Chapter 36 #2
“I’ll go by his dorm and see if anyone there has seen him recently,” Casimir says. “Although—we need to be able to signal each other if we find him. I want Ivy to hold on to my locket.”
Alek motions to him. “We can stay close together. I’ve got his class schedule memorized.
I’ll take a look around the professors’ quarters while you’re checking his dorm, and then we can head over to the Quadring not too far apart and see if he’s arrived early for his afternoon session or gone to any of the offices for extra help. ”
Stavros leans his hands onto the desk. “If you spot him, you alert the rest of us and keep your distance. Just don’t let him out of your sight. The Crown’s Watch is equipped to actually apprehend him; we simply need to get them moving in the right direction.”
His last words tug at my memory. I hesitate, frowning.
Esmae said something about being pointed in the right direction—Wendos had suggested that was what he was doing by “warning” her about Julita. But there was also…
After the carnage at the ball. He talked to that guy from the so-called Bug Club about a creature it was difficult to fully control.
You can point them in the right direction, but you can’t ensure they’ll act exactly the way you’d want. I conveyed the information as clearly as I could.
What information? Who was the “they” he was talking about?
Not the Crown’s Watch if he was only badgering Romild to mislead me, and not me since he couldn’t know I’m hosting more than one person at the moment.
The floor shivers under me and seems to pass a chill right up through my skin.
I wet my lips. “We know Wendos was manipulating Esmae, and maybe Julita and me too, but he was also talking about something after the ball… If the mess there was because of him and the other conspirators, it almost sounded like—like maybe they directed the daimon purposefully, rather than it being an accidental consequence. Is that even possible?”
The men draw up short. Benedikt barks a laugh but shuts his mouth at Stavros’s stern look.
Alek’s eyes darken with thought. “I’ve never read any account of a gift that would allow a sorcerer to control daimon. Even what some of the soldiers have been doing—that’s general magic for encouraging peace in any being, not something specific to daimon.”
“And it hasn’t been terribly effective on them either,” Benedikt remarks.
Alek nods. “They’re divine spirits, under the governance of all the godlen. No one gift should be enough to command them.”
My mouth forms a pained smile. “Isn’t that the whole point of scourge sorcery? To try to elevate themselves to the level of gods? If they’re drawing on major gifts from dedications to all the godlen…”
Stavros rubs his jaw. “I don’t know. We can’t say it isn’t possible, but if there aren’t any accounts of even the original scourge sorcerers managing that, it seems incredibly unlikely. He probably merely meant that their other activities provoked the daimon.”
That wasn’t how it sounded. And it isn’t as if the Great Retribution left us with the most complete records of all the brutal sorcery that prompted it.
But every second I spend arguing about it is another second we’re not tracking down Wendos and his fellow delinquents.
“Never mind,” I say. “We’ve got a plan. Unless… Julita, is there anything you’d want to add?”
The men go silent as I wait for the answer, their stances tensing just slightly. None of them has mentioned her presence in me since my outburst yesterday.
Maybe after what I told them, they don’t know how to feel about her still being here.
But this was her mission first. She deserves the chance to weigh in.
A hint of gratitude colors Julita’s voice. I think you’ve got it covered, Ivy. I just want to see Wendos and whoever he’s working with destroyed.
“Destroy Wendos,” I say to the others. “Sounds like a good start to me.”
Alek tips his head toward Casimir. “You and I can go through the regular archives entrance so we’re not all seen coming out together.”
As they head for the door and Benedikt opens the secret passage, Stavros sets his hand on my shoulder. “You’re coming with me, Lady Thief.”
The adjusted nickname sends a strange flutter through my chest despite my annoyance with the second half. I’ve been elevated to a lady now, have I?
I assume he’s bringing me with him to the palace to report on what I witnessed. My pulse kicks up a notch as we stride down the hallway.
Instead, he leads me up the stairs to the fourth floor and over to his quarters.
As he locks the door, my forehead furrows. “What are we doing up here? Is there something you needed to bring to the palace?”
“Not quite.” Stavros motions me in and moves to a chest under the window. Whatever he starts rummaging through, there’s a lot of clanking and thudding.
“You’ll stay here while we find Wendos,” he says without looking back at me.
My eyes just about pop out of my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. We all need to be—”
“You’ve done enough,” he interrupts, in a tone so fierce I hesitate.
He stands up with something in his hands. “You’ve nearly been murdered twice in as many days, and I’d rather not have to worry about it happening again the second I turn around. This is the one place in the college with a door only you and I—and I suppose the dean—can unlock.”
I glower at him. “I suppose we’d better hope the dean isn’t in on the conspiracy too, then. I can help. Isn’t it more important—”
The former general crosses the room to me in a few powerful strides. “We can handle it between the four of us—and the entire Crown’s Watch, once I’ve got them. And if I’m wrong about that…”
He holds out the object he pulled from the chest. It’s a leather belt, twice as thick as the dainty feminine one I’m wearing now, with a short sword in a scabbard attached at one side.
A short sword with the royal family’s crest emblazoned on the pommel in glinting gold.
My lips part. I yank my stare from it to him.
Stavros’ gaze sears into mine. “Part of my old military equipment. That crest carries weight. Show it, and whoever’s around will listen to you if you need their assistance.”
A laugh hitches out of me. “And you’re giving it to a thief?”
“Ivy…” He pushes the sword into my arms and steps closer in the same movement. His head bows over mine, his hand rising to cup my jaw.
“You’re not just a thief,” he says. “I’d already realized that, and I shouldn’t have forgotten that. And I’ve seen how dedicated you are to the cause. You’re—you’re not like anyone I’ve ever known before. I don’t know what you have going on with Casimir or whoever else—”
I scowl. “That’s nothing you should be—”
Stavros hurtles onward before I can get out more than that.
“It isn’t for me to judge anyway. What matters is…
I gave up a hand to receive a gift I can’t use anymore.
And now it seems another ‘hand’ has come to me.
” A trace of a smile touches his lips at the reference to my outer-ward nickname.
“A better one than I knew to ask for. Maybe better than I deserve.”
My throat closes up. “Stavros—"
“Just listen. I don’t want to lose you, and I’ve already been on the verge too many times. I don’t know any other way I can protect you right now. So stay here and be safe, for once in your existence. Please.”
The ‘please’ unravels something inside me I didn’t know I was holding so tight. I swallow hard against the wave of affection I instinctively tamp down.
He wouldn’t say that if he knew everything.
But the fact that he’s saying it even knowing some of me feels incredible.
I adjust the sword in my arms. “All right. I’ll stay here. As long as there’s no urgent reason I need to leave.”
A chuckle tumbles from Stavros’s lips. “That sounds like as much of a promise as I could have expected.”
Something shifts in his expression. A flush creeps up my neck with the impression that he’s going to kiss me.
The moment crackles between us and vanishes when Stavros pulls back. He dips his head to me. “We’ll get the whole scourge on this college rounded up as quickly as we can.”
Then he strides out of the room, leaving me clutching a general’s royal sword and drowning in a whirl of emotion.
I take a couple of steps back and all but collapse onto the sofa.
“What was that?” I ask the air—and, inadvertently, the ghost inside me.
Julita lets out a laugh, but there’s a twinge of melancholy to her voice. You’ve really affected him. I’ve never heard him speak like that.
Not around her… or to her, I suppose.
My stomach twists. “I wasn’t looking for anything like that when I came here. I never meant—”
I know. You’ve got nothing to justify anyway. Even if I was still properly here, none of them were mine, at least no farther than I was using them. I got what I needed.
Maybe that’s a story she tells herself too, to lessen the sting of what she’s lost. “You cared about them more than that.”
I liked them well enough, and they liked me. But there wasn’t much to it. It appears that in a couple of weeks, you’ve given them something I didn’t bother to in the months we were working together. I think they’ve all told you things they never told me.
I don’t know how much she’s mourning the life she lost in general or the chances she didn’t take, but her attempt at a breezy tone can’t hide the sorrow.
“Once we take down Wendos and Ster. Torstem and whoever else, I’ll be done here,” I remind her. “I won’t have them either.”
She tuts. I passed up whatever chance I might have had. Why should you? I doubt any of them is going to kick you out the door. Whether you’re aiming for one in particular or a whole set like another Signy.
I make a dismissive sound, hoping she can’t feel the flicker of exhilaration that passed through me at the thought of having all four of the men standing by me in all sorts of ways.
She doesn’t know the most vital thing about me any more than they do. It’s a lot more complicated than simply reaching for what I want.
And who knows how any of them will look at me once the danger has passed, regardless.
I lean forward on the sofa, opening my mouth to say as much, and a tremor quakes through the room hard enough to rattle my bones.