Escaping was no problem. The boys must have been still reeling from the absurdity of what just happened. By the time they gathered together the will to give chase, Hannah and Killian were both back in the very open and public campus.

It wasn't long before we lost sight of them. I was relieved. I couldn't have imagined them giving up the chase after their leader was kicked between the legs so hard.

Where had I been in this entire thing? I had been attached to Hannah's cloak, claws dug in and praying I wouldn't fall off.

After they'd both recovered their breath and I was pried off Hannah, there was a brief silence as we stood idle in the centre of the campus.

“Are you okay?” Hannah turned her attention to Killian. The boy hadn't protested or thrown a joke our way the entire time.

“Yeah it's just uh... Could you maybe not have hit him so hard? Even I felt that.” He turned white at the thought of the nauseous pain the boy named Kyle must have gone through.

Hannah rolled her eyes. “I suppose you wanted me to tickle him instead?”

Killian straightened up and lost his smile. “Look, I get that you played the hero, but I'm not gonna thank you for making the situation worse.”

She barely flinched, as though she expected this kind of treatment to begin with. “I guess your idea of making things better is to not do anything at all?” She replied airily.

“No, that's not it. I...” Killian trailed off before shaking his head ashamed of himself. “I'm sorry, that was again, a little too forward of me. It's just everybody seems to want a piece of my ass these days so I'm bad with people.”

“Yeah. I can see that. Anyway, I don't trust you not to get into trouble so stick with me today.”

“See, always after a piece of my- Oww okay, okay sorry.” Killian retreated a few steps after Hannah kicked his shin.

“Do you have free time?” There were probably a few things Hannah wanted to ask him. This was a good opportunity to do so.

“Yeah. For an hour probably.” I wasn't sure what Killian did at this academy. I assumed he was taking some sort of apprenticeship.

“Good. follow me. We can talk about stuff along the way.”

Killian hesitated. “On the way to where? Will there be shin kicking involved because I'm not sure I want to follow.”

Hannah looked behind her and shrugged. “There'll be less shin kicking than if I left you with those four boys.”

By this point I'd come to the realisation any hope of never seeing this boy again was a fool's hope. Shame really, Hannah didn't need another friend. We had Linth after all. What did Killian bring to the table besides a cart load of personal problems?

Linth brought a lot to the table so long as I was lying on that said table with my belly exposed.

This curse really had to go. Any more of this and I was probably gonna start doing cat things like cleaning my fur with my tongue. The very thought of me doing that as if there was nothing wrong with the world sent shivers down my spine.

With Hannah at the lead, Killian and I followed.

“Do you always take your cat with you by the way?” Killian threw and uneasy glance my direction. “I mean, it adds a whole new meaning to 'that person brings bad luck'.”

He avoided the shin kick directed at him with a proud smile but Hannah followed it up with barely a moment of hesitation with a jab to his side. “Don't. Call. Adam. Bad. Luck.”

If anything, it was the other way around.

“Y-yeah...? Man you make it really easy to learn your red lines.” Killian winced with pain.

Hannah continued with a hard glare. “Look at him. Is that was bad luck looks like to you? Is that what the table leg looks like when you stub your toe? Or how about when you knock a mug off the kitchen counter, does the shards magically make the shape of a cat?”

The very concept of bad luck was ridiculous. Granted, there were always things outside of people's control. People needed some phrase or set of words to convey their sympathy for someone who was not entirely in control of their life. 'Luck' was that phrase.

But it was like fate. Was fate not just the collective subconscious will of every player in existence, with every tiny action of theirs, setting a near unavoidable path for others to walk in life?

However fate and luck were used in strange ways. It seemed almost like an excuse sometimes. To avoid a person's culpability in the results of their own stupidity, they'd claim it was luck, or it was fated to happen.

I wish I could say all that. What irked me was that Hannah was the one fighting my battle. When confronted with an obstacle she tended to go for what could be described at times as an explosive solution.

Killian recoiled at Hannah's onslaught but as they walked through the corridors he nevertheless continued. “No, but every superstition has a grain of truth. And before you punch me even harder this time, give me a chance to explain.” He caught Hannah eyeing his side and shins again but managed to buy himself precious seconds with his plea of mercy. “This has a little insight into my childhood included.”

“Is it necessary?”

“I'm kinda hoping that despite the constant threat of physical violence we can be friends. Friends who beat me up are an upgrade from what I had before. I could even call it climbing the social ladder!” What a sad and tragic thing to say. “Anyway, I'm the third son of my family. My family is strict with inheritance. There's the heir-my eldest sister-, the spare -my younger older sister-, and then there's about four other kids including me. But, mum and dad only care about the heir and spare. The rest of us are sent to branch families. We'll get a small financial settlement when mum and dad retire but in the meantime we don't get as much support. I come from the eastern marches by the way.”

The Kingdom of Tallis had a rough time defending its borders. To the North were the clans. To the east were the nomad steppes. From what I understood as the lazy apolitical cursed cat with a talent for eavesdropping I was, these marches were quasi-autonomous regions ruled by influential families in the kingdom's stead. Hannah's own homeland was the Amarinth Marches to the north.

A few clans along the northern border had grown friendly with Kingdom of Tallis. Tens of years ago it was annexed into the kingdom peacefully but not without protest. This wasn't popular with the rest of the northern clans who adventured south to reclaim Amarinth. By the time the kingdom had stopped looking for a diplomatic solution, most of their loyal subjects in the region had been displaced or killed, leaving only a disloyal and contested stretch of land to rule over.

“Oh no, a noble who has lost his silver spoon.” Hannah answered sarcastically. “You said insight, not essay. What's this got to do with Adam?”

Hannah was someone who could sympathise with both the kingdom and the clans. The kingdoms guaranteed a comfortable life and the clans didn't persecute people they believed to be witches. However it was by no means a safe place to live. Constant skirmishing between communities settled by the Kingdom and the clans made the place unstable. The free northern clans would test the borders constantly with raids and the threat of invasion. Retaliation would be swift.

It would have been a nice place if it weren't for all the fires and swords. I could tell Hannah held a little bit of a grudge against the nobles of Tallis and the Free clans for the situation.

Killian shrugged. “It's stopped you from kicking my shin so far. Now you're just throwing sarcastic comments my way. See? Already climbing the social ladder.” I had to applaud this guy, he was being very honest. “Anyway, so they had a babysitter look after me. She'd often say 'just between you and me, I am a witch and if I catch you with another stolen cookie in your mouth I will turn you into a tree'. She terrified the life out of me and thinking back on it, she probably was a witch.”

Humans didn't have ears that perked up like cats. Despite that, I could tell from little twitches here and there Killian had caught Hannah's interest. “Turn you into a tree?”

“Apparently witches can do that. They have a style of magic completely alien to ours. But they keep it secret to their covens. She... Actually showed me when nobody was around.”

“And suppose I believe you that your family would hire a witch to looks after you, what's this got to do with my cat?”

Killian lifted his lips in a sly grin. He knew he'd caught her attention and was proud of it. He dodged her request for an explanation. “Witches and black cats go hand in hand don't they? According to the Church of Tallis, magic as we know it was created by the seven and taught to humans to fight the monsters created by the arch-demon. The arch-demon obviously lost, but being the symbol of sin and evil, the church claims it's still alive. Hiding in the shadows, it's said the arch-demon with the last of its power made black cats, the familiars of witches. The black cats then taught the witches the secrets to create monsters. And the barest minimum a witch needs to weave their evil spells is a single fresh lead from and oak tree.”

Hannah remained quite for a while. Her lips were pursed shut. Despite being a self-proclaimed witch, she couldn't do that. Hell, she couldn't weave 'normal' spells.

And that was why black cats were disliked. They were seen as messengers of the arch-demon. It was a stupid and ridiculous thought. As far as I could recall, I had never once run across some ancient evil commanding me to do its bidding. And really? Cats as evil messengers? I mean they couldn't even talk! What were they supposed to do? Purr ominously at their owners?

Witches got it a lot worse. At least in the Kingdom of Tallis, everyone seemed to be of one mind about them. Suspected witches were turned over to the Order of Ice, the most respected order of spellcasters in the kingdom. Hannah's own mother and father, a witch and warlock, had to leave her in the care of her grandparents and flee Amarinth for their own lives because of this.

Her grandmother was perhaps the most fierce witch of Amarinth. Well respected and protected by the clans living there, if the Order of Ice knew about her they probably avoided her for a good reason.

And so Killian's fanciful story of how he was raised by a witch hired by his well-respected family could be nothing but that, a fanciful story.

“It's a fun story, but it's more likely you read that than were told by an actual witch.” Hannah sighed. “In fact, if you'd actually met a witch, they'd probably have told you a different story.”

Killian looked as though the wind had been taken out of his sails. “Well, yeah I can't argue with that. But if you're a witch, then it makes sense you're followed around by a messenger of the arch-demon.”

It made sense according to the church. A part of me vehemently denied that the arch-demon would bother wasting its time on such a lame project after being beaten by the seven gods. That same part of me disliked the idea of calling the seven 'gods'.

“Wow, what a wonderful casual conversation we are having.” The sarcasm in Hannah's voice evident. “So now not only is Adam bad luck, but now messenger of the one and only arch-demon?! Do you ever wonder why everyone hates you?”

Killian gave it a moment of pause before answering honestly. “Well if you ask anybody else, it's because I don't believe anybody but a noble should learn how to use magic Owww-” He spent the next several second hopping on one foot and clutching his side.

“You called my cat a symbol of all the world's evil!” Hannah snapped. Thankfully they were outside the campus. In fact, we seemed to be heading in the direction of Linth's den so we were in the more quiet area of the Triolo.

I was a little exasperated. Black cats were the symbols of bad luck because they were messengers of the greatest evil to have ever existed. How did that wild belief start? What weird substances had the priests been smoking that day?

Yeah, this could only be explained as a bad trip involving a black cat. After all, it's not like cats could talk.

Did I? No... surely I didn't. Surely I wasn't the origin of this.

“You are on very thin ice.” Hannah gestured just how thin that ice was, the distance between her thumb and her finger practically microscopic.

“You're putting up with me a lot better than I thought you would.” I agreed. “So I'm gonna guess and say you've already heard what I think about magic.”

It'd be a bit awkward for Hannah to believe only nobles could learn magic. “I don't care.” She curtly answered. “Nobody is going to stop me from learning it.”

I would argue that nobody really needed to.

Although if anybody barged in whilst she was revising and slapped the study book out of her hand, they'd be punched in the face before they could get half way through explaining why she didn't deserve to learn magic.

“On Friday, I found you in Riker's office. Did you accidentally take anything from her desk with you?”

“Weird question but no.” Killian paused again and thought. “At least I don't remember. I usually double check everything I have on me after getting beaten up. I don't remember coming home with anything weird.”

Hannah took that answer in stride. It was to be expected.

Great, so she were taking up the job of finding Riker's thief as well. She didn't even know what was stolen. Riker seemed certain at the very least her office had been tampered with.

Which to be fair, it had. There was a new hole in the window.

Hannah crossed her arms and frowned. “Well what about the boys that came with you. Maybe they took something with them before they left.”

“I doubt they'd be interested in new stationary.” An overall useless answer. Under Hannah's glare he cracked and gave a better reply. “Okay, I didn't notice any of them going through Riker's desk. You can probably guess why.”

Well to me it was an open and shut case. Mather was the person doing the snooping. He was the one who according to rumours, was always hanging around Riker's office.

“Hmm...” I could practically see Hannah's brain spark. “So was there anybody else you saw?”

Killian scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. “Yeah actually. Mather.”

Yes, the obvious suspect.

Hannah raised her hand to rub the newfound tension in her forehead. “Well I can't do anything about him.” She muttered.

By the troubled look on her face this was something she'd already suspected. It'd be meaningless to get into Riker's good books if she simultaneously entered Mather's bad books.

“So we've been walking for a while and now we're in the creepier quieter part of the Triolo.” Killian came to a stop and looked up at the cathedral, closer than he was comfortable with. “You're not planning on sacrificing me to the arch-demon, are you?”

“That's a very tasteless joke.”

“Oh that's funny, you don't exactly strike me as religious. I mean, I figured since you hadn't complained and you go around with a black cat, you preferred witches over churches.” Sound reasoning since both rarely went hand in hand unless one was being thrown onto a pyre.

“Witches are by nature superstitious. Go figure.”

“Okay, but that doesn't answer my question of where we are going.” Killian turned his head left and right, scanning the unfamiliar part of the Triolo.

I would have thought this would be a popular spot to get beaten down by his classmates. It was nice and secluded.

Hannah stopped outside a familiar disused building. Pausing, she quietly pondered over whether this was the right thing to do. “Well, I know two people who don't have many friends so...”

No.

NO NO NO NO.

Not my dear Linth! She did not need to meet this blithering punishable by death waste of effort. No, my poor dear Linth would never even survive first contact. I was completely against this. We would witness that timid girl already too shy to step outside of her den die inside.

I planted myself between the entrance to the building and two of them and met Hannah's silent stare with a weighty glare.

A cold wind blew. I could feel it's chill run through my whiskers. A moment of calm followed, filled only by the static tension of a frosty silent standoff.

“Your cat is kinda creeping me out here.” Killian muttered. “Are you seeing this?”

“Quiet, the adults are talking.”

Hannah was at least partially right there. This was no place for that idiot.

No words needed to be talked. Intent could be read in eachother's eyes. Even the most subtle twitch wouldn't go unnoticed. An empty space sat between us loaded with an invisible conflict.

“Out of the way.” Hannah crossed her arms and looked down her nose at me. This was the ultimate challenge. The crossing of arms and slight puffing out her chest was like that of a veteran martial artist refusing to budge at the door. Her looking down her nose at me was a clear attack on authority in a wider societal hierarchy.

“Not a chance.” People who crossed their arms were often warding off their vitals because they felt threatened. I rooted my paws into the ground and kept my tail from swaying which could have been interpreted as a sign of anxiety and weakness. Who was she to look down on me? She had amounted to little in life whereas I could say I amounted to something on the basis it warranted cursing me to take the appearance of a cat.

Sparks flew. Neither side could give.

I needed to protect Linth. At all costs.

None of that really happened. I sat down, Hannah walked over me and opened the door, beckoning Killian in.

Not gonna lie, this hurt me a little.

It felt like all strength had been taken out of my form. With just one move, not even subtle, she had demonstrated how small and insignificant an obstacle I could ever amount to be.

Another breeze rolled by, sweeping it's cruel chill through my empty form where strength should have been, threatening to push me over like a wilted flower.

“Try to hide your disbelief, but I'm not very good with people.” Killian laughed nervously as he walked past.

“What? Really? I'd have never have guessed.”

“Something to do with everything that comes out of my mouth sounding like crap. Is your cat okay? I'm getting an intense aura of depression from him right now.”

Nah man I'm fine. I'm just a pathetic weak cat who can't do anything. It's completely fine my guy, move along.

Hannah glanced down at me and shrugged. “He'll get over it.”