Osric was unsure how long he had been unconscious. He stepped out of the workshop into a dark and moonless night filled with a billion stars. He found Orion low in the sky and guessed it was around the fourth candle after midnight. He had slept for almost eight candles.
“The dog was enchanted,” he said out loud to himself. “Why did I not consider that the dog was enchanted?” Cursing his lack of foresight, he went back inside to the unsurprising fact that the cage was open and the faerie long since escaped. He reached into the pocket of his cloak for a second unsurprising fact—the silver ring was missing.
Osric was fourteen years old, still young by all accounts, but an apprentice magician for four years and mature enough not to compound stupidity with foolishness. He sat on the stool to think what he should do next. Awakening Wulfric and confessing his mistakes was the most obvious course, but the one most likely to extend his apprenticeship.
If the dog was enchanted, logic dictated that another power sought to possess the faerie or the ring…or both. Magic left traces, like boot prints in soft ground, that could be identified and followed. Dogs, too, left paw prints to follow, if one possessed a keen eye. He would start in the workshop. The cage door was open, but that detail meant nothing in comparison to the ornate transparent web the faerie had woven across the back of the cage.
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