What did a witch need a familiar for?

In Bano Leeb High, the country Lucrece was from, the tradition dictated that a familiar was to protect the witch, to help find the magical field.

However, when Lucrece was choosing what familiar to obtain after her initiation, she had some doubts about which one to go after. The cat familiar was optimal, because the cats had nine lives to spare, lending some to their owner. The crow was fabled to provide spellcasting insights and to warn of the big-bad-events. The snake was a good source of poison, as well as a good healing aid, what with its compressing ability to stop bleeding. The bat was the poorest one, though, but it had the chance to bring all its relatives and then we’re talking - additional protection, collection of materials, and just a wee cuddly buddy hanging upside down above your bed.

Lucrece really wanted the crow.

But then something happened.

The witchery practice faced its first restriction in Bano Leeb High.

One could only do magic if they worked for the King.

Lucrece could go with it, but her mother, who herself was a crow-owner, received the message from her familiar.

“Death! You will all die! You shall rot in prison!” Jubilee, the crow, was hysterical delivering it.

“What can you suggest?” Lucrece’s mother fed her crow a piece of meat. The crow was really into the artificially conjured (this one was from the hair of the family) spiced flesh. Lucrece thought that no way was she going to feed her familiar with junk food.

“Get a cat,” the crow looked at Lucrece. “Flee.”

Back then they did not take the “flee” part into much of consideration.

But Lucrece remembered the day she found Ricotti.

Small, plump, and stupid, and black, the kitten was loitering around the butchery. As Lucrece was on her Quest of finding the familiar, the kitten immediately spotted her and froze in place, sentience channeling into him from the magical field, triggered by Lucrece’s casting.

“There you are,” the young witch smiled at the cat baby. The kitten smiled back. It was creepy as all fires.

She crouched, her skirts dropping onto the dust of the road, and outstretched an offering. That was her own flesh, of course, no artificial conjuring of the, ew, hair or something like that. She was collecting this flesh, slicing it shawarma-style, over two months. The scars on her belly and under her collar were still being treated by the healing spells of Auntie Screemty.

The cat helped himself to the treat, emitting purrs and soft growls. No hesitation. No dances of doubts, no playing with Lucrece, as they warned her–the cat familiars were the most probable type to refuse the Deal. For no particular reason. For the reason of “I don’t really vibe with you” or “Really busy here, human, go away”. Lucrece’s heart was trembling in its attempts to stop from awe.

The kitten fed and asked for more with a cute little meow. “Sorry, but… aren’t you full?” The flesh piece was about half the kitten. His belly was literally round with it.

The kitten looked at Lucrece and emitted a meow of such volume that Lucrece fell backwards from her crouch in sudden fright–a loud one, then. Then he just jumped on her, and the witch was efficiently au gratin with dust.

The kitten was sniffing her, and purring, and bumping her under the chin, while she fumbled for the collar to put on him.

She had attempted to make the traditional talking spell into the collar that initially was a counter of the cat's lives, because she was reluctant to pierce the cat’s ears with the talking earrings. If the baby could be spared some pain, it was worth her time. But she was not sure it’d work.

After some fumbling and failed tries to clasp the lock, Lucrece finally installed the collar on the cat. “Ok, can you understand me now, baby?”

The cat gave her one of his creepiest smiles. “Baby. I like that you call me that. I am a baby!” So her combination worked!

“Yes, yes, you are,” and she indulged in some more dusty cuddles with the kitten.

While the butcher was looking at her from the doorstep of the slaughterhouse. “I thought that some witch would want the kittens of my Layla,” he said in a gruff voice, smirking into his mustache. “Allowed her to have them, because the father lurking around was black.”

Lucrece stood up, the newly-obtained kitten on her shoulder. Yeah, she was properly coated, her hair included. “Thank you,” she bowed and then came to give the gift.

“This is the healing potion. It is able to cure disease. Mind you, humans-only,” Lucrece warned the butcher. Because who knew what he’d use it for. But that was what Auntie had given her to pay for the kitten’s soul.

Historically, all Bano Laab Low surnames had an i sound at the end. In Lucrece’s native country, Bano Leeb High, which was a close neighbour of Bano Laab Low, the surnames were simply of some house. Like, Lucrece of the House of Quandorlin. But Lucrece’s ancestral home was right on the border between the two Banos.

So when she offered the kitten to choose his name, he picked a Laabian surname, Ricotti.

“Why? You don’t even know what it means, dummy,” Lucrece said.

“But I know! It’s some sheep cheese! And I love cheese!”

Lucrece frowned, trying to remember the cheese that went by that name. Sheep cheese, at that. Didn't the sheep lay eggs? They could not be giving milk, huh.

“The closest cheese-sounding name is Rumdocca, baby. From Rumdock, the dwarven beer cheese.”

The cat just huffed and made a point with his tail swerving around her arm, where they were sitting on the cool stone floor of her tent.

He was so sure about the name that she decided to indulge him.

She, in fact, indulged him a lot.

He was so clumsy, so uncatlike. Always knocking stuff over. His rap sheet was comprised of almost half a hundred of bowls, including his feeding ones, seven fires started because he got the lamp overturned (after which Lucrece ordered extra metal guard layers so the cat wouldn’t get anywhere near the cursed lamp), he broke almost every other potion bottle he encountered (after the tenth Lucrece began to wrap the bottles with thick fabric liner around the widest part, so it probably had the chance to be not broken mid-air).

Lucrece remembered all the nice and soft evenings when he, already much plumper, more mature, but nevertheless the chaos incarnate, would lay in her lap, making biscuits and purring his loudest at her. At moments like these Lucrece thought that even if he was just a simple cat, not a familiar, she would still have him and take her best care of him.

And oh, how she cursed herself now, for letting him go away like that in a foreign country, for not doing her best to protect her precious baby.

“IT IS NOT YOUR CAT, I REPEAT, IT IS NOT YOUR CAT, LUCRECE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?” Someone was shaking Lucrece with the force of a medium earthquake, and shouting into her face, “Oh, Her-pants, just don’t cast, just do not cast…”

Lucrece was too shocked to cast. Scared, yes, but this was not the same type of scare she’d get when encountering the spectres. There was a freeze response instead of a fight.

The sun was a well-washed golden plate after the rain, hitting every droplet that was not hurrying to dry up–and everything around Lucrece was twinkling, was iridescent with thousands of mirrored and transmitted rays.

“Wh-where’s my cat then?” Her lip trembled and she was trying to look into the black furry mass on the table and convince her brain that this was not a cat. Her hands were probably bruising Hoarthlen’s biceps. The bard-priestess was gripping her elbows, and when Lucrece eased up, she pulled her into a hug, saying, “This is an umkwat. It’s a furball from the woods. If you combine its secretion with the iron, it prevents rust. But the glands are so small it makes little sense to extract it, so most blacksmiths do it fresh. See, the outer layer emits the opposite secretion, that actually rusts and rots everything.”

“What?” Lucrece was not ready for this information, but a conclusion of some sort finally caught on her. First, this was not Ricotti, so Ricotti was yet to be found. Second, ooooh, so that was what attacked and ate away at her well-won beasts at night.

“Umkwats,” Lucrece tried to emulate the pronunciation.

“Yeah. Alright, can you sit here until I retrieve your bathtub?”

“And a toilet basin, please.”

Hoarthlen frowned at her, but nodded. Did she say something odd again? Lucrece had to go back in her thought-steps, confirming that yes, Adenfian seemed to require water, after all. Hence, they probably required some place to relieve themselves from dirty water.

She considered calling Poppy. Whatever she was doing in her house, she wondered. Probably was playing with the looks again. Right before they entered Adenf, she had been really into pink hair and thinner body. Lucrece had to strictly command her to keep her looks straight and commit to one until they settle.

There was a murmur of conversation behind her and she turned to look.

And there it was, her new love.

A bathtub on long claw-legs, which were sturdy but intricately designed, with leaves and twirls on them. The sheer volume of it was making Lucrece flush with anticipation of her first time. The wide edges had their own tiny but stern edges, one could imagine putting any flask or bottle there and it wouldn’t slip away. Lucrece just knew this bathtub had no business in being put into the hut she rented; it straight out belonged into a noble house, to be covered in pearls and gems and gold, and filled with magically imbued bubble essences.

“Do I pay for that?” She was sure she could not afford it, but she very much wanted to: it would mean she could pack it along with her when she moved.

The thought of the potential move hurt her a bit each time, a pain so numb and dull she barely acknowledged it, but it definitely muddled her mood just a bit, just like a coffee drop on the hem of the shirtsleeve: not everyone would notice it, but you will be going around thinking of it.

“No,” Hoarthlen said, leering, “Your landlord is paying for it. He, however, did not specify the budget, too bad for him.”

Lucrece smirked. That was the problem for her future self, then. She could manage it later, she thought. Now that she found the feeling of a field, she felt unstoppable.

The bathtub was placed on a wicker platform and floated out from the blacksmith’s.

“Hoarthlen,” Lucrece asked, “Could you tell me how to say this in Adenfian, please?” And she gave her the note that said, “Left, right, Have you seen a black cat?”

“Why left or right?”, Hoarthlen was trying to write Adenfian words in Western Elven symbols.

“Directions?”

Hoarthlen chuckled, “You’d be better off with a wax tablet for that. Lots of people operate through the West-South-East-North thingy.”

Lucrece jotted that down in her mentally-maintained list of things to buy.

“Where are you going off though?” Hoarthlen stopped her mid-track, “I don’t have the keys. You’re kind of supposed to be patiently waiting for me to let you pee, or bathe.”

They exchanged exasperated sighs. Lucrece untied the keys from her belt. “Please don’t lock up. The lock is super glitchy.”

Hoarthlen frowned at her and paused a bit before asking, “Was that you then… who…”

Lucrece closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Finish that?”

“Who lit up the field on fire last night?”

Damn it!

“I undid it.” Lucrece did not dare to open her eyes, mortification enveloping her not unlike the damned hole on the summons carpet where B came from. Fires consume me, she thought.

“That you did,” there was a profound tone of suspicion in the bard-priestess’ voice. “Alright, I am not going to push you to tell me how you did that, but mind you that your close neighbour is nevertheless cross with you.”

“Figured that. Gave me a huge stink-eye in the morning.”

Hoarthlen patted her on the shoulder, and only then Lucrece opened her eyes.

“Off you go then. Find the cat, take a bath and I’ll meet you at the tavern in the evening. Gonna be playing my stuff there.”

“Thank you,” Lucrece said. It was the most earnest thank you in her life ever. As a bonus, it made her new friend smile, so warm and kind that Lucrece felt a sting all over her eyes.

The sun was rolling down, impending on Lucrece. Her heart racing, she had checked the apothecary, the tailor, the potter, the glassblower, the cider maker, the whatever and whoever inhabited Merefe Lired. She was crying on her twentieth round of the main street. People began to worriedly offer her food. She kept repeating the phrase about the lost cat, and someone gave her the wax tablet.

The sun turned orange, and Lucrece was dark pink in her tan cheeks. She kept glancing towards the black lining of the forests. No way this stupid cat wandered out of the village. No way. Is he stupid, after all this?

Her blood clogged in icy blocks when she thought that there was a chance of Ricotti losing his touch with sentience. She found the field–but what if he had to lose it?

No-n–n-no, could not be real, must have happened the day before then, earlier, no!

The red ray of the sun licked her eye in a nauseating goodbye, immediately drowning behind a stormy cloud. Oh no, oh no!

She was running and crying and calling him. One more round about the village and the poor people would be calling a healer. Or a spiritualist. Or both.

“Alright,” Lucrece said to herself, stopping and closing her eyes, “At this point, I don’t think it makes sense to do it like that.”

And she took off her hat to knock at the fairy’s door with the tip of her finger.

The door gleamed in twilight and opened. The fairy flew out and asked, “Food?”

Oh, now you’re hungry, thought Lucrece, but out loud she said, “Help me look for Rico. He hasn’t been seen since afternoon.”

The fairy flew up to her face, and looked Lucrece in the eye. “Have you checked at home?!”

Lucrece felt hot and woozy with the mere idea of relief.

“Should have called you earlier, dear,” and she started for the hut.

When you first arrive at your new place of residence, it’s all so magical. Wherever it is, it is all covered in a lovely haze of being enamoured with the place and its promise. Freedom. A better life. Unknown plants. Fun food. Peculiar traditions.

But it all changes and twists and muddles with the first despair.

This moment, when you run somewhere, being late, risking your stay, risking your life, risking something dear to you.

This moment, when you’re stopped by a local guard and questioned for your rights on being within the country.

This moment, when the miraculous setting begins to be one of the torture, of the nightmare.

The fire lanterns were softly spraying the last splashes of light behind her. The stars were trying and failing to take over. Her Mercies, let him be there. Let him be inside! Let him just be.

Lucrece would never see this field as soft and welcoming again. It seemed now full of danger, every whisper–a chance of a beast lurking.

She was wheezing by the time she arrived on the porch, and there of course was someone waiting for her, but it was not her cat.

It was a huge ball of wood. Lucrece wished she had her sword, but on her way to the sword was this… floatwood?

It did not attack her. It was flying peacefully in the air, as if weightless. Well, hopefully it would stay calm if she just passed it.

Lucrece gave it the widest berth she could, without touching the bushes–she could bet there were some more surprises out there, and then stepped on the porch. The note on the door said, “Fixed you a bathtub and a toilet. Don’t forget to come to the tavern.”

Yeah, no bath for her. Screw bath. Her only wish in this life was now to see Ricotti alive today.

She entered the house, the ball of wood did not follow. It was a nice ball of wood. She’d prefer it out of the front yard but beggars can’t be choosers.

There was nobody in the house. Lucrece felt like her hair was packing its luggage and leaving her head.

“Call dad,” Poppy said in a serious tone.

“I can’t. I’d definitely be busted. They saw the fires. Besides, do you think he can do better in his limited five minutes?”

Poppy did not know if he could.

Alright, the tavern. Maybe she would find some adventurers who could be convinced to look for Ricotti without payment in advance.

She was trembling. The road from her hut to the village emotionally shortened. Felt like she’d gone there hundreds of times.

Lucrece even knew where to turn to reach the tavern.

Lucrece learnt Merefe Lired by heart in one short horrible instant.

She burst in the tavern, squinting at lights and heavy sweaty air which one could be as well using as a condiment to the meals. Tears dropping down her face, lips shaking, she came to the bar to take her job for tonight.

“Oh dear, you look awful,” noticed the innkeeper, “Is it about your cat?”

Lucrece sniffled, restraining a whine, and nodded pathetically.

“Alright, it’s not yet after-hours time, so go clean up room one super quick.”

When Lucrece made no move, the innkeeper waved a hand before her face.

“Hello, anybody home?”

“Sorry,” and Lucrece burst into heavy duty sobbing, trying to muffle herself. “Give me a moment,” she managed through her sleeves.

Mayala looked at her assistant and nodded.

“Ok, I don’t think you’re of any use right now. Tell me, do you have any chance to track the cat?”

Lucrece shook her head.

“Alright,” and Mayala shouted, “Mende!”

A slender, as the average Adenfian was, man rose and came up to them. “What is it, sun?”

“Would you help this crying mess to find her cat, free beers for your party?”

The man leered. “For free beers for the whole party, I sure would!”

Mayala looked at Lucrece sternly, “You owe me, girl. Go now.”

Lucrece followed the mage outside. He went out but did not turn towards the center of the village. Instead he took to the road heading outside the village.

“Where are you going, do you sense where the cat is?”

“Speaking of the cat, give me something that belonged to it or was in touch with it. You’ve got it, surely? A collar, a bowl, something?”

Lucrece handed him a basket. It had a beige cotton blanket, streaked with black cat hairs. The man looked at it and said, “This will do.”

And then he stepped just outside of the road and began to cast something.

Taking a wide stance with his feet, his head upwards, he made gestures not unlike a necromancer would, raising the dead, like he was pulling something from beneath the earth surface. Lucrece had a sinking feeling about it. She tried to catch the whiff of his magic.

The energy he pulled was felt by her. The magical field was communal. It was like sharing a knit cover with your sisters. Sure it’s big enough for the four of you, but you always feel where the cover is being pulled more. The spell he cast wasn’t pulling much, though. She followed the stream of magic, trying to peek inside of the magical imprints the man was creating, but he jerked, stopping casting.

“Whatcha doin?! Don’t do that!”

“You’ve felt that?!” Lucrece blushed hotly, “I’m sorry! I just -”

“I am looking for your cat! Now don’t touch me… like that. It interferes with the spell.”

“Sorry,” she said again, and tried to listen to the words of the spell.

It was a repetitive and rhymed something, in Adenfian. She would want to memorize it, but the structure of the language eluded her so far, so she gave up. She thought about how he jerked away–never once before anyone felt her prying. Not even mom or aunt. That was how she learnt her spells so well and fast–she went after the stream of magic and through the shaper that was mana pool of a mage, and witnessed it being molded into something, and then she just tried a couple of times herself, learnt the evoking words and poses, and she knew the spell.

“Found it. It’s over at the butcher’s. You know where the butcher is?”

Lucrece burst into giggles, simultaneously blinking down on the tears. “Please, draw it on my wax tablet. It is dark.”

The man smiled and did as she requested.

“Can I learn the spell you did just now?”

He frowned at her, confused, “It’s a school spell, dear. Buy any basic counting magic book and it’s gonna be on the first page there.”

“Oh,” Lucrece flushed. At this point her body started protesting against more embarrassment and required to be put into a swaddle of blankets to hide from the world.

But she had stuff to do. Blankets later. Now, the cat.

At night Merefe Lired also looked scary. All those fire and wood combinations did not help Lucrece feel safe. She saw how they did it here: a special man, reeking of alcohol, went around the village to put fires into the street lanterns. She had never seen a mage do it, but with this amount of magic in one place, she guessed it was natural to have a drunkard light up the space. Still, every fence and every house seemed to be made of wood. It was alright back in Banos, where every building was made of stone or clay or a combination of both, and it was barely alright in her native village, where they used to soak leather of a rantelant in a special concoction that prevented it from catching fire easily. You could still burn it, of course, if you tried hard enough.

Checking her direction with the hand-drawn map, Lucrece wondered if the beasts from the forest ventured as far as into the village. Maybe there were some guards around the village, or the beasts simply knew better? At any rate, there was nobody on the streets at this hour.

Lucrece turned round the corner, arriving at the South-Western part of the village (look at her, already getting used to the Adenfian ways of space indications!), and saw the house that had a sign. Presumably, it said “The butcher’s”. Or at least, that’s what the man scribbled on the wax tablet for her, so she just compared the sign to the written.

She called for Ricotti, and he did not come out, meowing, so she decided to disturb the butcher, who was obviously closed for the night.

The butchery structure was different here, she figured. There was no separate slaughterhouse, apparently. Just…a regular house, made of twining trunks, with tufts of green leaves here and there, and a huge branch overhanging over the porch, with the swing attached to it.

She knocked on the door and after a minute a sleepy one-legged man appeared. He had a brace attached to his knee, and to the brace was attached a wooden leg. Lucrece did not lose the time examining it, just noted to herself that this was the first man in whole Adenf who had extra weight, and it was somehow refreshing to see.

“Uhm… hi!” Lucrece said in Adenfian. She knew the word!

The man grumbled something offensive in reply.

“Have you seen a black cat?” Lucrece read from her notes.

The man smiled immediately, completely changing in his face from a menace to a cutie pie, and motioned for Lucrece to come in.

Lucrece still did not know whether to take her shoes off or she could keep them, so she took a moment to knock off her footwear just in case.

The house smelled icky in some subtle way. With some undertones of herbs the dried prunes overwhelmed her nose.

The hall was not spacious, only allowing two people to put on their coats, and then there came a living room. Slash actual butchery. With a huge table, now clean, and the wall full of hatchets behind it. Lucrece shuddered. She prayed to both Gods at once that her catson was alive.

With a gesture of “lo and behold” the butcher showed her the waiting area of the butchery, apparently–there, in the cushions of a sofa, resided her black piece of void.

“Ricotti!” She cried and rushed to him, eager to check his vitals.

“What!” screamed the cat back at her, and something thudded behind them.

Lucrece squeezed the spooked up cat to her chest, breathing him in, her face contorting with tears of relief.

“I thought you were dead. I thought you died three times today. Never ever run away like that, dummy.”

“I can’t breathe, lemme go!”

“Sorry, sorry!”

She released him, looking into his sparkly eyes, and reveling in him being all wriggly in her arms.

“Do you know the huge spider got me?!”

“What?” asked Lucrece in confusion.

“Yes! That snore man scared me all right, so I jumped, and rushed into the bushes, because–well, at first I thought it was some new local beast. I was napping. So.”

Lucrece stroked him comfortingly, “I’m sorry, my baby. I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t even hear the worst part! The creatures of Adenf are worse than anywhere! Spiders have no business being MY SIZE!”

“Your size?!”

Oh right, Lucrece suddenly remembered the innkeeper’s rat.

“Oh dear. Is everything here magnified then?”

The cat purred affirmatively, “Well, one good thing I learnt today, they did not gain in brain-matter, and they at least do not cast any spells, these biggies.”

The fairy must have heard the commotion and flew out from Lucrece’s hat. “Rico! Good to see you!”

They did their bump-greeting, where Rico used his forehead and Poppy used her shoulder to slam each other.

“So I was in the bush and suddenly felt I was unable to move, but when I tried to escape, this huge multi-eyed freak came at me and…”

“Luke?!” Poppy exclaimed, interrupting the cat’s narration of his adventures.

“What? Poppy, do not interrupt Rico, let him finish!” Lucrece still couldn’t bring them to respect the boundaries of each other, both being quite self-centered creatures by nature.

“No-no-no, I believe it’s urgent, check behind you, please?!”

Lucrece turned around and indeed found it was urgent.

The man, the butcher, lay on the floor, quite listless.

What happened?! She put the cat down and ran up to the man, checking his pulse. There was some pulse. It was erratic. She counted to thirty, and it was way below thirty and the interval was hickuppy.

She knew she wanted to train at home before using the local magic. She also knew one does not survive two wrongdoings within one day in a country. She was going to be jailed, or worse.

Worse was sent away and that was a certain death. She’d be apprehended right from the teleportation pad.

So she had to try.

She absolutely had to try.

Her whole family practiced medicine and rescue, healing and restoring, potions and therapy, so she knew how it was done.

Of course the magical field of Adenf was not a familiar field to draw from, but it was her own inner mana pool that was able to put it to shape, and how different could it be, after all?!

She unhooked her waterskin of altar water and the smallest booklet of basic Adenfian spells. Quickly flipping through the three healing spells quoted in it, she frustratedly found no common structure among them and threw the book away.

Self-made cast it was.

That required a lot of mana.

That required a lot of faith.

It also required a good orientation on the magical field, but she outright slipped on it, its puffiness tangling her senses. Slowly she prayed, the common prayer to get her thoughts straight. Then the desperate prayer to have the Goddess guide her. Then she began to meditate.

She drew just a bit of magical field into her grasp.

Concentrating on the man before her, she imagined channeling this energy into him, in the form of mending. Whatever ailment got him, she was meaning to restore him after it.

She was apt in rhyming, but also knew how extra meanings of the words would twist the shape of spell wrongly, so she thought. Lucrece thought about her words, thought about her lacking in terms of Adenfian language, and decided to go for a silent spell.

The thread of her draw of the magical field was spotty, quaggy. She wanted to compress it. She needed it to be straight and firm to begin to shape it. Damn, it was extra hard to shape the spell with no words! She knew how it was done, but the words would work half of it into the purpose and without them it was pure intent. Which was also tough to formulate because Lucrece had no idea what happened to the man!

Her only supposition was a heart attack.

Interrupting her first attempt here, she turned to the cat and asked him, “Did you talk to him when you first saw him?”

“Nop.”

“Guessed so.”

And she resumed.

“Oh.” The cat seemed to have caught up with the implication of her question. Yes, “oh”, do not talk to people unless you made sure they expect you to!

Otherwise your mom would have to cure a heart attack.

Lucrece took a deep breath and applied all her imagination and experience to this one. Magical field obeyed, weaving into her like a normal combed-out sheep wool. She spun the thread, as if she was coiling a python over her arm, heavy, thick and tight. Good.

His body was still struggling. She needed to mend the rip, the heart attack, she knew, did to the muscle tissue. She created an approximation of the image of the rolled-up squeeze muscle that was palpitating, its rhythm lost, and suddenly there it was: she saw it. She knew where to go. She breathed in deep again. Diving into it, she saw the lapsing bit, she saw the dead matter spreading, she saw the places that needed her attention.

Here and there, she applied, like it was a balm, in minuscule amounts, the healing touch of her spreading over the broken parts. Slowly she managed to make the blood flow in a steady beat again, and she quietly unapplied her stream of magic from the restored parts. Mom told her to disengage very softly and incrementally, so the body wouldn’t notice the gone aid, and pick up the pace on its own.

In fact, it was the first time Lucrece did it without her mom or aunt, this wordless spell casting of a healing spell. Wordless pushback, wordless fireball, she could do whenever, she guessed. But the healing was too much of a responsibility to dive in wordless.

Nevertheless, she saw the man take a startled breath the moment he opened his eyes. She smiled as benevolently as she could muster up and took Rico under her arm, with the other hand showing the man a collar on Rico’s neck.

“Talking collar,” she mimed talking with her hand, and the man seemed to get it. “Magic,” she added.

“Magic,” the man echoed. Good thing that the word “magic” was more or less universal across both Erthions.

Published 05 Jun 2026