Vance wasn't sure if he was projecting, but the streets seemed eerily quiet.

The two boys made their way through the city streets under James' direction. For the first few minutes, they treated every corner as if it was concealing their next assailant. James, in particular, had his eyes trained behind them as often as he could manage.

Vance had his mana sense stretched out as far as he could manage. He noted that it wasn't until they got out of the general area of the nook that he started picking up more people. James was already building something of a conspiracy theory in his mind, this added fuel to the fire.

It didn't take long for some well-meaning pedestrians to notice that James was injured. Moments later, they'd gotten offers to bring them to a local doctor. Initially, James wanted to refuse in favour of expedience.

Vance quickly talked some sense into him by pointing out that he'd been leaning more heavily on Vance as they'd progressed, he was clearly losing strength.

They were brought to a small building with an entrance facing the road. It seemed to be closed. but Thankfully, the locals knew the owner and they were willing to open up.

The woman inside was casually dressed and was all smiles until she saw James. Then, she was all business. Almost as soon as they were inside, James found himself laying on a soft, well-kept bed. He was in the process of dyeing it red.

Vance learned that the doctor was named Aleisha. When she assessed Vance's dressing of the wound, she told him he'd done a passable job. However, it wasn't bound properly for a moving patient. The binding had slipped out of place at some point and neither of the boys had noticed in their haste.

James had lost a lot of blood, but Aleisha let them know that he wasn't in too much danger, they'd made the right choice coming to her when they did.

She got to work tending to the wound more appropriately and after barely a minute had passed, she'd stopped the bleeding. Her next piece of advice was to rest, but James was adamant that they needed to get across the city.

Vance was keeping his mana sense and his ears wide open. As far as he could tell, nobody was tailing them. He found that as strange as James did.

He was starting to come around to James' way of thinking, that didn't seem right at all.

Over the few minutes they spent in the doctor's office the adrenaline began to flee from both of them. Vance was aware that he had a nasty cut in the palm of his hand, but he found that it wasn't bleeding too badly. Once Aleisha noticed, she helped him wrap that wound as well.

"Still want to go to your family?" Vance asked.

"Yeah. I still think it's the safest place to go." James patted his leg, wincing as he spoke. "I don't think I'm walking anywhere, though. Now that the adrenaline is gone, this hurts pretty bad."

"I'll get us a carriage." Vance got up and headed towards the door. He didn't even consider going outside before checking the surroundings with his mana sense. It still seemed fairly clear.

"Sounds good." James laid back causing a soft thud as his head met the pillow.

Vance wanted to be quick. As soon as he'd gotten outside, he started asking the people nearby for help in finding a carriage. It took about half an hour but he managed to find one. When Vance returned with the carriage, James was sleeping soundly.

Vance briefly woke him to help him onto the carriage. Once he was aboard he was back to sleep a few moments later. Aleisha had given him a little something for the pain, so this was likely a side effect.

Vance started to properly relax when the carriage had been moving long enough that the horse's footfalls had started to fade into the background. It took about an hour to cross the city.

Now that Vance was fairly sure he wasn't being pursued, he told the driver to take it slow to avoid disturbing James as much as possible. He'd earned some rest.

Earlier, James had given Vance instructions on how to find his home in case something went wrong. That turned out to be a good call.

Once they arrived, Vance paid the driver with the last of the money he was carrying. James was out for the count by this point. Vance had to carry him limply on his back towards the front door of the McKinley household. The driver did not offer to help.

Vance's will was almost exhausted by this point. He was happy that he'd practised his mana sense so much, it was paying off when he needed it most.

James was bigger than Vance, so carrying him like this was quite the task. He could only take his uninjured hand away for a moment to land a small strike on the front door. The knock probably sounded pathetic from inside. It was less of a traditional knock and more like the sound of someone throwing a pebble at the door.

Vance heard the door open, then, with the last drudges of his will, used his mana sense to observe the person who'd opened it.

It was a man with broad shoulders. From the sound of his approaching footsteps, Vance had already ascertained that he was probably wearing dress shoes of some kind. He was therefore likely well-dressed overall and Vance assumed he'd be part of the household staff.

Vance was worried about making introductions, but the man beat him to the punch.

"Young master James?!" An old, wisened voice rang out from the man. Before Vance knew what was happening, the man was helping him usher James inside.

"He's alright. He's wounded, but a doctor tended to him. He's taken something for the pain." Vance quickly added to assuage the man's panic. It seemed to work.

The two carried James into a nearby sitting room. Then, before Vance could get him settled down, he felt his mana sense fail on him. He was abruptly returned to utter ignorance of the world around him. He had to stop himself from fumbling forward as the sudden lack of awareness took hold.

"Sorry, can you take him? I've lost my bearing," Vance said to the man, who was now very close to him.

"Certainly." With practised ease, he took James and carried him over to a nearby sofa, where he laid him down.

Vance stood stock still. He didn't want to break anything.

"You're Mr Kalliea, I assume? James has spoken of you."

"Yes, Sir. I'm sorry for the intrusion. James told me that we should come here after we were attacked."

Interestingly, hearing that they were attacked didn't seem to phase the older gentleman.

"I'm Malcolm. I act as a housekeeper for the McKinley family. It is a pleasure to meet you. I shall gather the Mistress, she will want to know of this immediately."

Before he left, Malcolm carefully guided Vance to a nearby seat, where he remained motionless.

He sat in silence for a moment, a little shell shocked. He's experienced the sudden cutoff of his mana sense many times before during practice. Today, there'd barely been a moment that he'd stopped using it. It was imprecise sometimes and tricky to maintain, but he'd been able to navigate so freely.

For some reason, this time, it hurt so much more when it faded away. It was like he was stricken blind for the first time. He thought that sentiment was particularly odd, considering.

By his previous tests, he should've been able to keep it up for about an hour longer than he had today.

Unfortunately, those tests did not factor in the expenditure of his will for handling large portions of concentrated fire mana.

Vance chuckled wryly to himself. He thought it was ironic that he'd set out to cure his blindness using magic, only to discover that once he'd found a method of navigation of his own creation, using magic would take it away from him by exhausting his will.

Just after he'd formed this thought, he heard a barrage of footfalls making their way down a nearby staircase. They were erratic. This was probably the Lady of the house, and she was panicking.

Moments later, he heard someone charge their way through the room. Vance heard a few things nearby get thrown out of the way. Something shattered.

"Oh, my sweet James, are you okay?!"

After a few minutes of fussing, she seemed to be satisfied that her son was in reasonably good shape. Malcolm stealthily approached Vance and told him that this was James' mother, Lady Maddison McKinley.

Vance heard her approach once she was done fretting and he stood up to greet her. He gave a polite bow and said quietly.

"I'm sorry to have to meet you like this, Lady McKinley. I'm Vance, James is my friend."

"He's spoken highly of you. Did you bring him back? Like this?" She asked. Vance could hear that she was working her way back from the verge of tears.

Malcolm answered for him. "He carried the young master to the doorstep on his back."

Before Vance got a word out, he felt hands placed on both sides of his face, then Maddison placed a kiss firmly in the centre of his forehead.

"It's my fault he's like this in the first place, he was protecting me from hired thugs." Vance hurriedly corrected.

"Nonsense," she said, defiantly. "If my son decided to put himself in harm's way, then I'm positive he thought it through. If he deems you worth protecting, then you are. Malcolm, please take care of this young man. Make sure he's fed, dressed and given a place to rest. We'll talk in the morning, you look exhausted."

"Of course, Lady McKinley. Come, Master Kalliea."

Vance felt Malcolm put his hands on his shoulders, guiding him in the right direction with a tiny bit of pressure.

Vance heard Maddison make her way back over to her son as he was guided out of the room. He was escorted to a spare room on the first floor where he made himself comfortable. With his mana sense out of action, he wouldn't be going anywhere tonight even if he wanted to.

Before night truly took hold, he received a visitor. Three knocks at the door announced the arrival of Lord Nathaniel McKinley.

Vance was fairly certain he'd heard Nathaniel's homecoming not long ago. Nathaniel smelled like a forest. It was the sort of smell that Vance would associate with a woodsman.

"Mr Kalliea, might I disturb you for a moment?" Nathaniel had a rich, hearty voice. He sounded like he was brimming with energy, even this late into the day.

"Of course, sir."

"No need for any of that. If you're the sort of chap that James puts his neck out for, there's no need for such formality. Call me Nat."

Fortunately for Vance, it seemed that Nathaniel agreed with his wife on this point. Nathaniel stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

Vance gave his host a weak smile and then asked, "What can I do for you?"

"I know Maddison wanted to wait until the morning, but I wanted to ask you about what happened today. Are you up to it?"

Vance was more than happy to tell Nathaniel exactly what happened. More specifically, he was delighted to have anyone to tell at all. Over the next few minutes, Vance told him every detail he could remember.

Vance couldn't tell, but Nathaniel's facial expression darkened the further he got into his tale. It was around the time when he mentioned that their attackers ran off that the lord of the house began asking specific questions about the sequence of events.

"So, you send one of them off with a burned wrist. James is fighting the other, gets stabbed in the leg, then that assailant picks that moment to cut and run, then tells the whole crew to do the same?"

"Yeah."

"Vance, at any point before their retreat, did you hear that particular signal sound? The whistle that fleeing man blew?"

He thought back carefully. When Karl had rushed their first pursuer he'd let off a signal, but it wasn't the same, the pitch was different. Similar, but different enough to be noticeable.

"Actually, no. Their signal to retreat was distinct from the one they used when they noticed us leave the nook."

Vance heard Nathaniel fidgeting in place, clearly thinking this all through.

"I'm missing something," Nathaniel added, thinking out loud. Vance could hear him wrapping the fingers of one hand against the knuckles of the other. "They had you beat, fair to say? Why didn't they finish beating you down if that's what they came for? I'm beginning to think that the last signal wasn't a retreat."

Vance thought for a moment, caught up and asked, "You think it was mission successful?"

"Yes. I do. Vance, I don't think you were the real target here, after all. I think you might've been a cover story or an excuse or something. I think they knew James would come to help you, though I don't know how."

"James did mention that Leslie tipped him off that I'd be attacked. But they didn't kill him, so what were they after?"

"My guess? His blood."

Vance was at a loss. What could they possibly want his blood for? That seemed entirely pointless. He was about to ask, but Nathaniel suddenly seemed very impatient and cut him off.

"Vance, you've been very helpful. Forgive my rudeness, I need to go and check on something urgently. I trust you're comfortable here?"

Vance was snapped free from his chain of thought and nodded fervently.

"The room is wonderful, thank you."

"Good. Call on Malcolm should you need anything at all. While you stay, you will be treated as a member of this family." He gave Vance a little squeeze on the arm before he stood up and left the room in a hurry.

Vance's curiosity was piqued. He was certainly tempted to demand to be included, to see this through, consequences be damned.

His hand hovered over the door handle for a long, long moment. He knew he could probably catch Nathaniel if he went now. Then, he remembered the last time he stuck his nose into something he didn't understand.

His hand dropped to his side and he returned to sitting on his bed. Then, while his mind was still racing with questions, he went to sleep. It was a restless night.