Chapter 11
Eleven
Ivy
As he lays the cord in a loop on the floor, Stavros shoots a wary look at the small canvas bag I’m clutching. “What exactly is your big surprise?”
My fingers curl tightly around the bag’s neck. “I think it’d be better if we all discuss it together.”
The former general is going to find my story hard enough to believe without me needing to tell it twice.
He grimaces but lays out the second circle of cord without remark. His is red. Mine is black.
The cords are the key to the new meeting room King Konram set up for us before he left on his courtly tour. We each got a different color.
The other men have kept their own cords, of course. Stavros hasn’t budged about holding on to mine as well as his own, so I can’t use it unless I have his permission.
Who knows what horrible riven things he thinks I’d get up to on my own in a room full of books and maps?
It doesn’t matter anyway, since I’m not likely to be attending meetings without him present. I manage not to roll my eyes at him when he steps back from my loop and gestures toward it as if to say, “Go ahead.”
As I step toward the ring of cord, my chest tightens just a little. I can thank my wretched magic for the fact that using this enchantment sends a wriggling sensation right down the middle of my soul.
The cords must have been blessed by Jurnus, the godlen concerned with travel as well as communication and weather, through the gift of a dedicat who made a particularly hefty sacrifice.
Girding myself, I step into the center of the loop—
And with a thud of my heart and a shudder through my veins, I’m standing in a matching loop positioned between a set of bookshelves and a gilded wooden desk.
I step out of my cord and nudge it off to the side just as Stavros’s massive form pops into being next to me, as if out of thin air. He doesn’t look remotely disturbed by our means of arrival.
We’re the first to arrive. I take a moment to survey the space, which we’ve only used once before.
According to Stavros, this room is somewhere within the palace, next door to the college. The king told him the cords’ power wouldn’t extend much farther than that, as incredible as it already is.
I can’t say whether we really are inside the palace and not just some secluded room on the campus, because the room hasn’t got any windows.
The only illumination gleams from a chandelier overhead, with candles I have to assume light up magically when there’s movement below and snuff themselves out when we’re gone.
It’s hard to imagine King Konram assigning one of his staff to stop by on a daily basis just to replace those that have burned out. The thick wooden door next to one of the bookcases is secured by three different locks that even we don’t know how to open.
We can’t go out into the palace… but presumably no one can get in either.
The desk is certainly fit for a king: broad, heavy, and glinting with gold detailing. Four leather-padded chairs stand around it, as if he decided there’d never be any need for all five of us to sit down at the same time.
Set against the walls on either side, the massive bookcases rise all the way to the ceiling. One is packed with books of history and theology, the other with scrolls on the same subjects as well as various maps.
A narrow doorway leads to a smaller supply room with blank paper, ink pots and quills, and more recent records from the college and around the city. Everything King Konram thought we might need for our pursuit of the scourge sorcerers.
I’m not anywhere near as well-versed in the college library’s materials as Alek is, but he swooned when he saw some of the volumes that’d been hidden away in the royal collection. It was almost too bad when Stavros hauled him over to begin the actual meeting.
Only almost. I don’t need to become any fonder of the eager glint that can light up the scholar’s bright brown eyes than I already am.
The space is like a fancier version of our old archive room—an archive befitting a king. Including an additional feature I’m not sure how to feel about.
Hanging on the wall by the supply room door is an ornate mirror about half the size as the one we used to speak to King Konram more than a week ago. I’m guessing this one could be used for the same purpose, unless he thought fixing our hair would be vital to the cause.
Does he expect to be let in on our discussions here when he returns to Florian?
Pushing aside that uneasy thought, I set my bag carefully on the tabletop. A waxy scent laces the air, telling me that the bases of the candles are real rather than conjured. I breathe it in, but I can’t take any comfort from the subtle sweetness.
This is going to be a difficult conversation no matter who’s involved.
Casimir arrives next, his short waves faintly damp as if he’s just toweled off from a bath. I yank my gaze back to the table before the heat that sparked between my legs at the sight can flare any hotter.
He notices the bag on the table at once. “What did you bring, Ivy?”
I have to meet his eyes then; have to smile because I don’t want to be a jerk. Even though a twinge runs through my gut with the memory of seeing him with his patron this morning.
“I made an interesting discovery today,” I say. “I thought we should discuss it.”
Benedikt arrives with a typical jaunty grin. As he saunters over to me, he digs his hand into his pocket. “I have a little present for you.”
He retrieves a locket dangling from a chain—just like the ones the men all carry. “I had my merchant echo the blessing on mine, so yours should work the same way. It seemed about time you had one.”
My skin prickles with my sense of Stavros looming nearby. Benedikt wasn’t around when the former general dismissed Casimir’s suggestion that I needed a means to summon the rest of them.
“Oh,” I say, reaching to take it carefully, a little concerned that Stavros might swipe it out of my hand. “Thank you. Hopefully I won’t need to use it again.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Benedikt replies cheerfully, and hesitates as his gaze slides to Stavros. “Did I beat you to the punch, Stav? If you were having one made too, it can’t hurt to have a backup.”
“It’s fine,” Stavros says, but Benedikt’s brow knits at the edge in his voice.
He laughs it off a moment later and flops into one of the chairs with a return of his carefree air. Alek materializes a moment later, shooting a longing glance toward the bookshelves before joining us.
Stavros points his prosthetic hand toward me. “Ivy has something to share with us.”
He manages to make it sound like a punishment.
Ignoring his mood, I tug open the mouth of the bag. “This is going to sound crazy, but I promise you, I know what I saw.”
I saw it too, Julita pipes up. I mean, it was insane, but it was also real.
I slide the broken pieces of the clay rat out onto the tabletop. As I nudge them into an approximation of their correct form, all four of the men lean closer.
“Is that a sculpture of a rat?” Benedikt asks in an amused tone. “What, did you pilfer it from a shrine of Kosmel to try to catch his attention?”
Rats are one of the godlen of trickery’s symbolic animals, but I don’t think my divine acquaintance had anything to do with this one.
I shake my head. “I saw a rat nosing around on the fourth floor of the Domi. Something seemed… off about it.” Benedikt doesn’t know about my magical sensibilities because he doesn’t know about my actual magic, but hopefully the others can guess what I mean.
“I tried to catch it so we could examine it, and it attacked me. I killed it accidentally—and it turned into this.”
I motion to the clay figure.
No one speaks for a few seconds. Alek’s lips part, but it takes another beat before he gets any words out. “You’re saying an actual rat turned into clay?”
“Yes,” I say. “The second it died. Which makes me think it was always clay, just someone magicked it into looking and acting alive.”
Stavros clears his throat. When I look at him, his gaze burns into mine. “That’s an incredible feat. You’re suggesting the scourge sorcerers were responsible? Not anyone else?”
Benedikt’s forehead furrows in confusion. “Why would we think it’s anyone else?”
I know exactly what the former general means. He’s suggesting my fathomless magic was responsible somehow.
I glower right back at him. “I can’t think of anyone else who’d have an interest in doing something like that.” Including myself.
Casimir rubs his chin. “There are a lot of purposes a scheme like that could serve, aren’t there?
The conspirators could be using small animals totally under their control to spy on staff or retrieve items or create some kind of effect.
But I’ve never heard of anyone with a gift that could bring inanimate material believably to life. ”
We all look toward Alek.
The scholar leans forward to snag his fingers around one of the chunks of clay. Frowning, he examines it.
Then he lifts his eyes to meet mine. “You’re absolutely sure it transformed? It wasn’t just a trick of the light that made you mistake it for real?”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I was holding its tail—I could feel the skin and its fur brushing my fingers. And its teeth when they bit open my hand.” I hold up said hand where a faint mark lingers after a medic’s healing efforts. “I heard its skull break when I smacked it against the wall.”
Alek’s mouth twists. “I’ve heard of people who could animate figures like puppets before—still looking like the constructed object, made of wood or clay or what have you.
But even in those cases, they had to stay close by to direct them.
It’s possible the scourge sorcerers have combined gifts to be able to conduct that kind of magic from more of a distance…
But to turn it from clay into a creature of flesh… ”