of being left behind.

  Noir makes a wordless noise of unhappiness, his head shifting away from my hand to go and nudge at his brother’s neck.

  I’m not leaving you. This will help me keep up with you, he tells Ivor warmly.

  “Exactly – no one’s leaving anyone anywhere. We’re a pack,” I confirm, walking forward a step so I can stroke both of them.

  Ivor stays tense for a long moment and then relaxes with a loud sigh. Rotten-meat scented breath rolls over me, making me wrinkle my nose, but I don’t move away since I’ve finally got them both where I want them.

  I continue stroking them while checking on their internal matrices. Noir’s hasn’t changed much – the tendrils are a little thicker and there are a few more of them, but he’s still very much in the beginnings of everything. Ivor’s has grown and developed a bit – it’s very different from Noir’s now. Where Noir’s looks like five grasping hands, Ivor’s looks vaguely like an eight-armed starfish. It will be interesting to see the impact over time.

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  “Is that the dragon you gave the Class stone to?” Nicholas asks curiously. I don’t jump – he wasn’t trying to conceal his presence and the gravel crunches under his feet as he walks towards us.

  “Noir, yes,” I confirm, indicating which one that is with a nod of my head. Nicholas comes closer and meets eyes with the young predator without concern.

  “And there are no indications it’s being rejected yet?”

  Nicholas had condemned my decision when I first told him about it. Unsurprisingly, I’m not the first person to wonder what might happen if a beast absorbs a Class stone. But previous experiments have been conclusive: it’s a bad idea. At best, the Class stone isn’t absorbed, wasting it entirely. At worst, the beast dies horribly. And even if neither of those outcomes eventuated, the beast proved incapable of ever Evolving. Nicholas wasn’t sure if the beasts were capable of levelling up, but suspects not since that might have made the experiment worth it.

  I’m rather glad I didn’t speak to him about it before I tried it on Noir – sometimes ignorance is bliss.

  “It all seems to have been absorbed perfectly,” I tell Nicholas with a shrug.

  “I wonder what makes it different this time,” he murmurs contemplatively.

  “Perhaps because Noir didn’t have an internal matrix at all, there was nothing for the Class stone to interfere with,” I suggest. It would make sense – I’ve seen the mess that can eventuate from someone eating Cores that are unsuitable for them – imposing a whole Energy channel system on someone who already has some seems like a bad idea. I’m not going to test giving a Class stone to anyone else to test that hypothesis, though.

  “Perhaps,” Nicholas replies finally. “We should get to dinner – we have another conversation scheduled for afterwards,” he reminds me.

  “True,” I sigh, giving Ivor and Noir some final scratches each. “Do you want me to send for some food, or will you go hunting later?” I ask them.

  We’re going out in a group to hunt later, Noir chirps, sounding excited about that. They haven’t been able to do much of it over the journey since they were providing the direction to the balloon.

  “Who’s going?”

  Noir sends pictures and sense memories of the beings rather than names. I can interpret it well enough – Kalanthia, Lathani, the raptorcats, the deris, Sirocco…almost all of the predators, in fact. Only the samurans, Fenrir, and Pride seem to be staying behind and having dinner with us.

  “Alright. Just…stay safe, and don’t leave the estate grounds,” I remind them, but don’t think I need to worry too much – the memory of the kidnapping is still far too fresh in all of our memories.

  Heading into the hall, I’m surprised to see more places laid on the table than I was expecting. I make my way to the seat at Nicholas’ right hand as usual.

  “Are we having guests?” I ask, concerned – I’m dressed in clean clothes, but they’re not fancy ones.

  “Of a sort,” Nicholas answers, a secretive smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “I thought we would kill two anelles with one spear.”

  I send him a suspicious glance. Then, as the samurans file into the room and make a beeline for the table, taking up five of the eight extra places, my eyebrows go up in surprise. This is a difference from my first days here in this world. Perhaps the fact that Nicholas is part of our Bond network now has led him to realise that samurans are just as intelligent as humans – and rather similar in all the ways that matter.

  The next surprise is when three other humans file into the room – two women and one man. The man, a bulky muscle-bound figure, looks incredibly uncomfortable – and as if he’s been stuffed into a shirt two sizes too small. The other two look less visibly uncomfortable, but they’re still clearly nervous as they bow deeply to both Nicholas and me.

  “Sera Kerst, Sera Thornlee, Ker Black, be welcome at my table,” Nicholas says magnanimously in response to their murmured greetings. He waves his hand at the three empty chairs and they quickly take their seats. One of the women, Sera Kerst, I believe, sits next to me with River on her other side. Opposite me sits the other woman – Sera Thornlee. Hunter sits next to her with Happy on her other side. Ker Black settles in the open seat on her left side. Iandee and Catch both sit on my side of the table.

  Am I right in guessing that these are the people you’ve been training with? I ask the three Pathwalkers.

  Yes! Hunter replies eagerly. Sera Thornlee is so knowledgeable about runes!

  No less so is Sera Kerst knowledgeable about alchemy, River defends her own teacher.

  And Rejin is a master of metal, Happy interjects next, apparently not letting the merits of her own teacher fall by the wayside.

  I send a glance of amusement at Nicholas.

  I take it you all schemed behind my back to arrange this.

  We hardly schemed, Nicholas scoffs, though his face remains a polite mask for those not part of the conversation. I just thought you might appreciate meeting them before we head to Azaarde tomorrow. If you approve of them and they wish to come with you, you will have a few less craftsmen to find there.

  It’s a good point and I send a flicker of gratitude at him for thinking about it. It must have all been arranged at very short notice – thankfully, it seems everyone was available.

  Determined to take the opportunity for what it is, I lean forwards and greet all three of them.

  “Sera Kerst, Sera Thornlee, Ker Black, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for coming on such short notice – and for being willing to teach my companions even in my absence. I’ve heard so much about how knowledgeable you are from them. Please, tell me more about yourselves.”

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