A Corner
"If the Grendevens cannot produce tangible proof that the emancipated young man, Venden, is safe from this family and the assassin they hired to kidnap him, they will not only be demoted from the noble ranks entirely but their matriarch will also be arrested."
That pushed Kathrin over the edge. "My mother did no such thing!" she screamed. "My father is the one who runs the family! Leave my sweet mother alone!"
Even as the Academy's on-staff Guards came and took her away to the principal's office, she continued her wrathful rant, kicking and screaming the whole way.
'Justice is on its way,' Fate thought with a flicker of satisfaction.
'You forget,' warned Kravoss. 'Backing someone into a corner only makes them more dangerous.'
Fate finished eating and went to work, Kravoss in tow, only to be stopped by a large crowd gathered in the street.
Each one of them wore tailored clothes made of expensive fabrics, and many had jewelry or enchanted items on. They all held signs with vague sayings and large words Fate didn't recognize.
Nobles.
Curious, Fate asked one of the women in the crowd what was happening, and she yelled "down with the Grendevens!" The angry crowd around her echoed her words, the noise traveling for thousands of feet.
"But what specifically did they do?" Fate asked.
"You don't know?" she asked incredulously.
"I have a lot of guesses," he replied.
"Because of them, our families were stripped of many of our hard-earned merits and some were even demoted!"
"So it has nothing to do with the fact that the patriarch ordered the kidnapping of his own son?"
"No, why would it? We have more important things to worry about!"
Fate shook his head in disgust and took a detour, he and his Familiar arriving at Travis' shop a few minutes later than normal. Old Man Travis didn't care, merely reminding Fate that he'd have to make those minutes up by staying longer, which Fate wholeheartedly agreed to.
He started enchanting more wand cores. Now that he could do so, Old Man Travis had ordered him to make a hundred of them by the end of the tomorrow.
"You got the Imprints down, now you need to learn to increase the pace," he had said.
Fate happily did so, only putting out one or two wands every five minutes before he became a machine churning them out by fours and fives shortly before the end of his shift, getting used to the monotonous task and increasing his efficiency.
He was finishing up the last wand he'd make for the day when he heard the sound of the doorbell from inside the store.
"Go get that, will you?" Travis asked, magnifying goggles over his eyes as he used small tweezers to carefully place tiny shards of colored glass in the unfinished window of the Empress.
At the rate he was going, he'd be done in an hour. Kravoss watched the entire thing with interest, envious of the old man's dexterous hands. The Dracok would never have such advantageous limbs for himself.
Letting his half-finished Imprint dissipate, he wiped the sweat off of his brow and entered the front of the shop, only to be surprised by who he saw.
Cait was waiting patiently at the counter, Pospo sitting primly on her haunches in wait. The former adopted a sour expression when Fate walked out, evidently still mistrusting of his help getting her Familiar.
"Can I help you?" Fate asked.
"I need to buy these," Cait said, placing two boxes on the counter.
Fate read the labels. A pair of boots and a pair of dress shoes.
"Anything else?"
"I'm in the market for a wand core."
"Sorry, we don't sell wands here. You'll have to go to Dreyden's Devilish Deals, Waldo's Wand Shop, or one of the other wand stores."
"I don't need a wand, just the core," she repeated, confirming that Fate had heard her right.
Just the core? Did she already have an uncategorized Will Stone? Odd, but not unbelievable.
"Wait here. I need to talk to the owner," Fate told her. He wasn't aware whether he could sell the wand cores.
"Travis," Fate called out when he was in the workshop.
"What, Fate?" Travis asked grumpily, squinting through the goggles as he placed another piece of glass. "I'm busy, if you can't tell."
"There's a woman out front. She wants to buy a wand core."
"A wand core? Not a wand?" Pushing his goggles onto his forehead, his golden eyes regarded Fate with bemusement. "Does she already have a Will Stone?"
"I didn't think it was my place to ask."
"Hm…" Deciding to investigate this himself, he placed the tweezers on a nearby table and followed Fate and Kravoss to the front of the store.
Pospo let out a short hiss at seeing Kravoss, only to let out a longer one when she received no response.
'I'm on the job, lady,' Kravoss thought haughtily. 'You're childish antics cannot make me waver.'
When Old Man Travis saw who it was who wanted the wand core, he laughed heartily.
"Ah, it's little Cait! Only you aren't so little anymore, are you?"
"Uncle Travis," Cait said with a respectful nod. "You're this man's employer?"
"You know each other?" Fate asked.
"I wasn't always in Brergan, boy," Travis grinned. "Before I settled down as your favorite neighborhood cobbler, I lived in Fonford to be with my family. This little brat came from my brother after he fell in love with a lucky kitsubus woman."
"You stopped visiting, uncle," Cait said. She tried not to sound accusatory, but the disappointment in her voice was palpable. "I haven't seen you in nearly four months."
"I was hard at work making you something and helping Fate here," Travis grinned. "Once I heard you awakened that Facet of yours, and that you were enrolled in the Royal Mage Academy, I knew I had to come up with a gift. Wait here."
Travis shuffled excitedly back into the back of the store, leaving Cait and Fate to stand around awkwardly.