Chapter 35
What a dramatic ass, I think as I smooth the wrinkles in my skirt, as if order in my appearance might restore order in my thoughts. Fortunately, no students come looking for me all afternoon, so I have the time to gather the remnants of my composure before dinner.
Kaelis, of course, is nowhere to be seen throughout the rest of the day, nor is he in the main hall while food is served. Somehow his absence taunts me. Throughout the meal, I imagine him sitting alone in his apartments, waiting for me to show up.
We’re only one day into the academic year and I’m already figuring out how to move from the professors’ wing into his chambers without raising suspicion.
But that’s a future problem; there are other places I need to go tonight.
Kaelis can wait—give him a taste of his own medicine.
If I’m risking people questioning my movements, I’ve someone far more important to visit.
The entire time I descend into the lower passages of the academy, I look over my shoulder to make sure I’m not being followed.
Gregor is tending to Arina. The man is fastidious; I can find no fault in his care. Arina is sitting propped up against pillows wedged against the wooden headboard. Her eyes are open, and she dutifully eats the spoonfuls of soup he feeds to her.
But she doesn’t otherwise move, nor react, nor speak. She will sit, even get up to tend to her physical needs when prompted, and lie back down to sleep. But every movement is without thought, as though her mind has come fully untethered from her body.
“I have something for you.” He sets down the now-empty bowl and reaches into his jacket, producing a flyer with ripped corners. “These have been plastered all over the city.”
I take it from him, studying the rough likeness of my original face sketched on it. It reads:
Clara Graysword, still at large, illegal Arcanist, enemy of the crown, destroyer of Halazar prison, terrorist.
“Lovely,” I say dryly and crumple it, tossing it into a corner of the room as I continue to hover by him and Arina.
“There’s a lot of enforcer activity out there,” he cautions.
“Then it’s a good thing I’m in here with a new face.”
“The Worldkeepers are also hearing rumors of a Major coming? The Hierophant?”
I reassure Gregor that the Hierophant is nothing to worry about. “I’ll let them know,” he says in response, and something twists in my gut. He already speaks about the Worldkeepers with such familiarity…
“Why does it feel like everyone else but me has already moved on from the club?” I whisper to Arina after he leaves to continue his hunt for Silas’s family. “At least having someone I trust on the inside is helpful.”
After bathing my sister gently with a rag and changing her into fresh clothes, I settle her back into bed and kiss her forehead. I wait until after she’s dozed off to shut the door and leave, moving swiftly into the depths of the academy.
I find my way to a familiar sequence of rooms. At the end of them is a doorway that opens only once my fingers brush its handle. The markings Kaelis gave me last year shimmer white before fading. Mysteries compound around me, and this is the year I will have answers.
Even if it kills me.
At the end of the short hall is the workshop of the Fool, exactly as I remember it.
But I see it with new eyes. I see the small prototype of the mechanical mill that bears King Naethor’s mark—the same mark as is on the lockbox he keeps affixed to his chest. Kaelis’s father was here in another life, of that I have no doubt.
Did he come here with the former queen? The academy was once her castle, so Naethor could’ve married her to get closer to this place…Given that he killed her and took her crown, it wouldn’t be surprising if he manipulated her in other ways.
In the back of the room are a series of nearly empty jars of powder.
This is what I came here for and I take them all.
The ink I used to forge the Major cards might hold the key to creating the vessel—it’s a place to start, at least, and I know this is one place that Vaduin would not have been able to investigate.
The powder catches the light strangely. Colors seem to shift like tiny trapped rainbows. There’s something familiar about that unique iridescence—similar to the powder from the crystals of the Drowned Mines used to ink Cups, but not quite the same…Yet I can’t place where I’ve seen it before.
I bring it with me as I return to Arina’s room and settle in, taking tonight’s shift from Gregor, ready to spend the rest of my evening picking apart this mysterious powder.
I barely manage an hour of sleep before class. Yet, somehow, even in that short span of time, I dream of Kaelis. Of having gone to him each night since he asked. I dream of him, of his hands on me. Of his mouth, hot and sweet and full of tender words.
I love you, he whispers in my ear. I love you in this world, in the next. I love you until the stars burn out and history is nothing but faded ink on the pages of books that will never be read again.
His voice shifts, deepening. You are mine. You, Wheel of Fate, are the only thing that can turn my destiny around…
Come morning, the words are distant. They disappear with the first light, like dew off leaves. Pulling on my professorial clothes feels like donning a second skin. By day, I am Sophie Veillgar.
Clara returns at night. As the stars bloom, I fill pages upon pages with sketches of what Mother taught me—diving deep into my memories. Refining and perfecting.
But all my confidence the night before evaporates into nothingness as I stare at my sketches.
Wrong…Wrong…Wrong…
It’s still wrong.
What am I missing? What good will the ink be if I can’t even remember the design of the vessel?
The Worldkeepers think I’m useful for only these two reasons. I have sway with them only because of this. If I lose it, I can bid any benefit I might gain from them farewell alongside my hope of ever casting the World.
When I can no longer stand trying to remember the design Mother taught me, I switch to investigating the powders. The strange, glistening dust I’m picking up from the powdered ink is the same for every color. Oddly familiar, but I can’t place it.
I agonize for hours on end.
I push through the morning lessons, time and again.
The Selection Soiree looms on the horizon.
I do my best to help prepare the students for All Coins Day so they can secure the most advantageous placements possible—even though I know, deep down, that some of them will inevitably end up at the least favorable clans.
They know it, too. And as the days pass, they prepare even harder for what’s to come, the weight becoming nearly oppressive.
As a result of my general warmth, passion for their preparation, and open-door policy after class, no one finds it odd when Sorza becomes a regular fixture in the afternoons.
To everyone else, we’re just a teacher and an eager student.
But behind the closed classroom door, we’re simply friends and peers again.
Sorza tells me of the current dynamics of the Majors—of the space left behind by Myrion and Elorin. I tell her of meeting Elorin in Fate Hearth and of the Majors’ collective dislike of Naethor there. It seems to reassure her some.
“What about Thal?” I ask, changing the subject.
“Still working on it,” she repeats her common refrain.
I try to alternate between nights in my room and nights with Arina.
The other professors have learned I keep odd hours, so they don’t question my comings and goings.
They make remarks at breakfast at first—sometimes to my face and sometimes not.
But eventually, when nothing scandalous arises from it, they grow bored of commenting on it.
I continue to research and scour my memories of what Mother taught me. While there are no major breakthroughs, I seem to be making slow progress. Until one night when Gregor emerges from Arina’s room the moment I enter her chambers.
“What is it?” I ask, noting the tension in his shoulders.
“She’s acting different.”
My heart skips. “Different how?”
“Restless. Twitchy.” Gregor’s eyes dart from me to inside the room.
“She’s been pacing for the last two hours.
I can’t get her to stop, and I’ve tried everything I could think of…
” He trails off and shakes his head, staring into a corner for a moment with an expression of utter despair.
I know how hard it is for him to want to help and then not be able to.
Gregor returns his attention to me. “She won’t sit, she won’t eat, she doesn’t say anything. ”
I set down the fresh batch of books I brought and push past him into her room. Arina is just as he said, pacing, movements sharp and agitated. Her eyes dart around the room. Her hands twitch at her sides. No part of her settles in any one position for very long.
“Arina?” I approach slowly, hands outstretched, bracing and filled with futile hope.