I knew the instant the teleport was done. Inside the wardrobe hadn't changed at all, and I couldn't tell just by feel that this was a different wardrobe. Yet, I knew it was.

  I also knew that there was something funky about the whole teleportation thing. I wasn't sure how I knew, but something told me that instant teleportation should be very expensive, energy wise. Something about mass, energy, space, and something else that I couldn't quite connect to right now.

  The energy to transport one leopard cub was no more than the energy to cast a couple of Copy spells. That didn't feel right to me, so I sat in the darkness of the closed wardrobe for a few moments and just felt for the mana.

  My whiskers could feel it, and it had the sensation of an echo. There was the mana here, and then somewhere else the mana was echoing back. Like a resonance or something. Then I realized that the mana I'd given the wardrobe to trigger the teleport was only the trigger. The wardrobe had the rest, or more accurately, it was connected to the thing that had the rest.

  Power could be connected to somewhere else, far away.

  It made me think about the familiar link with Seth, and what kind of links inanimate objects could have. Then I remembered the cafeteria tables were all carved from the same star patterned tree as the wardrobe. And like the cafeteria tables, the wardrobe was mostly a single piece. When the door was closed, every part was in the original location it had when it was part of the living tree.

  I wondered if that tree was still living, and was the source of the power that had transported me. Was this a living link, like a familiar, or a different type of link, one involving inanimate objects? I considered the size of the wardrobe, and the number of cafeteria tables and other wardrobes. If this was all a single tree, and it was still living, that was one monstrous tree. Probably not. Maybe something more like a connected forest then? Could there be communal links then?

  Familiars were one to one. That didn't mean that was the only kind.

  Magic. What shit.

  Okay, enough of that nonsense. Back to business.

  I had successfully transported myself to a location unknown. Well, technically unknown. I was reasonably certain I knew where I was.

  I listened carefully for any stray sounds. Pretty quiet. Good. I slowly and carefully pushed the door open and took a peek outside, focusing first on detecting people or animals, then feeling for active spells, like that Alarm spell.

  All clear. Wild. I was not the type to question the negligence of others and quickly hopped down. This was the little locker room with the three wardrobes that I had seen the deer skull guy leave from the last time I was here. The wardrobe I arrived from was not the wardrobe he'd left in.

  As I shut the wardrobe door behind me I had a few thoughts. I considered for a moment leaving all the doors open, as I was pretty sure that would prevent people from teleporting in, but then discarded the idea. Better I not be noticed.

  Then I thought about leaving through the wardrobe that the deer skull guy had gone through. That idea was mighty tempting, but far more dangerous. I knew nothing about where it went, or who I could expect there.

  But I would find out so much more about that guy. Like who he was working for and what they wanted with all the animals. It was possible this was just a money making scheme with betting and entertainment, but I doubted it. I decided to check on the animals first. The wardrobe wasn't going anywhere, I could look into that later.

  In the second and a half it took me to make that decision, I heard voices coming this way. Prancing pogies, I was gonna get busted. I jumped to the top of the wardrobe behind me and crouched down.

  Just in time too, as three men entered the little locker room.

  All three wore the deer skull masks. They all had hoods up. And they all looked like gangly young men of the late teen early twenties variety.

  "How did we get stuck mucking up after a bunch of animals? Do you know how nasty some of that shit is? The birds don't even shit solid, it's like this black and white diarrhea. It's slimy and it sticks to everything. And it ."

  "Shut it already. If the boss hears you complaining, it'll go bad for all of us," the first one in line said. By the way he walked, this was the same one I'd seen the first time here. Darryl.

  "I'm just saying," the whiner continued. "I can complain about shit. We're the ones who have to clean it. Are we getting new recruits soon? I'm sick of shit duty."

  Darryl opened the wardrobe, the same one he'd used last time, and waved the other two inside. The whiner was still whining as Darryl touched something to the floor and I saw a brief flash of light. Then Darryl pushed into the wardrobe with the other two. It was a very snug fit to get that door shut. But it did shut and a moment later the wardrobe was both quiet and empty.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I looked down at the floor where I'd seen the flash of light. I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. One of the last things a person did when leaving a place was to lock up.

  And set the alarm.

  Shit.

  My options were to trip it, disarm it, or go home.

  I was a leopard cub with no thumbs, no spells, and no tools. Whoops, I'm lying. I've got one tool, the one I'm wearing. But can my most favoritest ring get me through a magic alarm?

  It had limitations. It couldn't move a chair to let me out of a room. It couldn't move the long wooden beam locking a town gate. But it did unlock anything, including magically locked doors. Could disabling an alarm count as 'granting entry'?

  I didn't know. It sure didn't do it automatically, the way it unlocked any door I wanted to open.

  Wanted.

  That was it, wasn't it? Magic had so much emphasis on intent. Unless I intended to be let past something, like a door, it did nothing. The doors in the dorm building didn't all pop open as I walked by, they only opened when I wanted them too.

  Knowing to open a door was easy. You saw the door, you wanted it open. Knowing there was an alarm, or trap, or something else was less easy. You had to specifically know it was there before you could want to get past it. I wasn't sure a general wanting would work.

  'Open all before me,' wasn't a thing that worked any more than 'Copy this stack of documents,' worked. You had to look at each page, you had to think about each door.

  Could I think of the Alarm spell as a barrier that I needed passage through? Yeah, I could. I tended to think of bypassing security as part of breaking and entering, whoops, just entering! Really! No breaking!

  I hopped down from the top of the wardrobe and approached the Alarm line. If I touched it, it would trigger. I wanted to bypass it. Convince it I had permission.

  I focused my intent as I stepped up to the line, and paid very close attention to my whiskers. Right as I was about to cross that line, I stopped.

  My whiskers told me it was still active.

  Pocky pucks. I paused, my whiskers a breath away from crossing.

  I was missing something. I wanted entry. I wanted to cross this barrier. For the most part, I did not need to do more than want things for the ring to do it for me.

  But sometimes I needed to give it mana. Like when I made a copy. Maybe this would be an extra oomph type of effect? I could handle that. I concentrated on feeding a little bit of mana to the ring.

  And my whiskers told me the Alarm spell changed. It was still there, and as soon as I moved away, it would be active again. But I was in.

  Whew. I wondered if I gave the ring extra juice, could it handle chairs and bars next time? Actually, I kinda doubted it. It was fine. I was pleased enough with the shiny new ability I discovered in my most prized possession.

  I headed up to the arena, looking for Tom. I expected the tomcat to be wherever the other animals were.

  The place was deserted. No animals. No people.

  Damn. I expected the animals would probably be beating on each other all day and night. Some of those monsters were real battle maniacs and wanted to fight everything. Come to think of it, I wondered if I would be able to hear the wyvern bell from wherever here was. I thought we were below the city, but maybe not.

  Actually, we could be anywhere. It wasn't like this place had windows to see outside.

  Where was everyone? There were too many beasts here last time for me to think they all went back to the Menagerie. Welp, might as well get to exploring.

  This was a complete facility. In addition to the locker rooms and other spaces I found last time, I found an enormous kitchen, where I may have stolen a sausage or two. Then I found where I was pretty sure the public transported in. It was a large room with starwood flooring.

  It got me thinking about Professor Mick the Mighty's miniature battle map, and how I would feel about having a place like this under my nose if I was in charge of this city. Ugh. I hate politics. If things got bad, I was bailing. No way was I gonna get involved in that type of mess. There were plenty of other cities in this world.

  I caught a whiff of fur and feathers, and realized that occasionally I still thought too much like a human. I didn't need to see or hear things to find them. I could sniff them out!

  Deeper in the facility, below the arena, below the kitchens, was what I could only consider a warehouse. I could hear animals talking as I approached.

  "Shush!" I heard one of the animals squeaking. "Something's coming!"

  "It's off hours. There's no one coming, stupid," came the snorting answer from another beast.

  "Shut it pig. The mole knows," a deep and rumbly voice commanded. That voice I recognized. That was Scorpius, the manticore.

  At Scorpius's command, the animals quieted as I wandered in.

  Stacked rows of animal cages were everywhere. There had to be over a hundred. Most of them had occupants.

  "A feline cub?" the squeaky voice said. Right at the end of one of the rows of cages was a large rat looking thing with huge claws, nearly invisible eyes, and a weird star shaped and wormy looking nose. It was poking that nose in my direction.

  Freaking creepy looking thing.

  "Yeah, I'm a leopard. Why are y'all in cages here? As far as accommodations go, these ones suck. I wouldn't have left the Menagerie for this dump." I looked around at the nearby cages. They were small, bare, and not even a blanket or straw to lie down on.

  "We aren't in here long. Only when the masters leave," the funky nosed mole said.

  "I hate it!" the pig snorted.

  A chorus of other animals erupted in other complaints.

  "The collars we wear compel us to return to our cages when the masters command it," Scorpius said. He was in one of three enormous cages in the center of the warehouse sized space.

  Yeah. Those 'familiar' collars from the Empress statue had struck me as questionable. If they can compel behavior, they were definitely bad news. Being commanded to return to a cage was relatively benign. But I bet that wasn't the only type of command these beasts could be given or forced to obey.

  As far as locking up the animals at night, I supposed that made sense. I didn't know if I'd trust a bunch of wild animals to behave themselves without supervision. But then, I didn't need to worry about that, because I didn't care if said wild animals caused mayhem.

  "Y'all want out?" I asked.