Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (22 page)

“Might?”

I shrug. But if I want Esra’s help getting out at some point, now is the time to ask for it. “I’m hoping to go out tomorrow night anyhow. I, uh…”

“Yes?” She looks at me expectantly.

I duck my head. “I have a friend I was hoping to meet.”

Esra snorts with laughter. “Let me guess, your uncle has no idea?”

“Well, he’s very protective,” I say, figuring that if I did have an uncle out there, he would not at all be pleased with what I’m up to. “But if I can get a place to stay here tomorrow night, then he won’t have to worry about it.”

She glances at my pack, then turns toward the hall. I fall into step with her. “Well, if you still don’t have a room tomorrow, maybe you can share mine. I’ll talk to the girls I room with.”

“Really?”

She meets my surprise with an open smile. “Yeah.”

Guilt twists in my gut at how I’m using her, how easy it would be to take further advantage of her friendship. I hope she never finds out who I really am. “Thanks,” I say with a strained smile. “Do you start here first thing in the morning?”

She nods. “All day, every day. I’ll be here at first bell. What about you? Are you split between buildings?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.” I grin.

“Well, I hope you’re here. It will be a huge help.”

“What about Housekeeper Yilmaz?” I ask. “I thought you said she cleans too?”

“Oh no! She only cleans First Mage Talon’s rooms. Housekeepers hardly ever clean. They keep order, make sure everything gets done. They’re the ones who handle the mages directly most of the time. Yilmaz is in charge of three buildings.”

Which might explain why I haven’t met her yet. “Three!”

“Yes— she has Susulu, Äbädä, and Neme.”

I nod, filing away the names, though I doubt I’ll need them. “Do housekeepers live in the servants’ quarters as well?”

She raises her brows. “Not in a hundred years. Housekeepers can choose to live in the city, or in one of the buildings they’re assigned to. Yilmaz has her own rooms downstairs — two rooms!” Esra pauses at the side door leading out to a path between the buildings. “One day, I’m going to have the same thing.”

“I think you will.” I really hope she does.

“I definitely will,” she says. “Coming?”

“Actually, I think I’d better go back and, um, wash up,” I say with a touch of awkwardness. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She grins, departing with a cheery wave.

I head down to the basement. The supply closet here is larger than the ones located on each floor, and has a small washroom next to it for servants. I wash up first, then slip into the supply closet, pulling the door shut behind me. Somewhere on this floor are Yilmaz’s rooms, and I don’t want to accidentally run into her quite yet. Nor do I want my growling stomach to give me away at the wrong time. I slip out my glowstone, set it on a shelf, and dig out the last of the cheese I’d packed. It’s hard and salty, the flavor stronger than I like, but I have to eat something and it won’t keep much longer.

As I eat, I consider what I need to do this evening. My best hope of getting the key to Stormwind’s shackles is tomorrow morning, using Yilmaz to get into Talon’s rooms. But I also need to learn all I can about where Stormwind is being held, which means I need to visit Shahmaran Hall right now — as a servant, before anyone realizes that there shouldn’t be any servants walking around anymore.

I pop the last of the cheese into my mouth, and slip the glowstone into my pocket. A brief listen at the door tells me the coast is clear. Letting myself out, I make for the stairs.

The campus is calm and quiet now, the sun dipping past the roofs of the buildings. It’s difficult to believe that it was only this morning that I stepped into Stonefall’s rooms. There are still guards everywhere, but they aren’t patrolling anymore. Instead, they’re stationed at different points, keeping watch. They no longer expect to catch their rogue sneaking about, it seems.

I walk briskly along the arcades, nodding to the guards I pass as I reach them, and otherwise keeping my gaze decidedly elsewhere. I check the tiles beneath my feet at each building. I don’t exactly know what Shahmaran, the snake queen, looks like, but I expect I’ll recognize her when I see her.

I reach the end of the walk without seeing anything likely, and cross to the two buildings that run along the bottom of the garden. Lots of strange people and animals appear in the floor tiles, but no snakes and no queens. I start back up the other side, walking toward the Grand Hall now, parallel to where I’d come down, hoping to God the guards haven’t noticed my circuit and aren’t wondering what I’m doing.

Shahmaran turns out to be the building directly across the gardens from Susulu Hall, and two buildings over from where Stonefall lives in White Raven Hall.

When I reach the door, the nearest guard tilts his head, studying me. He looks vaguely familiar.

“Took the long way around, eh?” the other guard says.

“I … got a bit turned around,” I admit. “I’m new and, um, I couldn’t remember which one was Shahmaran,” I gesture to the tiled image of a beautiful woman with a crown on her head, and, from the waist down, a coiling serpent tail.

I glance back at the guards, and realize where I know the first guard from. “Also, there were some boys in the garden earlier today who played a trick on me. I didn’t really want to chance going through there again.”

The guard nods, a single decisive dip of his head. “Saw that. It doesn’t happen often, as I understand it. Even when we’re not around, the school won’t stand for it. The boys have been reported and the Mekteb’s Headmistress will deal with them.” He offers a friendly smile. “Well, go on then. You’ll want to finish up your work so you can get to the Festival.”

I grin with relief. “Thank you.”

The building lies mostly empty, the faint snatches of a conversation drifting down the hall to me. The main doors open to the center of the building, with a wide hall extending out to the left and the right. There are stairs at both ends, though only the one to my right appears to go down to the basement. I move away from the voices, heading to the stairs I’ll need. The doors are mostly open, giving me quick peeks at the classrooms within — bright, cheerful spaces, each with a great central oval table surrounded by chairs, the walls lined with shelves filled with books, and jars, and even what might be charms on display.

At the end of the hall I find a slimmer wooden door, and with a rush of relief I open it to find a supply closet. I stow away my pack and arm myself with a bucket of soapy water, a scrubbing brush, and a drying cloth.

I walk my bucket of soapy water down every hall, working my way up. On the second floor, a long stretch of unbroken wall has been decorated with a mosaic map of the Eleven Kingdoms. I pause to study it, using the edge of my drying cloth to shine a few tiles as I look it over. The map is not very detailed — it’s hard to capture fine detail with mosaic. But to my right lie the eastern Kingdoms, each with its name, ruler, and the arch mage that serves it painted on in smooth black strokes. In the middle, the desert stretches long and golden, the Burnt Lands in their midst a darker brown without any label.

I inch along, trailing my cloth over the mosaic, reading the names of the various arch mages, the lands they serve. The ink must be spelled to change as the appointments and rulers change, for not one of them appears to be inaccurate. I pause, tilt my head, for there is Karolene to the south with its sprinkling of smaller islands in the ocean. It looks small, surprisingly tiny compared to the great Kingdoms of the mainlands arcing down around it. Beside the central island is written, “Karolene, Regent Siwatu, Arch Mage Blackflame.”

My hand tightens into a fist around the cloth.
Regent?
Is the sultan dead? And what about his crown prince? There was one — I thought there was one, at least.

I push away from the wall, tamping down on my agitation. I know so little. I barely know who I was back then. What can I possibly know of the political situation? Still, that line of writing, those lines together, strike me as wrong.

Faintly, I hear the tap of feet on the stairs behind me. I make myself walk on. Up the opposite stairs, the third floor lies empty and silent, the doors closed. I walk it anyway, find nothing of note. I take the stairs up to the roof. The door at the top remains unlocked, and from the benches and potted plants on the rooftop, it’s clear that the space is often used. From here, the many domes of the Great Hall look vast and beautiful, glittering in the late afternoon light. To their left
,
I can see past the far boundary walls to the city itself, the buildings crowded together but still well cared for here. To my right, the rest of the campus stretches out, the myriad rooftops cutting each other off from sight.

I walk the rooftop garden slowly, keeping away from the edge so I’m not spotted from below. Freeing Stormwind and then bolting for an exit won’t work — not with the number of guards already at the gates and the likelihood that a magical alarm will alert them before we ever reach them. A rooftop escape, I decide, chewing at my lip. It will have to be the roof. After all, no one ever looks up.

Getting her off the roof will be a trick. I haven’t learned any transformation spells as yet, nor can Stormwind turn herself into a sparrow and flit away unobserved — not with a binding spell on her. I’ll need a way to lift her to safety somehow. Looking out over the rooftop, I know suddenly and clearly exactly what I can do. I just don’t want to do it.

Every step of this plan seems to steal away a little bit more of what future I have left to me.

I rub my face, move back to look at the rooftop door. Before I worry about leaving the rooftop, I’ll need to get Stormwind here in the first place. I run my fingers over the lock, the doorframe. I’d prefer to have a key to it, or better yet, charm it so that it won’t lock properly. But I don’t dare use my magic so flagrantly — at least, not until I’m on the run and don’t care anymore. Not the best of plans, to say the least. If I can find a skeleton key, I’ll most certainly steal it.

But this may be my only opportunity to adjust the lock. I pull the door shut and squat beside it in the semidarkness of the stairwell. Resting my hand against it, I study it with my mage sight.

I find two sigils, central points of magic. One, at the center of the door itself, seems to be a protection against breakage and use of force. It’s simply cast, as though the mage who set it never imagined anyone would want to remove it. I place my palm over it, take a deep breath, and gently channel the magic out of it, draining it of its power. It’s so small, it flickers out without mishap. If I could have used such a trick with Stormwind’s trunk, I would have.

The sigil on the lock, however, is designed to protect, and will activate other spells if its magic is interrupted. It’s dormant right now, but the more I assess it, the more it worries me. It’s designed to seal the door shut through magic and the physical lock mechanism itself. It’s also connected to the protective sigils glimmering on the walls. As I reach out with my magical senses, I realize they’re interwoven with larger spells that could very well cloak the entire building and connect to a network that covers the entire campus.

Whatever I do to the one sigil will echo back to the whole tapestry of spells, like a thread snagging in a fine fabric. People are already on alert. One snag, and it will be all I can do to escape right now.

I’ll just have to be careful. At least, with my senses open, I can feel a continuous tremor of magic in the air, as mages and students and their charms use and release magic across campus. They are small things, nothing great being done at the moment, but it’s enough of a steady rumble to hide what I do. I hope.

I grind the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. I can do this. Kneeling before the door, I frame the invisible sigil with my fingers and study it. The only way it would be activated is if someone activated the spells protecting the building — in the case of an emergency. Otherwise, it remains dormant, allowing anyone who wishes to visit the garden.

I almost laugh, realizing the simplest solution. I don’t need to destroy the sigil. I need to keep it dormant. To do that, I need to adjust the weave of spells around it.

For a handful of slow, deep breaths I observe the magic, the occasional tiny pulse of energy that flows through the strands, the connections between this sigil and the others, the thicker ropes of the protective spells woven through the building itself.

Three strands of magic. I’ll have to adjust three any way I look at it. I wait until the next faint pulse of energy passes and then lift a hand, reaching out with my senses to trace one of the strands. I feed a little drop of magic into it and lengthen the strand, looping it around the central sigil. Now it encircles the sigil as a whole and touches on the two other strands that connect to the sigil.

I take a steadying breath and reach for the two strands anchored to the sigil. I channel a whisper of magic into them right where they touch the sigil, envisioning a tree branch naturally forking, coaxing the strands until they each unfurl a new thread, bright and long enough to reach the loop I created. The edges glimmer blue, and with the lightest brush of my fingertips, I fuse the strands to the loop.

The next pulse will come any moment. Grasping the strands where they attach to the sigil, I ease them free, using the finest touch of magic to separate them, keen as a blade. The spare threads waver, even as the pulse of magic starts across the wall toward me.
No
. I fold the threads back to the loop, smoothing them down with a flick of my fingers before snatching my hands away. My heart hammers in my chest.

The strands flow over each other. As the pulse reaches them, the loop absorbs their magic, sealing the sigil in a vacuum. The pulse sparkles along the strands, following the newly created loop and continuing on, leaving the sigil at its center untouched. I’ve done it.

With only slightly shaky hands, I gather up my cleaning supplies and start down the stairs. By the time I reach the ground floor, it has fallen silent. I still have one more thing to do. I may have made myself a way out, but I still need a way in. I move to the open doors of the classrooms that look out the back of the building, peeking in each until I find one whose windows are partially blocked by bushes.