Chapter 8 #2
“No idea,” I lied, pleased she’d used his name.
It was a start. “He’ll show up when he wants.
” My pace slowed as the voices became louder.
The small room might have been a den once, the outside wall holding a sliding glass door that opened onto a sun-damaged, walled yard, complete with the obligatory fruit tree in the corner.
“He’s not with you all the time?”
“Most times, but not always.” The knot in my gut eased when she seemed to lose some of her worry. Maybe just showing her it was okay would be enough to convince her to stay. I’d been absolutely terrified of Pluck, but there’d been no one to show me otherwise.
“The easiest thing would be to turn the stuff inert and toss it down the wishing well,” an unfamiliar, feminine voice said, and I put a hand on Marty’s arm, pulling us both to a halt.
“Store it on top of the existing dross dump?” Ryan’s laugh sounded tired. “Dana, you were in here not three days ago complaining that the area isn’t stabilized. If you dig down twenty feet you’re likely to find active dross. That’s why they designated it a park.”
“We aren’t going twenty feet,” the woman—Dana, apparently—said persuasively. “We’re filling an existing open space with an inert material. Like dirt.”
“Dirt?” a third person chimed in, the richly textured voice holding incredulity, and I grimaced. It was Akeem. The flamboyant Spinner had been out of town when the original vault blew, and I wasn’t sure if he trusted me—now that I was something different.
“There’s tons of room down there,” the woman said confidently. “It will take at least three months to repair the crack and open the new vault.”
“No.” Ryan cleared his throat nervously. “The shadows in residence will not approve, and I won’t stress our relations any further. They are the future.”
“They are the past,” Dana muttered.
I’d heard enough, and I pushed forward. “Knock, knock,” I said brightly as I tapped the doorframe, and everyone turned, their expressions still holding their last thought. “Hey, Marty found me. She has some questions before she decides if she wants to stay.”
Ryan bolted to his feet, clearly elated as he gestured for us to enter.
“That’s wonderful! Marty, come in. Come in!
” he said, and I practically pushed Marty into the room as the well-dressed woman crowding Ryan’s desk straightened, her lodestone jewelry clinking.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am,” the older Spinner added as he leaned over his desk to shake Marty’s hand enthusiastically until he realized he was overdoing it and let go.
“Trailing shadow, eh? Not surprised. Petra ran halfway across the desert trying to lose Pluck until they figured it out.” He took a breath, flushing.
Dana and Akeem were staring at him as if he was fanboying over her. But he kind of was.
“Um, this is Akeem,” Ryan said as he glanced at the slim man in his early thirties now standing up from one of the two chairs before the desk.
He was clean-shaven with tightly curling hair, looking sharp in a vest that matched his psychedelic plastic-framed glasses.
To say that Akeem took pride in being different was an understatement, as evidenced by his purple socks.
“He’s one of the loom’s Spinners,” Ryan continued when Marty extended her hand.
“Hi,” she said softly, and Akeem grinned at her shyness.
“Marty, eh?” he said. “You are as welcome as ice cream at a birthday party.”
Ryan cleared his throat as the young woman flushed. “And the woman to my right is Dana. She hired in to the university board last week. Airologist. We were lucky to get her.”
“Nice to meet you,” Marty said as Dana shifted to make room for us.
She was a hundred percent business in her turquoise suit-dress, short-styled brown hair, and middle-age confidence.
I’d never met her before, but the glass lodestone glinting on her bauble bracelet said she was a mage if the “airologist” tag wasn’t enough.
Her pale complexion said she hadn’t been here long.
“Petra, I don’t think you’ve met Ms. Dana Vean, either,” Ryan said, and I extended my hand.
“Hi. Welcome to the university,” I said, and she took it without hesitation, meeting it with a firm grip. That alone gave her good marks in my book, and I decided to cut her some slack—even if she was probably here to make my life difficult. “Nice to meet you.”
“Glad to meet you, Petra. I’ve heard good things.”
Ryan remained standing, clearly uneasy. “Where’s Pluck?” he asked, his eyes where my amulet would have been.
“Not sure. He might be downstairs checking the vault,” I said.
“Which brings me to why I’m here. Ah, other than to give Marty a chance to see what we’re all about.
Marshal Owens and I have an idea I need your permission to implement.
” I glanced at Marty. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, and no one was sitting.
It was getting uncomfortable. “Should we come back?”
Marty’s gaze dropped from the three reddish sticks reverently racked behind Ryan’s desk.
They were twins to the one I’d left by the door, but I didn’t mind that Ryan had them.
He had loved my dad, too. “Ah…I’m only here to find out how to get a shadow to stop following me.
I’m not staying. But you look busy, so…”
Ryan’s smile faltered. He knew that since she was a weaver there was no going home, not without a shadow protecting her from the separatist mages. She couldn’t change who she was.
“No, this is fine,” Ryan said with a forced cheerfulness. “Akeem and Dana were heading out,” he added pointedly. “I’m always available and we are very glad you’re here.”
Dana cleared her throat, settling before the desk all the more firmly.
“Ryan, I have several pule-tons of dross I need to find a home for. I’m not leaving until we have agreed where to put it.
Turning it inert and storing it in the grotto hurts no one.
” Her gaze came to mine. “Unless the shadows will explode it again?”
“What happened at the auditorium was an anomaly,” I said as Marty fidgeted. “Pluck did it to save his life. There’s no reason for a shadow to do it again unless the university resumes its practice of killing them.”
Dana beamed as if having scored a point. “Then dumping it into the memorial garden won’t be a problem.”
Akeem eyed Dana over his purple-rimmed glasses. “Stop twisting her words, Dana. That’s not what she said.”
A shudder rippled through me when Pluck wrapped a tendril about my ankle, and the small drift of dross that had found its way inside the walled garden burst into a sunlike brilliance. He was back, and I breathed a little easier.
Good luck, Thoth is not on-site. Bad luck, I couldn’t ascertain the vault’s status, fizzed through me. Can you ask Ryan if it’s empty? Thoth will avoid destroying a full one lest he get caught in the dross release.
Soon as I can edge a word in, I thought, and Pluck settled into a cold impatience.
“Dana, I hear your concerns.” Ryan’s smile was beginning to look forced, the man clearly wanting to get them out of his office.
“We’re all under a lot of pressure to resume normal dross collection, but until you find the mages willing to turn it inactive, we have nowhere to put it.
You get mages on board, and we could put it in, say, the old high school gym?
” He slumped. “I agree shipping the active dross out of state is prohibitively expensive.”
Akeem fiddled with his glasses. “You’d need somewhere hidden to process it all. The gym has zero safeguards.”
Perhaps mages could go out with the sweepers? Turn it inert at the site of pickup?
I made a small noise of agreement, then realized everyone was looking at me. “Ah, Pluck suggests pairing mages with sweepers. Turn the dross inert at pickup. No clearinghouse needed.”
“Send mages out with sweepers?” Dana’s lips parted to show her affront.
“Sweepers and mages working together? That’s a great idea,” Akeem said sarcastically.
“I can’t put a fleet of high-end mages under the loom’s directive,” Dana argued. “I agree it would streamline the effort, but no mage will stomach going out into the field like a sweeper. We can implement new safeguards at the gym. Do it there.”
“Perish the thought of anyone knowing a mage is taking responsibility for their own waste,” Akeem scoffed.
“Enough!” Ryan exclaimed, and Marty flinched. “Dana, Pluck’s idea has merit. We can at least ask if there are any volunteers to go out on sweeper runs. Bring in pizza or tacos or something. If no one steps up, go with the original idea of taking dross to the gym.”
“Your department is buying.” Dana settled herself into a chair. “Marty, how long have you been on campus?”
“Do you have a bathroom here I could use?” the woman blurted, and Ryan choked back his next words.
“Um, sure.” Ryan gestured to the hall, his train of thought clearly lost. “You passed it on the way in. Second door on the left.”
“Thank you.” Head down, Marty practically ran into the hall. Torn, I rocked from foot to foot. Yeah, she had been fidgeting for a while, but I didn’t want her to continue out the front door when she was done.
“Akeem, follow her,” I whispered, and the tall man eyed me, clearly annoyed.
“I think she can handle that on her own.”
“Is there a problem?” Ryan asked, suddenly concerned.
“She’s a flight risk,” I said to Ryan, then turned to Akeem. “And I need to talk to Ryan. Stall her when she comes out. Show her the long-sticks or trap ties. I need five minutes.”
“Dana can show her the trap ties,” Akeem protested. “Don’t ask me to be the creepy professor.”
“Please, Akeem,” I whispered. “I don’t want to scare her.”
Dana smirked, her long fingers laced. “Go on. I’ll fill you in over lunch.”
“Fine.” Adjusting his glasses, Akeem ambled out of the office. “Five minutes.”