Chapter 14
It took three more tries calling her, even after reversing my ‘nicking notions’ spell. I was about to give up and go it alone when Calypso finally replied.
“Sorry, I had to cover my ears when you were playing kissy face, all that heavy breathing, I’m surprised at how loud it was, honestly.
But then, to almost be caught by that half-Fae Sage?
You have a talent for finding trouble, shiny girl.
Then again . . . House Phoenix. I don’t know why I’m surprised. ”
Heat rushed to my cheeks at the idea that she’d been able to hear Liam and me. I’d thought putting her in the pouch and shrinking her to a smaller size would prevent that, but apparently not. “Not going to yell at me about shrinking you, then? Even though we both know it was deserved.”
“Don’t push your luck,” she said flatly. “But I’ll tell you right now. The coin isn’t here. I felt it touch water, I’m sure of it. It’s got to be in or close to water. Not in it still, but close.”
Of course, there wasn’t so much as a glass of water in the artifacts room, never mind a body of water. I rubbed a hand over my forehead. “Okay, but maybe we can find a clue to where it is . . . or even some kind of hint about the Grym Dunaras?”
I still wasn’t sure what we’d do with that if we found it, given that Heronius himself hadn’t been able to wield the powerful weapon and had lost the only piece we’d had to Nocta.
Even if I found myself in a similar situation and couldn’t handle its power, though, so long as we had it, that meant no one else did.
Which meant I wanted it, almost as much as I wanted to find the kraken coin.
I spun a rune for a small light over my hand. The room was wall-to-wall shelves, glass covering each one, but in long stacks. A bit like a museum blended with a library, with a storage unit.
“Hold me up,” Calypso demanded.
I opened the locket and turned it so she could look through the glass as I made my way around the room, poring over the different shelves. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it, it seemed. Some were locked, some weren’t.
Bits and pieces of weapons – mostly small ones like daggers, and arrowheads, a crossguard of a larger sword. No plate-sized coin with a kraken on it. No big sword with a chunk missing and the initials ‘GD’ etched on the hilt.
Small statues. Pottery cups. Lots and lots of jewelry. Diamonds and rubies, gold, silver, precious stones.
“Wait.”
I paused and looked to where the locket was pointed. The shelf contained a couple of small items: a white statue of a hooded woman, one arm raised, palm up, a couple of rings that were not worth stealing based on their gemstone value, and a chunk of a rock that was dirty with age.
“What is it?” I peered at each of the pieces, my eyes drifting back to the woman in the robe several times.
“That. Take the rock.”
That was not the item I thought she’d tell me to take.
“Really?” I turned her around so I could look her in the eyes. Or eye, as was the case.
“Listen, I can’t always see everything clearly,” she grumbled, “but what I know is that there is something in there that has power, or something you’re going to need, so take the blasted rock!”
Something in the rock – awesome. “At least no one will be upset, I mean . . . it’s a rock.” I looked over the glass, then held my hand over it, waiting for the tingle of a rune.
Nothing.
I needed something that wouldn’t leave any fingerprints though. I opened my tiny pouch, then flipped it upside down.
Into my palm dropped a minute piece of wood. It took a second, but then it hit me. It was the bit of kindling I took from Agatha’s back in Brazil, what seemed like a hundred years before. I’d tucked it away, thinking it might be useful and having totally forgotten about it.
That was the day Typhon had forced my hand and taken Opie and me to Neverthorn.
The tender spot over my heart twinged, sharper than yesterday. I winced and rubbed at it, wishing the sting had faded more with the breaking of the bond.
Ignore it and ignore everything you ever thought he was to you.
I enlarged the piece of kindling with a quick rune. “Perfect. I knew you’d come in handy again.”
Using the tip, I pried the glass cover away from its base and carefully took the rock.
Once I’d lowered the glass cover, I shrunk the rock and kindling and stuffed them into my pouch.
Not the same as Bryony’s transmutation rune, but just as handy.
As long as it didn’t fully break the Weave, it was worth using.
I stood at the door, thinking about what had been accomplished.
We hadn’t found what we’d been looking for, but according to Calypso, we’d gotten our hands on something important. More than that, I’d gained information.
The Senate had sent Runecoats here for a reason.
A reason that seemed to shake Bryony at the very least, if not the seemingly unshakeable Sage of Heathermoor.
They might not be using wild magic, whatever that was, but they were up to something that the Senate would not approve of. Which made me like them a little more.
“You’ve already got more than enough on your plate, child,” Calypso murmured, mind-reading again. “Don’t worry about what that old Fae is doing. Worry about you and your own, and nothing else. Got it?”
Surprisingly thoughtful for a siren who’d tried to murder me during our first meeting. And even after me shrinking her locket? What was up with her? I nodded and snapped the locket shut before tucking it back into my pocket.
“Got it.”
But just because I understood the directive didn’t mean I was going to follow it . . .
Which left me sneaking back out of the room, and into a darkened hallway, with yet another job to add to the list, even if it was further down on the list: Figure out what ‘the cause’ was that Bryony and Thalienne had referred to.
I hoped it was something good, because I was hellaciously sick of people in power disappointing me time and time again.
Hurrying through the halls, I kept my footsteps light, and my eyes open as I worked my way down all the sets of stairs, to the first floor. Despite the hour being on the early side, there was no one around.
“Cast the ‘finders keepers’ spell while we’re here alone,” Calypso called from my pocket.
She was right. This was the perfect time to cast it and follow it as far as I could. I quickly threw the rune out and the butterfly took off, flapping silently, leaving a trail of sparkles.
My created rune led me on a merry chase which ended abruptly in a dead end as it flew right through a thick wall.
I put my hands against the stone. It wasn’t even a single slab that I could say was a door. Nope, there were many stones in this wall, and no sign of anything that would make me think that there was a way through it.
“Nothing,” I murmured as I traced a few of the grout lines.
“What are you doing?”
I spun to see Senator Mallachtan staring at me.
I’ll admit it, I was shocked he’d snuck up on me.
I was usually the first to notice if someone was sneaking around.
The senator was not much taller than me but the menace that rolled off him now that I was close to him .
. . this was not someone I wanted to tangle with.
He could force me to blow my cover. And that wouldn’t do.
I dropped my eyes and shuffled my feet, trying to give off a vibe of uncertainty. “Um. I got turned around. I’m new.”
“Curfew was ten minutes ago,” he snapped.
“Sir, I was told there was no curfew?”
As soon as I said it, I knew that I’d made a mistake. He obviously didn’t like to be corrected, and he stalked toward me, anger radiating off him.
“You dare tell me the rules?”
“No, I –”
“I’ll take you to Sage Thalienne so I can discuss your punishment with her myself.”
He reached for me, as if he’d grab hold of my arm with his fucking sausage fingers. Bastard. I easily ducked around him, batting his hand away.
His eyes about disappeared inside the folds of his wrinkles, they narrowed so much.
“How dare you strike me! This is precisely why I came to this so-called place of learning. That woman is raising an entire generation of hooligans who believe they may defy their elders and their betters. And you . . . you’ve merely proved my point.”
Much as I wanted to lay a zinger like, “Prove this, motherfucker,” I had to try and be . . . not me.
Best I could do was try not to engage. I took off running down the long hall – the chance of him catching me with his short legs and potato-sack body was not good.
The layout of the lower levels was at least a little familiar to me, and at the end of the straight stretch, I’d turn right and be at the main doors. I’d deal with the fallout tomorrow.
But it wasn’t the layout that slowed me, nor was it Mallachtan suddenly becoming an Olympic sprinter. A rune smacked into the back of my knees and sent me tumbling to the floor, belly first. I barely caught myself, a half second before my face would’ve smashed into the white marble floor.
He’d cast a rune at me? The shock was as much from that fact as that the wind was knocked out of me.
I rolled and scrambled backward even as I fought for air. If I’d been at Neverthorn I wouldn’t have been surprised. Hell, I’d have expected a dirty move like that from Nikita, or even maybe Tarquinius.
“Oh ho, he’s a mean one,” Calypso hissed from my pocket. “Kill him and be done with it. The world would be a better place.”
I coughed, unable to answer as I sucked in air, even if I did agree with her. I couldn’t just kill a senator, mean one or not.
I pushed myself back along the floor. This asshole thought he was going to terrify me. He probably pulled this shit all the time when no one was looking.
I finally managed to get a lungful of air and, when he was within ten feet, whipped a rune off to shove him back. The magic bounced off him. A rune blocker: I’d heard of them but had never seen one.