Emmaline glanced at Amal and then back to Albrecht. She didn't want to pay, two thousand marks would wipe out most of what they had but she suspected Albrecht would be shocked that she had even that much. Likely enough the old leecher wanted to bleed her of what cash she had and then enlist her in one of his innumerable schemes.

"Fine, two days," she grudgingly agreed, earning an arched eyebrow and then a beatific smile from her master.

"Well I am more than happy to grant my favorite apprentice a few extra days to come up with her admittedly laggardly dues," the older wizard said with a self satisfied grin. Emmaline rolled her eyes. It was possible to run from Albrecht of course, but it would mean dodging other wizards for the rest of her life, the College made rather a point of policing its students, and even though Albrecht wouldn't denounce her to witch hunters, there was no guarantee other members of the college would grant her the same forbearance. 

"There are days," she said to Amal in Arabyian, "that I wish we had stayed in Araby." 

"Is it the sand or the blistering heat you miss?" Amal rejoined with a grin that showed Albrecht his own gleaming white teeth.

"Good point," Emmaline conceded. Albrecht glanced between them suspiciously, put off to be party to a conversation in a language he didn't understand. He reached into his robes and produced a clay pipe and a pouch of tobacco. With practiced ease he packed it with the pungent herb and ignited it with a whispered spell. 

"It is a real pleasure seeing you Emm, women of such beauty and natural blondes beside, you would swear Riekland is crawling with them but I make half my money selling boiled horse piss to bleach the heads of desperate house fraus."

"That one armed dwarven bastard sold me out didn't he," Emmaline declared out of the blue, having spent a few moments trying to figure out how Albrecht had tracked her. He was a wiley old dog, but magically he wasn't in the top tier of wizards, like Emmaline herself, destined for the middle of the pack. Albrecht smiled admiringly around his pipestem.

"Beautiful and brilliant, if only I were twenty years younger..."

"And fifty pounds lighter," Emmaline interjected, evoking a wince from the heavyset wizard.

"Ouch," he admitted, touching his heart to show he had been wounded by the remark.

"And had some hair," Emmaline added for good measure.

"Bit of a shrew though," he confided to Amal in a theatrical aside.