Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Kane paced the length of the small guardstation.
The room lacked any windows and contained one functional door to the outside.
It was perfect for viewing precious texts and avoiding prying eyes.
The only light came from flickering lanterns that cast long shadows across the wall, bathing the two men in warm amber.
“It has to mean something,” said Kane, finishing his hundredth route from wall to wall.
Afton pushed away piles of papers and texts; clearly, they were of no help. He reached for another worn volume, brows knit into a permanent line of thought and confusion. “What did he say, exactly, when he gave it to you?”
“He said this is what we’re looking for. The books I have to burn will be in those areas, and the maps we need correspond to the last three numbers.”
They had this conversation before, and it hadn’t brought them any closer. Whatever nonsensical information Kenneth gave him brought them no closer to helping his search.
Kenneth Yarrow promised an easy answer to his problems. Said he could get the information on the maps he needed from the Chancellor’s library in exchange for burning a few books. He didn’t say it would be gibberish.
Kane groaned, running a hand through his hair.
He should have expected something like this.
Kenneth was a smuggler, no matter what his daughter wanted to believe.
In caution, the man had coded his secrets before giving it to Kane—who was starting to believe the shipwright did it out of spite.
Now they were stuck trying to translate the code, and the binds around his neck only added to the complexity.
How he wished he could make Kenneth pay for this. Perhaps he could force Erinna to wallow her days on the Hellish Rebuke as their captive, as punishment for this absolute failure of a bargain.
Afton snapped a book shut with a sharp crack. “How does a shipwright have access to this?”
Kane agreed. Having such valuable information was well beyond a tradesman, even one as good as Kenneth Yarrow.
“I think they’re titles, but I don’t understand the numbers within.
This is certainly not from Iprix’s notes or…
” Afton trailed off in thought; something on the parchment seemed to catch his interest. Kane lifted his head higher, heart pounding with hope.
Maybe they were finally about to get somewhere.
“I’ve got nothing,” Afton sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache. “We’re close but—”
“Not close enough.” Kane kicked a table leg. The wood groaned in protest.
They were running out of time. The wards on the door were only halfway unraveled. Haru would be anointed soon, and they needed to be off the island when she was.
A scowl pulled at the corner of Afton’s lips, equally as frustrated with their predicament. What profoundly poor luck. This was supposed to be easy. All he had to do was get Erinna home safely and tell no one about Kenneth’s desperate favor.
It sounded simple. Straightforward. Perfect.
He should have known better. Mistakes like these could mean death. Or worse, failure.
Three violent knocks on the door sent them both to their feet. Kane had given strict orders that they were not to be disturbed. He instinctively raised his palm, ready to throw a roiling ball of flame at the intruder.
The banging continued. “I know you’re in there, Kane!” Erinna’s muffled voice filtered through.
Kane’s jaw ticked in frustration.
Three more strikes. She was relentless. “I need to speak with you.”
He gestured for Afton to hide anything incriminating. The last thing they needed was to give her any leverage against them. Because she would most assuredly use it.
Erinna’s fist was still raised, ready for another bout of knocking, when Kane finally opened the door. Locks of hair hung around her face, frizzed and free from her braid. The marks of labor and fatigue were clear, but something in those storm-gray eyes caught his attention.
She figured it out. The witchstone.
The prospect of a shiny new tool on his ship dulled his growing ire, and if her plan worked, then he could shirk off some of his previous deal’s bindings. Kane could give her some of the answers she craved while his ship got an upgrade in return.
He pressed his hand against the small of her back and ushered her inside.
Erinna took a few steps before turning to face him. “I need you.”
Kane nearly choked on his own breath. A wicked grin parted his lips as he saw color flush Erinna’s cheeks, realizing what she’d said. What it could insinuate.
“Grow up, Atwater,” she huffed, but her eyes looked away, unable to meet his stare.
Kane wanted to laugh. Wanted to tease her more.
To see the flush in her cheeks and that spark in her eyes that came to life when she wasn’t so fixated on responsibilities.
He cleared his throat and pushed the thoughts away.
Erinna made a show of turning to who was busy ushering papers into an unruly pile. Anything to keep from looking at Kane.
He stepped closer and leaned down, brushing his lips by her ear. “How much do you need me, Erinna?” He couldn’t help it.
She groaned, sending him a rather crude gesture before something caught her attention and a strangled laugh escaped her throat.
“You must be joking.”
Both men snapped their focus as Erinna neared hysterics.
“He asked you for books?!” The pitch of her voice rose.
Erinna looked from Kane to Afton incredulously.
“So you can’t tell me what he asked for because you’re stuck in an ill-thought-out magical deal.
” She jabbed her finger into Kane’s chest and turned to Afton.
“And you’re useless because you can’t read our shorthand. ”
If it were any other person, Kane didn’t think he would tolerate such disrespect.
Erinna stepped closer, attention returning to the paper. On instinct, Kane reached out to guard the documents, and the secrets they contained. His fingers barely brushed her arm, but it was enough to spark her fire.
“What? Is that magically sealed against me as well? Do you want my help or not?”
After a long, tense moment, Kane nodded at Afton, lips pressed into a tight line. An absolute fool he’d been to deal with this family.
“Change of plans,” said Kane as he dragged a rickety chair over to the table. “Tonight, we work out the index and discuss strategy.”
“You’re bringing her into this?” Afton interrupted with a pointed look at Erinna.
“You have a problem?” Erinna shot back.
Kane placed a hand on her shoulder in an effort to ground her.
“Enough. Clearly, it would be better to work together. Perhaps we have been making such little progress because each person here has some piece of this damned puzzle but refuses to share.” He aimed an accusing stare at both of them.
“The witchstone will wait for tomorrow, tonight we’re here until we get this sorted. ”
Kane had clear priorities. Access to the fort and the library above all. Her side project would have to wait.
Erinna swore if Afton brought in more scrolls, she would be in Kane’s lap by the end of it. The small guardroom could barely hold two people comfortably, but with three bodies hunched over the table full of papers and books, it was bordering on suffocating.
“I’ve managed to get past a few of these.” Afton pointed to a few scribbles in his book as if Erinna could understand his spellwork. She couldn’t but nodded all the same.
He moved his hand to a clearly self-made map of the building. “And I’ve been able to disarm a few of the inner traps in the process. But there is the entire front room and a few halls to the side that are unknown. I don’t know what we would be walking into.”
It was a piss poor map, but the rudimentary rectangles were enough for Erinna to understand. The mage had been disarming old traps one day at a time. Still, entire swaths of the fort remained a mystery. They would be walking in blind.
Erinna raised a brow, summoning patience.
“Wouldn’t it be better to focus on opening the doors and then disarming them once we are inside?
That would be faster, right?” She spoke slowly.
Deliberate. To her, it seemed Afton’s caution was entirely unnecessary.
It was costing them time. He should be purely focused on the doors, not splitting his attention between unlocking those wards and disarming traps he couldn’t even see. Her hands clenched to fists in her lap.
Patience.
Kane let out a snort and eyed the mage with a smug smile.
Afton glared and jabbed at the paper. “Do you see how many spaces haven’t been cleared? We could get the door open, sure, but then I could take one step in there and get my head blown clean off.”
Erinna patted Kane’s shoulder. “Use him. Let him scout and you disarm.”
“Excuse me?” Kane turned to Erinna, his shoulder brushing against hers, but Erinna kept her gaze firmly planted on Afton.
“He’s capable, durable, and has great vision in the dark,” she explained.
Afton tapped his finger on his chin in thought.
Kane brushed her hand off his shoulder. “You have uncanny vision as well.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “If that will make this any faster, I accept. We’re running out of time before Haru is named Chancellor and the library is completely attuned to her. The academy will soon be at our doorstep. I’m willing to risk some arcanum traps if it means we can get what we need.”
Afton narrowed his eyes. “You sound like Kane. That’s how you get yourself killed.”
Erinna groaned and ran her hand through her hair. “We are dead regardless, if this takes too long. Surely there is something more we can be doing.”
“The protections are complex pieces of spell work and require time and care to disarm.” Something flickered in Afton’s eyes.
“The builders used sigils combined with arcanum webs to protect the place. It was a practice most thought lost to time because they are quite cumbersome to create, but…” He pushed himself to one of the stacks beside Erinna.
Kane reached out to grab her chair and pull her closer to avoid falling scrolls in Afton’s search.
They could have been sitting in the same seat at that point. Erinna resisted the temptation to slump against him. She was growing used to his presence, was starting to enjoy the warmth of his body as it thawed the creeping cold in hers.
Kane pulled the coded paper from one of the piles and placed it in front of her. She had been spending far too much time with him if she already understood his silent command.
She turned her attention back to Afton. “This doesn’t explain why we can’t do it on the go? Doesn’t it make sense to be inside where the traps are to disarm them?”
She could feel Kane’s shoulders shake in concealed laughter. “Is this funny to you?”
Her retort only served to widen his grin. “No, no, it’s just nice to have someone else yelling at him. Gives me a break.”
“You two are insufferable,” Afton growled and took the book back to his side of the overcrowded table.
“If anyone else but me went in, they wouldn’t be able to see the spellwebs.
Even I would find it difficult to see them before an explosion or trap door was triggered.
That entire fort was designed like a lock, and Iprix was the key.
We are just trying to pick it. It is safer, albeit slower, to do it all from the outside. ”
Erinna watched a glow reach his eyes and the haze of power waft around him. That’s right, Afton was a strong enchanter. This was exactly what he was trained to do. He could see the threads of arcanum, pull and manipulate their properties.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way for now, but if any academy vessel gets spotted, we’ll be taking our approach.” She pointed between her and Kane.
Afton soured but complied. “Fine.”
Silence settled again as they went to their respective duties. Erinna took the page her father coded and started her work.
She wondered how they were ever going to figure it out when a slow, terrifying realization dawned on her. Did Kenneth Yarrow expect everything to go this way? That his daughter would be reading a message for a pirate and preparing to raid the Chancellor’s library.
It could have been minutes or hours as Erinna focused. It was written by someone else, in a code she didn’t understand, but her father’s annotations were clear.
“They’re index numbers for specific titles on the shelves.” She scribbled the information beside her father’s handwriting. The entire page was a mess of letters, numbers, and codes. He used the same shorthand when planning an aberrant escape.
“I don’t know the system, but whatever he wanted.” She glanced at Kane. “Or whatever you wanted will be found where these numbers correspond.” She slid the paper to the center of the table.
“Is this everything you need?” Kane asked the mage.
“This is more than enough.” Afton took the paper and began to cross-reference it with a book that was larger than Erinna’s head.
The shipwright turned to the pirate. His gaze pinned her in place, heavy with an intensity she couldn’t decipher. She cleared her throat. “We have business to finish.”
“Tomorrow. We need food and rest.” As if summoned, Erinna’s stomach growled like a feral animal.
“I’ll take my food here,” said Afton.
Kane rolled his eyes. “Do whatever you like, I’m not your servant.”
The two of them left and allowed the door to close behind them, muffling whatever snide remark Afton made.