"What are we going to do?" she asked as they jumped to another roof.

"We'll enter the building where it is and find it," he replied. "We'll do it without disturbing whoever lives there. The idea is to get in, find the object, and if it's not the book, then to get out without anyone knowing we were there."

"So we'll be thieves," she said with a strange eagerness in her voice.

"Something like that. The sneaking around will be good practice for you. I couldn't have set up a better exercise in skulking. Skulking is important for a Were-cat. We love to skulk."

"I think I can feel that," she replied. "The thought of sneaking around is… appealing. And it's coming from the instincts, not me."

"It's a hunting skill," he told her easily as they moved to another roof. "It's alot like stalking prey. That excites your predatory instincts."

The building holding the object turned out to be a very large warehouse, on the fringe of a district full of warehouses and large buildings. It was a closed building, with some yard between it and a large wall that was built around it to keep people out. Tarrin and Jula circled its perimeter to ensure that the target was inside. The wall was just as high as the buildings around it, so he could only see a small portion of the building's upper story. He had no idea if there were guards patrolling the property.

"They're not going to make this easy," he grunted, standing up at the edge of the roof closest to the wall. The warehouse was surrounded by houses and a large open space on the west side, and none of the buildings were very close to the wall. It was like it was a little island in the neighborhood. It was forty spans or more to the wall, out of jumping distance for Jula. Tarrin could possibly make it, if he had a good running start. He'd never tried jumping that kind of distance with such a small margin of error. Even jumping across the river back in Sulasia didn't have the exacting demands that trying for the top of that wall would have. If he missed, he'd announce to everyone in the area that someone was trying to break in.

"What are we going to do?"

Tarrin held out his paw, palm up, and extended his claws. "Climb," he replied. "Just stay close to me and be quiet, cub. We may run into guards, so keep your ears up."

He didn't have much of a plan. He rarely did. Even with Jula tagging along with him, his idea of going about it was very simple. Climb in, sneak around, find the object, then sneak out. They dropped down off the roof, and after pausing to make sure the area around them was clear of people-never a sure thing in this city of endless activity-they darted to the base of the wall. The wall was brick, covered with plaster. Clawmarks were going to show on it, but that was just too bad. Digging his claws into the plaster, Tarrin started up the face of the wall. Jula followed behind him, moving much slower as she worried about what she was doing, but the instinctive ability to climb was taking over even as she worried about it.

Tarrin reached the top of the wall and peeked in. It was a courtyard, its bare dirt packed with the movement of wagons and horses and people. This was a merchant's warehouse, and he used it daily to move his goods. His eyes narrowed on a trio of men walking along the side of the warehouse, away from where the Were-cats were. The warehouse was guarded. That wasn't much of a surprise. Jula reached the top of the wall and looked over, her ears picking up. "Guards," she said. "Looks like a merchant's warehouse, from the condition of the courtyard."

"I see you know something about theft," he grunted.

"I'm not a total idiot," she said in a slightly challenging tone.

"Let's argue later," he said brusquely. The guards turned the corner and disappeared, and Tarrin rose up and threw his leg over the wall. Jula moved to follow, and he climbed about halfway down the wall before letting go and dropping silently to the ground below. He motioned for her to do the same, but she hesitated. He heard her curse under her breath, then she pushed away from the wall and dropped nearly twenty spans to the ground. She dipped down a bit more than him-she wasn't as strong as he was-but the fall did her no harm.

"Come on," he said quietly, darting into the shadows created by the warehouse.

They entered through an open second story window. The interior of the warehouse was a huge open space, with a platform for the second floor that only ran about a quarter of the building's length before ending with no rail or barrier to keep people from falling off. The interior was packed with rows and rows of wooden crates, burlap bags, and clay jars and vats.

"Looks like he's doing well," Jula remarked in a very quiet whisper. "I smell men in here."

"There, there, and there," Tarrin pointed, to where his eyes, nose, and ears told him that guards were wandering. Three tiny spots of ruddy light drifted on the first floor, reflecting off the stacked crates and goods as the men patrolled the interior. One of them appeared between stacks of crates briefly, holding a small lantern in his hand to penetrate the gloom inside the large building, then he disappeared behind them. Tarrin held up the medallion, and it pointed to the floor below. The object was only a few hundred spans away.

"Over there," he pointed to where the medallion was indicating. "Remember, keep silent. We are ghosts in the night."

Putting a paw on the edge, he slid off of it and dropped to the packed dirt floor below with utter silence. Jula dropped down beside him, and they stalked into the maze of irregular corridors created by the stored goods.

He had to admit, she could move quietly. Jula seemed to have already learned the arts of moving quietly, for her wide feet made not even a whisper of sound. There was only the faint brushing whispers of cloth sliding against cloth, and the sound of their breathing and heartbeats. There were other noises, the scuttling and faint squeaking of the rats that lived in the building, the sound of a few bats and a couple of pigeons that had managed to find a way in and roosted on the roof rafters over them. The three men on the floor made the most noise, their boots impacting the hard dirt floor and creating echos through the cavernous building that Tarrin could track to keep tabs on their three adversaries. He led Jula on a meandering path through the crates, a path that kept them well away from the three wandering guards, letting the medallion home him in on their objective.

When they reached it, Tarrin found a snag in their little plan. The object was packed inside a wooden crate, and it was on the bottom of a stack of other crates. There was no way to get to the object without making noise, either by ripping the crate open, or unstacking the crates to reach it. Doing either would bring the guards, and that meant that they would be leaving bodies behind as clues for whoever tried to solve the mystery.

"It's in the bottom crate," he grunted in a faint whisper. "We have a problem."

"Not a problem," she said motioning with her hand. Tarrin felt her touch the Weave, and a weaving took form around them, encompassing the crates as well. "I just blocked any sound from leaving the interior of the weave," she announced in what seemed to him to be a loud voice. "Now we won't make any noise."

"I didn't think of that," Tarrin admitted, grabbing the side of the wooden crate, and ripping it away with his claws. The wood made a sharp cracking sound as he tore it from the nails holding it to the crate, but there was no echoing off the other stacks. The weave was indeed stopping sound.

"I may be a Were-cat, but I was a Sorcerer first," she said with a light smile.

Tarrin reached into the crate, and pulled out several objects, all of them antiques. The medallion pointed to only one of them, a brooch of jade attached to a gold chain to make a necklace. "This is it," he sighed, touching the medallion to the necklace, which made its glow wink out.