Chapter 29 #3
The cleric ushers in the boy first, really a gangly young man now twenty-one, with wayward hair that looks as if it’s been splashed with paint too. He plops himself in one of the chairs and offers us an easy grin. “Cezari said you wanted to ask me about something?”
He certainly doesn’t look traumatized or in the grips of dark magic.
It takes me several seconds to even spot his sacrifice—a pale scar in the tan skin of his forearm, about the size of a thumbprint.
The kind of sacrifice people make when they’re barely asking for a gift at all, just wanting to show their devotion.
Ster. Torstem wouldn’t be siphoning any major powers from this guy.
Stavros leans forward, no doubt taking in the same details I have. The idea is for him to do most of the talking and me to observe, jumping in if I catch anything he’s missed. “I understand you spent most of your childhood at the Riverside Institute in Siltston.”
“Oh, yes,” the guy says with a laugh. “Not a bad place to grow up.”
“A professor from Sovereign College took a bit of an interest in you, offering some guidance?”
The guy nods, looking pleased that he’s able to confirm it. “That’s right. Torstem. He helped me figure out where I was meant to go. I’m grateful for that.”
His enthusiasm appears totally genuine to me.
Stavros offers him a warmer smile than he usually aims at me. “I’m glad to hear it. What did you think of the college when he took you to visit?”
The guy’s gaze turns a bit distant. He rubs his fingers together in his lap, and a tickle of apprehension quivers down my spine.
“Oh, it was very impressive,” he says. “All those buildings, so many people—the fine clothes and all. Not a place where I belonged, but it shows how the godlen smile on Silana.”
“Did Ster. Torstem mention anything in particular he might want you to help him with?” Stavros asks. “Something you could contribute to?”
The guy knits his brow. “Not that I can think of. He said he wanted to make sure I fulfilled my potential.”
After a couple more dead-end questions, Stavros dismisses our first interviewee. His grin slants crookedly. “Well, that got us a whole lot of nothing.”
“I don’t know.”
I hesitate, and Stavros’s gaze darts to me.
“What?” he demands, suddenly sounding every bit the general.
I hold up my hands. “I could be wrong. I’m not an expert. But I got the impression that when he talked about seeing the college, he was lying.”
“You think something went on during the trip that he’s hiding?”
“Not like that… More like he was inventing what he said about it in general.” I frown. “But that doesn’t make any sense. He sounded honest the rest of the time.”
Stavros hums thoughtfully. “Well, let’s see what we get out of the other two.”
Fyrinth, the older girl who’s now eighteen, answers much the same as her male counterpart did, though partly distracted by the butterfly she seems to have trained to circle her head.
I have the sense that she too takes a little more effort to remember her trip to the college than she does anything else we ask her about.
Was the campus really that forgettable for kids who’d probably never been out of the fringes before?
I study her as I fit in a question of my own toward the end. “Were there any other girls Torstem took under his wing at the orphanage who seemed uneasy about his guidance? Or who talked about maybe going in a different direction than dedicating themselves to a temple?”
Fyrinth merely looks puzzled. “Not that I can think of. We were all grateful that he took an interest in our futures at all.”
Her only sacrifice is the common one of a little finger, which possibly is what has allowed her to do this trick with the butterfly. When Stavros asks her about her choice, her smile turns a bit sad. “My mother had the same. I miss her a lot.”
She must have come to the orphanage old enough to have known her parents. My throat tightens with sympathy.
The younger girl, Delja, tumbles into the room with a cartwheel and perches on the top of the chair back with her feet on the seat cushion. “It’s a glorious day, isn’t it?” she chirps.
Well, the fourteen-year-old doesn’t look particularly disturbed either. And she quickly informs us that she opted to make no sacrifice at all, “Because Inganne was happy to have me either way.”
She’s just as pleased with Torstem’s presence in her life as the other two. And she rattles on at more length about her trip to the college. “I got to have lunch there. Never tasted food that good before! And there was an amazing statue of Inganne riding a dolphin—just beautiful.”
Stavros’s eyes flicker, but he doesn’t show any other sign of concern through the rest of his questions.
When I ask, Delja claims she never saw any hint of trouble around Torstem’s visits. “He really was so nice!”
After she’s left, Stavros eases back in his chair. His forehead has furrowed. “There’s no statue of Inganne riding a dolphin at the college.”
Julita’s presence stills in the back of my head. That’s true. I’ve never seen it. But she’d have visited before I enrolled.
I pause. “Is it possible there was and it was taken down? You’ve been teaching for less than a year, haven’t you?”
“I suppose. We’ll have to consult with Aleksi—he knows everything about everything.” He sighs. “Not that it would tell us much even if I’m right.”
“Yeah. What does it say if Torstem didn’t actually take these three to the college like he said he was? Even if he did something else with them or somehow messed with their memories of what they saw there, he obviously hasn’t used them for any evil purpose.”
“Exactly.” Stavros rubs his brow. “I don’t like it. We’ve gotten no evidence at all that he’s done anything except help a handful of kids determine their ideal path. Which isn’t any kind of crime.”
As we thank Cleric Cezari and make our way back to the horses, my stomach sinks despite the admittedly glorious day around us. I wait until we’ve reached the forest before speaking up again.
“We haven’t tackled every avenue. There’s still the matter of the women in the attic at The Night’s Calling.”
Stavros nods. “I could pull some strings and have the Crown’s Watch conduct a raid, come up with false pretenses so we don’t tip anyone off that it’s because of Ster. Torstem. It’ll take a little time to arrange.”
“Maybe that will get us somewhere.”
“Perhaps.” Stavros glances sideways at me. “Or you might have to accept that the law professor is nothing more than a letch who makes grand promises and has an unexpectedly generous soul. What does Julita make of all this, Thief?”
The question jabs at me more than it should.
Julia speaks up without further prompting. Ster. Torstem gives me the creeps, but I haven’t seen any direct evidence of scourge sorcery around him. This is all just… very odd.
“She thinks it’s strange and she doesn’t like Torstem, but she hasn’t picked up on anything specific,” I paraphrase. My gut has gotten as heavy as if I’ve swallowed a heap of stones.
All my sneaking and spying, and we don’t seem to be any closer to finding the culprits than Julita was before her death.
The gloom of that knowledge hangs over me the whole ride back to Florian. I’m only rattled out of my melancholy by a frantic ringing that peals on and on as we pass the city walls.
Stavros stares toward the distant spires of the capital hill. “That sounds like the palace bell.”
“And, what, it’s fifty o’clock?”
“Something’s wrong.”
He nudges his stallion to a canter, and I urge Toast after him. Thankfully my steed is more concerned with proving he can keep pace with the grander animal than defying orders.
We clatter over the bridge and across the cobblestones to the throughway between the Temple of the Crown and the adjoining outer walls of the college and palace. The road there is crowded with people, all looking up at the still ringing bell.
Several soldiers stand among gawkers, and I spot other dark blue uniforms in the tower around the bell.
I ease Toast closer to Stavros amid the mass of inner-warders. “Do you think it’s the daimon lashing out again?”
Have they moved to the palace now? That… seems particularly unpromising.
Stavros’s jaw has clenched. “If so, it appears the Crown’s Watch is—”
The latest peal cuts off with an echoing crack. And then a clatter.
The enormous tower bell splits right in two, the pieces banging against the walls.
As my jaw goes slack, one immense chunk teeters right through the broad, paneless window and plummets toward the palace courtyard below.