Nicholas spends most of the morning in his room (not his room – the guest bedroom of this mundane house) planning out another attack. He did overhear a couple walking past speaking in Norwegian, or Danish…or Swedish so Nicholas has theoretically narrowed his location down quite a bit.

Lambros is out getting them more food (and wow Stavros cooks now) but Nicholas gets himself hyped up in the meantime. An hour later Nicholas rushes downstairs at the sound of the door opening, ready to give Lambros a piece of his mind.

Haochen Xia steps through the front door, and he should look ridiculous in his full regalia of layered robes in contrast to the plaid curtains, frumpy couches and the fake plants dotted around the room. Maybe if he looked out of place, Nicholas’ fight or flight reflex wouldn’t abruptly kick into high gear and make his stomach drop out.

No, Haochen drowns out everything around him, making it all fade because why would you stop to take in the view when a full-grown predator is staring you down. It makes Nicholas scared the way it never had with Lambros who wears his friend’s face.

Lambros had spoken of Haochen like a messy and chaotic storm that tore itself apart just as often as it spread the destruction outwards, but Nicholas knows -can feel the magic lingering in the air- this is perfectly controlled precision and all the more dangerous for it.

The high mage walks further in at a calm stroll, with a swish of his pale blue and traditionally eastern outer robes, embroidered in brilliant white thread, wide sleeves and slits up the sides for ease of movement. He’s an incredibly handsome if cold looking man, tall with deep dark eyes and pitch-black, perfectly straight hair flowing down to his waist and the thick belt with crane motifs that sits there.

Not only is Haochen an untouchable high mage, but he’s also the one who kills Nicholas, so this is not going to go very well.

Nicholas stutters, stumbling back and knocking into a short bookshelf. "Sorry, I think you got the wrong house."

Haochen Xia looks down at him with emotionless eyes – he seems bored if anything, like he always does when some brave reporter snaps a picture of him at some political event or another.

Did Lambros accidentally give himself away? Was Lambros caught and interrogated? Is Haochen here to 'take care' of Nicholas before he can even start to defy the man?

A woman in dark blue outer robes of the same style but with tight sleeves and an embroidered set of wings along the right leg -clearly a Crane Sect disciple- steps inside after the high mage and Haochen turns to look at her. In that split second of inattention, Nicholas grabs a thick book off the shelf and hurls it as a distraction, ready to run for the back door now that the wards seem to have come down.

The book slows mid-air and disintegrates. No spell, nothing, Haochen isn't even holding a focus to channel his energy, he isn't even looking at Nicholas.

Nicholas swallows thickly.

"Sect Leader," the woman says with a bow of her head, notably in English. "The kidnapper isn't in the vicinity. No recent teleportation trails to follow either."

"Set up a watch around the area," Haochen orders and looks at Nicholas.

"I was going to offer you the book and my hand slipped," Nicholas blurts out, pushing up his glasses nervously.

Haochen raises an eyebrow. "Your parents are very worried about you," he says, completely ignoring Nicholas' idiocy. "I offered to help find you as I am not one to stand idly by while a strong magical family is ruined."

"Gee thanks," Nicholas mutters. "Can I get that in writing?"

Somewhere in the back of his head, Nicholas imagines a voice that sounds oddly like Stavros-blended-Lambros, yelling in panic; don't backchat a high mage you stupid little sheep!

Haochen smiles. It's not a nice expression. "Come, boy, I'll take you somewhere safe."

'Somewhere safe' turns out to be the high mage's mansion.

Here’s the thing; Haochen Xia is straight up evil, but most high mages are morally ambiguous at best. In fact, high mages are so powerful, if you piss one off then that’s it, that’s a country gone.

The International Confederacy of Magical Kind is run by a council of high mages -of which there are only twelve- and that keeps the entire magical society obedient because that’s a very big threat. But the high mages are even more of a threat to each other, which helps keep them all in line.

Very few high mages are actually seen though, many being immortal monsters who just want to further their private research because you don’t get that strong without immense intelligence, regardless of your talent. Everyone is fine to leave them be, wherever they’ve holed up, just keep them happy. There are maybe three high mages that bother to show up to monthly council meetings.

Haochen is a whole other complication because even among the high mages, he’s the only one who uses Dark magic, a perversion of the natural order. He would have been killed if he was anything less than a high mage.

He got too strong too fast, and -worst of all- he’s still ambitious even this high up the ladder. Being a high mage and leading his Crane Sect is not enough, he can do more and have more power. It makes him very dangerous.

Lambros said Haochen goes insane practising Dark magic -not unheard of which is why Nicholas and his friends take precautions when they dabble- and starts a war. The high mage personally strikes down Nicholas, and his baby Luca grows up to lead the fight against Haochen with much, much trouble.

Hopefully, Haochen doesn’t know any of that.

Nicholas is trapped in a new place now, much bigger and still unable to leave - but honestly, he's too scared to try anything either. He can't annoy the high mage into getting rid of him like with Lambros. And wow, look at that, Lambros seems like a much nicer kidnapper right now. The bastard still has Nicholas' apprentice wand though.

Nicholas waits warily in the bedroom he was deposited into but he's not that kind of person and soon goes wandering around – tries to leave the large grassy acre around the manor and bounces straight off the invisible wards just before the tree line.

He hides in amongst the trees and waits for an opportunity to shift into Rito since most wards don't stop animals. He’s paranoid when he does it, head constantly on a swivel for anyone looking, because it’s actually very Dark magic for him to use a NatCom spell as an InCore. It’s his fault for underestimating a high mage though because he hesitantly taps a hoof against the ward and it’s solid with no give.

He wanders around the massive building the first two days, trying to find secrets as he would with the floating citadel, trying to pretend like he's getting out of here alive. The entire place looks like Haochen opened an interior decorating magazine, pointed at a double-page spread and said; yes, that looks European enough. It’s steeped in the high mage’s magic and personalised wards but there’s no heart to it. It looks like he’s just trying to blend in.

Nicholas finds three secret passages, two hidden rooms and seventeen giant cranes walking around like it’s not incredible that they can even fit in the corridors. None try to eat him, and they all look particularly lazy as they stalk around on long knobbly legs and fluffing drooping plumage occasionally but Nicholas is being cautious because he's heard things.

On the third day -still no Haochen in sight thank the gods- he hears muffled, frantic chirping as he walks out of the kitchen with a sandwich in hand, and rescues a tiny white chick from where it fell into a decorative flowerpot with dried snapdragon flowers.

It stays with him the rest of the day, and sure, maybe the high mage is using it to spy on Nicholas but Nicholas just kind of needs someone right now.

Having the bird in his shirt pocket feels a lot like sneaking through secret hallways with Adam in raccoon form stuffed into his jumper and peeking out over Nicholas' collar.

Older Stavros ducks back around the corner and drops the grocery bags because he just fucking lost baby Nicholas!

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. Stavros' jaw clenches and he takes another glance. Haochen’s disciples in dark blue outer robes are behind a mundane mirror ward and too self-assured to take further precautions so they're right there in the open when any mage can see them, trailing through the house.

He takes out Nicholas' wand (because he’s still working on getting himself a magic focus; will probably steal an ancestor’s focus when he gets the chance to break into his family’s manor) and does a quick tracking spell.

The grey lines form a loose compass ring around his shoulders but the arrow whirls around without stopping, unable to find the target. It wouldn't do that if Nicholas was still in the house, not with Stavros’ spellwork ripped down. If Nicholas was back in Ayad Manor or in the citadel the spell would have also worked because those wards don’t stop tracking.

Stavros can't even use the safety trackers on Nicholas because he disabled them himself.

Nicholas has been kidnapped by the high mage and Stavros will kill everyone if Nicholas dies again. The only reason he hasn't already started slaughtering his way through Haochen’s ranks already is because Nicholas needs protection and the other baby teenagers can't keep him safe yet.

Stavros takes a deep breath, lets it out.

Teenage Stavros is sitting on Nicholas' bed, staring at the anonymous letter in silence as Rafael paces in a tight, worried circle between the dorm room beds.

"What the fuck does it mean 'kidnapped by High Mage Xia'?” Stavros complains. “Why – what – Nicholas isn't nearly fucking interesting enough for this shit to be happening to him! Why is this written in my handwriting? What – Rafael, what the fuck?"

Rafael’s groan sounds a lot like a growl.

"Oh hi, Thoth," Stavros says, too loud and manic. "Nice to see you again. Apparently, we’re not doing the bride-tracking spell. Oh, and Nicholas is still lost if you were fucking wondering where we're up to on that."

Older Hearth’s fur has been spelled black to blend in and the fox sits at the edge of the high mage’s wards behind the tree line, eyes locked onto the short glimpses of baby Nicholas he gets through the windows while trying to dodge the massive centaur-sized cranes pacing around the grass like sentinels.

It’s Haochen’s European manor at least so Hearth doesn’t need to get himself all the way over to the sect in north China without using a trackable Transverse gate.

A carrier pigeon coos above and circles once, a letter on its leg. Hearth quickly scrambles away and doesn't stop until he's deep into the trees to shift back and read the letter that the pigeon lands to give him – dissolving the tracking charm and the jinx first because Rafael is smart and his younger self is spiteful.

Stavros skips past all the threats and the angry questions about his identity. "What the fuck does it mean 'the Ayads know'? Know what? Did they have a part in it or did they just find out later? Why am I so shitty at writing detailed letters?!"