Chapter 15 #2
Oh, yeah, I thought as my fingers found that third chunk of tuned moldavite, safe within my pocket. “Hey, ah, Ryan?” I said, quashing a feeling of possession as I gave it to Ryan. “We picked up a piece to replace the one that Fawn broke. Pluck tuned it. It’s ready to go.”
Ryan beamed, jostling Dana’s elbow to make sure she saw. “Thank you! Pluck, this is wonderful. It’s like Christmas today.”
Maybe, but seeing as we were kind of responsible for the first one breaking, it felt like a wash.
Benedict dropped a spiky nugget into the empty cardboard box with a rasping clatter. “All this came in since last night?” he said again in disbelief.
Dana shrugged into a classy lightweight jacket.
“Brought mostly by student mages. Dropping off bottles and driving away as if they were abandoning the Antichrist herself.” She put the back of her hand to her mouth as she yawned, her eyes going to Nog when the large man came in to get more sealed boxes.
“I’ve had to recharge my lodestone at least five times.
Ryan, I concede. This is madder than a box of squirrels.
Having one person do this is too much. It should be made inert at the site of pickup. Spread the pain around.”
Nog chuckled, and the elegant woman slumped in fatigue scowled at him. “Absolutely, Dana.” Ryan winked at me, clearly pleased. “Give me a list of about a dozen candidates. I’ll pair them up with my thickest-skinned sweepers.”
“You’ll have it by the end of breakfast.” Dana’s brow furrowed as she watched Marty.
The woman was fingering the colorful dross-go wands, weaving one as if to test its balance with more dexterity than her subpar fields would have suggested.
“How about Petra and Marty?” Dana added as she tucked her clutch purse under her arm.
“It will go down a lot easier if I can pair at least two of my rising seniors with the university’s newest toy. ”
Seriously? I thought as Benedict sort of froze. Did you just equate Marty and me to toys?
Nog’s pace to the door with another load of boxes faltered. Ears red, he hustled out.
Flushing, Dana met my eyes over her compact. “That’s not what I meant to say.”
It’s what she meant, though, came Pluck’s dry thought from the ceiling.
Ryan frowned at the flustered woman. “Marty isn’t sure she’s staying,” he said, clearly insulted for all of us. “And remarks like that don’t help.”
Dana looked from my sour, high-eyebrow nonchalance to Marty’s faint flush. “I am so sorry,” the mage said, seeming sincere. “Neither of you are a commodity. God, I can’t believe I said that. Petra, Marty…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said flatly. “I’ve heard worse in the commons.”
Ryan pointedly cleared his throat. “Dana, how about that breakfast?”
Still flustered, Dana held her purse close.
“Great. Yes. Thank you for taking my foot out of my mouth.” She took a step to the door, then hesitated.
“Petra. Benedict. Marty. I will see you all later. Thank you for watching the vault.” Grabbing a box, the woman walked out.
“I can’t believe I said that,” she muttered, and then the door shut.
A sigh shifted Ryan’s shoulders as he stuffed his arms into his jacket.
“She’s right,” he said softly, and Pluck fizzed his agreement.
“The job will go to rising seniors because of the skill needed. If we attach a lot of status to it along with a decent stipend, it will help separate the task from that of a sweeper’s. ”
That didn’t make me feel any better, and I flopped down on the couch beside Benedict. “Even though they will be doing the same thing?” I said. “I am not a trashman, and neither is Marty. No wonder she doesn’t want to stay.”
Marty put the wand down, her expression empty. “Ah, it has nothing to do with that.”
“I know, I know.” Ryan lifted a hand for patience, but his gaze was on the wide windows to where Dana was supervising Nog loading the last boxes.
“Still…We need to make a place for you and Pluck, Petra, now more than ever. Show everyone your value. It’s more than tuning moldavite to elevate more sweepers to Spinners.
That might win over the sweepers, but it’s the mages who have the loudest voice.
People need to see you and your shadows doing something positive.
I know it’s not what you had envisioned, but you have to compromise to get anywhere. ”
“Compromise,” I echoed as a thousand years of dissatisfaction fizzed through me. “Compromise should be an equal win-win. What you’re asking is not win-win. It’s win-survive.”
The older man scrunched his face as if in pain. “Perhaps survival is enough at the moment?” Ryan’s gaze flicked to Marty.
Benedict, too, eyed the woman now studying the pictures to either side of the fireplace. “Is it that bad?” he said softly, and Ryan nodded.
“This thing with the vaults,” he said. “Petra, we have to catch Thoth before the mages collectively decide it wasn’t the separatists and totally lose it. I’m worried about the shadows at the memorial, too. What they might do when some mage starts dumping dross into the well.”
He should be, bubbled coldly through my thoughts.
“We will catch him,” I said, but my confidence felt forced, and Marty looked a little ill, jumping when Dana honked the van’s horn. Nog was in the driver’s seat, reaming her out when the entitled woman tried to do it again.
“Go get some breakfast,” I added, and Ryan took a big step into the hall.
“I brought Akeem up to speed. He will relieve you around three,” he said.
“Nog will be back with the van in about an hour. People have been leaving jars in the drive. Just let them. I’m not charging anyone at the moment.
” His attention went to Benedict, his expression softening.
“Benedict, I appreciate anything you can do about this.”
Benedict tossed a spiky nugget into the box. “No problem as long as the sun stays high.”
“Okay, then.” Clearly tired, Ryan walked out. “See you tomorrow!”
The door shut, and faintly through the walls, I heard him yell, “Hey! There’s a noise ordinance here. Stop with the horn, Dana.”
I blew my breath out, appreciating the new quiet. “As long as the sun stays high, huh?” I said, and Benedict looked at his lodestone ring.
“Yeah. I only have the one. Though I suppose I could make another.” Nog drove off, and the house got even quieter. “That’s a lot of dross in the kitchen.”
“Mmmm.”
Eyes on her phone, Marty sat in a nearby chair, brow furrowed as she scrolled. Pluck hung where he was at the ceiling, his satisfaction at his high perch out of the dross ringing through me.
“Dana has been freezing it within the bottle and then shaking it out,” Benedict said as he put a capped bottle on the table before us.
Exhaling, he stared at it. Energy swirled and his hands spaced around the bottle glowed—until the dross within the bottle spun into a knot, superheated into a higher state before he froze it so fast that it retained its condensed, shadow-repelling state.
It was that last which had made his process so sought-after.
It wasn’t hard to turn dross inert, but dross expanded like ice when it was cooled—which attracted shadows.
A definite no-no to most people. The spiky ball rolling around the bottom of the jar might be inert, but it still retained its condensed state. To shadows, it appeared hot.
It was an amazing feat of skill, one Benedict was indifferent about as he’d been working on it most of his life, and he shook the spiky dross ball into a box with the ceremony of tossing his undies in the washer.
“Ryan didn’t say where to put the empties,” he said as he set the empty bottle down and took up a full one.
There hadn’t been any empties outside. The kitchen, either. “The backyard?” I guessed.
Marty closed her phone and stood up. “I can check. I’m not doing anything.”
“Thanks.” Benedict handed her the empty bottle. Grabbing another, she wove through the mess to the hall. Pluck sensed my worry and he oozed from the overhead light, puddling into a snake to follow her.
Benedict hesitated until she was gone. “Her fields may be weak, but she’s good with a wand. Did you see her check out the balance of the dross-go stick?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at the empty hall, and faintly, as if from a distance, came Pluck’s bubbly agreement, Me too.
I leaned closer, whispering, “You think she’s sandbagging? That she knows more than she’s admitting so we don’t try to convince her to stay? She didn’t have any problem freezing that water last night.”
Benedict’s smile went soft in memory. “Seeing as you exploded a bottle of water the first time you used a lodestone, I’m not sure how indicative that is of her existing skill.
” He glanced at the hallway. “I’m more concerned that if she doesn’t have a shadow, the separatists will try to snuff her the moment she leaves St. Unoc.
Whether he meant to or not, Thoth has probably been keeping them at bay. ”
His focus went to the haze within the bottle before him, and the glowing mist spiraled like a galaxy until it exploded into a spiny nugget. Saying nothing, I took the bottle, shook the dross into the box with the rest. “We need to find a way to make an exception for her boyfriend.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Benedict said, looking up when Marty’s shoes sounded in the hall.
“Nothing in the backyard,” she said, voice cheerful as she came in, bottles in hand. “Maybe there are two vans, and the one toting the empties to the Surran building left already.”
“They could be putting them downstairs,” Benedict said as I moved the spent bottles out of the way.