With their deal agreed by both sides, Gabriel’s situation finally cooled down for a few months. He could rest in peace with the knowledge that both he and his sister would be protected, even if he was tasked with some dangerous tasks from time to time.

During the first month he was mostly tested to see what he could do and how well he would so different things, so that he could be efficiently managed by his superiors. Gabriel learned that his boss didn’t concentrate power but rather shared it with some of his trusted allies, most of which also tried not to stand out in Destin.

With time, he also learned the name of his boss, which came accompanied with some bonus knowledge. Mark was the name given by his mother, which was important because for the gods and the so-called “laws of the world” that wasn’t his true name, but rather the name given by his god-side, his father. He did give him a name, yet no one was present there, so he didn’t know his true name.

It wasn’t that bad, according to his boss (as he wanted to be called), because if someone else had his true name, he could use it for nefarious means. And this was in relationship with his ordeal with the followers of his grandfather, because the boss believed that someone there had somehow gotten his name and as such he would constantly be in danger of these unknown nefarious consequences.

Arabelle had also gained more liberties with this change of home and was at first in the same situation as before, constrained to the building itself, but after a while Gabriel agreed for her to leave and play around the area under the supervision of his butler that was also the security guard.

Piti also managed to take the situation with a positive attitude, as it was still happily playing with Arabelle and also being trained by her. She could now do most simple tricks, such as sitting, laying on the floor, giving the paw, between others and Arabelle had moved onto more complex commands, such as moving to a pointed location, tracking a smell and getting through rough terrain.

This was all under the orders disguised as comments made by Gabriel, because he was interested in making Piti an animal which could protect Arabelle if needed, save her as well, so if Piti could be trained for that, it would be done.

Arabelle, on the other hand, found it interesting to try to teach a dog those orders while also keeping the orders unique enough from one another not to confuse it. With time she had to start taking notes on every order because although she could remember all of them, the similarities and differences were easier to find out when all of the possibilities were together.

Months passed while Gabriel accumulated wealth and knowledge which he managed to reach either by “lending” books from different libraries in Destin or by exchanging a successful mission for something special.

This deal was agreed after two months of subservience and if Gabriel completed one of his tasks at least a day before he was tasked to finish it, he would get something extra. This was, of course, under the condition that he did everything well and didn’t bring unwanted externalities into play, such as him being found out or that the actions were found out to be related to his boss.

But not every task was equal. Sometimes he had to steal an object from a house, while other times it was in a secured building. He was never tasked to incur into violence, but he was told to knock guards out had they seen him or if he declared it necessary to be able to finish his task.

During a week he had to play the other role and instead of stealing, he had to protect an object, which he failed… partly. He wasn’t told that someone else working for the same boss was hired to steal the object before someone else stole it and he managed to do so, while Gabriel managed to catch someone else who was also trying to get their hands on the object inside the packaging he had been protecting.

And he didn’t always finish his missions. For example, when he had to steal a ring from a magician, he was tricked into stealing a useless flower-ring instead and was so thoroughly fooled that he didn’t realize until he gave it to his boss, who undid the covers of enchantments and revealed the truth under them.

Gabriel was never physically punished for his failed tasks, but for every failed attempt he would lose the chance of getting something extra for a single time as well. This didn’t change his clear ratio that much, as it was already pretty high due to his skills and because his tasks weren’t the hardest ones either.

But after half a year working, stealing, protecting, searching and following he was told that his missions would get more difficult because of some unforeseen employee cuts. As a consequence, his pay would be increased by 50%, and this included bonuses as well.

Gabriel didn’t know how to feel about this because this increase was quite large for him, as he barely used a fifth of the pay, he had been given before and he expected the difficulty to increase by more than the pay instinctively, maybe because of him still being forced to work for the same guy for some time or because he had been thinking a lot of what Kupi had last told him. He decided it was best to be untrustful of other people until proven otherwise and Gabriel had barely had any contact with his boss, so there wasn’t enough to create a clear image of him.

At the start of the next month, he finally realized how much more difficult these tasks would be. While he would usually get weekly tasks at the start of every week and they ranged from five to ten, while sometimes he was given one or two more weeks in case a mission was considered more difficult, this time he got a total of fifteen things he had to do during the whole month.

This meant that he had less things to do but looking at the details he realized that each of these things had been considered difficult before and some things he wasn’t even sure what they meant, so he contacted the bodyguard, who would probably know something about what he needed to do or who to contact to learn said information.

These new tasks took more of his time which he had spent reading about and practicing physics, chemistry, magic and other sciences so his unfinished books started piling up as he was also getting more. Still, he followed the contract although he didn’t know whether he really wanted to get it through or if it was the magic imbued in it that made him think that way.

These years didn’t have any significant events that thoroughly affected my life, but I managed to learn more about life and people through experience and although I wouldn’t call myself a great thief at that time, I was already good enough to be one of the best ones in Destin.

My sister also managed to learn more about responsibility, partly because the bodyguard talked to her about how she should behave, but also because she started interacting with more people when she was outside and observed their attitudes.

With her fast growth, both physical and mental, and with the help of a caring brother, me, she started to recognize different behaviors and I showed her how certain actions would lead to worse situations, be it short or long term.

Many things changed, but at the same time the situation was almost the same. I hadn’t progressed much on my personal objectives; we were still in Destin and the situation with the followers of the thief-god hadn’t gone anywhere. But that would all soon change.