Chapter 3
The Tower
Ishut the squealing, wrought-iron, wood and glass door behind me once I’d made it inside the long hallway of the east wing. Latching the door tightly against the wind, I rubbed my gloved hands together and shivered.
I looked in both directions as I ventured deeper into the silent hall.
I saw no one. Nothing moved in the high, arched corridor apart from guttering flames.
Someone in the Mansion kept the torches burning, and chandeliers hung down at regular intervals on chains to light the center hall. Still, as the storm blew outside and rattled windows, it didn’t feel like afternoon anymore.
It felt closer to the middle of the night.
I wondered if maybe I should turn around and try to make it back to Valarian before the storm got any worse. Looking out the windows at the wind driving the snow sideways, and a sky that looked pitch black with clouds, I decided that time had already passed.
Anyway, I wasn’t going without seeing Bones.
At least I’d left enough food and water for Wraith if I got stranded.
It was strange to see the Mansion so utterly devoid of life.
Normally the east wing’s southern hall teemed with students walking to and from classes and to and from the three shops in the central lobby: the coffee shop, bakery, and sandwich shop.
The building felt even more frenetic during finals, which had let out only the day before.
Now I couldn’t hear anything but creaks and groans from the wind.
I walked quickly over the polished black stone, rubbing my arms, trying to get feeling back in my fingers. My footsteps echoed loudly up to the high stone arches.
I didn’t realize how wet I was until I reached the end of the stone and glass hallway, after the last of the life-sized statues of Egyptian gods.
I’d been about to turn towards the grand staircase when I glanced back and saw a trail of water reflecting flames from torches and the higher chandeliers.
I flung a drying spell at the stone to clean up some of it, but the spell was weak, and only made it about halfway down the hall.
I contemplated trying another, then decided to leave it.
I’d learned to be cautious with my drying spells, as I had a tendency to go too hard with them and, when it involved something flammable, set things on fire.
The shops were all closed, which was hardly surprising.
I barely looked at them, or at the southern entrance to the Mansion’s west wing, which connected to Worm Hall via another long corridor with tall windows along one side, and recessed classrooms on the other.
I entered the central lobby instead, and made my way towards the back of the building.
When I passed a small lounge area with couches and tables, I glimpsed the main courtyard through the windows, already blanketed in snow.
The statues making up its edges were nothing but soft shapes in evocative poses, and the fountain, which had a large figure of Apollo in its center, was frozen solid.
I passed another short row of classrooms, then reached the northern corridor and took a left. That stretch of stone corridor took me down another endless-feeling hallway past an even longer row of classrooms. I was warming up a little from the walk, but now my stomach twisted with nerves.
Would Bones be alone? Would they have Praecuri up there guarding him, like they had at the hospital? Would they even let me upstairs?
How would I explain why I was there?
If it was Valor, my cousin, I doubted I’d need to explain anything, but the thought made me uncomfortable for a different set of reasons. I still barely knew Valor or his wife, Esalia, but I’d already gotten the distinct impression that Valor knew about me and Bones, and that he didn’t approve.
Which shouldn’t matter.
Really, it didn’t matter.
But it didn’t exactly make me want to confide in him, either.
Valor already seemed sensitive to the fact that both of my parents were dead, and I didn’t know any of my family apart from him and Arcturus.
It seemed to make him want to put himself in the role of an uncle, or a big brother, and frankly, I wasn’t keen on letting him.
When I finally reached the tower on the far side of the endless-feeling hallway, my uneasiness grew for a different reason.
The base of the tower looked dark.
The torch normally lit in the small corridor to the left of the tower wall, the one that illuminated Bones’s apartment door, wasn’t lit now. None of the nearby sconces held burning torches, either. That whole area at the base of the tower looked dark, unoccupied.
I questioned whether I’d made a mistake.
I walked the rest of the way to the wooden door with its decorative iron bands, and stopped, breathing harder.
Had I mixed up the towers? Was it some trick of the light, a reflection from another part of the castle?
Maybe what I’d seen had actually come from one of the offices high up in the central building of the Mansion.
I didn’t really believe that, though.
I tried to decide if I should knock.
It was strange to think I’d never had to knock before.
The only times I’d ever entered the tower before now, Bones had been with me. The one time I approached this door on my own, the person wearing Bones’s body and magic had simply known I was there, and appeared in the entrance on his own.
The memory made me shiver.
I wrapped my arms more tightly around my torso.
I waited a few seconds longer, wondering if someone would open the door for me this time, too, without my needing to knock.
I doubted it would be Bones himself, not if he was still injured, but they wouldn’t leave him alone up there, would they?
He’d have someone looking after him, even if it was only a goblin.
No one came.
I took a hesitant step forward and knocked, sharply, banging with my knuckles.
I gave it a good long bang, unsure if the chimaeras would still be in place, or dismantled by the Praecuri.
I doubted anyone would hear me from the upper floor apartment without magical help, so maybe the chimaeras being gone was the problem.
I also had no idea if a goblin or other attendant would come downstairs, even if they knew someone was at the door.
He’d been near death when I last saw him. That had been only a week ago.
I slid cautiously into the blue-white sun primal that glowed and floated above my head.
Bones? I asked softly. Are you up there?
Silence greeted me.
After a few seconds where I held my breath, I exhaled.
It was fine, I told myself. It’d been a long shot, anyway. I’d known there was almost no chance he’d be back here this soon.
I was about to walk away when I felt my sun primal reach for the wooden door. It moved without my directing it, almost like it had been pulled there by some unseen force.
The door popped open.
It was slight; only a crack formed between the door and the stone frame, but I heard it when the hinges moved, just enough that I caught my breath.
I exhaled again, and told myself I was being stupid.
Bones had added me to his protective chimaeras. That’s all it was. They must have recognized my primal and opened. Taking another breath, I stepped forward, letting go of my torso long enough to catch hold of the wooden door.
I pushed it the rest of the way open, and slipped inside.
It closed behind me, and I stood there for a few seconds, breathing in the dark.
I’d forgotten how far the steps stretched up to his room.
Usually I’d been with Bones, and focused on that.
Now, after Miranda’s scoffing comment about Bones having an entire tower to himself, I found myself pausing on the different landings, paying more attention to the other doors I passed on the way up, and wondering what lay on the other side of them.
I didn’t test any handles, but I did send a few exploratory threads of magic through keyholes and past the wood.
I didn’t see anything.
Which isn’t the same thing as saying I found empty rooms on the other side of those doors, or even rooms full of boxes, or old furniture, or dusty books.
I didn’t see or feel anything at all.
That strongly suggested some kind of chimaeric shield blocked the rudimentary spells I’d used to try and peer inside. I’d have to find a way through those shields, or hell, ask Bones for the key, since I was sure he’d have a way in himself.
By the time I got to the top I was hot.
I’d opened my coat on the walk up, and unwound the scarf from around my neck. I would have stuffed it into my satchel, but the scarf was soaked, I had a lot of books in there, and, as stated previously, my drying spells weren’t great.
At the top landing, I found Bones’s door slightly ajar. Firelight flickered through the crack between stone and wood. I’d never known Bones to leave his door open before. It wasn’t something he did, ever.
Bones? I ventured with my mind. Bones, it’s me. Are you in there?
He didn’t answer that time, either.
I raised my hand to knock, but hesitated.
If he was awake inside, he would have answered me. Which really only left two options: he was asleep, or he wasn’t there at all, which begged the question, who was? And, assuming it was someone else, did I really want to alert them to my presence before I knew their identity?
I focused on my primals, both the monocerus walking by my calf, and the white-blue sun that sparked and glowed over my head.
My hands slid into a mudra meant to pull power from both points, and I felt and saw blue-white flames ripple over my arms and hands.
The light was subtle, but it woke me up, and tensed all of my muscles.
I used one of my pulsing and glowing palms to push open the door.
I held the magic back, close to my skin, as my eyes scanned every inch of the room I could see from where I stood. I stepped across the threshold, and walked deeper into the space. My throat moved in a swallow as I looked around his quarters.
Someone had cleaned up since the fight, at least partly.