“You’re not—”
“I am.”
“It wouldn’t make sense for you to stay,” I point out. “You can’t touch the wards and there’s no reason for both of us to risk our lives. Someone has to meet the phoenix.”
“I know the reasons.” His voice verges on a growl. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m breaking my word.”
I bite my lip to keep from arguing. He finally faces me, and in the failing light, I see the pain in his eyes. And I finally understand why he has helped me so much now; he still has not forgiven himself for my “death,” for the sacrifice I made to save him and the Ghost. Just as Alia has not forgiven herself. We are all carrying so much hurt.
I say the only thing I can think of. “I’m sorry.”
He snorts. “Even if it was your fault, I wouldn’t blame you.” He shakes his head, takes a step, and turns back to me. “Tomi?”
I nod, the nickname — so foreign, so completely right — settling into me.
“Get out alive.”
Once Kenta departs, I take the stairs down, coming to a stop at the first closed door — classroom or storage room, I can’t say. I slip a charm or three into the crack beneath the doors, turn tail, and leave, up the stairs and out of the building.
I spend the next hour closed up inside the servants’ washroom in the basement of the next building over. After changing into my old clothes and pulling on Stormwind’s mage robes, I sit on the floor and wait. From down here, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s happening in the rest of the Mekteb. I remain where I am until I hear a high wail that raises the hair on the back of my neck, making me cringe. It’s certainly not the sort of siren one could ignore.
I make my way upstairs as the wail repeats. Outside, the glowstones under the arcades and throughout the gardens have burst into sun-like brilliance, driving out every shadow. Against their brightness, the forms of the lycan guards — dozens of them — show clear and frightening. They move systematically and fast, small groups combing through the gardens while others search the surrounding buildings.
As I stand at the doorway, two mages race down the stairs, taking the hallway at a run.
“What’s going on?” I ask them, stepping back as they approach.
The foremost mage slows, assessing me with a quick, shrewd glance. “Who are you?”
“Journeyman Zainab Tanaka,” I say helpfully. It had seemed as good a name as any while I sat waiting in the washroom. “Is it the rogue mage again?”
“No,” the second mage says, glancing past me to the doors. “It’s Mage Stormwind.”
I blink at them. “What?”
“She escaped,” the first mage snaps, starting forward. “We haven’t time to talk. If you want to help, come along. You can at least be useful keeping the apprentices from leaving their buildings.”
I follow after them. “I’ve experience in tracking,” I say, having no intention whatsoever of getting shut up with a bunch of frightened children. I have work to do.
“We’ll see,” the mage says.
Outside, I trail after the mages as they move to intercept a team of lycans coming down the arcade. They call out a greeting, demanding information.
The lead lycan slows to speak with us, gesturing his men to continue on. “We’re expanding the search to the outer buildings. Join one of patrols. The mage may still be dangerous. If you catch up with her, call for reinforcements. Don’t attempt to engage her. We don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“She’s a high mage gone rogue,” retorts the first mage. “She’s capable of a great deal.”
“Only if she managed to break the binding spell holding her,” the lycan says. “There’s still a chance we will catch her on campus. If she makes it to the city, it will be … difficult.”
“How long has she been missing?” The first mage demands.
“Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. We need to move quickly to find her.”
The mages nod in agreement, and start forward once more. I follow them, parting ways with the guard and continuing around the corner of the building to the path there. At which point, I say, “I’m going to check for students here,” and duck into the side entrance of the next building—White Raven Hall.
The mages say something to my back, but I let the door close behind me without answer. The hallway lies empty. Good. I count to five hundred, then slip back out. The mages are long gone, the path between the buildings momentarily empty, the search already widening out, just as I’d hoped. I jog along the path, then turn up the back of the building, following the paths toward the back of Shahmaran Hall.
As I move, I catch glimpses of the boundary wall through the gaps in the next set of buildings. A reddish cloud rises above the walls, two or three times its height, so thick that it completely obscures the distant lantern- and glowstone-lit buildings. In actual depth it might be no more than a pace or two across, but from here it appears impenetrable. Without reaching out with my mage senses to assess it, I can’t know its exact nature. I would guess it was originally designed to keep the campus safe from outsiders, rather than to keep people in. I wonder if the mages involved have adjusted it, or if raising it was merely a visible way of alerting the campus and city. Either way, I won’t be climbing any walls to get out.
As I near Shahmaran Hall, I cut across the flower beds and paths, headed for the window I separated from the building’s magical defenses. With the glowstones shining brighter than lanterns, the bushes below the window offer scant cover. Not good.
Another search party composed of two mages and two lycans rounds the far corner of the building as I stand before the windows. On impulse, I raise a hand, drawing their attention. The lycans break into a sprint, the mages hurrying after them.
“I don’t know if it means anything,” I tell them as they reach me, gesturing toward the window. “I was assessing the spells on the building — I couldn’t understand how she got out.”
The elder mage, a stocky middle-aged man, wheezes up to us, clearly displeased at having to run after the guards. “Who are you?” he demands. “Why are you here alone?”
“Journeyman Zainab Tanaka,” I say easily. “And I’m searching for the prisoner, or an explanation, or both.” He blinks, taken aback. It’s amazing what a name and an attitude of entitlement does to make a person appear legitimate.
The lead lycan takes a step forward. “You’ve found something?”
“This window,” I gesture at it again. “The spells have been tampered with. If someone opened this window after the alarm was raised, it wouldn’t matter. It’s been … cut off, for lack of a better word.”
The mages exchange a single, horrified glance and step closer to the window. The second lycan follows them, no doubt to check for a scent. I turn to the first lycan who remains by me. “I’ve never heard of anything, but is there a magic that can hide or change a person’s scent?”
“We didn’t think so,” he replies darkly.
“You don’t scent her out here?”
He shakes his head. “We’ve already searched the building for her scent, and done a round out here. Nothing.”
“I’d like to go inside, look at the windows from there, maybe take a look at her cell.”
The lycan turns his full gaze on me. I wait, trusting the fact that I’ve shown them something they missed. He’ll humor me, I expect, because they’re already grasping at straws.
“You think you’ll find something?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. But I’d like to look.”
“Bekir,” the lycan barks to the second guard. “I’ll escort this mage around front, then rejoin you.” He jerks his head at the muttering mages, one of whom lifts a hand to assess the window. “See what they say.”
The second mage, a short man with a graying beard, shoots us an annoyed look. “You expect a journeyman to find more?”
The lycan raises his brows. “She’s found more than anyone else, hasn’t she? Or has the spell not
been tampered with?”
“It’s changed,” the stocky mage says heavily. “But I don’t know that girl and neither do you. And she’s only a journeyman. If there’s more to be found, you’ll need a mage. We’re coming with you.”
The lycan shrugs and turns on his heel, striding back the way they came. I have to trot to keep up. The mages mutter with irritation as they hurry after us, Bekir bringing up the rear. We continue around to the front of the building, passing under the arcade to the main doors guarded by four lycans and two more mages.
“Kemal.” A lycan guard raises a hand in greeting.
With a sharp gesture toward me, my escort says, “She found a flaw in the protective spells on the building. She and the mages want to assess the building’s spells from the inside.”
One of the mages on guard at the door frowns at me. “What difference does it make? Stormwind’s already escaped.”
I fix him with a cold look. “We need to know if anyone is helping her. If we can learn how she escaped, we may have a better idea of how to search for her.”
The stocky mage pushes past me. “As a high mage, I have every right to enter this building if I think it will forward the search.”
The mage on guard draws himself up. “And what do you think you’ll find? We’ve already been through the building twice.”
“Yet you missed the window that was no longer connected to the ward spells encircling this building. We are looking for subtle magic here, things that might be overlooked.” The stocky mage all but sneers at the guard mage.
“Fine,” he capitulates, glowering. And then, to the lycans by his side. “Let them in.”
One of the guards takes a key from his belt and unlocks the door. I sense a ripple in the wards around the building — the key is spelled to work with the defenses, allowing its holder to pass through without trouble. Now that’s a key I could’ve used.
When we step inside Shahmaran Hall, the mages hesitate, unsure which way to go. The lycans who brought us in, Kemal and Bekir, watch them in silence.
“The window will be this way,” I say, stepping forward. The halls are brightly lit, eerily silent. The noise of our passing fills my ears. I lead them down the hall, pausing at the door before the one I want. I can feel the lycans’ gaze on my back, measuring my actions. I peek in, then shake my head and continue on to the next one. Stepping in, I move quickly across the room and press my hand against the window, my robe brushing over the sill.
“Move back, journeyman,” the stocky mage blusters. “Allow a full mage to assess that, if you please.”
I step back with a stiff nod, glowering at the ground. But I’ve accomplished what I’ve needed to. Any moment now, the lycans will realize they need to search for scents here. They won’t be surprised to find mine, the fresh covering the old.
I move to stand by the lycans. “Was there anything unusual about the escape?”
Kemal presses his lips together, shakes his head. “We cannot figure out how she got past us, but she wasn’t there when we went to retrieve her dinner tray.”
“It looks like she might have climbed out here, perhaps even before the alarm was raised. I can’t say how she got past the guards. Or how she masked her scent.” I pause thoughtfully, keep my voice low as I go on. “I’d like to see the room where you were holding her, check if there’s anything there that’s been tampered with, or any sign of spells.”
Kemal exchanges a glance with Bekir, then nods. I return my focus to the mages, wondering what else they hope to find on this side of the window that they didn’t see from the other side. After another minute or so, they complete their assessment.
“This should be reported to First Mage Talon,” the stocky mage says.
The lycans dip their heads.
I lower my gaze to the floor, trying to look bored as my thoughts race. I don’t want any more mages in Shahmaran Hall than are already here. Nor do I want anyone else to focus their attention here before I’ve gotten Stormwind out.
“Will you want to send a messenger?” Kemal asks.
The stocky mage eyes him with disdain. “Hardly. She will want a full explanation of what has been done. I will go to her myself.”
“I’ll remain behind to fix this,” the gray-bearded mage says, gesturing to the window.
“Bekir will escort you,” Kemal says, nodding to the stocky mage. “I’ll stay here with the other two.”
The stocky mage slides me a glance. He expects me to argue, because I was the one who “found” the flaw. I frown at him. “But—”
“That will do nicely,” he interrupts. With a dismissive nod, he strides from the room, Bekir following after him.
“You can reseal this window?” Kemal asks the gray-bearded mage.
“Of course I can.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to keep it as it is, and post a guard here, until it can be assessed by the First Mage? She might be curious to see it herself.”
Graybeard hesitates, clearly torn between what he’d promised the stocky mage, and Kemal’s practicality. “I said that I would.”
“Perhaps,” Kemal says, with fraying patience, “it would behoove us all if you took another look at the prisoner’s cell, now that we have some idea what she might have done.”
“Ah, yes. That would be wise,” Graybeard says, then draws himself up. “If you would lead the way.”
Kemal tilts his head. “First, allow me to fetch a guard for the window.”
Graybeard frowns. “Of course.”
With a slight bow that strikes me as sarcastic, Kemal departs.
I wander to another window, scanning the grounds. A patrol hurryies past a building across the way, and that is all. The remaining patrols have moved farther out. Smoke still hangs in the air over the far walls, outlining the tops of the surrounding buildings. Scarlet flares rise up, hanging in the sky above in crimson streaks before gradually dissipating. I squint, trying to make out a shadow passing above them.
“What is that?” I point as the shadow comes into focus. A great creature with a long, barbed tail and huge leather wings flies above the walls, swinging its head slowly back and forth as it scans the ground. Oh God, I hope I’m hallucinating. Getting past a dragon — I can’t quite imagine how we’ll do that.
“Oh, that’s Jabir, the Mekteb’s Guardian. Didn’t you know?”
I shake my head numbly, remembering Rehan happily explaining if he ever has to defend the Mekteb, he’s a force to be reckoned with. She hadn’t been jesting.
The dragon disappears beyond my view.
Jabir promised to look the other way, I remind myself. Only now do I realize what a great favor that is.
Kemal returns with a pair of lycan guards and the mage from the front door, who finds it impossible to believe that we might detect anything unknown in Stormwind’s cell.
“We’re just taking a look,” Graybeard says, peeved. “Why don’t you see if there’s anything else about the window we’ve missed?”
The guard mage gives him a haughty glance and stalks over to the window. Kemal gestures for us to follow and leads us down the stairs and around the corner to the short hall with its final stairwell. He raises his hand in greeting to the two lycans still posted at the head of the stairs.
Over their velvet and leather armor, they wear an array of weapons — swords sheathed in curving scabbards, twin sets of long-bladed daggers. The one on the right even has a small crossbow attached to his belt. At least neither one is the lycan who made the boys apologize to me in the gardens. Meeting him here, when I’m dressed as a mage rather than a servant would necessitate drastic measures. Measures I’m not sure I’m willing to take.
The lycans look to Kemal as we near them.
“We’ve discovered a flaw in the building’s protections, a window that would have let the prisoner out even if the spells on the building were already triggered. We’d like to double check the protections on the holding cell.”
“Go ahead,” the one of them s
ays, waving us down.
There are more shadows in the subterranean hall below than I expected, perhaps due to the lack of glowstones. There’s a single sconce built into the wall, and a glowstone-lit lantern on the ground. The hall itself has four doors. The first stands open, and a quick glimpse shows it to be a guard room.
Kemal leads us to the door beside the lantern. It’s built of thick wood, reinforced with iron bands.
“Let’s see, then,” Graybeard says, pulling the door open and stepping inside. Kemal glances at me, then follows after. I stand to the side, careful to leave plenty of space for a person to pass through, and study the door.
A single touch lights its sigil to my mage’s senses. It glows a soft blue, a series of paintbrush-like strokes and curves overlaying each other, all overwriting the name “Stormwind.” I frown, studying the sigil itself, not sure I recognize it. If I had finished my studies, if I weren’t somewhere between apprentice and journeyman, I would probably know it. But common sense tells me that the sigil is designed to stop Stormwind herself from opening the door. It would still allow a lycan guard to deliver a meal without requiring the aid of a mage. With the sigil on the door, Stormwind wouldn’t have been able to pass through even if she was still within.
But the strangest thing about these spells, the sigil that anchors them, is that they open with the door. Now, with the door wide open while Graybeard inspects the inside of the cell, a pathway has been created through the sigil’s enchantment. The strands of magic reaching from the door to the other sigils impressed on the walls within create a tunnel of sorts. It’s about as likely to keep her from escaping as giving the cat’s head key to a servant would have kept it from being discovered. Which is to say, not at all.
I study the sigil a moment longer, but as far as I can tell, opening the door from the outside was all that needed to be done. Poor Kenta. He really could have done this himself.
“Do you see something?” Kemal asks softly. He stands just inside, back against the cell wall, where he can keep an eye on me and the other mage, who is currently poking at Stormwind’s discarded shackle.
Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) Page 22
