Free Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) by Honor Raconteur

a fair sized town, with a respectable population. Searching for people out in the countryside was easy—trying to find a specific person in a city? Not so easy. There were just so many different auras to shift through; I was developing a headache trying to keep them separate.
    It would have helped if I had been stationary while searching, but of course I was riding Night. In fact, it would have helped tremendously if the people in that town would stay still, but considering the time of day, it was still too early for anyone to be in bed yet. They were all going about their normal business, making it hard for me to pinpoint anyone.
    Chatta pulled up beside me, frowning slightly. "Garth?"
    "We're approaching a town," I explained briefly. She knew as well as I did what a trial it was to do any sort of scrying on a sizeable population.
    "Oh," she said in understanding. "We'll have to stay the night there anyway; I'll help you search then."
    Xiaolang must have heard us, because he dropped back to ride on my other side. "Is there a problem?"
    "We're approaching a town," I explained.
    "Ashton," Xiaolang agreed.
    What, did he have the map memorized now? I ignored that and kept going. "It's harder to search in towns."
    A thoughtful expression dropped over his face. "Really. Why?"
    "Because the people keep moving, for one," Chatta answered with a rueful shrug.
    "And because there's too many of them in one place, for another," I added. "It's hard to keep them separate, sometimes."
    "That's his problem," Chatta denied with a pointed look at me. "Because he feels magic instead of sees it, its harder for him to separate one kind of aura from another. I see it, so it's obvious for me. It's just difficult when the people you're looking at keep moving."
    Xiaolang looked like he was trying to be patient, but was having to work at it. "And why didn't either of you mention this before?"
    I blinked at him. "Sure I did—on the boat, coming into Chahir."
    Xiaolang immediately shook his head, still radiating exaggerated patience. "Garth, you told me that your reach was a little farther than Chatta's, but her precision was better than yours. That's it. I never heard a word about this searching business being more complicated in cities."
    I ran the memory of that conversation back through my head and realized that he was right. I hadn't mentioned that. Oops. "Er…sorry?"
    Chatta was giving me a pointed look. "Obviously I should not leave any explanations of our abilities to you."
    "You know I'm not good at talking," I returned with a pointed look of my own.
    "You spent a year traveling all over Hain, talking with tons of people. I had expected that your verbal skills improved," she replied with a roll of the eyes.
    "Sixteen years didn't do the trick," I observed dryly. "Why would another year make a difference?"
    Chatta, being Chatta, did what she always does when she's losing an argument—she sinks to insults. "Winner of an obtusity contest."
    I, not to be outdone, had to respond accordingly. "Vertically challenged pipsqueak."
    "Noodle-legged weasel!"
    My legs were not noodles! Nor was I a weasel, for that matter. "Mother of a fat, drunken pig."
    "Flea bitten imbecile."
    "Do they do this often?" Xiaolang inquired politely of Night.
    " Only when they have no way of defending their view in an argument. Entertaining, isn't it?" Night drawled with a slight snicker.
    "Very," Xiaolang assured him. He looked up with feigned surprise at us. "Oh don't stop now, you were doing splendidly."
    "He's taking all of the fun out of this," I complained to Chatta.
    Chatta, by this point, was laughing. "I know. Still, it is rather immature of us, isn't it?"
    It really was. But I still liked doing it. "Fun though," I replied.
    She was nodding in agreement, a smile dancing in her eyes. "Is this more or less mature than our lint wars?"
    "Oh, I think it's more mature," I assured her.
    "Lint wars?" Xiaolang repeated with obvious curiosity.
    "Whenever we're stuck in boring