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"I'm telling you. The materials you're requesting are way beyond your level. They can't just be used by anybody. We don't work like that in this place."

"And I'm telling you, I don't care. I have a high-skill certificate issued by the Archmage himself and I'm more than willing to take the risk. Just let me take the materials for the invocation."

The old fox blinked a few times, staring at the young lynx in front of him with a mixture of displeasure and incredulity. He was obviously not used to being talked to that way. However, the younger feline stood there with the same stoic expression he had been wearing since he had walked into the Summoning Chambers. The apothecary had been working there for a long time and knew that there was nothing he could do that'd stop that apprentice from taking his materials. Those fresh summoners usually came from the capital and were used to getting away with anything.

Better give him what he wants than receiving the fine tomorrow, he told himself. He sighed and left his desk, ready to open the cupboard on the other side of the room.

"Okay, okay. But don't say I didn't warn you, boy."

The lynx didn't answer. He just followed the apothecary with his eyes as he stood patiently in the hall, watching the other apprentices walk into the next room. There was a rather tall tiger that kept staring at him from the doorway, for some reason. What?, he thought, loud enough that the tiger would hear him,as he stared back at him, and raised an eyebrow as if daring the other feline to say something. That never happened, though, for the tiger soon turned his back to the smaller feline and walked into the next room.Something about the way he'd been looking at him bothered the lynx, though.

"What was it that you needed, boy?" the apothecary asked then, pushing those thoughts away from the lynx'smind.

"Wine salt," herecited, as if he had learned it by heart. "Threesachets. Lavender... twosachets will do. Olden blood, twovials.A firestone..."

"Wine salt and olden blood?" the apothecary interrupted him, glancing at him over his shoulder. "What in the aether are you going to summon, son?"

The lynx just shrugged as the apothecary came back to his deck with the materials and started scribbling in a piece of parchment, making sure he noted down everything that apprentice was taking into the Summoning Chambers.

"Remember to bring back the spare materials. They're difficult to find, you know," the old fox warned then. "And I'll need your name."

"Milo,"the lynx answered, as he picked all his materials and started walking towards the door.

"Remember you can have the room just until night, boy!"

The fox's voice sounded as if he had already lost all hope that the lynx would listen to him. The old apothecary only caught a glimpse of the apprentice's robe as he entered the Summoning Chambers and he frowned. Those young newcomers always brought some trouble until they learned one or two lessons.

Once inside, Milo turned around to admire the inner part of the building, which he hadn't been allowed to see until that moment. To say the truth, he had been expecting something bigger. All he could see was a very long corridor, maybe even too narrow at some points, that descended into the Earth like a spiral staircase. From there, he could see some doors that apparently lead to other rooms: all of them were probably individual rooms that students like him had hired to carry their experiments and invocations.

As he walked down the corridor, Milo noticed that most doors were closed, and he deduced that those were the rooms that were already being used by the other students. Trying to find an open door in the middle of the dimly lit corridor, hewas barely away of the figure that stood in the shadows until he walked right into it. Surprised and a bit embarrassed, the lynx took a step back as he prepared to apologize, raising his gaze to meet the taller student's eyes. However, the apology soon died in his lips.

It was the same tiger he had seen before, standing in the doorway.

"Sorry, didn't see you coming," the tiger said. Milo could tell it was just a fake excuse, as his had been if he had tried to apologize. "Are you looking for something?"

"Actually, yes," the lynx said, trying to take advantage of that situation. If the tiger was coming from the deepest parts of the corridor, maybe he could help him get a summoning room sooner than other students. "I was looking for an empty room. It seems most of them are occupied today."

"Yeah. Final exams. Usually happens," the tiger answered, with a smile. "I think I've seen some empty rooms by the end of the corridor, if you're interested."

"Okay, thanks", the lynx said, as he quickly resumed his walk, willing to leave that tiger behind. For some reason he couldn't tell just yet, he found him... annoying.

However, he had just taken a few steps in the right direction when the tiger's voice rose behind him.

"Where's your Vigilant, by the way?"

Milo froze in place and then turned slowly to the tiger.

"My what?"

"Your Vigilant," the tiger repeated, as if it were something obvious. "You know, your partner. Your classmate. The one that's going to check on you while you do the summoning."

"I don't need one," Milo replied. He wished his answer would make the tiger stop asking, but he was clearly wrong.

"I'm afraid you do. Everyone needs a Vigilant when they're using the Summoning Chambers. It's part of the rules." The tiger paused for a few seconds, giving a long look at the lynx. "You just came from the capital, didn't you?"

Milo groaned.

"Yeah, so what?"

"Well, there are things that work differently here. We take safety very seriously. You wouldn't be the first apprentice that's been hurt... or worse during a simple exam preparation."

"I won't get hurt. I know what I'm doing," the lynx snorted. "But thank you for worrying."

The tiger crossed his arms on his chest. He wasn't particularly strong, but the fact that he was a head taller than him made Milo feel a bit intimidated. The lynx tried to hide that as much as he could.

"I'm afraid you _do_need a Vigilant," the other feline said, after a while. "The choice is not yours to make."

"Well, as you can see, I don't have one," Milo replied. He was starting to get angry.

As if those words were funny, the tiger chuckled softly. Then, he raised one paw and pointed at himself.

"No way..." the lynx started.

"I'm sorry. Either you accept me as your Vigilant or you'll have to come back another day. Your choice."

Milo turned his back at the tiger as he let out an exasperated sigh. No matter how hard he wanted to practice his summoning that day, he just couldn't bearthe presence of the tiger. That student was obviously older than him, with way more experience and having someone pointing out all his mistakes to him was the last thing Milo needed that day.

His gaze moved down to the materials he was carrying in his arms. They were not easy to find, and maybe he wouldn't be that lucky any other day...

"Alright," the lynx said quietly, after a short while. He turned to the taller feline again. "Show me an empty room, please."

The tiger nodded, satisfied, and started walking through the corridor, closely followed by Milo. The more they descended, the darker it seemed to get. The lynx thought it almost seemed as if someone had thought it would be funny to separate the torches a bit more with every step they took. He quickly got rid of those thoughts. He was probably just making up things.

"Name's Rackhan, in case you are interested," the tiger said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

"Milo," the lynx replied, coldly.

"What's it like in the capital? I've heard a lot of stories, but I've never really been there."

"It's warmer," Milo said. "And people definitely ask less questions."

"Heh, sorry. Just trying to make some conversation." It didn't sound like he was sorry at all. "Apprentices usually get nervous when they come here for the first time."

"I'm not a regular apprentice then," the lynx said. "The only thing that's making me nervous here is you."

Rackhan laughed and the sound echoed in the empty corridor. Apart from the occasional noise that came through any of the closed doors they were walking past, there didn't seem to be anyone in that corridor. The silence was starting to be a bit overwhelming. How deep were they by now? Milo was about to ask, but the tiger had started talking again.

"It's my job, you know," he was saying. "Guiding students to empty rooms, being their Vigilant if they need one. I'm not doing it because I want to pester you or anything."

"Well, it certainly looks like it," Milo admitted, frowning.

Rackhan chuckled again, this time a bit more softly.

"Grumpy kids from the capital... You're all just the same."

Milo opened his mouth to reply, but then closed it again, a bit offended. He didn't have much time to be angry at the tiger, though. They soon came to an open door, probably one of the last in the corridor.

Hoping to end that nightmare as soon as possible, the lynx walked into the room first, heading for a corner and leaving all his materials there. He shook his arms a bit, trying to get rid of the tension. He didn't know if it had been the effort of taking everything down there or the annoying conversation of his so-called Vigilant.

"Just so you know, Resonance is higher here than in the upper rooms," the tiger told him. "You'll have to hurry out of the circle when you've done everything."

"Alright," the lynx said, nodding. There. At least a good piece of advice, in the middle of so much insubstantial chitchat.

He took one of the vials of olden blood and uncorked it under Rackhan's attentive gaze.

"What are you summoning, by the way?" the tiger asked.

"A stone tongue for you so you'll stop talking. What do you think?" the lynx replied, with a snort.

"Heh. I guess it'll be a daemona, then," Rackhan said. He was standing on the opposite corner, arms crossed on his chest as he watched Milo draw a circle on the floor with the olden blood.

"Of course it's a daemona. What else would I summon with this materials?" he asked, impatiently.

That seemed to shut Rackhan up for a few minutes, enough for Milo to draw the whole circle. There was some blood remaining in one of the vials when he finished and he used it to mark the more vulnerable lines, knowing that he needed to be specially cautious.

When he finished, he gave a look at his work and smiled, proudly. It had been a while since the last time he had drawn a circle without helping himself with a compass, but the result was quite good and the lines lookedconsistent enough that they'd manage to contain what he wanted to summon there.

"Nice work," the tiger said then. For once, it seemed as if he was being serious.

"Thank you."

Milo then took the wine salt and started pouring it on the floor, making sure that it'd follow the lines he had drawn with the blood earlier. It was a slow, boring task that he usually found quite entertaining. However, the fact that there was someone else in the room, watching every step he took, just made everything worse.

It took him almost an hour to trace every single line with the salt, making sure not a single grain would fall out of the established limits. At some point, he needed to take the torch from the wall and use its light to see better. He could have asked Rackhan for his help, and the tiger seemed like he was certainly expecting him to do so, but he preferred to do it alone.

"Okay. Second tracing, done," he sighed, when he finally stood up after with the torch in his paw, after what had seemed an eternity.

"You're doing quite well. And you're fast, too," Rackhan observed.

Milo smiled, but wasn't as desperate for attention as to admit he was glad someone could finally see how good he was at it. He just tookthe lavender sachets, opened them and started picking some small flowers from them. He placed them in specific points in the circle, basically where the different lines met.

That task looked simple enough, but he had to place the flowers on the salt lines trying not to move it from the position he had spent an hour trying it to be. He had left his robe in a corner an hour ago, so he didn't have to worry about itsweeping the floor with every step he took. That was a basic and common mistake.

"Lavender and wine salt. It's a daemona from the Eastern woods, right?"

"Yes, it is. Now," he said, as he left the last flower on the circle and returned to the corner to take the firestone, "you said Resonance is stronger here. How much time do you reckonI have?"

Rackhan tilted his head, thoughtfully.

"About... three seconds, I'd say."

Milo bit his lip. That wasn't much time to get out of the circle without touching a single grain of salt or moving one of those flowers. But he knew he could do it. He'd done shorter times before.

"Alright," he said, holding the firestone in his paw. "At least I have a Vigilant to take care of things in case something bad happens."

Rackhan smiled, but that didn't make Milo feel any safer.

He walked into the circle again, carefully, trying not to ruin his own work. After a few seconds of hesitation, he left the firestone in the exact center of the circle and stood up, turning around and walking out of the circle as fast as he could without stomping on the lines. His heart rushed a bitas he reached the outer part of the circle and turned back in time just to see how the salt he had poured on the floor lit with a weird color, something between purple and green.

He had done it. The circle had closed right in time and not with him inside.

Milo looked up at Rackhan to see that the tiger was as impressed as himself, and then looked back into the circle. He knew perfectly well what was going on now. Hours and hours of theoretical study of the summoning arts had made him familiar with the whole process.

The firestone acted as a catalyst for the Resonance and it extended it through the olden blood circle. That would bring the daemona to the space delimited by the blood, even if just for an hour, or until the firestone was removed. However, certain things were needed in order to call differentdaemona. The one Milo had in mind came from the Eastern woods, so lavender and wine salt were probably the things it'd fancy most.

And judging by the color the salt was acquiring now, it was clear that it had worked.

A curtain of smoke started ascending from the firestone, spiralling up and filling the inner part of the circle. That was usually when they'd have the definite proof that the summoning had worked. The daemona would materialize and then would start looking for breaches in the circle in an attempt to break out. Several things could happen then: either Milo had done a good job and the circle was completely closed or he had really messed up and they were in real trouble.

Impatiently, the lynx waited until a figure started rising amidst the spiralling smoke, getting taller and taller with each passing second. Milo knew daemona usually did that: trying to scare their summoners into breaking the circle some way or another.

But he was not that easy to impress. When the smoke cleared, he could see what looked like a very tall feminine figure, canine apparently, with very long hair that almost touched the floor. Its head had hit the ceiling and it almost seemed as if the apparition would keep on getting bigger for a few seconds, but the limits of the circle were clear and the daemona soon stopped growing. Through the curtain of hair that fell from the creature's head, Milo could see a pair of yellow, calculating eyes, moving frantically and trying to find a way out.

He exchanged a look with Rackhan, who seemed somewhat interested in the scene, but not scared or surprised in the slightest. If the tiger seemed so calm, then, chances were that there had been no mistake in the execution of the summoning. Milo relaxed a bit.

Then, the daemona's body trembled, as if hit by an invisible force. Suddenly, the female body melted to the ground, as if it had suddenly turned into some kind of liquid. Sudden changes were also part of the daemona's constant attempts to confuse their summoners, so at first Milo didn't give it much importance. However, when tentacles started growing from the pond on the floor, feeling the limits of the circle that the lynx had drawn before, he frowned.

There was no way he had made a mistake. He had calculated everything, he had been as exact as possible. Even Rackhan had agreed with him on that.

Thetangled mess of tentacles seemed to vibrate in the air, moving from one pointinthe circle to another. Then, they wiggled a bit, and one tentacle separated from the rest, as if guided by an impulse.

"Careful!" Rackhan shouted.

Before Milo knew what was going on, the tentacle darted directly towards him. He tried to scream, but fear seemed to have taken his throat too. When the greenish tentacle crossed the circle painted on the floor, the lynx knew that he had definitely made a mistake. Now the daemona was free.

And it was coming for him.

Before he could react, the tentacle curled around his ankle and threw him to the ground. The lynx let out a moan of pain when his head hit the cold, hard floor, but reacted quickly and managed to grab a protruding tile, helping himself with his claws. The floor was so neglected that it was easy to find cracks to stick his claws in and he inwardly thanked whoever had left that place go to waste.

However, more tentacles came soon to help the other one, curling around his leg and pulling him towards the lines of the circle. The lynx clenched his teeth and tried to hold there, raising his gaze in order to look at the dangerous creature that wanted to devour him. From the center of the room, the daemona gave him a smile full of teeth. It looked so terrifyingthat Milo's blood froze in his veins.

It took him a while to see Rackhan on the other side of the room, and it took him even longer to realize the tiger seemed to have gone unnoticed to the daemona for some reason. The older student looked back at him, a bit worried, but made a gesture urging him to calm down. How could I calm down in this situation?, the lynx thought exasperatedly, as he tried to stick his claws deeper into the dirt. Even when his life was at stake, he could find new reasons to hate that stupid tiger.

Rackhan, however, seemed to have found a way to fix the whole situation. Crouching down very slowly, the tiger picked up a loose tile from the floor and weighed it in his paw, as if trying to measure something. He squinted, looking right into the daemona and trying to see through its horrible figure. Milo wanted to tell him to hurry up, but that would have drawn the attention of the daemona towards the Vigilant, and he was his only hope at the moment.

When he felt one of his claws splitting, he let out a new moan of pain. He had been so stupid. He didn't know what mistake it was he had made, but...

Then, without a warning, the daemona turned to Rackhan as if it had finally noticed his presence. The tiger, taken by surprise, threw the tile quickly towards the creature. Silly tiger, Milo thought, closing his eyes and knowing for sure that they were going to die. The daemona isn't really there... it's just a projection. You can't hit it with a tile...

However, the tile flew through the air and hit something right before the creature's tentacles curled around Rackhan's wrist. Suddenly, the horrible vision fluttered for a second and, just like that, itdisappeared. Before Milo knew what had even happened, he was laying on the ground, breathing heavily and feeling his heart pounding quickly. It took him a few seconds to realize that, for some reason, he was still alive.

"Are you okay?" Rackhan asked, getting closer to the lynx.

Milo tried to sit up and held his head with his paws, trying to catch his breath. He still couldn't believe they had been so close to being devoured by a daemona.

"Y-yeah..." he said, after a short while. "I... Thank you. What... what did you...?"

"If you aim for the stone in the center of the circle and manage to move it, the connection is shattered and theResonance vanishes, so the daemona vanishes too," Rackhan explained. Milo couldn't help but notice the proud tone in his voice.

"Oh," the lynx thought, a bit surprised that the tiger had found such a good way to dismiss the daemona. "I... I had never thought about it that way."

"There are some things you only learn by making mistakes, I guess."

Rackhan sat by his side as Milo tried to calm himself down. The room was quiet and empty, and the only sound that could be heard now was the lynx's heavy breathing and the crackling noise of the torch. Minutes went by as both the tiger and the lynx remained silent, letting the adrenaline fade away slowly. Nothing but the calm after the storm. And however...

...Milo soon noticed that there was something that wasn't right.

He wouldn't have been able to say what it was. Apparently, everything was alright. They had dismissed the daemona and were completely alone in the room. However, he had the weirdest feeling that there was something, something he hadn't counted on, lingering in the air. All around him. Almost like a warm sensation tingling in his skin, like a remnant of the creature they had just fought against.

He was still breathing heavily. After many, many minutes.

The lynx turned to look at Rackhan, wondering if the tiger too had noticed that there was something there.

"You feel it, too," the Vigilant said, with a worried look.

"Yeah," Milo answered, quietly.

He hadn't noticed until that moment how close the tiger was to him. He could see the orange fur in the shadows, red lightning dancing with the flames that came from the torch. The tiger's eyes, that he hadn't even really seen until then, were blue like the deepest oceans. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but his features suddenly seemed more and more... angular. Perhaps, even... attractive.

The lynx gulped, still not looking away from the tiger in front of him. He noticed his saliva was thicker than usual, too.

"W-wait..." Rackhan whispered, then. He, too, seemed to have gotten lost in Milo's eyes, and now was staring at him as if he was just seeing the most beautiful creature on the aether. "T-that daemona came from the Eastern woods, right...?"

"Yeah..." Milo said absentmindedly, taking a deep breath. It was then when he noticed how good Rackhan actually smelled.

He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed up to that point how handsome the older student actually was.

"It was a Lust familiar... am I right...?" the tiger asked, a bit nervous.

Finally, Milo understood what was going on and turned completely red. Some daemona left an imprint when they were dismissed, of course. They disappeared, but the effects they caused around them remained...

However, he didn't look away from the tiger's face. He couldn't help it. When he saw Rackhan licking his lips as he stared back at him, he knew the Vigilant was exactly in the same position. The warmth was now unbearable and the lynx could feel the heat building up inside him.

And the tiger in front of him was hot. So, so very hot.

It was Rackhan who made the first move. Before Milo could even react, but late enough that he had started fantasizing about it, the tiger placed one of his big paws behind on the back of his head, pulling him close to his body and into a deep, passionate kiss. The lynx purred as he felt the other feline's tongue exploring his mouth boldly. His paws immediately moved towards the tiger's back, feeling its soft fur and the solid muscle underneath. The air seemed to get hotter and hotter with every movement and his thoughts, less and less important.

Soon, the fact that they both had been put in that state by a fading daemona disappeared from Milo's mind and he just gave into the wonderful feeling.

He wanted to touch the tiger. He needed to touch him. He needed him to kiss his lips again... There.

The lynx moaned in pleasure as Rackhan let out a soft growl, nibbling on his neck slowly and teasingly. Milo could feel his fur standing on end, his whole body trembling with every single caress, every single second that their bodies touched each other. The heat was just too much to handle and he could already feel something building up between his legs, even though they had just started. Rackhan's paws slid down his flanks until they reached his waist and he purred, again and again. The dark, cold room around them seemed to vanish completely.

There was only the tiger in front of him, and the maddening need to let him explore his body as he wanted.

Soon, Milo was laying on the ground again, the taller feline on top of him, looking down with those deep blue eyes that were filled with desire. The tiger's paw moved down to the lynx's groin and a shiver went down his spine when he felt the warm touch in that sensitive area. He looked back into those eyes, fascinated and completely overtaken by his need, ready to let Rackhan do as he wished with him. The tiger seemed to understand, and soon enough his paw slid underMilo's pantsand found his already hard member, giving it a nice, long caress.

Milo closed his eyes and trembled again, feeling the soft, yet strong caress down between his legs. He couldn't help but moan again as soon as the tiger started masturbating him slowly but steadily under his clothes. One of his paws moved to Rackhan's chest, caressing it slowly and admiring its strength. The tiger seemed to understand his intentions and quickly unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his torso to the smaller feline, who purred a bit louder when he felt the warm touch of the tiger's chest under his paw. He was craving to feel that body against his own fur and skin, so when Rackhan started to take off his pants, the possibility of complaining didn't even go through his mind.

With his legs exposed, it was way easier for the bigger tiger to keep pleasuring him. Milo felt his throat melt into an ocean of purrs and moans when Rackhan started masturbating him faster and faster, taking him to the edge so quickly that it almost felt like bliss. Then, after a few minutes in which the lynx's vision just blurred because of the unbearable pleasure, the movements down his crotch stopped and he opened his eyes, a bit dizzy. He saw the tiger taking off his own pants, looking down at him with an expression that Milo could only describe as that of an animal which is about to claim what is his. If there was something left of Rackhan by then, it was only the need to make that little lynx his own prey, right there, right then.

And Milo was happy to let him become that kind of animal, submit to that kind of need.

He wasn't ready for what came next, though. The tiger grabbed one of his wrists and, with a possessive growl, forced him to turn around, exposing his naked rear. Milo complied, loving the brute desire, the deep lust and raw strength of the animal that was now hunting him in the best way possible. He hadn't been expecting any kind of preparation or foreplay, since the hunt was basically over, but when he felt Rackhan's hard cock pushing through his buttocks and into his tailhole he could just moan with a mixture of pleasure and pain.

The wild thrusting continued for a long, long time. Milo could hear the tiger roaring, growling and fucking him like the animal he'd turned into, but his mind drifted between the indescribable pleasure and the inevitable pain. His claws were now scratching the cold floor with every single thrust, his helpless moans and heavy breaths echoing in the room. With his face pressed against the floor and drooling, the lynx could only become the prey, the animal on the other side of the equation, as if that had been his role forever.

Their movements had long since become erratic, instinctive. Soon, there wasnothing but two animals in that room, guided by pleasure and lust, left to their own game of hunting. The floor in which the summoning circle had been drawn was now covered with drool and pre dripping from their bodies as the tiger kept making that lynx his prey. The memory of a summoning, if there had really been one, had disappeared a long time ago.

When Rackhan thrust in deeply one last time and let out a loud roar, Milo was already about to pass out. He felt the hot, intense spurts of seed inside him and his eyes rolled back as he let out a moan of ecstasy. As if that was the sign it had been waiting for, pleasure took over him one last time and pushed him beyond the edge, making him cum helplessly on the floor. After the intense, wild climax, the lynx fell to the floor completely exhausted, feeling the sticky seed againsthis fur. The tiger soon slumped over him, his huge body pinning him to the ground and his cock still inside the lynx's ass.

They stood like that for what seemed ages, letting all the tension fade away and the illusion of their own bestiality disappear. The afterglow was still present in their minds and so they remained breathing heavily for a long time, lost in the recent memories of their own pleasure, as everything went back to normal slowly. The temperature got slightly colder.

When Milo was finally aware of what had just happened, his face turned so red that it could have lighted up the entire room. After a few minutes in silence, the tiger rolled on his back and let some space between the lynx and himself. There was no response as both tried to assimilate what had just happened.

"W-well..." the taller feline said after a short while. "I guess this is what happens when you summon one of those."

Milo closed his eyes, feeling terribly embarrassed.

"It wasn't that bad, though," the tiger kept on saying, crossing his arms behind his head. "At least it didn't make us kill each other. That would have been much less pleasant, I'd say..."

"Can't you just shut up?" the lynx asked, with a thin voice. "Not even now? When we just...?"

He left the question there.

"When we have just fucked like animals, you mean?"

Milo let out an exasperated moan.

"Yeah, exactly that. Thanks for saying it. It wasn't embarrassing enough already."

"Well, I..." The tiger's voice got slightly lower and he glanced at the lynx. "...I liked it. Didn't you?"

It took Milo a few seconds to find the right answer. The memories of what had just happened still remained in his mind and he wasn't entirely sure what part of the pleasure he'd felt came from being subject to a daemona's lust spell and what part came from the tiger that was laying on the ground next to him. In his wildest dreams, he would have never imagined he'd have to face a situation like that.

Not even in those nightmares where his summoning examinations went terribly wrong.

However, after a short while, he nodded silently.

"Heh," the tiger said, looking up to the ceiling again. "Grumpy kids from the capital. So proud."

Milo turned his back at the older feline, pretending to be angry. He examined his own body and decided that he was in desperate need of a nice, hot bath. But no matter how many baths he'd need... he had to recognize he had enjoyed it. He had never done that with anyone before. Maybe he'd kissed a boy or two, but he'd never come that far. Not to mention, he'd never been under a lust spell before. But that was a different story.

His thoughts got interrupted when he heard Rackhan standing up right beside him and starting to put on his clothes again.

"Where are you going?" the lynx asked. He wondered why he'd ask such a thing. It wasn't as if he wanted the tiger to stay, right?

"Well, I think we should get dressed again, don't you think?" the tiger said, with a smile. "In case you forgot, we can onlystay here until night, which should be pretty soon. Besides, someone will have to do some cleaning here... and something tells me you're not exactly willing to do it."

"Not really," the lynx said, standing up too and looking for his clothes. He quickly found them and tried to put them on without getting them absurdly dirty. He sighed. He really needed that bath. "I... wish I could help you, though, but you know. That old man said I'd have to be out at this time and..."

"Yeah, excuses, excuses," Rackhan replied, teasingly. Milo turned to him with an indignant expression just to find out that the tiger was just kidding him. "No worries. Go out and take a bath. You'll need it. I'll stay here and clean. It's my job, after all."

"Yeah... Thanks, Rackhan," Milo said. For once, he really felt thankful at the tiger.

"You're welcome. Oh, and if you ever want to summon a Lust familiar again... you can count on me to be your Vigilant, you know?" the tiger suggested, winking an eye at him.

Milo snorted and turned to the door, leaving Rackhan chuckling at his back. Hoping that he wouldn't meet any other students on the way up to the hall of the Summoning Chambers, he tried to think about what had happened.

His summoning had gone wrong. He could tell that much. But he couldn't really put his finger on what had been his mistake. He had made sure that all the lines were perfectly drawn, and not a single grain of wine salt had been out of place. Even the flowers had been strategically placed on the circle. He tried to go over the whole process of the summonover and over again, trying to find what was it that had helped the daemona break free.

Minutes later, when he reached the hall, he still hadn't found the answer. Hedecided it'd be better to leave it be for the moment. All he wanted to do was walk back to his room and fill the bath tube with warm water, then plunge straight in.

"Hey, boy!" the apothecary called then, drawing his attention again. "Have you finished already?"

"Oh, yes," he answered, hoping that the old fox wouldn't hold him there for a long time. "I think I'm going home now."

The apothecary gave him a long look. He looked a bit suspicious.

"Wait. What about the spare materials? Did you bring them back?"

"Oh..." The lynx had completely forgottenabout that. "I left your tiger Vigilant, Rackhan, cleaning up the room. He'll bring them back to you."

Something in the old fox's face made Milo think that he had just made a terrible mistake. Only he couldn't really understand what.

"Rackhan, you say?" the apothecary asked, a bit confused. "None of our Vigilants go by that name, I'm afraid. And it's been a long while since I saw a tiger student in this school."

Milo froze in place.

"What... what did you just say?" he asked, as he felt his heart skip a beat. "Are... are you sure of that?"

The fox chuckled, and Milo hated him for that. There was nothing funny to laugh about.

"I've been working here for decades and I can tell you I never, ever forget a name." He put his glasses back on the his nose, smiling. "And I never forget a face, either. So if you're planning to steal materials from me, I'd suggest you changed your mind, boy."

The lynx didn't answer.

With a cold sweat covering his forehead, he turned his back to the apothecary and tried to think hard. He went over the process of his summoning once again, step by step. No, there was nothing he'd done wrong.

Then, what...?

Wait a second, he thought. The daemona I summoned comes from the Eastern woods and needs wine salt... But it's definitely not a Lust familiar. Why did I think it was?

The answer came soon to his mind.

Because Rackhan had suggested it was.

Milo's legs shook when he finally understood what had really happened down there, in the deepest rooms of the Summoning Chambers. He had made a mistake, but it had been way too soon; before he started the whole process, even before he'd found a room. He gulped and then turned back slowly to the apothecary, trying to find the right words to say. A good lie, probably, since the reality was tooembarrassing.

That afternoon, when he had been in that darkroom trying to prove he was clever enough tohis teachers, there was something basic he had overlooked.

There hadn't been just one daemona with him.