The Thorn of Dentonhill

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “At least, if not more,” Alimen said pointedly.

  “Then, forgive my impertinence, but . . . why are you here, Mister Harleydale?”

  “Light and Stone want to know who to have their eye on early. Like the Blue Hand Circle, we are small, and we are not in a position to place potential students in the Universities with a pledge for later induction. We are not a moneyed Circle like Lord Preston’s.” He gave a knowing smile to Alimen.

  “We invest in the future, old friend,” Alimen said, smiling back.

  “Would that we could as well, Gollic,” Harleydale said. That was the first time Veranix had heard anyone use Professor Alimen’s given name. “Please, continue with your lesson as if I were not here.”

  “As you wish,” Veranix said. “Vase Exercise then, sir? That is one of my weak points.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Mister Calbert, so we’ll start there,” Alimen said. “But you do need to work even more on sharpening your numinic senses. I wasn’t kidding about that.”

  “Isn’t that why you’ve paired me up with Delmin?”

  “Indeed.” Alimen went over to a shelf of glassware and took down a crystal vase, placing it on a stone pedestal in the center of the room. “I mentioned Mister Sarren to you, didn’t I, Wells? Very gifted with his numinic senses.”

  “I don’t need trackers, Gollic.”

  So Alimen was specifically keeping Delmin away from the Blue Hand.

  “As you wish. Get in place, Mister Calbert.”

  “All right,” Veranix said. He stood next to the pedestal. The exercise was simple in concept. Alimen would try and destroy the vase. Veranix had to keep it safe. How he did that was up to him.

  “We’ll begin now,” Alimen said. Veranix pulled numina into himself, ready to react when Alimen struck.

  The vase shattered next to him.

  “I forgot to mention, Mister Calbert. You’ll need to protect it from Mister Harleydale as well as me. Now repair the vase.”

  The midday sun was painfully bright as Veranix made his way to the Rose & Bush. The past two nights, followed by the relentless pounding from Alimen and Harleydale, had left him feeling dazed. He was so out of sorts he was completely taken by surprise when two hands pulled him off the road and into an alley. Veranix was about to react with a hard blast of magic when he recognized Colin.

  “I’m rustling a Uni boy for a few coins,” Colin hissed. “Play along. What did you do?”

  “Please, no,” Veranix said out loud. He then whispered to Colin, “I hit Fenmere’s exchange at the docks. Why aren’t we meeting at the Rose & Bush?”

  “Because whatever you did was huge, and I needed to actually talk to you. Was it effitte?”

  “No,” Veranix said. Despite his success last night, he remained disappointed that he didn’t hurt Fenmere’s effitte trade. “Something else. Big. Forty thousand crowns big.”

  “What?” Colin almost shouted. He quickly covered with, “Uni boy only has a few ticks on him?”

  “This is risky,” Veranix whispered. “I didn’t think street captains did their own rustling.”

  “I know,” Colin said. He pushed Veranix against the brick wall roughly. “I told my boys I needed some practice. Fenmere has had goons shaking people down all over. Mostly Inemar, but he’s not respecting anyone’s territory right now. For forty thousand I see why.”

  “Don’t hurt me,” Veranix said, faking tears as he fumbled in his pockets. He whispered under his sobs, “It wasn’t a normal deal. He was buying a cloak and a rope.”

  “For forty thousand? That’s ridiculous.”

  “I know. I can’t figure it out.”

  “Take a few nights to figure it out. Maybe a month. Long enough for Fenmere to forget about the ‘thorn’ he’s asking about.”

  “What’s he asking?”

  “Someone with a bow, with a staff. Maybe a mage. Maybe an acrobat. And definitely interested in effitte sales.”

  “So he’s asking the right questions, then.”

  “Questions that might lead him to put pieces together.”

  “He won’t figure out who I am.”

  “But he may figure out where you’re tied to, cousin. He didn’t forget your father for twenty years. He won’t forget now.”

  “I don’t want him to forget.”

  Colin answered by punching him in the face, a little too hard for it to be just for show. Veranix grabbed Colin’s vest, about to strike back.

  “Don’t, cousin,” Colin whispered. “Fenmere has loyal eyes here.”

  Veranix let himself drop down to his knees, burying his instinct to knock Colin on his back. “And the Lower Trenn Ward, you keep telling me.”

  “Especially there.” Colin glanced out to the street, and then pulled Veranix up by the front of his coat. “I made a promise to your father I’d keep you safe. Even from yourself.”

  “I didn’t ask—” Veranix said, getting another punch from Colin in response. This one he did hold back on.

  “Don’t even say that. Your father made a choice, so you could be in there, on the green side of that wall, hear? You respect that. So lay low.”

  “Fine,” Veranix said. “A few nights.” He threw a handful of copper coins on the ground. Colin scooped them up.

  “That’s real smart, Uni boy,” Colin said as he slinked into the shadows. “You just stay smart.”

  Chapter 8

  “HE’S RIGHT, you know,” Kaiana said. She dabbed a foul-smelling paste on the bruise on Veranix’s face. They were in a dark corner of the carriage house, out of sight if anyone came in. “You gave Fenmere a deep, solid cut already. Let it lie.”

  “Let it lie?” Veranix asked. “So he can lick his wounds?”

  “So he’s not expecting you!” Kaiana said. Her dark, angular eyes were intent on him. “Surprise is your best weapon against him.”

  “But it’s not enough!” Veranix said. “It’s only for Colin’s sake that I don’t kick Fenmere’s front door down.”

  Kaiana laughed, but stopped when Veranix glared at her. “You’d just get yourself killed doing that. Better to strike at the effitte and his dealers. That hurts him plenty.”

  “It hurts his purse, but that means he’ll probably sell more effitte to make it up!” Veranix was sure Kaiana, of all people, would see that.

  “You’ve hurt him, and he wants to hurt you back, it sounds.”

  “Let him try,” Veranix said. “There’s no one else he can hurt.”

  “Really?” Kaiana said coldly. She picked up her mortar and pestle and got up.

  Veranix had stepped in it. The last thing he wanted was for Kaiana to think he didn’t care about what happened to her. “Kaiana, I didn’t mean that, I meant . . .”

  “I know what you meant,” she said. “I have work to get to, or Jolen will sack me. You have just enough time to make it to the dining hall before lunch ends.”

  “Right.” He went to the door of the carriage house, and stopped. He didn’t want to leave her on such a poor note. Feebly he said, “Thanks. For the bruise.”

  “Right.” She put her things away in a cabinet, not looking back at him. “Please, Veranix, just . . . be careful, all right?”

  “All right. A few nights of studying and decent sleep will do me some good.”

  Lunch was still going on, though the crowd had thinned to a handful of stragglers, none of whom Veranix recognized. The food remaining was equally meager—only dark bread and beet stew. Veranix was hungry enough to not care; he filled a bowl and went to the closest table, near a group with blue and white scarves. Philosophy students, deep in argument.

  One of them tapped hard on a newssheet. “Pointless vote! Parliament doesn’t have the authority to enforce it, regardless of the outcome.”

  “That’s not the point,” another said. “The point isn’t
about whether they can make the king remarry.”

  “The whole thing is a head count! It’s testing the waters of where members of Parliament stand.” The first one picked up the newssheet and shook it violently before throwing it down on the table, where it slid near Veranix.

  Veranix rarely read the sheets—newsboys would scream out the headlines, so he heard enough of what he wanted to know—but one thing caught his eye. Two priests found dead in Saint Polmeta’s church. Wasn’t that the church he had stopped at last night? He couldn’t remember.

  “Hey, mage kish!”

  He kept his attention on the sheet. Saint Polmeta’s was in Dentonhill. Two priests had been murdered, in a gruesome manner. The article spent far too much time on the sanguine details.

  “Mage kish!” the philosophy student said. “Get your own blazing newssheet!”

  “Sorry,” Veranix said, sliding it back down to them. “Did you see that about the priests?”

  “Dentonhill murders?” The other one shook his head. “There’s always at least one in any sheet.”

  “Two priests is a slow night over there,” the first said.

  “Right,” Veranix said. He turned back to his stew, tuning out the rest of their conversation about the impotency of the Druth throne in the modern age.

  Each bite gnawed at his gut. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Saint Polmeta’s was the church he’d stopped at, and he couldn’t convince himself that was a coincidence.

  By sunset, Veranix was lighting oil lamps in his room, determined to focus on reading Benton’s Theories on Magic and Numina for a few hours before falling asleep. Two pages into the chapter on the mystical properties of various gemstones, and his head was already swimming.

  “Finally cracking that open?” Delmin asked as he came into the room.

  “Funny,” Veranix said. “I don’t know why I even need to know this stuff. I mean, I don’t need it to actually do magic.”

  “You do to understand what you’re doing.”

  “I understand it fine,” Veranix said. “Blazes, Alimen is telling people I’m the best practical student he has.”

  “Is he?” Delmin asked. His voice cracked slightly.

  “He’s talking about you as well,” Veranix said quickly. “Right in front of me, he told another mage you were the most gifted he had for using your numinic senses.”

  “But he called you his best practical student?”

  “Don’t worry, he knows my theory is awful. I mean, right here. Numinic conductivity of gemstones. How am I supposed to remember which stones are the most conductive, and why does it matter?”

  “Robins sing daily to every open person,” Delmin said in complete seriousness. There was no indication on his face that he thought the string of nonsense he just said was anything but a rational response to Veranix’s question.

  “Are you drunk or something?” Veranix asked.

  “No, that’s how you remember the list of the most conductive, in order,” Delmin said. “Rubies, sapphires, diamonds, topazes, emeralds, opals, pearls.”

  “Right, I’m not going to remember either one.” Veranix had an idea. “What about cloth?”

  “What about it?” Delmin asked.

  “Well, is there any kind of cloth that has a high conductivity of numina?”

  Delmin sat on his bed and thought it over. “Not that I can think of. I mean, maybe individual strains of cotton or flax might grow that have some affinity for numina, but I can’t imagine you would be able to cultivate enough to make anything that would be worth the trouble. Some woods, yes, but most of those trees are slow-growing ones that—”

  “Fine, fine,” Veranix said. He searched for his place on the page. “Forget I asked.”

  “Besides, you really should be studying mystical metals. Dalmatium, napranium, everything else you slept through yesterday.”

  “I didn’t sleep through dalmatium,” Veranix said. “I remember that all too well.”

  “Well, napranium was actually more interesting—” Delmin started. He was interrupted by a pounding, desperate knock on the door. Veranix opened it. Eittle was standing there, looking wild-eyed and pale.

  “Something’s wrong with Parsons,” he said urgently. “You’ve got to help me.” Veranix was already in the hallway, running to the room Eittle shared with Parsons.

  Parsons was on the floor, his body in convulsions. White foam formed around his mouth. His eyes were wide open, bloodshot, and staring blankly.

  “Get a prefect!” Veranix screamed to no one. He got on top of Parsons, pinning his arms down on the floor. Delmin came in and stopped dead, stunned by what was happening.

  “He sick or something?” Delmin asked. “Call for a Yellowshield!” Parsons’s legs thrashed out violently.

  “No time! Hold his feet down before he brains me!” Veranix yelled. Delmin dropped and held Parsons down.

  “What the blazes happened?” someone asked from the door. A small crowd had gathered, with Rellings in the front. He looked around at everyone, his eyes blaming. Eittle was almost cowering to the side.

  “He was talking to me, and then he started acting silly.”

  “Silly?” Veranix asked, still struggling to hold Parsons. “How do you mean silly?”

  “Like, he was talking, and then he started giggling. I mean, like a little girl, he was giggling. Then laughing like crazy.”

  “Laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe?” Veranix asked. “And then the fit started?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Blast,” Veranix swore. Not here. Not on campus. Not on his own floor. He bent over Parsons’s face and smelled his breath. There it was—a bitter scent with a hint of lavender. No doubt. He smashed his fist futilely on the floor.

  “What?” Rellings demanded, looming over them. “What is it, Calbert?”

  “Hold him down, Eittle,” Veranix said, getting up as Eittle came down. He went over to Parsons’s desk, looking through the drawers. “I’ll tell you what, Rellings. Something you should be far more concerned with than bed checks and bullying. Effitte.”

  “Effitte?” Delmin asked, shocked.

  “He didn’t take effitte,” Rellings scoffed.

  Veranix dug through Parsons’s drawers and found a small vial, buried under several pairs of pants. He held it up to the lamplight. Sure enough, there was the residue of a thick, purple liquid.

  “Right here, Rellings.”

  “That—that’s crazy.” Rellings said. “He’ll be expelled.”

  “If he’s lucky, he’ll even be aware of that,” Veranix said.

  “What’s effitte?” Eittle asked.

  “Nasty stuff,” Delmin said. “Makes you happy and energetic, but too much makes you crazy, destroys your brain.”

  “Only street trash take effitte,” Rellings protested. “Where did he get it?”

  “I don’t know,” Eittle said. “Just before dinner, I saw him over at the east gate, talking to some . . . I don’t know. He looked unsavory, but Parsons said he was an old friend.”

  “East gate, by Waterpath?” Veranix asked. His blood boiled. “The Dentonhill side?” Fenmere’s sellers were coming onto the campus. They were poisoning his friends. That wouldn’t stand.

  “All trash in Dentonhill,” Rellings muttered. “Parsons wasn’t like—sweet saints, Calbert!”

  The vial shattered in Veranix’s hand. He realized he’d channeled loose magic into his hand, hot, angry, messy. He threw the shards on the ground, shaking off the pain. Realizing there might be drops of effitte on his hand, he focused that magic, burning it all away before it could seep into his skin. The last thing he ever wanted was to come in contact with the stuff.

  “That was evidence, Calbert!”

  “You’ve got all the evidence you need right there!” Veranix shot back, poin
ting at Parsons. Parsons stopped convulsing, and lay still, his breath shallow.

  Rellings ground his teeth, glancing at the assembled crowd outside the door. “Right, then. Moment has passed, everyone. I’ll send word to the deans in the morning.”

  “He needs a doctor,” Veranix said. “Delmin and I will go fetch one.”

  “You’ll do what, Calbert?” Rellings asked. He raised his back up, clearly trying to intimidate Veranix.

  Veranix wasn’t even fazed. “We’ll get help. Step aside.”

  “You forget who is the kish and who is the prefect, Calbert.”

  “Not at all,” Veranix said. Rellings wasn’t going to get in his way. Not tonight. Not after this. “It’s the prefect who should stay and try to keep things calm here.” He pushed past Rellings and went straight to the stairwell, Delmin running close behind him.

  “Is your hand all right?” Delmin asked.

  “It’s fine,” Veranix said as they went down the stairs. “Just pain. It’ll pass.”

  As soon as they were outside Almers, Veranix stopped in the middle of the lawn.

  “All right, Del, go for the doctor. I’ll be back late. Cover for me.”

  “Cover for— Veranix! What the blazes are you going to do?”

  “Just . . . just say we went looking for different doctors or got separated or something. I have to take care of this.” He headed toward the carriage house.

  “Take care of what?” Delmin asked.

  “That!” Veranix pointed up toward the building, up where Parsons had probably already lost any chance of speaking an intelligible sentence, let alone finishing school. “Not another drop on campus.”

  “Veranix,” Delmin called. “It hasn’t been the dark girl every night, has it?”

  “Better you don’t know,” Veranix said.

  “Parsons is already ruined, Vee,” Delmin said. “Don’t you throw away your future as well. Whatever you’re going to do—”