You set aside the impulse to go all Solid Snake on the questionably-patrolled grid of streets and buildings between you and your target, and instead play the magic card once again. You don't have the energy to maintain anything fancy like an invisibility spell all the rest of the way back to the hotel - and there'd be potential problems if you just appeared out of thin air when the spell ran out anyway - so you cast a variant on the spell that you've been using to smuggle Moblin to school for the last couple of years. By sacrificing several hours' worth of duration in exchange for increased potency, it should be more than sufficient to get you to the hotel unremarked.

Taking what you believe to be the shortest available route, and keeping up a decent jog, you pass three pedestrians, five moving vehicles, and what looks like a dozen night-shift clerks staffing the various shops. None of them react to your passage, or to Briar's, and you make it back to the hotel's front door inside of another twenty minutes. It's good timing; your spell is beginning to waver as you push the revolving door and make your way inside, and it gives out entirely before you've walked a quarter of the way to the elevators at the far end of the lobby. You let the spell go, and don't bother to pick up your pace; instead, you channel your inner Cordelia and march along like you own the building, all of the employees, and their families besides. It is the certain strut of a self-centered rich brat, and it dares anyone less important to speak so much as a word of protest or inquiry.

The night auditor glances at you as you pass, but says nothing. Nobody else seems to be around. You keep up the act until you're in one of the elevators and on your way up to your floor, and you don't relax until the door of the suite has closed behind you. Then, and only then, do you let out a sigh of relief. Bending down, you pull your ruined socks off, bin them in the trash bucket in the kitchen, and tiptoe to the bathroom to clean up. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, you're back in bed.

This time around, you have no trouble getting back to sleep.

An uncertain amount of time later, you find yourself drifting back up from the warm, comforting murk of unconsciousness. On some level, you realize that it's still too early for you to be getting up, but something - you're not entirely certain what - has disturbed you.