Unlike the first gate, the second gate didn’t even have a place for a person. Instead, it had a call-box where you could either punch in a code or call a specific residence.

They pulled up to the gate behind another car, as they were punching in their code. Rissa didn’t stop at the call-box; she just followed the other car through the gate. There was plenty of time; Serenity could hear the gate as it closed, and there was enough time for at least one and probably two other vehicles.

A quick glance made it look like the buildings inside the fence were large houses with small yards, but when Serenity looked closer he realized that each “house” had multiple entrances; many of them even had exterior stairs leading up to more doors. They weren’t a single huge apartment building like the one he lived in (and still needed to visit), but they were definitely not single-family homes.

That was unexpected. Why would someone who could hire someone to anonymously steal something live in a place like this? The buildings were fairly nice on the outside and the landscape was well-maintained, but that wasn’t the issue Serenity considered important here. People in an apartment complex weren’t really ever completely private; someone would see you.

They wound their way around the parking lot until they passed by the other side of the main gate and Serenity felt the tracing spell find the residue again. Unless there was another entrance to the complex, it was likely the stolen ritual piece was still here.

They followed the trail to where the vehicle had clearly parked, then parked a few spots away. Rissa turned off the car, then looked at the others. “It’s midafternoon. Do we keep following it now, try to come back later … what?”

Serenity realized Rissa was correct; he’d been so caught up in trying to figure out how to find the stolen thing he hadn’t thought about what to do when they found it - and if he had thought about it, he’d assumed it would be in a secluded place where they could sneak in.

This was not that sort of a place; Serenity could see three people through his car window. One was walking to the mailboxes, one headed in with a sack of groceries, and one was sitting outside an apartment smoking while looking at his phone.

The Final Reaper would probably have simply gone for a smash-and-grab, but the Final Reaper wouldn’t have been interested in living in society in the future anyway; by that point, he’d considered everyone’s hand to be turned against him. The consequences of that sort of action wouldn’t have been important - but then, the item wouldn’t have been important either. Nothing small enough to be hidden away instead of being used as an actual military asset mattered to him.

Vengeance’s probable plan was harder to pin down, because he’d been Vengeance for a lot longer. Serenity suspected it wouldn’t have been particularly clever. Walking up to the door, knocking on it, and telling people to return the stolen goods or else was probably a good guess. It was possible he’d have thought of sneaking in and simply stealing it back, but in that case, Vengeance wouldn’t have gone in himself; he’d have sent someone else.

Serenity didn’t really like any of those plans. The “sneak in and steal it back without anyone noticing” plan was the best one, except that he wasn’t sure any of them could actually pull it off. He wouldn’t have had much doubt in it if it’d been in a standalone house or even a warehouse, but these townhouses or apartments were too busy, at least during the daytime.

While Serenity was still trying to make a new plan, he saw Russ grin. “I wondered when you’d ask. It should have been earlier.”

“Dad! You’re telling me this was another learning experience?” Rissa was kneeling on her seat with her hands on her hips, glaring at her father in the seat behind her.

Serenity wasn’t entirely sure how she’d managed to get into that position without smacking the steering wheel or opening the door. He’d known Rissa was flexible, but that was still a surprise. Serenity couldn’t have done it, even before he had wings. He was larger than Rissa, but it was still impressive.

Russ’s grin grew even wider. “Everything’s a learning experience. This one could have gone badly, which is one of the reasons your mother and I insisted on coming. We weren’t going to throw you in the deep end without someone there to watch. The other reason is what we’re going to do now. It’s a variant of a plan your mother and I developed that works most of the time.”

Russ reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked an awful lot like a folded wallet. “First, here’s something I want you to use only if you have to. Take a look at it, then put it somewhere safe. It’s not part of the plan; it’s a backup.”

He handed it to Rissa. She took one look at the inside, then looked up at her father in shock. “How did you get a Secret Service badge and ID? Is this real?”

“Real enough to help you both get out of trouble if things go sideways; as to how, well, that’s a longish story. The short version is that the primary group I work with in the US government happens to be currently placed as a division of the Secret Service. It’s convenient sometimes; there are all sorts of questions people just don’t ask.”

Serenity was confident this wasn’t how it was supposed to work, but since it seemed to be helpful he decided not to push for a better explanation. He probably wouldn’t like the answer.

Russ glanced at Serenity before staring intently at his daughter. “To be really clear. Do not show that to the people who stole the ritual implement. It is only to be used if you have to deal with law enforcement.”

Rissa nodded and Russ relaxed his intensity.

“Good.” Russ leaned back against the seat. “So. A plan. We don’t know how much time we have. If we had a lot of time, we’d look into who their friends are and try to make inroads that way. That usually works pretty well.”

Russ turned to glance at Phoebe, who didn’t say anything. “My assumption is that we don’t have much time. How long that is…” he stopped and stared at Phoebe, but she continued to be silent. “I don’t know. So we’ll do this the fast way. Normally, we’d fake this part, but … Serenity, can you imitate the residue in a way that will get the attention of someone who can’t directly sense it?”

Serenity thought about the question for a moment. The tracing spell was still active; he didn’t want to drop it until they actually had their hands on the thing they were looking for. On the other hand, they were very close; he was unlikely to need most of the residue he’d collected, because it was only useful for the “fast imprecise” option. If he was really careful, he could probably extract some of the residue without disturbing the running spell, especially if he put the spell to sleep first.

He’d have to try it to be sure, so he did. The spell didn’t “want” to shut down, but he overrode it. It wouldn’t be as stable in the future because of that, but he already knew that he was going to damage it a little. He’d simply have to avoid using any of the advanced features; when he put it active again, it would have to be on the more reliable slow version, and he’d want to be within range of the trace.

With the spell inactive, it was relatively simple to reach into the compartment that held the residue and pull a little out. He trapped it in another containment spell fragment and thought about how to possibly express its properties so that a non-mage could sense them.

The problem was that he wasn’t actually sure how much a non-mage could sense. He had a pretty good idea of what he’d been able to sense at the beginning of the Tutorial, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t really a “non-mage” then.

So it couldn’t be a direct effect. Secondary effects were all too easy to dismiss, though. It needed to be something that was connected to the artifact, not just its residue. A mage might be able to compare residue, but if he needed something a non-mage would recognize, it needed more than that. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, and after a moment he realized what it was. “Rissa? What did you say about the artifact? Something about how it made you feel when you looked at it.”

“Do you mean the patterns? I think that’s the only thing that made me feel anything and they hurt to look at. A sort of a dull ache in the back of my head.”

That wasn’t quite enough for what he was looking for, so Serenity nodded as he spoke. “Yes, but how did it make you feel? Was it horror or rejection or just pain?”

Rissa sat there for a moment, thinking. “Pain is all I remember. It was like it wanted something but not something I could understand.”

Serenity nodded. He’d run into a few things like that over the years. The most common reason for it was a Concept that was just out of his reach; sometimes, he’d been able to come back later and figure it out, while others had remained mysteries.

It didn’t feel like this was one of those, though; the symbology Rissa had described made Serenity think of summoning magic, and there was a place - or maybe lack of place - that had almost exactly that effect. He thought of it as “the Void”, though he knew there were many other names for it.

There was an easy way to tell, at least. If he tinged some mana with Void and found that it either tasted like the residue or better would mix with and enhance the residue, he’d know if he’d guessed right. The problem was that he’d split and specialized his Void Affinities to the point where he wasn’t even sure they were Void anymore.

He’d just have to try them and find out.

Liminal Void, the space at the threshold, seemed like the better bet, so he tried it first. It separated the residue from everything else, but didn’t mix at all.

His other top option was Nihility Void. He didn’t expect much, and that was what he got - the Nihility magic consumed some of the remnant instead of mixing and enhancing.

Well, there was one more thing he could try. He had enough of the remnant left, too. Exposure to something could grant an Affinity; it was one of the reasons getting his Water Affinity was so unpleasant. He remembered half-drowning himself repeatedly before he finally figured it out.

He was sturdy enough; he just needed to understand it better. The worst that was likely to happen was that it wouldn’t work and they’d have to try something else. He’d been tasting its residue off and on all day as he used the spell tracking it; this would be a bit more intense, but he expected it to be different in intensity rather than in kind.

Serenity shrugged to himself and popped the remnant energy in his mouth.