He sent an overnight messenger to his contact in order to get identifications for Jule and Ellio. The response Taiga received three days later was a jumble of incoherent curses in Sashume’s dialect and three documents; two passbooks and one set of linlao registration papers for Sweet Bun.

  A smile crept over his face as he signed the registration papers for he and Mouse’s name. Now, for better or worse, she was officially theirs. A mix of relief and stress washed over him. Maybe he should do some extra jobs and get her stable training. Linlao training would be pricey, but it’d be an investment for fewer future bills.

  Her appetite was another story. The ravenous stomach of hers required constant feeding. He’d made a budget when they first got her, but the cost now nearly tripled that. On top of their own feedings, the stable provided meals enough for any other linlao and Mouse enjoyed feeding her additional treats.

  Sweet Bun was out of her growing faze, so from his understanding, she was simply a glutton with a body good enough to work it off. He paused. Maybe her ability to burn everything off was the problem. He found himself sighing but stopped. Mouse got on him more than once lately for it.

  He was right. Taiga did sigh a lot nowadays.

  Now that the identifications had arrived, Jule and Ellio could become official mercenaries. Jule and Ellio’s unique skill in reading Old Anu meant they could read through texts Taiga couldn’t. Ellio suggested they use the mercenary license to see if they could find anything further on magical imbalances.

  And that was enough to make Taiga contact the forger.

  The last line on the letter read in purposefully legible writing; ‘You owe me.’ He laughed while tossing the letter into the burn pile for the guildhall’s fire pit. Considering he’d helped the man smuggle into Lanria and escape his pursuers once upon a time… in exchange for his valuable trade wherever he needed it, well, Taiga owed him nothing. Though in all fairness, maybe rushing two passbooks overnight was a bit unfair of him.

  “What’s so funny?” Mouse peaked over his shoulder. “The passbooks?”

  “And Sweet Bun’s registration.” Taiga glanced at his friend’s widening grin.

  Mouse took the papers in hand and skipped to the sofas where Jule and Ellio sat. Since they weren’t part of the guild, they stayed at an inn a few streets over. They came in the morning to scope around and talk. Over the last three days, Taiga and Mouse learned a few vital things.

  One; since humans were unable to see the flow of magic around them, they manipulated physical magics to help study and interact with it. They used mediums like magic stones, pieces of nature stained by magic spikes, and essences left behind by magical beings.

  Two; while Monx was in many ways magically behind Lanria, many smaller villages passed down lost knowledge of magic from the times when humans were still allied with the fairies, shifters, and giants. Jule and Ellio’s parents traveled through many of these villages, learning their cultures, stories, and knowledge. Since they were children at the time and traveled with them, they grew up with this knowledge and the journals from their parents.

  Three; The siblings’ obsession with finding the cause of the imbalance laid in following their parents’ research. They’d been scholars studying the magical workings of the world. When the couple never returned from a trip in the mountains, Jule and Ellio were left with years upon years of notes and journaling. Finishing their parent’s research drove them to discover the imbalance.

  “For you.” Taiga handed Ellio their new passbooks. “As legal as it gets.”

  “In a really not legal sort of way, huh?” Jule grabbed one from Ellio’s hand and brought it up against her glasses, studying the text.

  “More legal than what you had.” Taiga shrugged.

  Jule blinked slowly, shifting her eyes to him. “Are you sure about using our real names on these?”

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  Taiga nodded. “These passbooks don’t invalidate your Monx books. They give you a pass as long-term residents of Lanria on special permission status.”

  “Which is…?” Jule’s voice drew out the ‘s’ longer than he liked.

  “Nobles can bring anyone they want across the borders as patrons. They have allowances to do so. This is one of those. It’s as good as being a citizen yourself.” Taiga lowered his voice as a few women passed. “Work in the courts long enough, you learn how to use the systems.”

  Jule looked from him to the book, then back to him. “So we’re parading around Lanria, pretending to have patrons? Sounds alarmingly illegal and easy to track.”

  “Your patron is Duke Grephons. If anyone questions it, use his name. He’ll vouch for you. You two will be here as scholars, studying for him.”

  Ellio blinked. “You seem to be giving us a lot of grace. Is this much okay?”

  Taiga smiled. “It’s just enough. You need this much if you plan to travel around Lanria. And it’s not free. Anything you learn comes back to us, right?”

  He nodded. Taiga shrugged. “Good.”

  After a few moments of Jule and Ellio muttering to each other, Jule turned back to Taiga. “Fine. We’ll accept the generosity.”

  “You need to register with the guild to become mercenaries, which will grant you additional permissions such as going to the library. Your special status grants you that as well, but all entries are recorded down. Don’t bring unnecessary attention to yourselves.”

  “We don’t plan to.” Jule stretched her back before turning towards the guild registration desk. When Ellio bowed to Taiga as Jule wandered off, Taiga returned it. He watched them walk to the registration table.

  “We’re still planning to go back out towards the lake, right?” Mouse asked, rocking on the arm of the sofa.

  Taiga nodded. “I want to know how those demons got in and see if there’s any lingering corruption there. I figure tomorrow we’ll do the same out at the abandoned barn outside the wall.”

  To the left and deeper into the guildhall, passed several lines of tables and a counter which served food, a man waved at them with a smile. Taiga nudged Mouse and pointed to the man once he had his attention. “Looks like they have something for you.”

  A smile spread over Mouse’s face as he handed the registration papers back to Taiga. “I’ll be back.”

  Mouse took a few leaps over, and started talking to the man. They spoke for a minute or two before he returned with a cloth of cheese and grapes. So then, grapes were already in season.

  The temperatures had dipped in the last few days, and they found themselves staying indoors more. That morning, the temperatures had stabilized a little higher, and it was warm enough for Taiga to venture out. Before the temperatures dipped again, he wanted to investigate the demon appearances a bit more.

  By the time Mouse and Taiga finished eating through the gift, Ellio came trotting back over to them. “Jules asked for you.”

  His lack of eye contact told Taiga this would be a pain. He rose to his feet, leaving Mouse to finish off a muffin he didn’t know where he got from. Then, followed Ellio over to the missions counter.

  “You were approved?” Taiga asked, unease settling as he watched Jule smile thinly.

  “Yesssss we were,” she sang, before dropping into a more serious tone. “We need to do a trial mission.”

  He saw where this was going. “No. No way. I have a few things I want to do before the temperatures dip any further.”

  “What? It’s not even cold out. Come on, it won’t even take that long.”

  Maybe it wasn’t cold to them, but they were humans. Not Ganakri. The cold sunk through him easily, freezing his bones and confusing his bark. His naturally lower body temperature left him unable to stay warm. Starting this mission mid-summer instead of early spring was unfortunate timing, to say the least.

  “I’m busy. Find someone else to go with you.” He turned away from them.

  “I saw you, uh, had a bill come through,” the guild commissioner said, leaning over the counter and digging his elbows into the wood. The mention of the bill stopped Taiga in his tracks.

  Sweet Bun’s damage and food bill finally arrived.

  “We don’t have many volunteers for these trials. So we could, ya know,” the man shrugged, rubbing a hand over his unshaven face. “We can pay off that bill of yours.”

  Taiga stared at him a moment. “The… whole bill?”

  The commissioner nodded.

  His feet pulled him to the commissioner’s counter, lowering his voice. “How much was it?”

  The commissioner’s face widened into a smile before grabbing a paper from behind them and sliding it onto the counter. Taiga counted five digits in the number owed. He laughed a bit. They had roughly 4500 daud.

  “You’ll cover the whole thing, huh?”

  Another nod. “Considering the help you’ve done with the lake and northern wall attack, I can swing it.”

  Taiga waved over Mouse and turned to Jule. “Pick a mission.”