Did you know that light is the easiest thing to manipulate with magic? My teacher often told me that it was because the movement of light is the most similar to the flow of magic. For that same reason, water is the easiest dense substance to manipulate. That’s why it barely takes any energy at all to produce light with magic, and why light spells are the first taught to new apprentices. It can be said that skillful light manipulation is the foundation of skillful spell casting.

How is that relevant to setting a building on fire? Well, because it isn’t on fire.

Yep, you heard me right. This room is not on fire. It just looks like it is because I’m putting my Magic and Spellcasting I class to use. Remember kids, never skimp on the basics, you never know when you might have to pretend to burn down an auction house. And they said I was a bad influence, but here I am advising the youths.

Anyway, the fire is the easy part. To really sell a trick like this you’ve got to add some heat and smoke to it too. Heat, as a common by product of light, isn’t hard to come by; the trouble there is to keep it hot while also keeping it from becoming a real fire. After all, I can’t afford to replace any of this if they chase me down for compensation. The smoke is another layer of light illusion with some scent help from a very sooty candle I found. The overall effect wasn’t perfect, but so long as it caused whoever saw it to panic it should be enough. All I had to do was hide and add fuel to my light show until someone noticed. I left the door cracked when I came in for that very purpose.

Sure enough, the fake billowing smoke attracted attention within a couple minutes.

The woman that peaked into the room screamed, yelling “Fire! Fire!” and ran away. With any luck a stampede would begin amongst the patrons. The first employer to arrive was an older burly man with dark brown hair and eyes. He was soon joined by others dressed in the same black-and-white suit uniform as him, attempting to control the fire.

Now, a ritzy place like this surely has fire prevention measures in place; they deal in rather expensive goods after all. However, magic fire is fueled by magic and not oxygen, thus it can’t be extinguished with the usual means. If this were real fire, that is. I let them believe their little magic suppression orb was having an effect, only a minor one though. Enough to clear a path to the hidden door.

Once they opened the door, I let the fire appear to rage out of control again. The sudden fluctuation startled the other people enough that I could slip through the secret passage unnoticed into the vault room. This way, there won’t be any record of an outsider opening the door.

Could I have just broken in with magic and made it look like I wasn’t there? Yes, but trust me when I say this is much less of a hassle than the energy attunement and artificial resonance that a subtler entry would have required. I can’t be bothered to sit here for an hour trying to make my magic frequency feel exactly like whichever Magis had done the original spell-work. No thank you. If you don’t have to, then don’t; that’s my motto.

Now, finding the fairy-stone I’m looking for in this cluttered room might be the hard part. Or not, depends on if it’s organized or not. The vault itself looks like any other room, except there are no windows for obvious reasons. The anti-magic wards in this room are almost excessively strong. I can feel as the oppressive weight of it forces every stray strand of my energy beneath my skin.

The lack of magic in the air is discomforting; to me it feels like suddenly losing the ability to see, but to my wisp it must feel like death. I can feel her tiny hands tangling in the loose hair at the back of my neck; in a place like this the only way she can reassure herself that I’m still alive is by making physical contact with me.

“Sorry friend, I’ll be quick” I mumble to her.

If it didn’t feel so awful to be in here, I’d stay to look around at the objects longer. There were several pieces of elven-carved furniture, beautiful, but irrelevant to me. The shelves housed a variety of magical tools and artifacts, many of which would be useless to the people that frequent this establishment, but you know how people with too much money on their hands are. Still, none of those things were my quarry. A table laden with sets of mundane jewelry seemed promising, but running my fingers over them didn’t reveal any fairy-stones in the mix.

I moved on to another corner that appeared to have more fae curios like what had been sold in that ally store. The most interesting item was a naiad-mirror; I was tempted to take the truth-divining glass for myself, but it was rare enough that I’d definitely be hunted for it. At least pulse-stones are illegal, so they can’t report it stolen and get any major official authorities involved. And as long as they couldn’t do that, they’d give up eventually. Unless they held a grudge. Oh well.

Then I spot a plain wooden box. That has to be it, it’s always the last place you look. It’s about the size of an open book, wide and somewhat flat with a sliding lid. I pick it up and open it—

…This… What is this?

The box is full. Not just one or two stones aesthetically placed on velvet like I’d expected, but stuffed to capacity. I could barely stop the shaking of my hands as I reach one slowly into the box. A chill sloshes around inside me, raising a cold sweat on my skin. I can’t bring myself to blink or breathe.

All of them. Every. Last. One. Every last one is a pulse-stone.

There must be a dozen here; a dozen fairy-burrows on the brink of collapse. A dozen little queens starving out there somewhere.

And yet, none of them were the one I’ve been looking for.

I close the lid back over the box as my heart freezes over.

Someone will answer for this.

‘Dear Magis Velden,

I ‘found’ these at the Edelweiss auction house on Fifth-Sixth street in Golden Port. I know you’ll manage to return them to their rightful owners somehow. Don’t worry about the rest, I’ll ‘investigate’ the people behind this.

Your most beloved former apprentice~

P.S. Thanks for the birthday presents

P.P.S. Tell Rona I said hi ’

Now, I could return to the auction house and shake down the people in charge there, but I feel like it’ll probably be faster if I just go straight to the head of the Gruid family.

After such a poor night’s rest, I can’t say I’m in the mood to jump through any hoops when I can go directly to the top. If I’m lucky, they also didn’t know and will handle things internally. If I’m not lucky, I might be adding significant charges to my criminal record. We’ll see, that’s half the fun of living.

I can’t spend too much time on this detour, since I’ve yet to find the right fairy-stone and that particular quest is on a time-limit. However, in a city where the biggest actors let their movements be an open secret, it wouldn’t take long to shake a crime lord or two down for information.

My little partner responded to the force of my will, tugging softly on my hair to direct me where I most wanted to go.

Soon enough we arrived at the base of a skyscraper. There was probably some sort of penthouse at the top.

Very well, I can make a special delivery.

Up one fancy magic platform later and we were just outside the doors. The over-large gold-plated metal double-doors had the telltale crane imagery etched into them: both with their wings spread in flight. I grabbed them by their pull rings and opened them without knocking, flinging them out into the walls that framed them. They rang like gongs.

It wasn’t many steps from the entry to the main banquet hall where the most people seemed to be gathered. I didn’t wait for anyone to welcome me before inviting myself up to the head table. The room was arranged so that the long rectangular tables formed a giant U-shape. It looked like they were having a family meal of some sort, how nice.

I only stop when I’m directly in front of the person sitting in what should be the leader’s seat.

The guards that had previously been stunned finally step forward, raising magic-imbued weapons to defend their boss. I throw up a barrier, caging the surprisingly young man and myself in. I’m not in the mood to swat flies.

The man leans back, gold eyes calm and assessing. If anything, he seems amused, a smirk twitching at the edge of his mouth.

I toss a photo I’d taken of the stones on the table before him.

“Explain.” I demand, my eyes boring into his.