Chapter 23 The Kiln
We were standing in front of a dark green door several down from the entrance to the lab. Aspen took out a key from his back pocket.
“No magick locks?” I teased.
“No, you don’t learn that until third year,” he said under his breath, fiddling with the lock. I could tell he was joking when a sly smile broke out on his lips.
“Where are we going?” The question came out sharper than I intended.
I was tired of being led through secret corridors and shown hidden spots around Foresyth.
If Aspen had any intention of killing me, this would have been the perfect opportunity.
My father instilled in me the belief that no one could be trusted; that everyone was dangerous.
But something deep inside—something I couldn’t rationalize, something instinctual—whispered that this time, he was being honest.
“If you want to see something real, then follow me,” he said and took my hand again.
The thought of Sequoia seeing me with Aspen was enough to make my stomach twist. And yet, I found my hand instinctively curling into his.
“No one else knows this place,” he said, leading me down the steps. “And no one else has a key.”
When we reached the bottom of the staircase, swallowed up by the subterranean darkness, the glow of a flame appeared. Aspen turned to me, his face cast in an orange hue. He was holding a match, perpetually burning without the flame consuming the wood.
“That’s a cool trick,” I said.
He scoffed and turned back to the room. In the dim glow, the room seemed to be a storage closet. Old furniture and mildewing books were stacked across every direction.
“This is it?” I asked. “Rotting furniture is your version of real?”
“Ye of little faith,” he said, pulling me to one end of the room.
A bookshelf was stacked with rotting books from floor to ceiling.
“Hold on tight to your dictionary,” he said, pulling down one of the books.
The shelf started to shake and began to approach us.
It swiveled open on a top hinge like a circular doorway. It led to an even darker room.
“Damn.”
“I get a snide remark at fire magick but a hidden doorway impresses you?” Aspen said.
I pushed him away, tracing my own path through the doorway.
It reminded me of the false shelves in my father’s bookshop—the ones that promised shelves of hidden tomes, yet led, in my imagination, to Babylonian vaults and cursed Alexandrian cities.
I used to pretend every book I touched had teeth.
The bite, I hoped, would jar me awake into a life I actually wanted.
“It’s a tunnel,” I said, staring out into the seeming never-ending darkness.
“Yes,” Aspen said from behind me, his flame burning brighter, the orb seemed to grow in size to the proportion of space. “The school is full of them, connecting hidden rooms and workshops.” I distantly wondered if there was a tunnel connecting to the lab.
“You can get into any room in the House through them.” He winked, taking a large step through the door to guide us further into the tunnel.
We walked single file for a few long moments in silence.
We had already passed several diverts away from the main tunnel.
This had to be an incredibly intricate system.
We passed one sharp right turn that had several collapsed metal and wooden barricades in front of it.
My grip on his hand tightened reflexively, and I was surprised when he returned my pressure.
“What’s that?”
“Very old magick. I wouldn’t go down those pathways if you can help it. They used to be warded when the House’s magick was stronger, but they haven’t been for a while. Whatever is down there, you don’t want to be near it.” Aspen spoke in a steady voice as if recounting a reading.
“Here, we’re almost here,” he said, leading me further down a turn. We passed several of those barricaded tunnel paths and I ignored the shiver running along my arms every time we passed one.
Old magick. Something was definitely there, magick or not. But the heat of Aspen’s palm was a welcoming signal to follow.
I spotted a splotch of light up ahead. A skylight. Golden rays of sunset filtered through a grate and poured onto my feet.
“This leads outside,” I said, looking up. A stray mockingbird flew overhead.
“The kiln has to be so many feet away from the House, and it needs an exhaust,” he said.
He unlocked the door with another set of keys and pushed it open, his muscles taut with strain under the weight.
If Aspen struggled to open the door, I couldn’t even imagine how well my attempt could go. Note bene: don’t get locked in.
“You took me down a basement, through a hidden doorway, then a tunnel system, and now you think I’m going to go through this tetanus-ridden iron door with you?”
He grinned from ear to ear. “Of course you will, Alice. Don’t you want to see where the rabbit hole leads?” Curiosity was one of my worst traits. I sighed, stepping through the door, following the glow of light on the other side.
At first, I was blinded by a sharp white light. I covered my eyes, looking away. But they adjusted in a few seconds, and I realized I was looking at what looked like a giant oven.
A kiln.
Metal pipes spanned the width of the space, all leading to the central cylinder.
The place smelled of scorched sand and steam, of charred cedar, and wet ash.
It was the mineral tang of something half-alive and half-alchemical, like the breath of the earth itself held captive.
And at its core there was an impossibly white light.
My eyes adjusted to the brightness, but I still couldn’t look at it.
“You’ll need to wear glasses if you’re going to stare directly,” Aspen said.
I turned my gaze back to him. He had extinguished the flame in his finger and was now rounding a wooden table at the opposite side of the room. Various tools, long pipes, some strange bulbs, and torches littered the top of the table.
His workshop. He had taken me to his workshop.
My eyes snapped back up to the kiln. Relief washed over me—too small to fit a body. Unless, of course, he planned to dismember me first.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, stepping closer.
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“There’s nothing more I want to know.”
I paused for a moment but finally yielded. “I’m thinking about how you’d go about stuffing me into that kiln,” I said. The truth felt good on my tongue, even if it was only a half-joke.
He let out a roar of laughter. “I’m not stuffing you anywhere. Besides, it would ruin the kiln. Why do you think I’m so protective of it? I’ve never shown this place to anyone else.”
A knot was starting to form in my stomach.
Not even Sequoia? I didn’t like thinking about the Trees keeping secrets from each other.
And even more so them telling me a secret but not one another.
And though I was still angry at Sequoia for keeping the cards a secret, there was still a part of me that didn’t want to betray her friendship. Even if it sprouted from a bed of lies.
“You’re a glassblower,” I said, tracing my fingertips over the torch equipment.
“Mhm,” he said, his eyes not falling from me.
“Interesting. I pegged you as more of the metal-working, Hephaestus type,” I said in the most mocking tone I could muster. He was so far from Hephaestus it was painful.
“Ouch,” he said, coming around the table next to me.
“I started with metal. But the temperatures were too low—my sculptures were melting before they had a chance to solidify. As my magick grew stronger, I needed a medium that could handle it. Turns out glass can handle all two-thousand degrees of it,” he said.
I scrunched my nose at him. “An interesting way of saying you’re too hot to handle.”
He laughed again, and I wished I could bottle up that noise and keep it with me. It was deep and true. I hadn’t heard anyone laugh like that since my father was alive.
“I’m sure you can handle me,” he said, smirking.
I ignored his flirtation, remembering the true reason I was down here. I needed answers, and the time was now. I had come this far; I needed to use his vulnerability. Weaponize it.
“Aspen.” His name caught in my throat. I turned hesitantly to look at him, and he met my eyes.
“Earlier, when you said you wanted me here. Why?” His motives were confusing, and his actions contradictory.
He suspected I was investigating Julian’s death, and yet he wasn’t stopping me.
His actions might even be aligned with helping me.
“Despite what you might think, I want you to figure out what happened to Julian. I don’t believe for a second that he killed himself.”
I met his steely gaze, encouraging him to go on.
“Julian isn’t—wasn’t—the melancholy type. He was jovial, brought a fresh perspective into the House. Something else must have happened the night of the ceremony; he was known for speaking out against the Meister’s philosophies.”
“What do you remember about that night?” I said, edging him on.
Aspen hesitated, the weight of his next words pulling the air tight around us.
The ash was collecting in my throat. He finally drew in a long, deliberate breath.
“We all had taken the elixir,” he said quietly, his voice almost a confession.
“The one Sequoia and Nina prepared . . . for soul flight. We all drank it.” His gaze flickered to mine, searching for something—understanding, maybe. Or absolution.
“Dahlia . . .” His voice softened as he reached out, his fingers barely brushing my arm.
The touch was light, but it sent a jolt through me, setting every nerve on edge.
“I know you have every reason to doubt me. But I need you to believe this.” His stare was molten.
“I want to know what happened to Julian as much as you do. He was my friend . . .” His voice cracked, the words trailing off like the admission cost him something.