Chapter 6
I waited impatiently at the curb for the light to change, staff in hand and fidgeting with the hem of my shirt, now sporting sand from the tunnel.
My jeans, too, were scuffed with dirt. My colleagues would understand, especially after I told them what had happened, but I wasn’t going to make a good impression on the marshal.
Finally the light clicked over and I stepped out into the street, ignoring the bus inching forward, bullying me into a faster pace so it could turn right.
I missed my bike, and I obstinately took my time, staff smacking the pavement and shoulders hunched as the indulgent diesel labored away in a push of noise and foul fumes. I’d likely catch the last ten minutes of the meeting. Bad luck or good? Time would tell.
“I swear, if I find my bike in a pawnshop…” I muttered, and a flash of cold, sour mirth froze my thigh where Pluck sulked in my pocket.
Engine revving, the bus continued down the street, past the new memorial garden where the auditorium had once stood.
The corner had once been a major bus stop.
Now, not so much. Maybe after they finished reconstruction and classes resumed in Surran Hall.
But as I looked over the quiet crossroads, I doubted anyone would want to hold classes here again.
One corner of the Surran building was utterly gone.
The basement that had housed the loom and given the university’s sweepers a place to relax and drop their dross hauls had been filled in, and a new layer of colored gravel made a depressing reminder.
Calling the industrial hood that shunted dross into a glass-lined vault “the loom” was a tradition going back to when sweepers used dross-cored brooms to collect the waste and Spinners knotted it into cords of silk.
Once knotted, dross was unable to break into bad luck.
Weaving it into cloth made it even more secure.
No one wove knotted dross cords to negate bad luck anymore, but Darrell, my old mentor, had turned it into an art before she had died.
On the plus side, with no classes here, Ryan had moved the sweepers’ daily brief out of the attic to the first floor, a boon seeing as the elevator had been lost with the loom.
A few bikes were propped in the rack at the base of the stairs and a couple of cars were at the curb, but otherwise, the street was quiet apart from the mockingbird pretending to be a cactus wren.
I took the wide, shallow steps fast. Pluck had hardly thought a word the entire short trip; his unusual closeted emotions raised my concern that Thoth had hurt him.
The almost subliminal tingle of the immense inert-dross field across the road seemed to press against my right side.
It was akin to the feel of a distant fire, and I stifled a shudder when I pulled the door open and went in.
Benedict had fixed almost the entire field under the damaged auditorium inert to save Pluck—to save me.
It was as much the inert-dross field as the promise of weavers that had lured the desert shadows into taking up residence.
I wasn’t surprised that the university wanted to blame Pluck and me for cracking the new vault. None of St. Unoc’s newest shadow residents wanted it, but they knew that a vault was necessary until a balance could be created. For that, we needed weavers. Lots of them.
Finding Marty was a relief, but I wasn’t sure how much weight that would hold with the university board. One weaver to several thousand mages wasn’t doing it. Two to several thousand wouldn’t do it, either.
It is a start, I thought as I tucked my sunglasses away and followed the muted sound of Ryan’s voice to one of the larger classrooms. The building-long lobby was empty, and I smiled as I lifted my gaze to the new monument/shrine safely behind glass.
That Darrell’s wooden loom had been lovingly placed among the sweeper treasures was bittersweet.
It was still strung with her last project—the knotted dross weft and weave forever unfinished.
I missed her steadying presence. Ryan, too, apparently, as it had been his idea to memorialize her.
It had been hundreds of years since a sweeper had used a literal broom and a Spinner had actually spun dross into inert mass unable to break.
Now we had wands to move dross around and glass jars to hold it.
Thanks to Benedict’s process, dross handling would likely change to creating inert spiny nuggets of dross that could be dumped in a hole and forgotten, playing the odds that it wouldn’t revert on its own.
But was it progress? I didn’t know anymore.
“…Marshal Owens,” Ryan was saying, and I stopped thumping my staff on the old marble floor, not wanting to be noticed as I neared the door. “Please extend her your full courtesy concerning the events of last summer.”
“I thought we already went through this?” a low voice said.
“And the courts appreciate that,” Ryan said, his jovial tone holding a hint of rebuke.
“Most of her questions will center around the recent events with the cracked vault and your interactions with the shadows who have taken up residence under the auditorium. If you’ve seen any…
If you’ve noticed any inert-dross nuggets missing… That sort of thing.”
A soft murmur rose. The sweepers’ guild was tight-knit, but I wasn’t a sweeper anymore.
Jessica and Kyle still like you, fizzed coldly through my brain, and I sighed as I settled in the open doorway, staff tucked in the crook of my arm.
Ryan was behind the podium, and I scanned the brightly lit room in concern.
I didn’t recognize a lot of the new sweepers.
Clearly the university had needed to bring in more help.
“You want to come out?” I whispered as I touched the pocket where Pluck sulked.
It was more than wanting him to be recognized.
Everyone in the room, me included, had been taught that shadow was an unthinking energy that addled your brain.
Showing that it was a lie started by mages to keep sweepers and Spinners at the bottom of the social heap seemed prudent. “How are you feeling?”
Good enough, iced through me, and I stifled a shiver as a cold wash wound around me when he spiraled to the floor.
A shimmer of black and green coalesced into a sleek dog, his feet and tail misting with a smoky dark matter.
My fingers played with the haze spiking his head, and his relief that the room was clean of dross was obvious.
It must be hard, I mused, to live among people who not only blindly create a tactile poison but then leave it lying around.
It was like living in a field of jellyfish.
Sure, dross gave me a jolt when I picked it up, but it didn’t disintegrate my very substance.
I’m sorry, Pluck. He was here because I was here.
How selfish was I being, forcing him to stay where he was in constant danger?
It’s not like that, he fizzed, and I flushed, embarrassed he’d caught my thought.
“Ah, good,” Ryan said loudly, his relief obvious as he saw us. “I think we can leave it at that. If you have any concerns, I will be at the records building. Marshal, if you don’t have anything to add, Petra and Pluck have some long-awaited news.”
Pluck huffed, amused at my flash of adrenaline. Still, more eyes searching for Marty were better than fewer, and we headed for the front, Pluck’s feet misty and shedding dark matter. I smirked at the muffled oath as we passed, deciding it had been one of the new students.
I was almost to the podium before I noticed the small woman in the first row, clearly not a sweeper as she was in a trendy black dress suit. She wasn’t wearing that snazzy driver’s hat now, but her curly red hair and round face were unmistakable.
Oh, Pluck thought, his embarrassment twining about my anger. Marshal Cameron Owens was my driver? That’s unfortunate.
Grinning, she made a frivolous wave, and my gaze shot to Ryan in accusation.
“Was it your idea, or hers?” I said, and he hesitated, clearly trying to figure out what I was upset about. Behind him, the sweepers began to talk among themselves, oblivious to the ire tightening my gut.
She’s good. You and Benedict told her everything she wanted to know and how you were going to lie to her.
The short woman stood, showing not a flicker of remorse. “Were you in on it?” I asked Ryan, my voice tight as I unslung my stick and thumped the butt of it on the floor between us.
“In on what?” The older man extended his hand to Pluck as if he were a dog, his expression blanking when the shadow unexpectedly lifted his nose and it passed right through his fingers.
“You, ah, look like someone who found a car in their designated parking space.” Ryan hid his hand in a pocket. “And I know you don’t have one.”
The people in the front row had become silent as they realized something was wrong. Cameron sashayed closer, smug almost. “I think she’s mad at me,” she said brightly. Earbuds, my ass. “Ms. Grady.” She stuck out her hand. “It’s good to see you this morning.”
I didn’t let go of my long-stick, didn’t take her hand. “Marshal,” I said flatly, and her arm dropped.
“Cameron, please.” Her smile never dimmed. Damn me to hell, she had dimples. “This isn’t an official inquiry. Just a friendly visit. No need to be so formal.”
“I’d rather keep it formal,” I said, and Pluck huffed. The woman stiffened at his soft exhalation. It was slight, and I almost didn’t catch it, and I glanced at the shadow when my ankle went numb with cold. She was afraid of him. Why not? Everyone else was.
She was damn good at hiding it, though.
Ryan shifted uneasily from foot to foot, his bad hip clearly bothering him. “What am I missing here?”
I took a breath. Let it out. Found a fake smile. “The marshal picked Benedict and me up at the airport pretending to be a driver.” The need to call and warn Benedict was a quick flash.