“What do you mean?” Dav sounded confused. Sophia was glad that despite his confusion, he answered mentally.

  “We’ve been trying to find something that matches Eldritch Summoner’s abilities and looking at what people know of that can replace it,” Sophia answered easily. “That makes sense if you like your Sphere, but you don’t. You barely use the summons.”

  “I use the healing beacon a lot,” Dav protested weakly. “And I think I’m going to like using Eldritch Fire Bud with Embody Summon.”

  Sophia raised an eyebrow in Dav’s direction and held the expression until he colored. He knew exactly what she was trying to say, that he liked it because it let him fight like something other than a summoner. He clearly didn’t have a good counter to it. “If there’s time for it to flower, It could be good. So what do you really want to do?”

  Dav frowned. His expression said that he wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he knew he wasn’t satisfied. “I want to be a spellcaster and cast spells, but at the same time I’m not sure I’d ever actually do that unless I have to. I think it would be like my summons, I’d use them some but not very effectively. You’re already a spellcaster anyway.”

  Sophia waved the concern over her spellcasting away. It was entirely possible to have more than one spellcaster on a team; they could easily hold different roles and be useful, the way Amy was leaning towards being a scout and stealthy attacker. Sophia’s spells were developing differently than she’d ever expected as well; back on Earth, she was a pretty straightforward spellcaster but here she was developing a style that relied on massively multicasting small spells.

  She hadn’t liked it at first, but the more she used it, the more it appealed. It was going to take a lot of practice but once she had that practice, she ought to be able to either choose to hit one enemy with a lot or several enemies with less, all at the same time. She’d probably eventually drop her Burst spells once she could manage enough Bolts at once, but for now they still had their uses.

  “It does suit you,” Dav sent across the telepathic link.

  Sophia nodded. She was only a little surprised Dav had followed her train of thought; she’d probably projected it with her body language. It really was convenient. “It’s based on Abilities I was able to choose rather than the central features of my Sphere. We might not have found a real match yet, but I’m betting I can specialize in that direction with the first upgrade, even if we don’t find any more useful Abilities from Challenges. We need to find something similar for you.”

  Dav nodded without speaking. He agreed but didn’t have any idea what that might be.

  Sophia turned back to the records. They’d just have to keep looking.

  Dav stepped away to talk to a librarian about chaos magic, since that seemed to be the closest to “eldritch.” Amy was called away shortly after that to talk to the Registry Master about possible Challenges.

  Moments after Amy left, Aric strode up to the table and sat down with a confident smile. “Hey there.”

  Sophia glanced nervously at the material on the table. Most of it was on Verdant Summoners, but some was on illusionists and a little was on Spellblades. There was nothing there that ought to worry her too much. Her voice was still chill as she answered Aric. “Hello.”

  She didn’t want to make a scene, but she was getting very tired of being followed. It had only been a few days, but that was a few days of seeing Aric everywhere. Maybe it was time to make a point. It really was too bad that she couldn’t do it by punching Aric, but she was certain that was why he kept appearing in public places; he had every right to be there and if she overreacted, it was her fault, not his.

  “So!” Aric leaned forward and stared into Sophia’s eyes. “I’m going to a dance hall tonight; we can go together. It’ll be fun, no one else we know around, we can do whatever we want.”

  “No.” Sometimes the only way to handle something was to be blunt.

  Aric grinned as if she hadn’t just turned him down. “Come on, it’ll do you good to get out, relax and have some fun! You don’t have to do everything with your team, they can entertain themselves for a night. Some music, some drinks, maybe some close dancing…”

  “No.” It actually did sound like fun, but it wasn’t Aric Sophia wanted to dance with.

  Aric’s grin widened. “I can tell you’re thinking about it. Come on, you know it’ll be great. We can dance until our feet get tired, then cuddle and listen to the band-”

  “No.” Sophia spoke louder this time. “Why aren’t you listening? I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “If tonight’s not good, we can try for tomorrow night; we’d have to go across town to get to En’dark’s Club, but they have half-price drinks on Threeday, and-”

  “Shut up.” Sophia wasn’t quite yelling but it was close. “I’m not going to a club with you.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “What’s going on here?” A sharp voice cut over the end of Sophia’s rejection. When she turned towards the voice, she saw a short man with large mouse ears dressed like one of the librarians. “Why are you shouting?”

  Before Sophia could protest that she wasn’t shouting, Aric butted in and supplied his answer. “I just asked if she wanted to go out for a dance tonight. I’m not sure why she’s yelling.”

  “I’m not yelling!” Okay, that time she was. Sophia took a deep breath and tried to continue at a lower volume. “He keeps asking and asking and won’t take no for an answer! I’m not going anywhere with him but every time I say no he just asks again! He won’t shut up and go away!”

  Sophia was pretty sure she was shouting again by the end of her rant. She really was at her wits’ end with Aric. Why couldn’t he just accept that she meant it when she said no?”

  The mouse-eared librarian sighed and shook his head. “All right, then. That won’t do. You need some time to calm down, so I’m kicking you out of the library for the rest of the day. You can return in the morning. As for you…” he turned to Aric, “Did you really ask her several times even after she said no?”

  “I gave her options,” Aric said with a helpless shrug. “That way she can pick which one she likes best. She keeps putting me off, I’m not sure why she’s acting like I’m the problem.”

  Sophia fumed. She couldn’t believe that he actually thought that he was just giving her options when she kept flatly saying no, but he certainly made it sound good and it was already clear that the mousekin librarian wasn’t happy with the shouting. Anything she said was going to come out at high volume right now, so she kept her mouth shut. Anything else would just make it worse.

  The librarian sighed. “Giving someone options doesn’t usually end up with them shouting at you, but I wasn’t here. You know what? You’re banned from the library for the rest of the day as well. If you come in tomorrow, I don’t want to see you at her table. You’ve been sitting at another table; stay there.”

  “What if she comes to my table?” Aric asked. “She doesn’t seem to be able to keep away from me lately.”

  “Only because you’re following me around!” Sophia exclaimed. She couldn’t keep quiet at that insinuation. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  Aric gave her a pitying look. The librarian sighed again, but before he could say anything, Dav squeezed between two of the gawkers, followed by another librarian. She was younger and smaller than the first librarian but had similar mouse ears.

  Dav squeezed Sophia’s upper arm gently, shot a quick glare at Aric, then started closing and stacking the books, leaflets, and pamphlets they’d been looking through. He shot a far less angry glance at the smaller librarian. “Marcie, I think we’re done here for today. Can you put these somewhere we can find them tomorrow?”

  “I’ll set them aside,” she promised. “And if I may be so bold, there are some private rooms in the back that you can reserve; most people prefer to look at things out here because it’s included in the Registry membership, but they aren’t too pricey.”

  “Yes, please,” Sophia interjected. Hiding in a room and only coming out to get more books wasn’t Sophia’s preference, but if it meant not having to deal with Aric, she’d compromise.

  “We might not be here tomorrow,” Dav cautioned. “We could end up in a challenge; I think Amy’s trying to figure that out right now.”

  “I can put you down as tentative,” Marcie offered. “It means you’ll get a room if you’re here before anyone else asks for it, but if someone else asks, your room will be given away.”

  Sophia nodded. “Let’s do that.”

  Amy wasn’t back by the time they left the Registry library, so Sophia sent her a telepathic message. “We’ve been kicked out of the library for the day, so Dav and I are headed to our room.”

  Amy’s answer was surprised. “Kicked out? What? Do you need me?”

  “No,” Sophia answered. “Keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll tell you about it when you’re done.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” Amy answered.

  Amy wasn’t alone when she arrived at their suite most of an hour later. The man who accompanied her had a hood over his ears. It shadowed his face and made it hard to see. Sophia wasn’t certain she’d have paid much attention to him if he wasn’t right behind Amy.

  He wasn’t controlling his aura particularly well, so she knew that he was at least past the first upgrade; she wouldn’t be surprised if he was past the second, but if that was the case he wasn’t primarily a mage. He didn’t have enough mana for that.

  He wasn’t the first person Sophia had seen in the Izel Registry with a hood up. A number of people seemed to want to hide who they were, and while it wasn’t exactly a good disguise, it was pretty obvious that most people were at least pretending they didn’t know who was behind the hood or the mask.

  The man following Amy wasn’t masked, but his disguise was still better than many Sophia had seen. Once the door was closed, he pushed back his hood. His clothes changed from a drab gray robe to a colorful green, purple, and white combination of layers. His head had seemed like a normal human head under the hood, but pushing it back revealed wolf ears. His features also shifted slightly and seemed to age a little, with scattered gray hairs appearing, mostly in his trimmed beard.

  Sophia glanced back and forth between him and Amy. She didn’t think she’d have picked them out as related without the ears, but they looked similar enough that they almost had to be relatives.

  “This is my uncle Los’en,” Amy said with a wave at the man. “Modir sent him here after she got my letter, but when he heard that my team’s here too, he said he had to come meet you.”

  “Los’en?” The name sounded familiar to Sophia. “Not the uncle that started the conflict with the Broken Temple?”

  Los’en chuckled with a grin that reached his eyes. Sophia would have expected someone who started a fight that might embroil an entire city to be embarrassed or defensive about it, but he was clearly not at all bothered. “Good to hear Lan’ti passed that along. It’s not that simple, but yeah, I was the excuse. We’ve been building to something for a while; better it happens now when we’ll win. I don’t mind most of the Broken Lord’s followers, but the Hilt is way too good at twisting things. If we don’t do something now, Izel will be picked clean and destroyed in a hundred years.”

  I wish I could say that I overdid Aric’s approach.

  I didn’t. There really are people who think that's how you approach someone.

  I did have to balance what the librarians saw with what they know about Sophia and Aric. Sophia may not have noticed Marcie before, but she’s definitely seen them.