"With the rise of the performance arts, mist mages, who were once considered amongst the least useful mages, began to rise into prominence. Their ability to create lifelike illusions proved invaluable in these new fields, and it was not long before some of these mages were treated like celebrities by the adoring crowd." - Excerpt from "Development of Performance Arts" by Ragnar Magnussen, Jötunbergian author and famed director of stage plays.

"Beg your pardon for the wait, madam, but Master Dalheim has vouched for you and bid you to join him," said the butler deferentially when he returned not five minutes later. The man held the door open for them, and had not even asked about Cal when she followed behind Kino.

The butler led them through the corridors of the house - it was large enough to call it a mansion, really - which showed expensive decorations all over, mostly in the form of artworks on display. It was a display of extravagance to be sure, but an artful and tasteful one.

Cal and Kino were brought to a large waiting room where they were bid to wait, while the butler left to inform "Master Dalheim". Kino had just sprawled herself comfortably over one of the comfortable looking sofas, and Cal did the same. It was a tad too soft for her liking, even.

On their way there, Kino had briefed her of Evrett's "cover" identity. He had pretended to be one of his own distant descendants - an easy feat with how many of those are around - who had heard of house Faerrel's twin children, who had awakened their magic early and showed great talent with it.

It was trivial for him to falsify some documents which proclaimed him to be a scholar in the field, after which he offered his services to tutor those children. His actual goal was to groom those children to be his successor as the Champion of Mist. Their personality was already to his liking, so he mostly helped them grow their skills as far as it would grow instead.

"In his own words, he doesn't want his successors to be any less excellent than himself. Lil' Evrett had always got some ego going," said Kino nonchalantly as she sipped the tea that the butler had left poured for them before he left.

"Who did you say has an ego again!?" asked an old man in a somewhat annoyed tone as he entered the room. Cal took a good look at the Champion of Mist, a human man who chose to appear as one of advanced age, around fifty or sixty she would guess.

He had long brown hair mixed with gray strands tied into a ponytail, and kept a long, thin mustache he habitually twirled. That mustache and the goatee he kept made him look almost like a villain from a roadside play. Likely a look he cultivated on purpose for whatever reason.

"You of course, lil' Evrett. Who else?" said Kino with a smirk on her face. To Cal's surprise, the woman got up from her seat, then rubbed Evrett's head and somewhat messed up his hair, to the reluctant submission of the man. "Now what were you saying again, my dear junior?"

"Not in front of the kids, please," begged Evrett with a scowl. He had become a champion more recently, and Kino was his senior in that regard by well over a century, despite their chosen appearances which would have indicated otherwise.

"Uhh… a bit late for that, I think. Especially if you mean those two by the kids," replied Kino as she looked behind Evrett, which just caused the man to cover his face with one hand and mutter something about how they would never let him live it down.

Cal looked at the direction Kino was looking at, and saw it. Two small faces were half hidden as they peeked out from behind the door, with only their eyes and ears in sight. They noticed Cal and Kino's eyes looking at them, traded a look with one another, then just walked into the room.

It turned out that they were the children Evrett was teaching. The two of them had thick therian blood, probably full-blooded, with features that resembled a fox, and tails that looked positively fluffy. Both had a coating of light brown fur that faded to white halfway up their ears, around their muzzle and paws, and near the tip of their tails, and looked to be maybe nine or ten, if Cal guessed by their size.

In contrast to Kino, whose therian ancestry likely also came from their kind, with fur on her ears and tail that matched the wine-colored gradient of her hair, these two young therians were far more obviously therian in nature. That was, until their form seemed to shimmer and they suddenly adopted a look little different to Kino's. That of a human form with only visible ears and tail to betray their therian nature.

"This pretty big sister is your senior, master?" asked one of the children, the boy, since his human form had short hair and more masculine features.

"Master's senior? Wait. How old would she be then? Master's an old fart already as it is," said the other, the girl. The two had looked identical when they looked like full-blooded therians earlier, and even in this form Cal mostly noticed the difference from their hair. The girl had longer hair and softer features.

"Now, now. Don't you kids know it's rude to ask a woman of her age?" asked Kino as she rubbed the heads of the two kids with mock indignation in her voice. The figure of the kids flickered again as she did so, as they returned to their full-blooded therian looks from before. The more humanlike guise they assumed earlier was merely a very realistic illusion.

"Miss Renard, I would like to introduce you to my disciples," said Evrett with a long-suffering sigh. "This is Kraze Faerrel, and Kode Faerrel, the third and fourth children of Baron Faerrel of Saelostov. Children, this is Miss Renard, my senior in the field of the arts."