“I am layering anti-divination spells on you,” Sh’kteiro said, concern clear in his voice.

  Caen still felt disconcerted. The broader the parameters of an anti-divination spell, the less effective it was. The Seventh Guile had said that he could not sense the mark right now, and Caen didn’t even know what caused the mark to become apparent in the first place.

  His mind was spinning with all the revelations he’d just heard. “Months ago, how often did you notice this mark in me?”

  “Several times while I hid in your shadow.”

  Caen pressed for details, but the shadeling couldn’t quite remember what Caen had been doing at any of those times.

  “Should we take Caen to a mirror-room?” Sh’leinu asked her older brother with open apprehension.

  “Its isolatory properties might help,” Sh’kteiro replied. “But I don’t know if that would be enough. We have no clue what this spike of essence even is.”

  “I can solve this problem for you,” The Seventh Guile said to Caen, two large tails swaying in the air behind the shadeling. “It is not too difficult to mask the traces of my originator’s essence.”

  Caen watched the creature silently. One of the contracts between them prevented lies. He could feel desperation and fear from the creature’s soul.

  “If I had sworn myself to your service, this ‘masking’ is how you would have hidden me from the senses of your kin?” Caen asked.

  “Yes. I would have protected you from them.”

  “You can hardly even protect yourself,” Caen replied.

  “What I meant to say is that you stood to benefit greatly from my goals.”

  “By your own admission, you intended to exploit me.”

  “That was before you turned my pursuers to allies!” the shadeling hurried to say. “Now I see an opportunity for us to work together.”

  Caen translated the shadeling’s words to Thermish.

  “Should we really be trusting this creature?” Zeris asked, folding her arms.

  Orissa nodded emphatically. “He said he wanted to eat you, Caen.”

  Hshnol spoke up from where he sat beside Uncle Vai’s stone coffin. “The Seventh Guile That Twists Itself has proven himself unreliable. But we have sworn him to oaths and can swear him to more. If he tries to subvert any of those agreements, I will be able to tell, as should Ar’Caen, I believe.”

  Caen was, in fact, aware of all his ongoing contracts with The Seventh Guile. Even without casting spells, he could feel the weight of impositions and entitlement in his soul. But the real source of his confidence was Hshnol’s own expertise.

  Caen weighed the positives and negatives. However, a more important question was on his mind.

  “You claim to be able to mask your originator’s essence in me,” Caen said to the shadeling. “Do you suspect or know of any adverse effects that I might suffer?”

  “There are none,” The Seventh Guile said. “I was masking my originator’s mark in you earlier. Your shadow concealed me adequately from my pursuers, but it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d drawn the attention of Subterfuge Of The Third Slant That Contorts Itself This Way And That.”

  “Wait,” Caen said, “if they could not track you while you were in my shadow, then how did the summons and shadelings know to attack me?”

  “Because of Subterfuge Of The Third Slant That Contorts Itself This Way And That. She tricked my tail into thinking that she would let it go. The tail tried to return to me, and she immediately deduced that I was hiding in your shadow. She and the summoners would never have been able to locate me otherwise.”

  Caen frowned in thought. Being helped by the shadeling seemed like a viable solution. But The Seventh Guile certainly wanted something in return. The apprehension in the shadeling’s soul was palpable. He earnestly hoped that Caen would be convinced by his reasoning.

  “It is a good arrangement,” the shadeling pressed. “I can help you, and you can help me.”

  “What exactly is it that you need help with?” Caen asked.

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  “Growth,” the shadeling replied. “To ensure my safety, I need more tails. But I have always been better at hiding than I am at hunting. And this puts me at a disadvantage.”

  “If he can hide you from other shadelings, then maybe this is worth considering,” Zeris said, arms still folded.

  “Are you serious?” Orissa asked. “The same shadeling that would have eaten him eventually?”

  “He even tried to force you into a terribly unfair contract,” Elemna, their grandmother, added. “There’s hardly anything to consider here, in my opinion.”

  “I’m not sure…” Sh’kteiro hemmed. “The Seventh Guile is clearly adept at masking himself. And a well-constructed magical agreement should resolve any ill intentions towards Caen.” He turned to the other Percipient in the room.

  Hshnol nodded once. “It will.”

  “Contract sounds reasonable to me, then,” Vensha said, shrugging.

  Sh’leinu, his mother, appeared distressed. Ergen was rubbing her shoulder, though he seemed just as bothered by all this.

  “This Seventh Guile,” Sh’leinu said, “I assume he would have to follow Caen everywhere… indefinitely. Is that even safe?”

  “Especially now that you’re going to the Citadel, son,” Ergen added, looking at Caen. “Won’t the archmages there be able to notice his presence?”

  “In the Citadel,” Zeris said, “there are magical creatures of all sorts, even Planar ones. If the Citadel’s archmages sensed a shadeling in Caen’s shadow, I don’t think they’d find it peculiar.”

  “But what about your studies?” Grena asked Caen. “I can’t imagine you’d have any time to help the shadeling if you’re so busy.”

  Niodt, Caen’s grandfather, let out a heavy sigh. “I struggle with life-ending worry for the boy’s well-being, too, but we’re forgetting something. He has raised ten out of twenty affinities out of abjection in just six months. Ancestors, he even won the Patronage trials. He’s not our little delicate flower anymore.”

  There were reluctant expressions of assent from his family members, though Zeris snorted softly.

  Niodt continued. “If a contract can truly prevent the shadeling from harming Caen, then that makes this a realistic choice.”

  Caen took their objections into consideration, mulling over his options, even as The Seventh Guile sat quietly.

  “Before I make any decisions,” Caen said to the hearing of all but the shadeling, “we should try out a few things first. I need to know what causes the mark to be noticeable. If it's something I’m actively doing, then perhaps I can stop it.”

  “The mirror-room in the temple would be the best place to experiment,” Sh’kteiro said. “But a ritual is taking place there and will continue for the rest of tomorrow, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “So we'll head to Beslin,” Caen said, nodding.

  Hshnol looked to Vensha. “I will trust Master Vai in your care once more.”

  “Of course,” Vensha said. “I’ll bring him back with us. We’ll join you at home in the morning.”

  Transporting everyone home at this hour would be very difficult, and they still had Gruff and Sharp to worry about.

  Caen rushed into one of the adjoining rooms and quickly found himself a pair of clothes, as he’d completely incinerated his clothes by setting himself on fire when fighting the summons.

  When Caen returned, he told The Seventh Guile what they intended to do, and he slipped back into Caen’s shadow.

  ***

  Hshnol and Sh’kteiro ran all the way, while Caen flew. This was all thanks to Chasma, of course.

  He’d paired Chasma’s spirit receptor with Body-enhancement and reshaped the fragment into a floating disk.

  The trip took them nearly forty minutes. Neither Percipient was winded from the run.

  There were a few armed people roaming the Beslin settlement. Some elders in the commune, like Vai, had hired nightguards to keep Beslin safe, but those who lived here often took turns patrolling and keeping watch.

  They entered the house, took off their shoes, and climbed the stairs. Sh’kteiro led the way to the pivot door at the end of the corridor.

  One seamless stretch of speculous glass covered every surface within the mirror room. As soon as Sh’kteiro closed the door behind them, Caen could see in every direction. Infinite reflections stretched out on all sides in a dizzying array.

  He asked The Seventh Guile to come out.

  “What is this place?” the shadeling asked once he had slipped out of Caen's shadow.

  “It is called a mirror-room,” Caen said. “If you sense those spikes of your originator’s essence, I need you to alert me immediately.”

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “I am trying to pinpoint what actions are responsible for the trigger,” he said, already sinking into his spirit.

  They sat in silence as he scanned his spirit, searching for his fourth bloodline. Before he’d even located it, Guile spoke up.

  “I just sensed the mark. It flared slightly in my awareness for an instant, and now it is fading fast.”

  This was even with Sh’kteiro’s anti-divination workings in place.

  Caen persisted in his scan for a while longer till he located the fourth bloodline.

  “I sensed the mark again,” the shadeling said. “It flared more significantly than before and is fading, but much more slowly.”

  “Scanning for my fourth bloodline triggers the mark,” Caen said in Thermish. But he hadn’t been doing that while fighting the summons or waiting in the barn.

  That meant that something about Soul-sense could trigger this mark as well. Caen needed to find out what exactly that something was.

  “We might be here for a long while,” he said to the Percipients.

  “I imagined so,” Sh’kteiro replied.

  “I will be in the Astral in the meantime,” Hshnol said.