Paths of Alir (A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book 3)

by Melissa McPhail

  Vincenzé separated himself from a group of official-looking men—which included two of the black-cloaked Order operatives who’d come into the Archives with the Red Guard—and headed their way.

  “Well, well.” The wielder looked the boys up and down. Tanis was suddenly very glad they’d decided to change into fresh clothing. “You’re up and out early, cucciolo. And who is this with you?” Vincenzé’s blue-eyed gaze assessed Felix.

  Tanis didn’t believe for a moment that Vincenzé didn’t know Felix on sight, but he played along. “This is my roommate, Felix—”

  “—di Sarcova della Buonara,” Vincenzé finished, but his grin seemed a little too hungry for it to feel pleasant in the receiving. “So you’ve made up, the two of you. Mended your fences?”

  “I don’t recall saying they were broken.” Tanis nodded towards the gathering of guards and men. “What’s happening?”

  Vincenzé arched a sardonic brow. “Am I meant to believe you don’t already know?”

  Tanis frowned at him. “Frites talk, but that doesn’t mean I know as much as you do.”

  Vincenzé eyed him circumspectly. “Nicely evaded, truthreader.” His gaze skimmed shrewdly over Felix again, and Tanis had no doubt he was searching the other boy’s thoughts for anything to use against them. Fortunately, as Tanis himself had discovered, Felix had a natural ability to vacate his mind…as if he could truly sit for hours and think of absolutely nothing.

  Perhaps coming up empty from his inspection of Felix, Vincenzé returned his gaze to Tanis. “An important work vanished from the Archives some time ago,” he said then, putting a pointed edge on the statement. His thoughts placed Malin, Felix and the book into the same pot, but he clearly lacked the broth to combine them all into one ill-fated soup. “Last night it reappeared just as mysteriously.”

  Tanis scratched his head. “How did you know it reappeared?”

  “Alarms, cucciolo.” Vincenzé’s shrewd gaze pinned Tanis beneath it. “The whole campus is warded to recognize this work and sound an alarm that even the High Lord will hear.”

  “Is that all?” Felix yawned. “Come on, Tanis. I told you it was nothing—just some old book only a maestro could care about.”

  Vincenzé’s gaze shifted to him as sharply as an archer realigning his bow. “I didn’t say it was a book that was missing, Felix di Sarcova.” His blue eyes took on the hungry gleam of a cat with its paw on the canary’s tail. “So how did you know it?”

  Tanis thought for sure they were caught and was bracing himself for the worst, but Felix just yawned again. “So it was a book then. I suppose that’s better than what the frites are all saying, that someone was killed.”

  Vincenzé eyed him suspiciously. “Blood may yet be spilled over it.”

  “Oh, it’s that kind of book, eh?” Felix turned Tanis a grin. “Must be a work of dark patterns or blood magic. Or demonology, maybe.” He shifted mismatched eyes to Vincenzé as if for confirmation.

  Vincenzé’s gaze narrowed. “You will not trick me into naming this book, Felix di Sarcova.”

  “No? Damn. I guess we can go then.”

  A nice idea, yet Vincenzé stood squarely in their path. He crossed his arms. “And just where could you be off to so early?”

  “Evans Hall.” Felix cast Vincenzé an impatient look. “You know, where my cousin lives? They have better food.”

  As if to attest to the veracity of this claim, Tanis’s stomach growled loudly.

  Vincenzé looked them both over for a moment longer, considering them with narrowed gaze. Though Vincenzé had his thoughts better guarded that morning, Tanis could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to detain them for more questioning. He had no real reason to suspect them, however—save his own all too perceptive instincts—and his thoughts loudly proclaimed his concern at angering the zanthyr by interrogating Tanis and thereby upsetting the High Lord in the process. “I suppose you should be on your way then,” he said at last, but he sounded unconvinced of this decision. “I may call upon you later, Tanis.”

  “I’ll be counting the minutes, sir.”

  Vincenzé eyed him once more and then stepped aside to let them pass.

  When they were well out of earshot of the wielder, Tanis hissed, “Why’d you talk so much about the book, Felix? He’s suspicious now.”

  “He was suspicious anyway,” Felix grumbled. He pried at a hangnail with his teeth. “Besides, it would’ve made him even more suspicious if we didn’t seem curious.” He eyed Tanis askance. “Or at least if I didn’t.”

  They walked for a while in silence with Felix picking at his thumb and Tanis worrying about how much Vincenzé could actually have guessed about their involvement with the book.

  Finally Felix turned them down a path towards a distant building with the name Evans Hall carved into the lintel. Tanis’s eyes widened. “You really were taking us to Evans Hall?”

  “Of course. It’s never a good idea to lie to a wielder, and even stupider to lie to one of the High Lord’s men.” He turned Tanis a wry look. Tanis thought Felix had never seemed more the disheveled cat back from a night’s carousing, what with his gold-brown-auburn hair all awry and a fuzz of auburn scruff around his jaw. “You might not believe me,” Felix muttered then, “but I don’t actually have a death wish.”

  “You’re right. I don’t believe you.”

  Felix cracked a lopsided grin. He gazed contemplatively at Tanis for a moment. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”

  Tanis rolled his eyes. “If you’d given me even half a chance—“

  “Tanis, see reason,” Felix interposed, “how would you feel, knowing what I knew—carrying around one of the apocryphal books of the Sobra I’ternin in your knapsack, by the holy Sanctis!—knowing the High Lord’s got the Order investigating—probably looking for it rather than Malin—and suddenly a truthreader your age, who’s a bloody Postulant already and can probably read your mind as easily as his own handwriting, shows up to be your new roommate? Do you think you’d just blab about your entire life on a whim? Be all, ‘Oh hello, let’s be besty-best friends!’ like some gabby girl?”

  Tanis grunted, though his eyes were smiling. “I suppose not.”

  Felix observed him peevishly. “Oh, you’ve been so candid, have you, with all of your secrets? Like how in the thirteen hells you followed me across that node? Like that?”

  “It’s not the same—”

  “Pot,” Felix jammed a finger into Tanis’s arm. “Kettle,” he indicated himself. His mismatched eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

  Tanis grinned crookedly. “I concede your point, Felix.”

  “Good,” Felix relaxed and looked forward again, “‘cause I’m hungry, and I don’t share meals with wankers. Just ask any of my older brothers.”

  They climbed the steps to Evans Hall, and Felix pushed inside.

  “Is your cousin the truthreader we’re going to see?” Tanis asked as Felix was leading them down a narrow hall between a gallery and a line of docent offices.

  “What? No. Phoebe’s not even here. She’s up in the north country visiting her aunt, probably getting knocked up by some flush-faced Dane.”

  “But you said…” But then Tanis let go of the thought, because Felix had only told Vincenzé that his cousin lived at Evans, not that he—or in this case, she—would be there.

  They made a quick tour through the dining room, collecting as many edibles from the buffet as they did dirty looks from the Hall’s actual residents, then Felix slipped out a door that led toward the kitchens.

  “So listen, Tanis…” Felix passed a piping hot apple tart back and forth from hand to hand while they walked. “This…person is likely to be a bit miffed at me. Actually, I may get utterly flayed.” Felix tried to maneuver his mouth into position to take a bite of the tart without scalding his tongue, but ultimately gave up and put it in his pocket instead. “I was supposed to…uh, show up last night, see…but you know how that went…”

 
“Right.”

  “Plus, this truthreader won’t be expecting you at all. So let me do the talking, okay?”

  “As you wish, Felix.”

  They exited Evans Hall through the kitchen yard. Felix opened the gate of the walled yard, but when Tanis made to walk through, Felix grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and hauled him behind a shed instead. He pushed a finger to his lips.

  A moment later, footsteps came rushing through the yard, and the boys watched a man slip out the open gate.

  “Amateur,” Felix muttered. He nodded to Tanis then, and they went back inside the Hall.

  Tanis still sensed a nervous energy in the other boy. Felix’s eyes traveled everywhere now, and as soon as they exited Evans Hall, Felix pressed them quickly away into the trees lining the maze of campus paths. They came to a gazebo. Felix grabbed Tanis’s arm and darted towards it like he meant to run them into the railing, and suddenly they were running down an alley between two buildings.

  Felix drew them to a halt, leaned back against the wall, pulled the tart out of his pocket and set to munching.

  Tanis considered him as he recalled the many pathways Felix had already taken him on. “You have this entire campus mapped in your head, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “It must’ve taken years to travel and map all of this. How long have you known you had a variant trait?”

  Felix grinned. “All my life.” At Tanis’s wondrous look, he said, “I have five Nodefinder brothers, Tanis. The leis in Sarcova Manor were twisted before I was born—the Lord Sarcova apparently misliked his children popping in and out of rooms randomly. He took special exception to their using leis to escape his justice.”

  “So you realized when you were a boy that you could travel twisted nodes, but you never told anyone?”

  Felix arched a derisive brow at him. “How many people have you told?”

  Tanis didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

  “Exactly.” Felix sounded vindicated. “Come on then. The node’s just over here.” He led away down the alley, and one wall soon opened upon a small courtyard. Black and white marble pavers in the court were arranged in a particular pattern…

  “This is—”

  “Yep, a nodecourt. Amazing what you can find forgotten around this place. Here, you’ll need this.” Felix handed him a bag from his knapsack.

  Tanis looked at the cloth dubiously. It appeared to be nothing more than a common hemp bag, the kind used for carrying fruit or vegetables. “What’s this?”

  “Trust me. You want to wear that.” Felix had his own bag in hand. “Go on, put it on.”

  Tanis arched a skeptical brow. “You first.”

  Felix shrugged and put the bag over his head. Tanis didn’t—he wasn’t about to traverse the Pattern of the World unprepared for whatever lay at the other end of the node.

  Felix reached around and felt up Tanis until he found his forearm. Then, all but blind, he led them onto the nodecourt.

  An intense disorientation pulled at Tanis—far more than anything he’d experienced thus far. In that split-second before they traveled, Tanis felt as if the entire Pattern of the World surged through him. Felix’s hand remained firm around his arm, and in just a breath, the rushing sensation faded.

  Tanis blinked and looked around. They stood in a vast bedroom, elegantly appointed in colors of the sea. Heavy aqua silk draped the canopy bed dominating one wall. The chests and armoires shimmered with nacre, while the ornate molding of the walls drew the eye upwards towards a colorful painting on the ceiling depicting mermaids and nymphs at idle play.

  Felix was just standing there, looking very odd with the sack crammed over his head. Tanis got the idea from listening to his thoughts that he was waiting for someone to notice him. “Why are we—?”

  “Shhh!” Felix squeezed his arm to emphasize his warning.

  Far across the room, two sets of glass-paned doors stood open onto a wide balcony overlooking—thirteen hells, was that the city of Faroqhar? But to embrace such a view, they would have to be…

  “Princess?” Felix finally called in a tentative voice.

  Tanis stiffened. Princess? He looked around the room again, and his gaze tightened. As in the Princess Nadia van Gelderan? His thoughts darkened. As in—her bed chamber?

  Tanis felt her presence then, coming quickly from elsewhere in her apartments, and betrayal clenched around his chest. Hello, Nadia.

  He heard her mental gasp, felt her sudden confusion. Tanis? How…?

  He closed his mind to her with a snap.

  A second later she rushed into the room and came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes found Tanis first—excited, confused—and then Felix, who remained hooded beside him. “Felix!” Understanding resolved her thoughts.

  Felix pulled the hood from his head, already grinning, and bowed with an elaborate flourish. “Your Highness.”

  Tanis stood in a cloud of injured fury.

  Nadia shifted her gaze immediately back to him. Though he’d closed his mind to her, his thoughts were obvious on his face. Nadia’s expression turned stricken. “Tanis…”

  Feeling betrayal’s cold hand around his heart, Tanis turned with every intention of walking back across the node.

  “Tanis—stop! Please!” she held out a hand to him. “I know how this appears, but it’s…it’s not what you’re thinking.” Immediately she opened her mind to him, though he had closed his to her, and showed him the truth.

  Images tumbled forth: Felix appearing in her room one night, her surprise, his falling to his knees in contrition begging forgiveness, promising his service in return; how sudden curiosity had overshadowed propriety.

  Tanis felt the tension inside unclenching. He closed his eyes, exhaled a breath, opened his mind to her—to which she also exhaled in relief, both mentally and physically—and then opened his eyes again.

  She was staring at him with a hand over her heart, and her eyes and mind held such happiness to see him that he couldn’t help but return it in kind. His gaze softened. Nadia...

  Felix was staring at the both of them, turning his head from the princess to Tanis and back again. “Sancto Spirito, is one of you going to tell me what the bloody hells is going on?”

  Neither spoke for a moment as they held each other’s eyes, then Nadia’s brow lifted ever so faintly. “Tanis is courting me, Felix.”

  Felix’s eyes bulged. He turned and gaped at Tanis. Then his expression turned sooty, and he plugged a finger into Tanis’s chest. “Forthcoming much?”

  Tanis cracked a smile.

  Then Nadia’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you here? Don’t you know it’s Twelfth-day, Felix? What if one of my attendants had been in the room?”

  Felix grinned. “Then I would’ve vanished again as soon as she screamed.”

  Nadia arched a brow. “So you say. Or would you have begged her for your life like you begged me? Promised her your eternal troth?”

  “Only if she was attractive.” Felix nudged Tanis and flashed a grin. “She’s got to have nice teeth, you know.”

  Nadia seemed offended. “Are you saying you only pledged to serve me because of my teeth?”

  “Nay, princess. I pledged to serve Your Highness because you would’ve had me beheaded otherwise.”

  She put a hand on her hip and arched her brow higher. “So this pledge to me is just some backwards form of extortion?”

  “Maybe we should get to the reason we’ve come.” Tanis looked to the open door. “Are we safe speaking here, Nadia?”

  “Nadia?” Felix turned him a wide-eyed stare. “It’s Nadia already?”

  “It was that or endure her calling me Lord Adonnai.”

  Felix screwed up his face. “Calling you…what? Why would she call you that?”

  “We’re safe speaking here, Tanis.” Nadia turned to Felix looking imperious. “You might know all about him if you’d taken even a moment to talk to him, Felix.”

  Felix opened his mouth to pr
otest. Then he shut it again and glared at her instead. Then he gritted his teeth. “Before yesterday, princess, you’d never even met Tanis and now you’re practically betrothed?” He flipped his auburn hair from his eyes. “The way I see it, you should be thanking me.”

  Nadia crossed her arms and stared narrowly at him. “Thank you.”

  “Why should Nadia be thanking you, Felix?” Tanis asked.

  “I’m the one who sent her to find out if you were a spy.”

  “You sent me?” Nadia’s tone was dangerously cool. “I recall it was my idea—”

  “Your idea!”

  “—to see if Tanis was as suspicious as you claimed.”

  “I am terribly suspicious,” Tanis agreed.

  She shifted her gaze to him, looking surprised at his equanimity. “You knew?”

  “I knew you weren’t there because of the High Lord,” he said with a soft smile, “but I never suspected Felix.”

  “Well, now that’s all settled,” Felix grumbled, “we’ve got a lot to tell Your Highness.”

  Nadia’s gaze shifted back and forth between the both of them. “Come,” she said. “I was just sitting down to eat.” Then she aimed a forgiving smile at Felix and added, “And you look hungry.” She turned and led away into the other room.

  Felix and Tanis followed a few steps behind the princess. “So…you’ll be the new High Lord one day, eh?” Felix fixed Tanis with an uncompromising stare and a finger pointed at his nose. “Just so we’re clear, I fully expect a finder’s fee.”

  Forty-Eight

  “Dare every day to be irreverent and bold.”

  – The Adept wielder Arion Tavestra

  A quarter-passing of the hourglass saw Ean, Isabel and Sebastian reaching the isle of Ivarnen. An uneventful climb through the city’s dark, cobbled streets brought them within view of the fortress’s exterior portcullis, which remained open but heavily guarded.

  Sebastian turned to Isabel. “You’re ready with your illusion, my lady? I’ll need a cloak—a black cloak.”