“I can’t believe she invited my mom, of all things. I mean I don’t see her bringing everyone else’s mom around to embarrass them.”

  Eric coughed into his hand next to Leander who was barely paying attention, causing Cooper to look up.

  “Oh, right, sorry. That was rude of me. But still.”

  “I thought it went fine,” Eric offered.

  Cooper thought back on the previous evening, with his parents visiting the sect house for a tour and dinner. And a private meeting with Laurel. He might not be savvy enough to be his parent’s perfect child, but he knew enough that the political connection was a useful one for them. It had just been nice to be one of the crowd and not the initiate with noble parents.

  “Yeah, I suppose it was fine. Mother was impressed with the decor, Annette will be thrilled.”

  “I thought it was nice.” Leander’s mana-generated voice joined the conversation. “The sect is awesome, everyone who sees it is impressed.”

  “Yeah. I asked Laurel if my auntie can come visit,” Eric said.

  “Oh? I thought it was just you and James.” Cooper paused on their walk and looked at the snail-paced crowd for a moment, then ducked down a side street, the others following.

  “No, Aunt Tabitha is still around, we go visit her on our free days. She had to move into one of the government apartments when her hands got too bad. It worked out that James and I could move into the sect. She doesn’t worry about us there.”

  “I’ve heard horror stories of those places.”

  Eric nudged him companionably with his shoulder. “Maybe it's bad for the rich folks like you. But it’s actually pretty nice. If it wasn’t there I don’t know how she would keep working, but living there she gets food, a place to sleep, and someone to check in on her.”

  They walked another block before anyone responded. It was the kind of nice afternoon he hadn’t realized was normal growing up. Too many siblings, and too many formal occasions were overwhelming, so his childhood had been spent in his library, fading into the background. And his young adulthood as well, come to think of it. They were from wildly different upbringings, but Leander and Eric were some of the best friends he had. The group joked around for the rest of their walk. They had timed things perfectly, and only had to wait a few minutes before hopping onto one of the sky cabs that would take them to the upper districts.

  They didn’t really need to take the new transportation option but Cooper couldn’t resist. Flying barges! In his city! He took them whenever he could. The flight was smooth, giving them a view over the buildings and out into the ocean beyond. Eric pointed out the spilled transport cart that caused the traffic they had detoured around. Instead of joining the other two leaning over the edge and pointing out landmarks, Leander settled into a meditation pose on one of the open patches near the driver. Ever since Laurel had mentioned it was time to start pursuing a mana aspect in earnest, the diligent boy had become fanatical about training in his spare time.

  The journey to the upper districts was a third of the time of a traditional cab. The trio disembarked at a loading zone in a popular merchant district, and found their destination a handful of streets further on. It was an unassuming building, with no flourishes or anything to hide its nature as a city records facility. But it was clean and the front door was propped open, which Cooper chose to take as a positive sign. The handful of desks inside were populated by men and women he recognized as having the same air as Bennet. Or Annette. Competent and entirely unflappable.

  There was no one in line for the land ownership desk and he led the way, Eric and Leander flanking him.

  “Hello, I’d like to make an ownership inquiry.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “Property valuation and purchasing inquiry.” Cooper preempted the follow up questions by carefully laying the papers on the dark wood of the desk. “That includes the lots we’re interested in.”

  “Very well, I’ll confirm these are in order. Your forms should be available in three days.”

  After a quick thanks they made their way back outside and meandered down the road. They had nowhere else to be for hours.

  “That’s it?” Eric asked. “That’s your grand plan?”

  “It’s the beginning of it at least,” Cooper said. He was thrown into doubt about every decision he’d ever made. “Business ownership information is less regulated and protected, but land ownership and valuation has to be associated with a specific person, and be publicly available. They drilled us in the differences when I was taking classes to be a scribe.

  “We find out who owns the land the paper operates from, and go from there.”

  “Why so many places on the list,” Leander said.

  Cooper puffed out his chest. “I”m rather proud of that one. Our mission is of a delicate nature. By spreading the inquiries out, anyone investigating will be thrown off our true purpose.”

  “What now,” Eric said. “They said it would take three days.”

  Leander pointed over to a cart selling flatbreads stuffed with meat and sauce. “Now, lunch.”

  ***********

  The grain of the oak board was smooth and even the entire way down. No holes or notches she would have to take into consideration. With the journeyman looming over her shoulder, Rebecca would need to be careful not to waste any more of the material than necessary. Following Cedric’s instructions, she measured one final time and sketched out the lines for the cuts that she would need. Confident, she stepped back. Cedric leaned in and took out his own ruler, quickly checking the distance between the lines, and the angles she’d drawn out.

  “Acceptable,” he said.

  This would be the most difficult step. Rebecca walked over to the selection of saws, and chose one short enough for her to maintain control. Some of the larger workshops she and Gabrielle had toured used steam powered machines for these tasks. When they had asked for extra funds to have their lessons there, Laurel had laughed. It turned out for the best. Cedric’s workshop was small but cozy, each tool lovingly maintained. The journeyman’s instruction was terse but effective, and Rebecca wouldn’t complain. She knew how hard it was to get any sort of lesson from an artisan, especially without any family connections.

  The teeth of the saw lined up with her first marking, she inhaled and pushed as gently as she could at her mana. She teased the mana into the saw as it ate through the wood. It was working! Another push and the mana flowed into the oak itself. The saw hit air and with one final push, the right piece of wood dropped to the floor. Rebecca looked down to examine the results.

  She just barely kept from throwing the saw in disgust. Right at the edge of her cut was a bump. A bump that had not been there before she started cutting. From the last week of trials, she knew that the more mana she pushed into the piece of wood, the closer the bump would get to a twig, while the rest of the piece became too spongy to be of any use. A few pokes along the rest of the length assured her that it wasn’t a problem yet, but how was she supposed to make a mana-infused chair if her mana destroyed the wood. Laurel told her this would happen. That until she had better control, the wild aspect of her own mana would have odd consequences when she tried infusing. She should be grateful, but sometimes the wild aspect was more trouble than it felt like it was worth. Laurel had also told her the solution. No one beyond an initiate level used their own mana to infuse anything. Instead they connected with the ambient mana and leveraged that instead. Something Rebecca had still not been able to do reliably.

  Cedric picked up the board, now with the end cut off at an angle. “Try again. No magic this time.”

  She grumbled but complied. At least Gabrielle wouldn’t be any better than her at this one. When they’d decided on crafting, neither of them had understood just how difficult it would be. Another hour of hard work under Cedric’s supervision, and her instruction time ended. She handed over the payment for the day's lesson before exiting the workshop.

  The street it was on ended in a small park, filled with the local children enjoying a break from lessons at the local school. Rebecca sat on a wrought-iron bench to wait. Another ten minutes later, Gabrielle walked up, covered in soot. Rebecca stood as they started on the way back to the sect.

  “How was the woodworking?”

  “Tiring, frustrating,” Rebecca paused before continuing, “but fun too. Laurel keeps getting on us about having a variety of hobbies being important to avoid cultivation bottlenecks. I might keep up with it.”

  “Well, once I win our candlemaking competition I’m never dealing with wax again. It’s disgusting.”

  “I think you mean when I win,” Rebecca said, sliding a glance at Gabrielle.

  “Psh. At least my mana isn’t trying to turn everything into a tree.”

  “Yeah, because you still haven’t gotten around to aspecting it! Let’s see how many things you accidentally set on fire. I’ll have you remember the score right now is tied.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “For now. Anyway, I passed a glassblower’s studio on the walk here. Should we add that to the list.”

  Rebecca envisioned the sculptures in the public gardens at the palace. “Yeah, we definitely should.”

  They bantered the entire way back to the sect, paying no mind to the shadow dogging their footsteps.

  ************

  “We need to tell Laurel to do something for when it rains,” Cooper said. He, Eric, and Leander were once more taking a sky-cab to the government administrative building. This time, it started pouring rain while they were halfway up the hill. Getting off early wouldn’t save them from getting soaked, so they toughed it out. They were the only ones. Along with a grim-faced driver in an oiled poncho.

  “I doubt she even notices. She walks around outside every time it rains, doesn’t even f-f-flinch,” Eric said, shivering.

  Cooper grunted in agreement. “Still need something before next winter.”

  When they arrived, the administration building was deserted aside from the employees, and they were even given access to a small side room to review the findings. Cooper flipped through the packet until he found the page for the express.

  “Well, we have a problem.” The other two crowded behind him to read the ownership filing.

  “I don’t see a problem. It says the owner is Jaque Ferren,” Eric said. The younger boy pointed to the line with the ownership clearly spelled out.”

  “Exactly, those are two of the most popular names in the city. I thought I was being clever, but I’m not sure how to find out which Jaque we’re looking for.”

  They sat around for a few moments, listening to the sounds of the rain outside.

  “You said all land and building ownership includes a name.” The sound of Leander’s voice over the rain was eerie, like a ghost without emotions was standing right behind them.

  “Yes, that’s right. Businesses too, but those aren’t open to public inquiry.”

  “Can we look up in the other direction? Give name and get all properties? Maybe this Jaque will own other things as well.”

  “That’s a great idea, Leander. We can’t be nearly as sneaky about that though.”

  “Or,” Eric said, dropping his voice low, “we come back later and take a look at the business records. Seriously this is a lot of effort for information we know is already out there.”

  “Eric!” Cooper gaped at the boy. Since when was quiet, thoughtful, I-just-want-to-help-heal-people Eric one to suggest crimes?

  “Look, sometimes, you do what you have to,” he said with a shrug. Leander nodded along like they were talking about where they wanted to eat.

  “Laurel will absolutely kill us if we get caught committing a crime. She’s already been talking to the council about how to handle rogue cultivators.”

  “We won’t get caught.” Eric looked around at the office they were in, and peered out of the window, where sunlight was beginning to break through the clouds. He dragged Cooper out of the building. Cooper tried to act normal but was hyper aware of every motion. What did he normally do with his hands while he walked?

  They stopped when they got to an open air market. Despite the deluge, it was in full swing. Perhaps because the merchants all had awnings protecting them and their wares from the worst of it. The three of them leaned against the wall, Cooper again doing his best to appear normal, but sure his face was giving them away. He crossed his arms, then put them back by his side, then laced his fingers together behind his head. Before he could spiral any further, Eric cut in.

  “You’ve never stolen anything before?”

  “No!”

  “Not even as a kid? Like extra cookies or something?”

  “Sure, but that was all at home. You’re talking about stealing from a government office!” Cooper hissed.

  Eric and Leander leaned against the wall on either side of him. Eric’s hands were in his pockets, looking for all the world like a shop clerk on his afternoon break with his friends. “We need to know what’s going on, Laurel’s counting on us. We’ve been training for months, we’ve gone on adventures out in the world. And it's a records storage building, not the Royal Mint.”

  “We’re not doing this, it’s insane. Leander, your whole honor-amongst-cultivators thing must be against this idea.”

  Their youngest companion took a while to respond. “I don’t want to steal. But I’ve done it before, when it was necessary. This is about the survival of the sect, so I think we have to.” He tucked his speaking stone back into his shirt, having said all he needed to.

  “Look. It doesn’t have to be tonight,” Eric said. “Let’s hang around the district for a bit, get dinner, and just see if we can do it.”

  Cooper followed the others around the market in a daze. He snapped out of it to steer them into a local tea house, then a park with some performers giving a small puppet show. When their stomachs started rumbling they found a local pub and sat down to eat.

  “I feel like we’re underdressed,” Eric mumbled.

  Leander nodded in agreement but didn’t seem to care as he applied himself to his bowl. Cooper took stock of their outfits. They were out of their sect uniforms. Another piece of spycraft he was proud of coming up with. Instead he was in a gray daysuit, a few seasons old but he hated getting fitted for new clothes and wore them for as long as possible. The others had on the all-purpose wear Annette passed out to anyone who joined the sect. It would fit in a bit further down the hill in the working-class districts and he felt another pang at the reminder neither of these boys had ever had a wardrobe they updated just to stay in fashion.

  “Don’t worry about that. If you act like you belong, no one will question it. Shoulders back, and frown slightly.” He watched as Eric followed his instructions while Leander just kept eating. “Good. Now you look like a rich younger brother on a break from lessons.” Eric looked aghast, startling a laugh out of Cooper.

  “How do you think the girls are doing?” Cooper asked.

  Leander snorted and made a gesture out at the whole city.

  “Yeah,” Eric agreed. “Gabrielle was talking last night about making an oil out of some of their foraged plants to try and infuse into the candle.”

  “That could be a good idea.”

  “I thought so too,” Eric said. “Until Laurel told her she had to prove whatever she was using wasn’t poisonous before turning it into something we might inhale. Last I saw she and Rebecca were deep in the archives and talking about visiting the Agricultural Society.”

  “Wow.” Cooper said. “I can see why Helene took that hunting contract.”

  Eric finished his pasta and pushed the bowl to the side. “She took the contract because she’s dating a girl in the Hunter’s Guild.”

  Leander and Cooper both stared at Eric. Leander threw both his hands up in exasperation and Cooper took it upon himself to ask the obvious question.

  “How is it that you know what everyone’s up to?” He gestured between him and Leander. “If you were having dinner with everyone else and talking about us would you know exactly what our plans were?”

  “I listen.”

  ********

  The street tipped and rolled, like one of the maneuvers Trip had done in his plane when they were trying to land in a difficult spot. Laurel must have done something magic to the roads. He groped for his speaking stone to ask the others. Somehow his shirt had grown a few more layers since dinner and it took a few tries.

  “WHAT IS THE STREET.”

  The voice from the stone echoed up the alleyway they were loitering in. The others both turned in horror and grabbed an arm each, helping him down the wave-street and onto the next one.

  Leander tried again, but no sound came out. Eric grabbed his shoulder and pulled him behind a stack of crates.

  “You’re drunk,” he said.

  “We’re all drunk,” Cooper muttered. “Why did we decide to keep drinking?”

  “We were being sneaky, getting clues for the sect,” Eric slurred.

  Leander tried to use the stone again but was still not making any noise.

  “Did we find anything?” Cooper asked.

  Eric paused for a long moment. “I can’t remember. Let’s finish this. The office is one street over. I think. We can scope it out now.”

  The group staggered over the last block, keeping to the shadows. This district was far enough up the hill to have streetlamps, pools of the golden, oil-fed light puddling on corners and in front of the most important buildings. They huddled in a narrow alleyway a few blocks down from the administrative building to observe. The buildings were asleep, dark sentinels waiting for their owners to return in the pre-dawn hours. No one disturbed the silence that was seeping through the air. As Leander watched, a pair of city guards rounded the corner and walked towards them, chatting with each other as they completed their rounds.

  Everyone knew you avoided guards, tried not to stand out when they saw you. Leander eased back, mirrored on his left by Eric. He looked to his left and was a heartbeat too late to stop Cooper from stumbling straight towards them. Instead he watched in horror as the older boy staggered up and started talking to the guards. Eric cursed a storm next to him, and they both tensed, ready to jump to their friend’s defense. Then they both nearly fell over when instead of shouting, they heard light laughter echoing in the empty street. Staying hidden, they watched as Cooper had a conversation with the guards, and then came right back towards them. Leander scrambled further down the alley but the guards were uninterested and continued on their route even when Cooper suspiciously looked around before flattening himself against the wall and inching his way down.

  “What was that?!” Eric whispered with all the force of a yell.

  Cooper cocked his head to the side, “I was just asking the guards if this area is always so empty. Turns out it is, this is apparently one of the better routes to have on the night duty in this district.”

  “You don’t –. You can’t just ask the guards things like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because….” Eric trailed off and looked to Leander for confirmation. He just shook his head, still in shock at the brazenness from the normally timid Cooper. It must be a rich person thing.

  *******

  The usual chattering around the breakfast table spiked through Cooper’s brain as he desperately tried to choke down his oatmeal. Leander and Eric, sitting across from him, didn’t look like they were faring any better. He’d been given a thorough tongue-lashing last night when they finally returned to the sect house, about the proper way to be nondescript and why it was a bad idea to talk to city guards unless you absolutely had to. Then he’d tossed and turned for the rest of the night, alternating between nightmares of guards coming to take his friends away and just how they were supposed to pull this off. As much of a risk as it had been, talking to the guards meant he realized just how difficult a proposition it would be. Different guard patrols walked that neighborhood every half hour. They would have to get in, find the information they needed, and get out within that window, or risk getting caught.

  As they limped and moaned through morning exercises, he let those thoughts churn. By the time they were released for the day, trusted enough to see to their own cultivation practice, it was time to talk to the others.

  “Should we ask Laurel for help?”

  Eric and Leander both jolted out of their meditation poses and whipped their heads around towards him.

  “I’m just not sure how else we’re going to pull this off.”

  “I don’t know,” Eric hedged. “We don’t want to bother her, and this is supposed to be our mission, right?” He continued in a much lower tone, “what if she’s disappointed in us?”

  “She won’t be. Wasn’t like half her job before things went crazy stealing documents and information from other sects? There was definitely a story about sneaking into some other sect's compound to find some plant or something.”

  Eric looked appeased, but Leander was still apprehensive. He pulled out his stone, thankfully having sobered up enough to use it at a normal volume.”

  “But we’re supposed to avoid trouble. Bad for the sect if we break the law.”

  When more discussion wasn’t getting them anywhere they admitted defeat and trudged up to Laurel’s office. Surprising them all she was actually there, and waved them in when they indicated they wanted to talk. He settled between the other two on chairs, flashing back to his childhood being called in front of his father for misbehaving. Laurel looked only a few years older than him, but it was something in her eyes that intimidated him. It said this was a woman who could, and would, do whatever she had to in order to reach her goals.

  The others saw Laurel as something of a hero, he knew, like a benevolent story come to life. But Cooper was still daunted by the weight of her history. So when she asked what was going on, all his thoughtful speech abandoned him and he vomited his every movement and thought over the last week out onto her desk.

  When he finished, it took a moment for Laurel to reply. A moment he imagined being kicked out of the sect in disgrace for even considering this plan.

  “What are you asking then, it sounds like you’re making progress?”

  “Aren’t you going to warn us off? Or come up with a better plan?” Cooper sputtered.

  She pushed her hands back into her hair, pulling at it slightly. “It’s a bit early to be having this conversation but I suppose that was inevitable. The world moves faster nowadays.

  “There’s a whole speech on this that I don’t have time to go look up, but what it comes down to is that cultivation, like life and anything else worth pursuing, is messy, complicated, and there are a million ways to go about it. When push comes to shove, there isn’t one comprehensive code of conduct I can give you to live by that answers your questions.

  “Do I want you to steal from mortals? No. Take a look at this.”

  She threw a newspaper onto the desk in front of her, Cooper and the others leaned in to read it. It was that day’s copy of the Verilian Express. The headline read “Two Classes: Magic Users Given Exemption From New Laws”.

  “I don’t want you to have to start breaking laws, but I do want what’s best for the sect. Which means cultivating the City Core. Which means finding a way to push back on the opinions in the express. The number of people willing to bond to the Core has slowed to almost nothing. If this keeps up, it will be years before public opinion recovers enough to get the Core to the next stage. Years where other groups with fewer restrictions will be pushing their own Cities that much closer to a Capital.

  “The Council has already turned me down for an inquiry, it would set too bad a precedent. The guild backlash is getting more targeted, and the number of jobs needing cultivator attention is only growing, and I can only be in so many places at once. So, in this case, do what you have to and find me the names we need. Okay?”

  She said the last with a strained smile and Cooper could only swallow and nod. Knowing that their plans would help the sect was one thing. Knowing there was ‘fate-of-the-world’ level implications was quite another.

  “We’ll go back tonight.”

  “Great! Anyway I’ve got about a dozen meetings I need to get to, let me know how it goes. If you really feel like you can’t make progress I’ll see what I can do, but I’m a bit more conspicuous than you all so I’d prefer you find a way to handle it.”

  She left after that, leaving the three of them staring behind her, and Cooper wondering why he committed to that night.