by Kalyn Crowe
He added, "Anything incriminating is long gone."
"Then, we'll look for what isn't here." I caught up with Leyla.
She danced her fingers through a drawer.
"What have you got?"
She pulled out a card and kept its spot. With a flick, she held it between two fingers.
I took it. "Armistead, Gunnar. Gunnar?"
She shrugged again and moved to the next cabinet.
Rhys came closer.
I read on. "Gunnar requested leave from duty. He was to deliver a horse to cavalry group ten, but instead needed to address a personal concern within the city."
He chuckled.
"What?"
"'Personal concern' is his excuse for time with Kat."
I examined the card further.
Leyla reached over and pointed to a date.
"The request came three days ago. When I got here?"
Rhys checked, too. "Seems right, he probably knew Kat would be at HQ for induction paperwork."
That could answer why his arrival was so timely and why he sent Rhys to watch Bora. "But this means other people would know I would be there, too."
"Sure, it is standard procedure."
I slipped the card back where Leyla indicated.
Bora's files took up an entire cabinet. She had a brief detailing of every day, structured and concise. Not a misspelling, let alone any strange gap in her records. Maybe she faked some, but all the ink seemed old, the scent long faded.
Leyla and Rhys both stared as I sniffed each in the course of a drawer, but I didn't care. Someone was responsible.
Someone.
I sighed at the card in my hand, one of the most recent. "It says Bora sent a report of the ill sightings to Ansgar."
Rhys rubbed his cheek.
"What about Duri's?" I asked Leyla, who already dug through his cards. "Something out of place, or a gap, anything?"
She held up a big 'zero' handshape.
I lowered my attention to the last of Bora's logs. It told of Ansgar's request for her to transfer the Abyss disk to the High Hall from Hunter Headquarters. She noted the High Lord's aid received it safely.
Rhys tapped the card. "His aid, does it say why not him? I didn't follow them into the Reliquary, probably should have."
"It says the aid told her the High Lord is out of the city." I tucked the card back in the drawer. "Is that normal for him?"
"He's gone all the time, mostly to study without interruption. Other times off maintaining the peace with the East, attending big graduations, promoting chapter heads, all that ceremonious stuff."
"Peace is ceremonious?"
"It's worth having ceremonies about." He grinned. "Seriously, this High Lord Travere has done a lot for us. I don't mean to downplay that."
I looked at my hands. If it weren't for Travere's new laws, I wouldn't have them.
He added, "I meant most of his day to day stuff is fluff."
"I follow you. Would Ansgar have any files in here?" I said.
"No, he keeps all of those in his office." He pointed upward. "They installed another cabinet for him late last year; he's been High Templar so long."
"Conrad said the council has the office guarded, so we can't get in there."
"No, not even Bora can until he's missing three full days."
The cabinet opposite of Bora's caught my weight as I leaned back. I crossed my arms and stared into the black of my jacket.
In this stillness, Kepi's breaths pushed against my side through the bag. She sniffed for something.
When I looked back up, I met Rhys' stare.
He leaned beside me. "Look, stop me if I'm out of line, but you seem pretty invested in this."
"Should I not be?"
"I guess what I mean is, if they can't solve these attacks by finding the perpetrator, they will try to destroy the root of it."
"Abyss itself?"
He looked at the beams in the ceiling. "They won't send you in. Hunters don't fight wars."
Leyla handed me a card.
It listed Bora's responsibilities for her son's funeral.
Rhys noticed and said, "She'd never condone the use of Abyss. She wouldn't risk Duri."
Like Eda said.
My mother brought Abyss here and left it. The first step on the twisted road that would lead Rhys to fight a war against Zirore's daughter. I needed to know why she left the Maw open. "I want to stop another war in any way I can."
"Why you, Nancy?"
Leyla gripped my shoulder.
Rhys looked from me to her and back. He shook his head and straightened up from the cabinet. "Philomena's arrest warrant next, right?"
With that, we ensured no trace of our visit remained and left.
Rhys brought us to another door with another lock. He checked around before he opened it.
This room looked like the duty room, but the drawers were twice the size.
Rhys said, "We organized these by date, same with the death certificates in the next room." He relocked the door from inside.
Death certificates. Curiosity asked for my mother's. Would Leyla want to see her parents' paper, or had she already?
She traced the cabinet drawers. Each wore a date.
I didn't know if it impressed or scared me that she knew the right day.
Rhys waited by the door.
Leyla paged through an open drawer.
She stilled and looked over with a piece of paper pinched in her fingers.
I swallowed and said, "Did you find it?"
She laid it on the cabinet top. Neither of us touched it as we read.
There were four templars sent. All directed to go by Bora. I didn't recognize anyone else, but each name twisted the knife of guilt another turn.
After they survived Abyss, they died in my mother's house.
Leyla put her hand on my shoulder. Her sleeve brushed the warrant's corner and lifted it for just a moment.
I tilted my head.
She turned the paper over.
A note waited on the back.
"It's from Ansgar," I said.
We leaned close.
I read aloud, "The council requested the Chimeras and chose the Voclains. Of course, they found Abyss them. That is the least of our concern after their uncertain deaths. I will not authorize Philomena Tash's arrest until there is proof of her wrongdoing. By default, this then falls to you. I encourage you to do the right thing and consent to delay her arrest. We can investigate this claim of heresy without the same mistakes." I reread it to myself.
So, 'Tash' was my last name. They took it away from heretic's warded children. I'd never seen it.
Leyla kept her name, but not her voice. I said, "What does he mean, 'uncertain deaths'?"
Leyla smoothed her hair and touched her neck.
I lowered the paper. "Your parents were never convicted, but the Order didn't clear you after?" Not soon enough to save her from silencing.
She shook her head and walked over to another drawer — one with documents from about a year earlier. Tears came to her eyes. A blink sent them down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped them.
She brought another paper over — her parent's warrant.
She pointed to the authorizer of her parent's arrest.
"Ansgar." I paused. "Did you know?"
On her parchment, she said, "No, but," she wrote. "We knew they died, but I thought it was Inquisition. They might have been innocent after all."
No wonder the Order sent Eda to Inquisition, she was their best bet for answers. No, for validation. When that failed, when she passed, they let Leyla have her name and an apprenticeship.
Everything made just a bit more sense.
More terrible sense.
Leyla wiped her cheek again and closed her eyes with a sigh.
Uncertain deaths. Two people died in the walls of the High Hall's prison right before they proved their innocence or their guilt. Or was it before they revealed someone else's?
Rh
ys approached. He tentatively comforted Leyla with a light pat on the back.
I held up Ansgar's note.
"I heard." He looked at it a second and said, "If both differ arrest, it leads to a hunter investigation. He should have known she'd take the opportunity."
"He probably did, but what else could he have done?"
He leaned on the cabinet. "Outside of violence? Nothing, but since we found it, I think Bora is in the clear."
I clenched my jaw, but Kepi jabbed through the bag. "All right."
Leyla sighed but wrote, "So we know all three Chimera Invokers seem to have died in 'uncertain' ways."
"What if they were all framed for Abyssal heresy by the same person and silenced before the truth came out?" I said.
Leyla tapped the pen on her lip.
Rhys crossed his arms. "Not to sound like an ass, but if they were innocent and knew about some conspiracy, why not come forward? Why wait for the arrest, let alone stay in jail for any amount of time? Why not demand a Spiritist document their claims?"
He asked the same things which spun around my mind. I found my head shook without my conscious thought and sighed. "I don't know. Unless." That mental tingle again.
He and Leyla waited.
"What if the three of them knew something dangerous to someone's plans? Only this person found out Philomena knew later? She might have cooperated at first. What if what they all knew, they couldn't tell the Order for some reason?" I set my hat on the cabinet.
"Maybe. A secret from work on the Chimeras." He twirled the keys around his finger. "Something that would incriminate them, too? Put others in danger? I don't know."
"The disks, something about them," I said and looked at Leyla. "Like Conrad suspected."
She nodded with her hand and head.
Rhys shot me a little satisfied, but warm smile. "But then, they aren't the only ones to be gone in 'uncertain' ways." He pointed to the note from Ansgar.
I looked at him.
Leyla's face lit up, and she scribbled down, "Philomena told Ansgar something! Maybe she was like," she tapped her pen and thought, "a double agent?"
I pushed my hair behind my ears. "And Ansgar couldn't report what she told him or risk her cover."
"Because it's an inside job," said Rhys.
"It's just," I said, "if he knew something, that's a long time to leave him as a loose end."
Rhys tapped the note again. "Only if you know about it."
I said, "He did ask about the strike at school."
Leyla gave me a stern nod.
Rhys said, "He couldn't save either of your parents. Something might have happened recently to force him to try to stop whoever is at fault now. He may have tipped his hand to the wrong person before he spoke to Conrad."
"Or did this person know and waited for me?" I shut my mouth.
He withdrew and gave me what I came to know as his signature half-grin. "I wonder why Ansgar felt so sure he could trust dear Uncle Conrad now and not before?"
Leyla paled.
I only stared.
Then he bowed. "You have my sworn secrecy, Meredith Tash."
Again that name. This time, directed, it halted my breath. My mouth dried up.
He stood.
"You shouldn't know," I said.
Leyla grabbed his wrist and glared at him in a way no one could misunderstand.
"I won't tell anyone, not even Gunnar. The last thing I want to do is cause issues between him and Kat. I'm guessing she knows, and I know he doesn't."
I held my bag close.
Leyla sighed and put both warrants back and checked we left no trace.
Rhys stood by the door and listened.
I should have helped her, but regret and uncertainty planted me in place.
Leyla tapped my hand and looked at the door.
"Right, we should tell Conrad what we found."
Rhys nodded and wiggled the keys. "All right, let me take you back to the lobby. You know where to go from there?"
Leyla nodded.
He extended a key and touched the lock then stood still. With one hand, he made a short series of shapes.
Leyla pushed me back between the cabinets and then pulled the wall tapestry away. We both ducked underneath.
I held Kepi and the bag in both arms. "What is it?" I whispered.
She made the same handshapes, faster, and more fluid.
More Sign and more of me stupefied.
She pulled her hair back and scowled.
"Bora?"
With relief, she nodded and let her hair go.
I peeked around the tapestry's edge.
The door swung open.
Rhys said, "Good afternoon, Lady Farago." The jingle of his keys followed. He didn't even try to hide them.
"Fortier, what are you doing in here?" she said.
He scratched through his hair and chuckled. "Well, Master Armistead asked I file this for him."
A piece of paper rattled from his hand to hers. With only the slightest gap in the tapestry, I couldn't tell what he found so fast.
She huffed. "This is not the requisition room. Take that door and be gone."
A snicker came from the doorway — Duri.
She gave back the paper.
"I'm sorry, Lady Farago." He bowed and walked past us.
I heard him unlock the door and leave, but no sound to say he relocked it.
Bora sighed and said, "What did you think, boy? Of the meeting."
"Nardovino is lying on his account."
"All of it?" she said flat and unimpressed.
He didn't reply right away. "I guess not, he did give up the disk willingly, we saw as much, but why did High Templar Sawyer stay?"
"It is the High Templar's privilege to not discuss all matters with me." She stood by a cabinet, arms crossed, and tapped her fingers on her forearm.
They were in here for no reason but to talk.
She said, "Hopefully, Invoker Durandus will find the Counterbalance. A more productive course for such a talented woman than making wild claims about disks. Perhaps then we can find a way to close the Maw as well."
I exchanged a look with Leyla.
Duri said, "You think the council sent her away to silence her?"
"Perhaps. I trust the council's wisdom in sending her on her quest for the Counterbalance and not wasting time on these ill people, regardless of their motivations."
"Wasn't she, uh, involved with the Weaver witch?"
"She left after Philomena betrayed her, likely around the same time she betrayed our Order. No doubt so much exposure to Abyss tainted a once good woman's judgment and honor."
That was why Sybil knew my mother's Attunement and about Kepi's null zone. And why she didn't like me much.
I couldn't see his reaction, but Duri said, "You know, I've heard the father is the one behind the Abyss attacks. The reason for her heresy. Nardovino should have brought the witch's daughter in for questioning."
Bora said, "Duri, you assume too much and say far more."
"But, ma'am, I."
"The girl was a baby when her mother lived, likely never knew her father, and now she too is dead. You heard so yourself in the meeting."
"But there wasn't a body."
I nearly sighed in relief.
"The feather of the Tempest is proof enough. You distract your mind with too much speculation. Where's Meredith's body, who's her father, nonsense thoughts. What is more, yesterday, I heard you speak poorly of our High Lord's judgment regarding wards."
"I."
"Silence. Our High Lord is not unduly lenient. He is resourceful and careful, as is the council. Do not question either again. Especially in public."
"Yes, of course."
She huffed. "We need to find our High Templar, and that damned hunter is going to help me one way or another."
Duri stayed silent.
"Let us go before someone searches for us."
After the turn of keys, the door opened, shut, and
relocked.
Long moments passed. Leyla and I looked at one another and around the tapestry.
Part of me worried about Sybil. Hopefully, this Grand Counterbalance search wasn't a trap or a test of loyalties. If so, what if she didn't find it?
The other door opened, and Rhys sauntered in.
We left our cover.
The three of us stood there in silence.
Kepi sniffed, her little lungs pushed against my side in short bursts.
Rhys spoke first, "I finally agree with Bora on something."
"What's that?" I said.
"Duri's an idiot."
Leyla's shoulders jiggled.
I scrunched my mouth to the side, but said, "He did catch no one found my body."
Rhys said, "About that, you're dead?"
I stared at the case with the warrant. "It was a cover story so that I could be Nancy."
He blinked and shook his head. "That's pretty severe, but Bora seemed keen to accept it." He looked at my bag.
Kepi peeked out.
His eyes went wide. He whispered, "Lady Tempest. Wow, Gunnar has talked about her, but wait. The council is going to wonder where she went."
"They might figure she went back to Apex."
"But Flowers, or I mean, Lord Odion hasn't."
I shrugged. "No one understands why either stayed to start with."
Leyla smiled at Kepi and petted her head.
"You can touch her?" Rhys came closer. "Can I?"
She cooed just loud enough to hear.
He knelt and scratched behind her ears. "She's something else." He looked up at me. "You know, Bora seemed worried."
"She did, and I think I understand why. Someone attacks my school, and I end up dying. Sybil is sent away on an impossible mission. Ansgar goes missing. Bora worries who's going to disappear next." I laid my hand on Kepi. "The person behind all this, it's someone from before, someone who knew Sybil, Ansgar, our parents."
She softly cooed again.
"Do you think it could be your dad?" he said.
"Maybe."
Leyla shook her head.
"No, she's right." Rhys stood and pinched at his chin. "If he left you alive before, why send an Abyssist to your school now?"
I crossed my arms. "That, and I can't see how some guy has stayed clear of Spiritists, Formists, and everything else for what? Twenty years since the Voclains' deaths?"
Rhys eased his hands up in caution. "Let's get you back to Conrad before we get any more wild ideas. I'll stay here, less suspicious that way."
