Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
As I lope across the courtyard to the Domi, the ground gives a little lurch beneath my feet. The walls of the Quadring creak.
One of the passing students points at the ground with a yelp. A narrow crack has split open in the soil, veering out from the base of the building.
Shit. A squad of guards tramp over, the captain hollering at everyone around to “Stay calm!” but I bolt through the doorway.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to this place. I don’t know if the college can even be saved.
But I’m not letting the one real friend I’ve made get taken down in the wreckage.
I clamber up the steps, taking some two at a time, to the second floor. As I burst out into the hall, the building gives another shudder, unnerving enough to make my pulse wobble.
A few of the other students are huddled in the hallway, murmuring to each other in anxious tones. Hustling past them, I catch a couple of truncated phrases: “unhappy daimon” and “challenging the king.”
Obviously the rumor about divine dissatisfaction is still going around. I can get back to work at proving the real source of the spirit-creatures’ distress once I’ve confirmed that my friend hasn’t been murdered.
I’m sure she’s all right, Julita says as I round the corner on the way to her old dorm room. No one could think Esmae was some sort of vigilante champion for justice.
“I don’t think we can assume the person who stabbed me and came back to shove the knife in farther is incredibly logical in all things,” I mutter back.
I’ve almost reached the dorm room door when a woman I vaguely recognize from the hunt emerges. Another of Julita’s former dormmates, I guess.
“Hi!” I say with forced brightness, drawing to a stop as I reach her. “Is Esmae in there?”
If not, maybe she has some idea what class Esmae would have right now. She wouldn’t normally get dinner this early.
“As far as I know,” the woman says, knitting her brow. “Zofia checked on her around lunchtime when she missed a class they have together, and Esmae said she wasn’t feeling well and was skipping the day. I assume she’s still in there.”
My spirits plummet before they’ve had much chance to rise. “You haven’t seen her?”
She shakes her head. “Not since yesterday morning. It’s not as if we’re close, though.” She reaches back toward the door. “Maybe it’d be good for her to talk with someone. I can let you in.”
Julita lets out a soft huff as I slip into the common room. I could have gotten us in. I know that door—there are ways if you’ve lost your bracelet. Not as secure as the front gate.
I refrain from pointing out to her that it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re inside.
As my gaze slides around the common room, I realize I don’t know which bedroom belongs to Esmae. I never saw her come out when I was in here before.
Anya’s not around, at least. The whole common room is deserted at the moment.
I raise an eyebrow at Julita in question, and she hums noncommittally. I never paid that much attention. You could simply call out her name—she’ll hear you.
And so will any dormmates also in their bedrooms. I’m not sure if it’s wise to make that much of a ruckus.
I hesitate and then start forward, thinking I can at least get closer before I call out. But just as I reach the line of doors on the right side of the room, near where Esmae was sitting that first day, the one a few paces away from me eases open.
My eyes lock with a familiar one-eyed gaze. That one eye flares wider… and Esmae moves to yank the door shut again.
I don’t think, only react on instinct. There isn’t time to snatch up one of my knives, but I fling myself forward and catch the door with the toe of my boot before it reaches the doorframe.
“Esmae, what’s the matter? I’m here to help. If someone’s been after you—”
“This really isn’t a good time,” Esmae squeaks out, but I push the door wider. And then I stare.
A hasty cloth bandage has been pressed to Esmae’s chest just above the neckline of her gown, spots of dried blood showing through. The fabric droops with her abrupt jerk backward, revealing an edge of a cut—shallow slash of raw pink that’s no longer actively bleeding.
My heart stops. “They attacked you too. I was worried… Who was it? Why haven’t you been to the infirmary? We need to tell the guards—”
Esmae takes another step back, her face going so tight that my words die in my throat. I follow her into the room automatically, distantly taking in the perfect order of the space—the bed neatly made, the books all lined up at exactly the same depth on the bookcase.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Esmae says in a strange voice that makes me wonder if she’s injured worse than I can tell. She motions to the chair at her small desk.
I move toward it, but only to grip the top to steady myself. “We have to get you to a medic to see to that cut. And if you know who came after you, we can…”
I falter for the second time as Esmae positions herself between me and the door. She reaches toward her bookcase and picks up something off one of the shelves.
It’s just a letter opener, a thin blade with a wooden curlicue at the top. But she holds it like a dagger.
Ivy, something doesn’t feel right about this, Julita murmurs, as if she’s afraid of being overheard.
No, it doesn’t. I swallow thickly, clutching the chair tighter. “Esmae, what’s going on?”
She smiles faintly and reaches toward her throat—to the pendant that matches the one she gave me—absently, as if she’s barely aware of the movement. “I thought you were still in the infirmary. The medics took your necklace off. I should have considered that.”
I guess they did. I’d gotten the necklace so recently I hadn’t thought to look for it.
But her odd comment brings to mind the tingle of magic I sensed in it.
“Can you— You can tell where it is? They’re magically connected?” I eye her pendant with a deeper lurch of my gut. “Why would you want to know where I am?”
“You’ve been going all over the place.” Esmae rotates the handle of the letter opener between her fingers, her gaze never leaving me. “You said you’d barely spoken to Julita in years, but that didn’t stop you from digging and digging behind my back.”
Several fragments from the past couple of weeks slide together in a sickening collision. I sink into the chair, but only so I can rest my left hand on my thigh right by the overlapping strips of fabric that hide one of my knives.
“She disappeared,” I say quietly. “Even if we weren’t close anymore, it’s natural that I’d be worried, isn’t it? Esmae, how did you get that cut?”
“I don’t know,” she snaps, her voice laced with venom. “But I’m guessing it has something to do with you. What’s your gift, really?”
The voice last night, the one I wanted to believe I hallucinated, echoes up from my memory. I’ll aim the backlash at the one who attacked you.
Why would Esmae hide a wound? Why wouldn’t she get help?
Unless she was afraid the injury would prove something else she wanted to keep hidden.
What if I did tap into my magic yesterday… and the healing power I called on dug its claws into her to balance the scales? Just like the voice promised.
My throat has closed so tightly it takes me a few seconds to regain my voice. “I’m more interested in hearing about your gift now. How exactly do you carry messages across an entire country?”
Why did I never ask her that before? Jurnus doesn’t just preside over communication and travel but weather as well.
What better way to convey a missive swiftly and directly than on the wind?
But it never occurred to me that the details of her magic would be important. She was so fucking nice.
Esmae lets out a dark laugh. “I don’t think that really matters at this point, do you?”
I fumble for something else to say, some part of me desperately hoping that if I give her the right opening, she’ll reveal this is all some horrible joke. “And knives… I suppose they could be considered a sort of message, huh?”
Esmae shows no sign of misunderstanding my meaning. Her eye narrows, and her fingers tighten around the letter opener.
Another chilling thought hits me. “When I was drugged in the cafeteria—you started asking me about Julita. Was that a trick to get my guard down?”
She wrinkles her nose. “That isn’t how I’d have done it. Once it was done, why shouldn’t I have taken advantage?”
Because we were friends, I want to say. But obviously that was never true.
The question tumbles out in a weaker voice than I like. “Why?”
“I’ve worked too hard,” Esmae says flatly. “I gave too fucking much to let her steal my opportunities away from me, and I’m not going to let you ruin my life either.”
I feel it would be unwise to point out to her that the life ruining seems to be mostly happening in the opposite direction.
What is she talking about? Julita says with obvious distress. I barely even talked to her when I was alive. I certainly never interfered with any of her career ambitions.
I hold up my right hand in a placating gesture. “What opportunities do you think Julita was trying to steal from you?”
Even more anger sharpens Esmae’s voice. “She was cozying up to the professor I’d want for my recommendations. He only puts forward one student in each graduating class. Her gift wasn’t even in his specialty, but she had to weasel her way in there…”
I swear, Ivy, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I’m not—I wasn’t—even on the same track as Esmae. I’ve told you before, I was studying so I can take over my family estate. She wanted to get a job with one of the courtly families. I didn’t need recommendations.
I will my own voice to stay steady. “She told me she was planning on taking over as countess in Nikodi after she was done here. Why would she have been angling for a recommendation to the court?”
“She must have lied to you! I saw it with my own eyes. He told me I should keep an eye out, and then I saw her going to Ster. Lezek’s quarters… laughing with him… conniving her way into his good graces like she did with everyone…”