Harlan drank some tea and used a little light magic to soothe his throat after fixing his broken toe.

A toe was a simple structure he could fix, having to actually fix muscles and folds to fix a damaged voice wasn’t something he could do yet, probably, he hoped he wouldn’t need to try.

He ran his fingers across his neck more after he was done, whoever had actually healed him did a very good job, there wasn’t the slightest trace of damage.

Next he walked to Adina’s room, he couldn’t let her walk around by herself.

She was happy to see him, but unhappy with what was likely to happen.

They made their way to breakfast without issue, Harlan gave not an inch to the provocations of the other students, no turned eyes or sideways glances got even a sneer.

The others hadn’t heard what happened to Adina yet, she didn’t want them to know and Harlan made no mention of it.

As they went through the day and Harlan continued to stay out of trouble Adina was actually a bit worried. She knew she had no hope of actually stopping him, she didn’t entirely want to either, but him taking no action came off as unlike him.

They split up after healing, he had to head off to warmagic, but he did give her a mana gem, telling her that it might stop one attacker if it hits, just point and shoot.

He had done his own work after leaving Sepul’s home, in theory the white noise attack stored in the act as a directed message before the gem turned into dust.

He wondered how many other single use items he could make, if the biggest limit for soulsmithed items was them burning up just like a person who used too much mana, then something could be designed to burn up in a safe manner and cast beyond its material.

There were no godly interferences since Calli had appeared before, but he was still the best in his class.

Everyone, barring non-human peoples, had the same levels of mana for their age, growing more slowly after 20.

So his years of small delicate magic and long hours trying to not waste a drop left him with control on par with mages years older than him.

Whereas the other students needed to attempt to split their spells to hit 10 targets without collateral damage, Harlan needed to hit 20, and he was up to 17 good hits.

Sepul didn’t give him many tips during classes, he knew that Harlan had the right mindset and it was simply repetition to be capable of doing the magic properly.

There were no shortcuts, Harlan had learned that the hard way, so he almost enjoyed the monotony of repeatedly casting a spell and then waiting for the targets to form again so he could try again.

He wondered how long it would’ve taken to learn what he had already if he tried on his own, most classes had him fairly drained by the end, they were constant dense tests of magic but by the time he walked to the next class he was already back to normal.

He was brought to attention by the sound of his splitter spell glassing the entire area; he saw what a loss of focus, even for a few moments, would do to such a spell.

He used his free periods to begin preparing, Sepul had already stolen a list of classes both Cato brothers went to and at what times, so for now it was all about following them, first the younger brother.

His own free periods matched Harlan’s, he watched where the younger Cato went, who he interacted with.

He didn’t seem to have many friends outside of 3 other boys, yet he gained no pity from Harlan for this.

Harlan didn’t know how to become invisible, any form of such a spell was restricted, so he simply relied on his enhanced hearing and mind sense to track and listen to the boys.

The most important lesson Harlan had learned was that despite all of the words of the academy, it was just a building, it had blind spots, if you were alone, then you were alone.

There may have been arrays that would blare when a student was severely injured, but they did not sense pain, Harlan didn’t actually understand what they were sensing, but Sepul gave examples of what wouldn’t set them off.

As his second free period began he noticed somebody was following him from the shadows, they were quite poor at it.

Harlan was sure they weren’t actually a spy, so he decided to directly confront whoever they were.

He went around the corner and then floated on the ceiling, when they also passed the corner he softly dropped back down to the floor.

“Excuse me, can I help you?”

The Armaus rolled into a ball reflexively.

It was a little strange to him that they wore no clothes, but as far as beastkin were they were far closer to an animal than to a human.

An Ursa or a Minos would leave little to the imagination without a pair of pants, but he couldn’t tell Armaus apart without empathy.

She unfolded herself and pretended that it never happened.

“I want you to fight somebody.”

“Who and why.”

“There is another girl in blacksmithing who keeps painting on my scales when I am not paying attention, she knows I do not like this and yet continues.”

He noticed little flowers and stars on some of her scales, he was actually a little impressed that somebody was doing such nice art at such a small size.

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but why me?”

“You are a noble as she is, you are helpful to others, and you are Fomorian, your people love killing and-”

As Harlan narrowed his eyes she realized she had said too much.

“I am not in the business of beating people up for a petty reason.”

“It is not petty, I put a lot of work into making my scales shiny and clean, the oils in her paint irritate my skin when I wash it off.”

He sighed, it seemed silly to him, but he agreed to talk to the girl since it was the fastest way to get back to stalking the younger Cato.

He divined his position, his connection to the web had allowed the ability to new heights, though it didn’t help when looking for inanimate objects.

His last vestiges of free time were used to track everyone who the boy interacted with as best he could.

A sudden thought crossed his mind, didn’t he already know people who should know this?

He hated the idea, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it actually made.

His magical creatures class was fast approaching, so he made his way to the classroom.

The last week and his current week would be focused on understanding the environments of the creatures they had already seen and writing reports on what purpose each of them served as part of their environment.

He wrote of the Silt Cats of the volcanic islands to the east, who neither lived in silt nor were they cats.

They were actually evolved Catfish who developed lungs and simple limbs to grab small mammals from the riversides before swimming away.

Their name was derived from the catlike eyes and agility they had, despite their appearance a little bit of mud magic let them slip around with shocking speed on land.

He couldn’t help but admire such an odd creature, to be a fish and yet end up earth aligned.

With that he was done with his classes for the day, the first few weeks of the academy seemed hellbent on forcing new knowledge and techniques on students, likely to weed out those without talent or drive, but now it had settled into a matter of repetition.

They learned at a much more reasonable pace, though it felt slow to harlan.

As he exited the magical creatures class he went to find Adina, there were only so many classes and his connection to her let him pinpoint her location quickly.

When he landed she came near him immediately, there was no mistaking the overly heavy footsteps of him.

“Do you intend to walk me around everywhere?”

“As much as I can.”

She hummed the same tune as Isha when they walked to the cafeteria.

He split up from her as she went to get her food.

He made his way to Taren, they both disliked each other, but outright hostility was off the menu.

“I would like to have a private conversation, will you be free after dinner?”

“I might be, but it is likely to cost you.“

“Prices should be negotiated after I’ve said what I need from you.”

“I will come to your room as soon as dinner is finished.”

The others who were with him didn’t look Harlan in the eyes, they were some of the few people who had the full story of their relationship with one another.

They had also heard how Harlan tore war dogs apart with his bare hands and hardly reacted even when the bones in his arms were splintered and sticking from his skin.

The entire group was there, even Ximena’s friends.

Harlan barely had the roast in his mouth before the older Cato showed up.

He placed his hand on Adina’s shoulder and she shrugged it off.

“What do you want now?”

“Oh, such a harsh tone for someone just looking up on an injured countryman. I heard someone had attacked you last night, leaving a nasty gash across your head.”

He attempted to move her chin to see her forehead better and she punched him directly in the groin.

He took no damage and her knuckles were bruised by the blowback of his ability.

It was said that even the best of plans fell apart when they made contact with reality.

Harlan had already been warned of what would be acceptable in his protection of Adina, in this case, he could not use physical violence against him.

“She was taken to be healed quickly and there was no scarring. I think it best that you leave us to our meal.”

“Of course, I can take the word of her friend at face value at least. Though you weren’t there to protect her, such a shame.”

He walked away without escalating the situation any further.

“Harlan, you seemed conflicted on helping, I didn’t expect that from someone like you.”

Liat was disappointed in him.

“A good hunter doesn’t take his shot until he is sure that he can hit the heart of his prey.”

“But if you needed to take that shot instantly, would you have done it?”

The two of them shared a smile that sent a shiver down the spine of anyone watching.

“Would you like to talk after dinner?”

“Sorry, I have a meeting.”

“Unfortunate, I am sure Yara would like to debate you more. She finds it quite fun to switch sides.”

“I’ve also enjoyed the few talks we’ve been able to have, but alas, I have things to do.”

Zella wasn’t exactly sure what to tell him, Cato was a creep and wasn’t likely to stop, but she believed Tau with his talk about cycles of violence and forgiveness.

They ate their meal without any more interruptions.

Harlan heard a knock on his door shortly after he entered his room.

Taren moved quickly, he took in the details of Harlan’s room as he sat on a couch.

“Alright, so which Cato brother do you want information on?”

“The younger first.”

“Alright, now we can talk about the price. I want a favor.”

“Favors are dangerous for allies, stupid for anyone else. I am not going to do anything without knowing what it is beforehand.“

“Shame, I had heard you were poor at making deals.”

He pulled a small vial from his robes inner pocket.

“I need this poured into a girl's drink at lunch tomorrow. It isn’t poison, it is a colorless dye that once ingested will turn the drinker's hair a pale pink in a matter of hours. This should mean it will reach its peak right as alchemy class is in. It is also quite hard to erase, a nasty little potion if used the right way.”

“Why?”

“She is in alchemy with a friend of mine, she pulled the same trick on her. I think I know what you will and won’t do, this is a personal matter for me, so I believe you are likely to agree.”

“I am not opposed, but, do you have more of this?”

He put a second vial on the table and Harlan drank the first to the shock of Taren.

After a weak metabolize spell Harlan looked in the mirror to confirm the results.

“Alright, I will do it.”

“What if it had been poison?”

“Then you would be dead.”

“You mean-”

“I know what I said.”

They hashed out the details of the target and Harlan learned every rumor about the younger Cato he could after being told the more important details of who he hung around with and when.

When Harlan went to exercise Selen seemed a little wary of Harlan’s hair, though after a quick and vague explanation her and Wulrun both laughed at him.

He was glad that he could see the boy most nights and Selen was ecstatic at how he opened up when they interacted.

The number of children who were false undead of any kind, but who also were at the academy, but who also wanted to play with a child, and who also weren’t Werewolves, was exactly 0.

So having somebody that could run around with him and keep up was a great boon to the young Werewolf’s heart.