Sophia half expected the infused aurichalc to come in blocks or ingots, since it was measured by weight, but it didn't. The attendant near the Registry's entrance handed Jax coins, which he passed out to everyone. The coins were ounces and drachma, which were apparently a sixteenth of an ounce the same way an ounce was a sixteenth of a pound.

Sophia wasn't sure if she was happy it was consistent or annoyed that they weren't decimalized. The fact that they were literally the weight they said they were explained it but didn't make it any less annoying.

The attendant called them "flowers" and "leaves," which made sense as soon as Sophia saw the coins. The ounce coin was a bit over an inch wide, noticeably bigger than a quarter. A drachma, on the other hand, was far thinner and slightly smaller than a dime.Other than that, they looked similar. Both looked more or less golden with a pale outer region covered in thin golden lines. Inside that was a flat face with a raised symbol of either a flower or a single leaf. Both sides were the same, which seemed strange to Sophia, but not as strange as the fact that the coins visibly glowed.

With that finally handled, Sophia stepped up to the counter. "Do you know where Arryn went? That is, the merchant who travels with Peaches?" She waved at the still sleeping sloth. "He invited us …"

Sophia expected directions. That wasn't what she got.

The attendant smiled, then bobbed his head slightly. "He said to fetch him when you were ready to head out; he's with the Registry Master. I'll be right back."

Sophia blinked. "If he's with the Registry Master, we can wait."

The receptionist didn't listen; he just waved at her and disappeared down a small corridor. A couple of minutes later, he returned. "Trader Arryn will be with you soon. Please wait over there."

They barely had time to reach the side of the room before Arryn appeared in the corridor, followed by a man with a bird's head and a long orange beak. He was one of the most Warped people Sophia had seen in the Broken Lands, similar to the lizard-man back in Casterville.

His feathers were white, but his hands were black and looked almost scaled until Sophia looked closer and saw that he was actually wearing gloves. They contrasted nicely with the golden bracers he wore, but neither matched the rest of his attire at all well, since it was colorful without a trace of black and only a few accents of gold. His robe looked like many different colors of silk, but it was his cloak that really caught Sophia's eye. It was clearly made to look like it was made of layers of feathers while actually being made of cloth.

"Ah, are these the young ones you're planning to rent your home to while you are gone?" The bird-man's speech was slightly accented, even beyond a slight lisp from his beak, but it was still clear. "Are you certain they will be able to protect it? I can certainly find you other tenants, probably even a team that has recently passed the third upgrade and is looking for a more convenient home base."

"I haven't offered it to them yet," Arryn countered, "I'm not even certain they're going to accept dinner yet. So."

Arryn raised his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly to the right. His eyes met Sophia's, then moved across the rest of the team. "Shall we be off? Dinner should be almost ready."

"Sure," Jax answered for all of them. "What are we having?"

"I'm not certain yet," Arryn answered with a smile. "Something with potatoes, probably, and whatever meat there's enough of today. Probably skyeagle; I think I've eaten that every other day for the past week."

The meal turned out to be skyeagle glazed with a spicy honey-citrus sauce on a bed of fried potato and spinach leaves. It was a little warm for Sophia's taste, far warmer than anything she'd had in the Broken Lands, but a little extra potato took care of that, along with the milk.

Sophia hadn't realized how hungry she was until the food was in front of her, but she was contemplating thirds when Arryn disappeared into the kitchen and returned with small bowls of some sort of hot layered dessert. Sophia wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to be layers of crunchy caramelized sugar, stiff sweetened cream, and some sort of sturdy, filling cake that seemed fairly tasteless until she tried a bite without cake and realized that it gave the nutty taste that tied it all together and kept it from being horrendously sweet.

No one said anything of note until the meal was over. Her team was probably as hungry as she was, but it was probably also the presence of the man with a bird's head and what his presence meant that really silenced everyone.

Sebas ko'Orthlinn was the Mazehold Registry Master. He was also the person Arryn meant when he said they might have company at dinner, and he seemed perfectly content talking about nothing but dinner until it was over.

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Arryn was the first to finish. He set his spoon down in the empty bowl and sighed. "A good meal, and better for not having to cook it myself. If you are all ready, we can talk about my offer, since Sebas has already revealed it."

"Go ahead." Sophia was still eating, but she could eat dessert and listen at the same time.

Arryn glanced around the table, then nodded. "As most of you know, I'm a traveling merchant. What you don't know is that I keep only a limited amount in my wagon. It's bigger on the inside than the outside, but it's not that big. Most of what I have stays here, in my home, until I sell it."

Sophia thought back to her trip with Arryn. She couldn't name any time he'd ever brought out something that couldn't have been in the wagon, but it was a little notable that he almost always had something that would work. There was also part of the wagon he didn't let anyone into; it was supposed to be his room and a small storage area, but it could just as easily hold a portal or some other way to travel here. "You have a portal in your wagon? Or is it an Ability?"

"An Ability," Arryn admitted. "How much do you know about the third upgrade?"

Sophia glanced at Jax, then back at Arryn. "Only a little. It requires a Grand Talent that sort of somehow takes over for your Sphere?"

Arryn paused. For a moment, Sophia thought she'd startled him, but that wasn't possible. It wasn't that easy to surprise him.

The expression vanished as quickly as it arrived and the merchant continued easily, "Close enough, closer than most quick descriptions I've heard. That will make the answer easier; I'm at the third upgrade in both a Calling and a Profession."

He paused for long enough for everyone to take that in. It was both a surprise and completely unsurprising at the same time; Sophia knew the old man was powerful, but she had no idea he was as powerful as anyone in the Broken Lands, twice over.

"Normally, a Profession takes a long time to level because you have to gather all the necessary Wisps, and that's far slower for Professionals than for Called, but that changes if you are past the third upgrade and choose a Profession somehow related to your Calling." A smile touched the edge of Arryn's lips as he spoke. "You can skip the Abilities and only level your Sphere, then build your second Grand Talent as an extension of your first. That's hard, but if you really understand your Grand Talent and exactly how it applies to the Sphere you're altering, you can have a Grand Ability or Grand Spell that carries you through the Profession, then turns into your second Grand Talent. It's a little limiting, but Professions are by nature limited in a different way from how Callings are limited."

Sophia wasn't sure why he was explaining how Professions worked, but at least it sort of made sense. They were two sides of the same coin, and if you picked something you already knew how to do, you could "advance" quickly. It probably meant Arryn wasn't actually twice as strong as someone with only one or the other, just a little more versatile.

Which was definitely its own strength.

"So your Profession lets you come here or maybe retrieve stuff stored here, while your Calling lets you fight with the same Ability somehow, maybe by moving things?" Sophia guessed.

"Something like that," Arryn said with a smile. "I don't choose to fight very often, which brings us to the second reason you're here. The first being welcoming you to Mazehold, of course."

Sophia raised an eyebrow. It was hard to believe that was Arryn's primary motive when he said it like that. It was almost like he was telling her not to believe what he said!

"Of course," Dav agreed. He didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "And that's why the Registry Master is here too, I'm sure."

"Not at all," Sebas admitted. "I often eat dinner with Arryn when he's in Mazehold. He may be a Professional now, but back when we were young, he and I were in the same team. Fighting together's a bond you keep long after it's over. We've saved each other more times than I can count; I'd trust him with my future, even though he's long since declared he's done with the Maze."

A thump announced that Jax had dropped something heavy on the table. Sophia caught a glimpse of it as he scooped it back up; it was V shaped and as thick as the flower coin. Like the flower coin, it looked like it was made of aurichalc, though it didn't glow and the low spots were enameled in blue instead of a pale tan color. Inside the V was another V; a crossbar capped that V and supported a pair of nestled inverted Vs.

For some reason, both the Registry Master and Arryn froze when they saw the symbol. Strangely, it was the Registry Master that looked to Arryn rather than the other way around.

"Where did you get that?" Arryn asked slowly. He didn't move, but Sophia felt it as his aura seemed to stiffen around him. He was no longer even remotely relaxed.

"You know what it is." Jax sounded certain. His gaze narrowed as his eyes flicked from Arryn to Sebas and back. "And Master ko'Orthlinn expected you to know. It's mine, and my team is under my aegis." The aurichalc began to glow as Jax spoke. The blue enamel almost seemed to drink the light, which only emphasized the jagged pattern.

The fact that both Mazehold's Registry Master and a former Registry Master recognized the icon Jax held answered several questions Sophia hadn't even realized she should already have asked. How did Jax report in when he was Masked? Did he have to wait until it was over or unMask?

Evidently not.

At the same time, the symbol raised other questions. Just how many other people had them, and what exactly were they allowed to do? They had to be attached to the Registry somehow, but why did the Registry have an organization that needed a secret identification symbol?

Jax's mission made sense on its own, but now that she knew he wasn't alone, there were a lot more questions. For one, did they all have Grand Talents like his Mask? If so, what did it mean that the Registry, which was supposed to be working against outward threats, had a group that was clearly designed to deal with other humans?

Arryn held up a hand as if to tell Jax to stop, then lowered it almost immediately. "I mean them no harm. Rather the opposite, if anything; I won't let anyone drag them into trouble they haven't accepted with open eyes, not even an Inquisitor."

Sophia was pretty sure she didn't imagine the emphasis on the word them. When she combined that with her own concerns, Jax definitely looked a little shady. The fact that he was called an Inquisitor didn't do him any favors, either.

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