It expanded and grew hotter, rolling and spreading to his stomach, his loins, along to his fingertips, then all the way back up to his head, where it pooled in his eyes once more before releasing across their invisible connection and back into the emberfox.
The next thing he knew he was on the ground, gasping. Tears streamed down his face from the power of his connection with the emberfox, and more fell from his closed eyes when he felt the sudden cold emptiness of that connection's absence. He groaned. What happened?
A gentle weight on his arm made him open his eyes.
He was lying on his back in front of the open cage door. The emberfox had one foot on his arm, testing its firmness. Apparently satisfied, it proceeded to climb on to Benin's chest, treading over him casually as though he were nothing more than a human stepping stone to freedom.
It stopped beside Coll, who was peering around a nearby row of enclosures. The warrior looked down. The emberfox raised its chin in greeting. Coll gave it a nod in response, then addressed Benin.
"There are two of them. I could easily take them—"
"No!" Wiping his face, Benin climbed to his feet and hurried over. In the next aisle, one of the guards—the one with the short sword—flinched back from a sudden burst of sparks in a nearby enclosure. She cursed and rubbed her eyes.
Goodbye, night vision. Thank you, electric mouse.
"We need to get out of here without being seen," he whispered to Coll. "The Guildmaster can't know we came back."
He frowned. "What's the big deal?"
"Oh, come on! How many times must we go over this? The Guildmaster will punish us for disobeying his last orders. He might even have us killed. Or worse, exiled from the Guild."
"But aren't we basically exiling ourselves by staying away?"
"For now, yes. He can't officially banish us if we're not there for him to do it, can he?" Benin tapped the side of his head. "Think."
Two more guards appeared in the doorway. After calling out to the others, one of the newcomers made their way down the central aisle. The other remained to guard the doorway.
Shit.
Distracted by the new arrivals, Benin almost didn't see the guard closest to them preparing to round the next aisle. At a gesture from Coll, they bent over a little and tiptoed around the corner of the cages. The emberfox followed at their feet, its flames barely visible, as though it somehow understood the need for stealth. Benin longed to touch its glorious fur, ached to reclaim that bond they'd shared for a fraction of an instant, but he was afraid he'd drive the creature away. Besides, now wasn't exactly a good moment for him to risk passing out again.
"I know you're in here somewhere," the guard muttered. She sounded as nervous as Benin felt. The butterflies in his own stomach felt ready to burst out in the form of vomit; he hated this sort of sneaking around.
But desperate times called for desperate measures. If he was to become a high mage regardless of his standing with the Guild, he needed a familiar. And any sympathy he might have felt toward the nervous guard—who was just doing her job, after all—vanished when he recalled the terror in the emberfox's eyes at the sentries' approach.
"We can't be caught," he whispered aloud, half to himself and half to Coll. "They'd put the emberfox back in its cage. I’ve promised I won’t let that happen."
The big man looked from the gently glowing fox to the silhouette of the guard in the doorway. He nodded slowly, jaw set. "Okay." His hands tightened on the haft of his hammer. He jerked his head toward the door. "On my signal, go."
"What?" What was the idiot talking about?
But Coll was already striding out into the open space of the central aisle. The still-blinking guard there jerked back in surprise and opened her mouth to call out to her companions. Coll beat her to it.
"Oi!" he yelled, hefting his hammer and lashing out with it to knock over the pile of empty cages he'd almost toppled earlier.
The deafening clatter of metal provoked more shrieking from the Menagerie’s inmates until the cacophony crowded the room like a physical presence. The two guards in the other aisles immediately abandoned their searches and made straight for the new disturbance. The one blocking the doorway turned around, standing on tiptoes to see what was going on, but did not leave his post.
That was, until Coll swung his hammer again. It smashed into the stone floor with the full force of both his arms. The sound of the concussion made all the guards flinch, even the one over in the doorway.
Benin watched as though in slow motion as a ring of shimmering force—like a solid heat haze—pulsed out from the point of the hammer's impact and spread in ever-expanding circles around the idiot who'd caused it. It sent them all staggering—first the guard in front of Coll, then Benin in the next aisle, then the other two guards. The emberfox screamed, its claws scraping on stone as it scrabbled away from the noise. Even the man in the doorway seemed to experience the shockwave to some extent; he uncrossed his arms, drew something—a wand? A very small knife?—from a pouch on his belt, and left his post to investigate.
Finally.
Stunned by the impact, hands still covering his ears, Benin glanced down at the emberfox as it ducked behind him. But before he had a chance to reach comforting arms toward it, it began climbing.
Hot little claws pricked his skin through his clothes and Benin swallowed a yell as the creature scrambled up his legs and back to latch itself, trembling, atop his shoulders. Waves
