Author's note:: quick edit, I forgot the first 4 paragraphs when i initially posted this chapter. I just added them back.

Jace spent the rest of the afternoon buried in paper scrolls in the depository. It was stunning how much he learned in such a short period of time. He ended up losing all track of time and realized the sun had gone down by the time he pulled himself away from them. Instead of heading back to the keep, he spent another couple of hours trying different magic circles out and studying the effects. He felt like he had found a spark of inspiration and decided to skip returning to the tower for now.

By the light of his finger he studied straight through the night, and deep into the next day. With the sun setting on the 2nd day in the tower, he put away all the scrolls he had been studying and drew a magic circle on the floor using a piece of chalk like stone he found outside. He stepped into the circle after finishing it and fed a little power into the structure. This one was designed to burn up after being used, he could see the circle ignite, and in a flash he was standing on the bottom step of the staircase to his room in the keep.

He let out a little laugh and jogged up the stairs, he felt exhausted but exhilarated, for some reason magic circles just made sense to him. He had actually successfully calculated a teleportation circle to an exact spot. Apparently that was not easy to do, but it seemed so simple when he was doing it. When he considered all he could do with one, he felt a little giddy. If his life had been miserable back on earth he’d probably want to stay here just for all the crazy things he wanted to try with those circles. The way they allowed tremendous feats with almost no power output was their strongest feature. Their ability to allow blending of glyphs to create specific effects was even more interesting.

He sprung up the stairs and passed by the girls milling about on their floor. He didn’t even look at them, he wanted to eat something and go to bed. He opened the door to the room and stopped as Sam barreled into him with tears in her eyes, she hugged him and sobbed into his chest.

Jace felt a bit stunned at this welcome, then a bit guilty. He was so wrapped up in those scrolls he never thought to send word.

Verna was fairly upset at that young man, so she chose not to speak while Sa'manatha cried clasping to Jace’s shirt. He had slipped out the prior morning and simply vanished into thin air. The last anyone saw of him was a large group of witches who showed up not long after he left, they saw him at the entrance to the keep, heading west.

She wasn’t worried initially. The boy was important but to this point had been fairly predictable. He didn’t wander far from Sa'manatha, nor did he seek out trouble that she had seen. Humans were very hard on those who murdered their own, so she figured no matter how irritated the other men might have been with him he was probably fairly safe.

It wasn’t until sundown yesterday that she started to look for him. She had spent most of that day with Sa'manatha, helping her dye her hair, and find a matching piece of jewelry for her new look. She even helped the beautiful girl put together a romantic little dinner for two, and was going to make herself scarce so she could have some time with Jace and tell him about the baby. What she didn’t expect was Jace not showing up that night.

Sa'manatha grew more and more frantic as the night got darker and darker, so Verna gathered up the child and went out looking for him. They split up, Sa'manatha going to talk to the slaves while she went to question whomever she could find. In reality she expected to find him pretty quickly. She was not poor with magic like these humans who called themselves Wizards here. What she didn’t expect was tracking spells did not work inside this keep. It was stunning. She knew that as early as yesterday they worked fine. Which meant someone had laid a magic circle that prevented scrying locations which covered most if not all of this island.

She ended up trying every single tracking spell she could think of. She even tried a number of magic circles. It was inconceivable that a human Wizard, even a Grand Wizard could lay a circle which could blind her. She was starting to get frantic, wondering if perhaps someone extremely dangerous had showed up while she was playing house with Sa'manatha. In the end the best she could do was attempt to commune with Ssaras, only for Ssaras to ignore the communal. It wasn’t often Ssaras would ignore a communal, but when she did it was either because the question was frivolous, or she felt it important not to answer. Since the last augury, she was sure Ssaras would not consider issues regarding him frivolous, however that meant whatever Jace was doing was important enough not to disturb him.

An answer she was sure would not calm this foolish child's heart, nor did it calm her heart about the hidden expert who was in the neighborhood. What almost drove her to distraction was how late Sa'manatha was in returning. The girl had forgotten her caution. She had been so long wearing that white robe and around enough people who knew her all the time that she had forgotten how dangerous it was for a human girl to be wandering about at night no matter what she was wearing.

So by the time the idiot girl finally showed up Verna was nearly a nervous wreck for the girl.

‘If there is anything more precious than Jace it might be the child she is carrying.’ Verna worried. She of course she was also trying to lie to herself and tell herself that she was only worried because of the augury and the possible hidden expert and not because Sa'manatha was quickly becoming like the daughter she never had. The child was fine, but whatever had caused her good mood was shattered when she heard that Verna hadn’t been able to find him.

That night she slept with Sa'manatha, though she wasn’t sure how much sleep the girl got, she kept waking up at every small noise. So of course Verna would hug her tight and stroke her brow and sing a quiet lullaby, so that girl would be able to drift off to sleep. In all her years, Verna never imagined she would miss a night’s sleep over worry for a human.

The next day after the sun came up, she was able to track Jace down to the shore. But he did something, and the tracks vanished right at the sea shore. Of course that's assuming Jace did something to erase his tracks. She still was concerned about whomever it was who was masking scrying spells. Without being able to track him she couldn’t do anything but search the island for him. Her people can move fast when they need to, so it only took her half a day to search from one side of the island to the other. No one she spoke to had seen him. Eventually she ended up searching through half the buildings in the fort. It was only when the afternoon wore on she decided to head back, she was worried about leaving that girl alone too long alone.

Sa'manatha, it turned out had spent all day among the witches and females who sought shelter in the keep talking to them. Verna was so surprised she ended up listening from a doorway, to what they were talking about. Sa'manatha was talking about hygiene, children and how Jace didn’t expect them to sleep with him in exchange for shelter. Verna noticed a number of tubs of water, and a number of slaves, clean slaves helping the women and children clean up, wash clothing, and prepare food.

It was a lot of food. She didn’t know where they pilfered it from.

The women were talking to Sa'manatha as an equal, which really surprised her. In her experience humans were brutal toward slaves. Not just the males, but the women were just as harsh on them. When your whole life is being trodden upon you tended to trod upon anyone lower then you. To see free women and slaves talking like equals, was a strange moment. So strange she started to wonder if Jace knew how special this child really was. In half a day this had happened.

Eventually Sa'manatha noticed Verna and turned back into a little kid. That couldn’t be allowed. She was so irritated at the child showing that much dependence on her in front of these women she chopped her on the head when she tried to hug her. Then snagged her by the ear and dragged her back to the room for a lecture about leadership.

Of course Jace ended up interrupting that lecture. The bastard looked fine too. She was tempted to harm him for robbing her of a night’s sleep. But then changed her mind when she saw Sa'manatha sobbing into his shirt. She had a feeling the girl would make him pay far worse than any physical harm she could do to him. After all, if she stabbed him then he’d get babied by the child. That wouldn't be punishment. Letting her pleasure show at the idea of how Sa'manatha might tattoo the guilt of the past two days on his heart, she strode past him and out of the room to leave them alone.

There was someone powerful marking this island as their own and the so called wizards here didn't seem to notice it. She meant to make sure her little corner of of this place was secure.