Elder Junpei had handled most of my spellform training back home and was a firm believer in repetition. There were days where I did nothing but the same seven motions over and over again for the two bells of lessons. He insisted that the repetition made it so that our spell casting was automatic, but it also aided in developing other vital skills for a mage. Such as patience, focus, and dedication. Repetition, he often said, was the mother of learning.

  I was reminded of Elder Junpei a lot in the weeks that followed.

  Lord Winthrop acquired some supplies for us and let us set up training grounds in one of his gardens. Bundles of wood and bales of hay provided targets, barriers, and structures for us to work around. We spent most of our days out there getting me ready for the fights that we all knew would inevitably come.

  My morning was spent practicing with the equipment I had acquired. I practiced loading and firing a crossbow to the point where I could fire a bolt every twelve count and hit a target at fifteen paces eight out of ten shots. Faith taught me how to use my walking stick using circular spins and rotations to compensate for my rather weak physique. I even learned the basics of fighting with a kaiken, which was largely informed by Cecilia’s own knife practice. It was always rather firmly and definitively accompanied with instructions that my knife should be a last resort, but and given the fact I managed cut myself twice on the first day of training alone I agreed.

  Once the sun was high and it became painfully hot, we’d retreat into the shade of the mansion, eat, and take a nap. It felt wasteful, but this wasn’t the Wood. Cecilia and Lord Winthrop had both been rather firm about the risks of heat and after feeling how hot evening the morning could be I wasn’t willing to risk the heat because of a small desire. Plus, given how exhausting the morning could be, the nap was a welcome reprieve and reset before the second set of exercises.

  Once the hottest part of the day passed, we spent the late afternoon practicing spells and spell tactics, which mostly consisted of either Faith or Cecilia trying to protect me from the other while I tried to complete a spell. Then the sun would set, we’d go eat dinner and I’d bathe before promptly falling asleep. In the morning, my clothes would be freshly laundered by the servants so I could go outside and repeat the entire regiment.

  And then we’d repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

  And once my leather armor was finished, we started over again, until I was as good in my armor as I was out of it.

  It wasn’t particularly glamorous and it was entirely exhausting, but given that the option was sitting around and waiting for Ignas and Kilik to return, I was appreciative for having something to do. And much like Elder Junpei had insisted all those moons ago, repetition led to results.

  That’s not to say that I was a martial master, and I probably never would be. I could only be on the defense when Cecilia and Faith attacked and even then only for so long before they were able to get through my guard. But given that my goal wasn’t to defeat them, but last long enough that someone could either come help me or I could get a spell off, I felt it was good enough.

  Spellcasting saw lesser, but still significant, gains. I was able to generate eight sets of empowered foxfire and four colored light bursts before I needed to stop and rest. Impressive, but not as much as the fact that I could now do minor invocations, such as light generation even afterwards. It ached and burned as I scrapped what little magic I had together, but I could do it. For all of my life, such simple effects were the upper limits of what I could do, that anyone I knew could do. Not such a minor effect that it could be done when drained. It cast a lot of what I knew about magic and its methodology into question, which in turn made me question how exactly magic worked. For me, and others.

  In fact Faith and I were discussing that very topic one evening when Ignas and Kilik came in. It was just the three Starborn that evening. Lord Winthrop and his daughters had eaten with us at first, but after a few days of awkward conversations and magical theory, that had stopped. Which made me grateful because I probably wouldn’t be arguing like this in front of them. Too impolite and improper.

  “I’m not saying it’s a lot, but the energy for those effects have to come from somewhere,” I said pointing at a floating light. “And given that any attempts to produce the brighter flashes of light have just failed, it suggests one of two possible solutions. Either I’m drawing energy from the environment and incorporating it at a rate fast enough to power the effect, my natural regeneration of magic is fast enough to provide the energy the spell needs, or some combination of the two.”

  Faith openly scoffed, “The amount of light generated would easily exceed either source. It would seem far more likely that the spell is drawing power from the environment directly to continually power its flow of magic.”

  I shook my head, “The aura signatures don’t match that. And I find it incredibly unlikely that if drawing energy from your surroundings for an active spell was possible, it would be used on a larger scale. Further...”

  “No, no magic talk,” Ignas groaned. It cost me my thought and drew attention to them.

  It was the first time I had seen both of them together since before we had gone shopping. They had come in one at a time several times over the three weeks we had been training for. Occasionally to report, but mostly to sleep and eat while the other continued watching the warehouse. We took what little time we had with them to let them know about my heritage and incorporate them into a bit of training. But the fact that both of them were here meant something had changed.

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  Kilik laughed, “But it was just reaching a good point!”

  Ignas groaned again and pulled a glass over to him and filled it with a flask from his bag. I had never seen such a brown liquid that smelled as pungent as this did. Undeterred, he poured enough to fill the bottom of the slowly sipped at it.

  “Feh,” Ignas snorted dismissively.

  I internally sighed and pushed my pleasant face to the front. “I take it you have something of interest.”

  Ignas nodded, “Every seven days a cart comes in. The next day, heavily burdened, the cart leaves. Same people on the cart each time.”

  I fought to keep my face neutral and looked to Kilik to explain why this was odd. Given Faith’s confused expression, I took it that I wasn’t the only one.

  “They,” Kilik supplied between bites of food. I hadn’t seen them get a plate and given that Ignas didn’t have any food, it seemed unlikely that the servants brought it. I didn’t know where Kilik had acquired the food from, but my curiosity could wait for now. “Are the only group that comes on a regular schedule, when they come they’re the only group in the warehouse, and the fact the shipments are seven days apart speaks of some arcane significance.”

  That was the part that really sold me on the entire endeavor. I had already set aside most of the derision and bias against significant numbers that I had learned after seeing them in action. There was strong evidence that ‘five’ was significant to the gods, why couldn’t seven be useful in arcane magics? Already I could think of several possible expressions of that number.

  There were seven pooling points for magic in the body, seven races of morphkin, seven sided shapes were the best for pooling kolim.

  “Seven noble kitsune bloodlines.”

  I blinked, taken slightly aback. I hadn’t known that. Or at least, I didn’t remember knowing that.

  She continued unfazed, “Seven impossibilities of magic. Sarvetti’s scalar is seven fold. Seven classical elements.”

  “That last one is only according to the elementalists. Yuxa elementalists specifically. Hened the Tireless suggested that water was actually at least three elements, bringing the total to nine.”

  She sighed, “Well, but that’s because they’re a merfolk and live in water. But your point stands, the classical elements might be classified as such because they conform to the number and not the other way around. However, the rest of my points are still notable evidence even if we discount the classical elements.”

  I nodded and blinked again, noticing that the conversation had continued while I was talking to Rin.

  “So, we follow the cart then?” Cecilia was asking.

  The servants were returning with plates of food for Kilik and Ignas. There was some confusion and awkward fumbling once they noticed that Kilik already had a plate, but Ignas solved that by taking both plates for himself.

  Kilik confirmed with a nod, “Wherever it’s going is likely to be less defended than the warehouse. And even if it isn’t, we’ll be out of the city and thus won’t have to worry about the City Guard.”

  “Or the Elves,” Ignas added.

  “Present company excluded,” Kilik was quick to amend.

  Cecilia waved the apology off. “I know he means Runnan Elves. It’s annoying, but I’ve gotten used to it by now.”

  Ignas grunted in approval as he continued to shovel food into his mouth.

  “So, how do we do this? I haven’t been practicing stealth these past weeks,” I asked, moving the conversation back on topic.

  “Right,” Kilik said, pulling a parchment out of his bag and spreading it over the table. It was a map showing Freeport and the island it was on, from the city sprawl to noble estates on the northern side of town to the countryside farms, and the mountains to the north. It didn’t have enough detail to show the streets or undercity of Freeport, but it had most of the surface districts labeled. He pointed to the east, along the coast.

  “The wagon is leaving the city heading this way. There’s numerous villages it could going to or turning off from. Ignas and I will follow the cart directly. You’ll travel a day behind stopping at these villages,” he said pointing at the map, “Where either Ignas or I will either meet you or leave word at the inn. Once we know where they’re going, we’ll group up and go after the base itself.”

  I took a closer look at the map, “You said it was the same people each time?”

  Kilik nodded, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Yes?”

  “Then they can’t be going more than three days away,” I said tracing around the map, “And in fact it’s probably less. They need to unload the cart and return for the round trip, which cuts their traveling distance in half.”

  “Ah,” Kilik said, catching on, “And if they’re making this frequent trips, it’s likely that wherever they’re going is closer.”

  “Makes logistical sense,” Cecilia added, “Fort Cantor was about a week’s journey away. We’d always send supplies for at least a month, normally two. A resupply of a week suggests a much closer distance.” She paused, “Not sure how the scaling works there.”

  I blinked quickly doing the math, “Two months of supplies for a week’s journey would be analogous to a week’s supplies for a quarter day journey.” I paused, looking up, “depending on the calendar.”

  Ignas scoffed, “Could just be part of chain. Wagon hands off, so no one person has to travel that far.”

  We all exchanged glances at that. He wasn’t wrong.

  “Well,” Kilik slowly said, “either way, the plan I outlined earlier works. We’ll leave in the morning, you three the day after.”

  We exchanged nods at that. It would seem that my training reprieve had ended.