Walking back to the room with Sleipnir and Fenrir in tow, Lupos let out a wide grin. He not only had time to strategise with his spirits, he also had an opportunity where Mervyn would be alone. Still deep in thought, Lupos barely noticed the still laughing Hugin as he flew above him. "Wait till the others see you, Sleipnir, you'll never live it down." cackled Hugin in mindspeak still enjoying the spectacle.

Sleipnir turned and looked at Hugin directly in the eyes. "Now, now," said the horse in that calming voice tinged with mischief "I wouldn't say too much, unless of course, you wish for me to retaliate?" Hugin turned silent, turning an even paler shade of nervous white while Lupos laughed.

Returning to the room Lupos saw Jormugand and Munin whispering conspiratorially to each other, however, once they saw Lupos walk in the whispers stopped as they grinned at each other. The grins however vanished once they saw, or rather sensed, Sleipnir. Although Sleipnir currently had the appearance of a harmless Shetland pony, all of Lupos' spirits were informed of his abilities and not one of them would want to be on the receiving end.

Seeing their silence Lupos grinned. However, the grin quickly faded as his face turned serious with his next words "Right, now that we're all here it's time to plan damage control." The spirits fell silent as Fenrir and Hugin nodded while Munin, Jormugand and Sleipnir just stared at Lupos with mild confusion. "For you three who don't know," he said indicating to the clueless party. "Today Lucio attempted to summon a dragon."

The five spirits nodded, all with equal seriousness and worry in their eyes. Even if they could defeat a dragon, they wouldn't be able to do it before it revealed Lupos' true capabilities and that would completely defeat all the effort they had taken to always appear to be second place.

Carrying on Lupos looked at each of his spirits in turn. "Unfortunately to prevent the summoning, we were forced to intervene. I had Hugin attack Lucio while still disguised as the Ceari's family's head's spirit, an air falcon. However no matter how corrupt a noble family may be, they would never be stupid enough to outright attack Mervyn's apprentice with him there. Especially, not using their own spirit. Meaning any attempts to frame the Ceari family would then be futile."

Lupos' spirits nodded once more. "Jormugand, do we know, who the Ceari's stupidest enemy among the Noble families is?" Jormugand grinned. "Any of the families will do, they all hate each other and plot the other families downfallssss beneath the pleasantriesss and besidessssss," Jormugand let out a low chuckle, "all of them are equally prideful and arrogant."

Lupos grinned upon hearing that, but decided on another question, this time addressing all his spirits. "Ok, which other family do we have the most incriminating evidence against?" Fenrir, Jormugand, Hugin and Munin looked at each other, ignoring the confused Sleipnir, before speaking in union. "The Yulg's." Lupos nodded.

"Ok, for the rest of today Fenrir, Jormugand and Hugin - I want you to infiltrate the Yulg's properties and find any incriminating documents, as well as, as much information on the families' magical capabilities as you can. Sleipnir and Munin you stay with me for the minute." all five spirits nodded and Fenrir, Jormugand and Hugin set off towards the Yulg's properties.

Seeing as the other three were gone, Munin let out a sly smile and turned to face Lupos. "So do you want your letter now or later?" Lupos looked at Munin in confusion. "What letter?" Munin's grin widened "Why the one from your good friend Akari of course." Lupos nodded trying not to give away any emotion on his face. He had been so caught up in the days events he had forgotten about the letter.

Sleipnir looked at the two confused. "Who's Akari?" Lupos groaned and Munin grinned "Lupos' future mate." said Munin smiling innocently. "Never mind that," said Lupos, trying to keep the blush off his face as he grabbed the letter off Munin, while Sleipnir stated at him, bemusement obvious on his face.

Opening the letter, Lupos smiled gently as he read Akari's reply before quickly turning to Munin to change the subject. "So I see the squirrel magical beast delivered the message ok, what was his name?" Munin grinned, noticing the obvious change in subject but letting it go. "His name was Ratatoskr." Lupos nodded. "Good to know, right Sleipnir and Munin we're going to go into the forest and have you two spar for a bit."

There was a look of elation from Sleipnir and a look of absolute horror from Munin while Lupos grinned maliciously at his revenge. "Seeing as Munin mainly uses light magic, it'll be a representation of what Mervyn's holy eagle can do, so it'll give you some practice. After that we'll take some time to explain what we're doing here and how everyone's involved."

Sleipnir nodded while Munin pleaded in mindspeak to Lupos. "Please Lupos, you don't know how bad he can be!! Hes worse than Darius." Lupos nodded seriously before the grin broke out on his face. "Have fun sparing you two!" the terrified look on Munin's face warmed Lupos' heart as he laughed.

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Author's note

Hi everyone sorry there hasn't been a chapter recently but I finally got back from holiday yesterday!!!! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll try to write a lot more now I'm back!!! Please leave a comment or review so I can improve my story :)