Chapter 44
Rohak
The tunnel was on the lowest level of the Academy. At least, the lowest known level. There were others even farther below that housed all sorts of unsavory things, like the rooms Alois used for his ‘experiments’ when we first took power, along with the dungeons and torture rooms.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to bring Faylinn past those today.
I wanted to keep her as insulated as possible from the horrors housed beneath this place, the ghosts of those who died here a constant haunt.
She already seemed to have an aversion to the Academy, and I wanted to deplete it as much as possible.
“Why is this whole building made of this sparkly stone?” Faylinn questioned, gently brushing the walls with her fingertips as we walked.
I hummed, wracking my brain for the answer but coming up short.
“I—I actually don’t know the answer to that question.”
“Hmm. I’ve never heard of this type of stone before, much less seen it. And it’s one of two buildings in this city that is made of it. It’s odd, don’t you think?” she mused, intrigue lacing her tone as she muttered softly.
Her bare feet padded lightly against the black stone, her near silence an odd contrast to the echoing click of my boots in the hall.
She left her shoes in my office, tucking them beneath the armchair by the fire for later.
It made me inordinately happy that she’d already made herself comfortable in my space.
She’d taken to wearing the Mage blacks of the Academy, matching me nearly perfectly—minus the boots, of course. Secretly, I missed the deep earth tones that characterized her appearance when I found her in Isrun.
“Rohak?” Faylinn said, her eyes glinting with humor.
“What?” I asked gruffly, pulling my eyes from the perusal of her body.
“I asked how old the Academy was,” she supplied, her voice soft and lit with a laugh.
I cocked my head to the side, folding my arms behind my back as I thought.
“I’m rather embarrassed to say that I honestly don’t know. I know it’s old—the oldest building in Vespera. Unless you count the monolith in the square. But I don’t know the exact age.”
Faylinn chewed her lip and nodded in thought, continually dragging her fingertips lightly across the stone wall.
“I’d like to look at that obelisk at some point,” she mused more to herself than to me. I nodded anyway, in case she was searching for a response or reaction.
She stayed silent then, lost in her own thoughts, as we descended further beneath the Academy, the air cooling considerably, until we came to a floor that looked like a dead-end hallway.
I gestured for Faylinn to step off the staircase onto the landing, inhaling a whiff of eucalyptus and something inherently Faylinn, before I followed her.
“This is . . . a dead end,” Faylinn astutely observed. For such an incredibly intelligent woman, some of her observations were rather obvious. I chuckled lightly with a slight inclination of my head.
“This is it, isn’t it. This is where you kill me,” she deadpanned on a sigh with a shake of her curly head. “I should have done so much more before my death.”
While I knew she said those things in jest, I had the sudden urge to know what she would regret if she were to die.
Don’t think about Faylinn dying.
“What—” I cleared my throat. “What would you have done? If I was here to kill you, that is.”
Faylinn smiled softly before her eyes glazed, seeing something only she was privy to.
“I’d like to see my family again—my real family, though I don’t know who they are.” She smiled ruefully. “Getting my memories back would be nice.”
She thought for a moment more before continuing.
“There is just so much to read, so much to discover. I’m certain that I’ll run out of time here before I’m able to learn it all.”
I chuckled at that—Faylinn the scholar.
“But I’d like to . . . fall in love.” She mumbled the last part so low that I could barely hear it.
Fall in love? My heart beat erratically as the blood in my veins heated at the thought of Faylinn falling in love with someone, marrying him, having his babies.
I clenched my fists to keep from reaching for her and pulling her into my chest with a growled ‘mine.’
“That would be nice,” I gritted between my teeth before striding down the hall, desperate to put some distance between myself and the intelligent and ferocious woman who kept capturing my thoughts.
She could never be mine.
“This looks like a dead end, but it’s a decoy,” I clipped, veering our conversation back to the purpose of our little jaunt downstairs and away from any topic about Faylinn that made me irrationally possessive and angry.
Faylinn, thankfully, picked up on my energy and said nothing more about her last wish. Even if, like the masochist I was, I decidedly wanted to know more.
What does she find attractive? Who would she want to spend her life with?
She dated the Earth Mage, Ben, who was now Life Bonded to Asha.
If that was her type, then I really never stood a chance with her anyway.
Ben was large—broad and tall with massive hands and muscles covering every inch of his physique.
He was affable and confident, his kind personality and humor drawing everyone to him like flies to a Mage Orb.
The complete opposite of me, really.
It was for the best.
I pushed all inappropriate thoughts of Faylinn from my mind, focusing on the task at hand.
“The wall at the end of this hallway is a false wall. It’s imbued to only recognize certain signatures.
I’ll have to ask Art and Gene to add yours to the configuration, which shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
To use it, you just press here—” I pushed my hand through the stone, a slight buzz coating my skin where the ‘wall’ touched my body.
Faylinn gasped, her eyes rounding as she took an unconscious step forward before resting her thin hand on the wall.
When she met rough stone, not air, she gasped again before muttering quietly to herself as she pushed firmly against the stone.
She released her hand before placing it against the wall in odd intervals and different pressures, each time yielding the same result: the false wall appeared as stone to her, but an easy pass-through for me.
Stepping back, a frown marring her face, Faylinn turned her quizzical gaze to me as she pulled her ever-present journal from the waistband of her pants.
“How,” she stated, flipping to a blank page in her book.
I caught sight of a few sketches of what appeared to be Bond marks and a page made entirely of a chart, but nothing I could concretely discern.
Maybe, one day, she’d trust me with those secrets.
Charcoal pencil at the ready, Faylinn raised her eyebrows expectantly, and my lips quirked at her expression.
So fierce. So thirsty for knowledge.
I was certain Faylinn was irked at not knowing how this particular piece of magic and magical engineering worked. Art and Gene really were some of the brightest Mages I’d ever met.
They really need to spend some time with Faylinn.
“It’s a blend of Air Magic, Earth Magic, and even a dash of Alois’ magic,” I explained as Faylinn’s pencil flew across the page.
“I thought Truthsayers and Keepers had no innate magic.”
I nodded my head in agreement, finally removing my hand from the wall so I could turn and face her fully.
“That is true, to a large extent.” When she opened her mouth to question further, I held up one palm. “I will explain everything, but let me explain the mechanics of it first before we get into the ethereal, okay?”
Faylinn nodded her head once, her pencil jerking a slight line on her paper with the movement.
“Art and Gene—you’ve met them briefly—in the Magical Developments department created a device to channel different types of magic at different times.
Obviously, there is no true wall here. We cannot make physical objects completely disappear.
But what they are able to do, is create the illusion of a real wall. ”
Faylinn’s eyebrows hit her hairline as she nodded furiously, her mind inevitably now drawing the conclusion of how the wall worked. When she didn’t interrupt me, though, I kept speaking. It was one of those inventions that I was rather fond of and impressed with.
“Art and Gene attached the string of flat discs around the walls, ceiling, and floor”—I traced a rough square where the ‘wall’ touched each of the devices—“creating a controlled area for the release of magic. When the devices register a magical signature, the wall disappears, allowing that person to pass through. If, however, the wall doesn’t recognize a person’s essence, the devices are activated and a combination of the magics I mention are deployed, creating the illusion. ”
Faylinn stopped writing and gazed at the wall, her face full of awe.
“Those are some of the most incredible manipulations of magic I’ve ever seen,” she breathed, and I nodded in agreement.
“It truly is. Art and Gene are two of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I think you’d benefit from spending some time with them, even if their eccentricities can be a bit much.”
Faylinn chewed her lip in thought, now searching the edges of the hallway for the devices. If you knew what to look for, and really strained your eyes, they were just barely visible in the dark.
“Most intelligent people I know are a bit eccentric,” she muttered as she rolled her bare foot in my direction. I chuckled and saw Faylinn’s lips quirk in response.
“So, Lord d’Refan’s magic . . .” she prompted, snapping her journal closed and tucking it into her waistband again.
I sighed, rocking my head side to side as I contemplated how much to tell her.
“Is not up for discussion.” Alois’ silky voice was hard as it slid through the space, causing Faylinn to jump in surprise and my shoulders to stiffen slightly.
Fuck.