This had to be a joke, she thought. Someone threw up in the bushes, or a student passed out, or some other absurdity.
“All right,” she said. “What is it?”
“Right here,” Lash said, pointing to the ground at his feet. “These.”
Kaiana crouched down, keeping her eye on him. She wouldn’t put it past him to do something crude. As soon as she got down all the way, she looked at where he had pointed.
Even in the moonlit night, it was clear what she was looking at. Three glass vials.
She grabbed one and stood up, holding it up to the light of the moon to get a better look at it. A thin film of fluid lined the inside of it.
Effitte. Here on the campus.
She crouched down and grabbed the other two vials. “Thank you, this is very important, indeed. I appreciate you bringing it to my attention.”
“You do?” Rennie asked. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Yes. In fact, if any more of these are found, I want to know about it immediately. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Miss Nell,” Ebbily said.
“Well, sure,” Lash said. “We’ll let you know. You going to stop it, Miss Nell?”
“Maybe she’s the Thorn,” Rennie said, laughing.
“That true, Miss Nell?” Lash added. “You been out there, killing gang boys?”
“Pardon?” Kaiana asked. That was unexpected.
“You didn’t hear about that?” Lash asked. “Yeah, everyone was talking about it. The Thorn killed some gang boy, and the sticks are going All-Eyes on him.”
“When?” Kaiana asked, not bothering to hide her interest. “This was tonight?”
“Why do you care?” Rennie asked.
“Because I like to pay attention to what’s going on, Rennie,” she said. “That’s how you stop trouble before it happens. Now you must excuse me.”
Holding back her anger, she walked as quickly as she could until she was confident she was out of their sight, and then broke into a run around the Haveldale Center to the service entrance. Veranix should be done with the performance by now. He needed to know about the effitte, and she needed to know who he killed and why.
The performance had ended by the time Kaiana reached the backstage area. Veranix was engaged in animated conversation with no fewer than four members of the Ovation Squad, who all fawned over every word he said. Delmin hung about a few feet away, clearly intimidated by everything around him. He spotted Kaiana and came straight over.
“Did you see it?” he asked.
“A bit,” Kaiana said. Seeing his face drop, she added, “What I saw, you did wonderfully. I got pulled away. The usual game.”
He nodded. “Sorry about that.”
“This time it actually was important.” She glanced back over to Veranix. She was not catching his eye, which she could understand, him being engulfed by Ovation like that. All four of them, traditional Druth beauties, with fair skin and light brown or honey blonde hair. Kaiana would have stuck out standing with them, with her tawny complexion and dark black hair.
Not that Veranix really cared about things like that. He just loved an audience, no matter who it was.
She gave a sharp whistle, and he immediately took notice. With a polite word, he extracted himself from the quartet and came over.
“Did you see it?”
“You were fine,” Kaiana said. “We have a situation.”
He nodded and kept walking, until the three of them were out of eavesdropping distance from the rest of folk backstage.
“What’s up?”
“Two things,” she said. She opened her hand to show him the vials. “These were found on campus.”
His eyes hardened, and for a moment his entire appearance seemed to ripple. “When?”
“Just now,” she said. “There’s more, though. You’re going to have to be careful—”
“I’m always careful, Kai . . .”
She declined to remind him of the incident two months ago where she had to rescue him from Cuse’s device.
“Apparently the Aventil Constabulary has called an All-Eyes out for you tonight.”
“They have?” A look crossed his face that seemed both perplexed and proud. “I wonder what that’s about.”
“I hear it’s about the person they think you killed.”
Now his face was just confusion. After a moment of stammering, he finally said, “Tonight?”
Delmin looked uncomfortable. “You were just out there, Vee. I mean, maybe someone—”
“No, that’s not right,” Veranix said. “I didn’t kill—I didn’t even fight—anyone out there tonight. Blazes, I wasn’t even in Aventil.”
He looked back and forth at Kai and Delmin, as if he needed to find reassurance from the both of them.
“I swear, whatever it is that happened . . . it wasn’t me.”
Chapter 2
VERANIX RAN THROUGH the events of the evening in his head as he stalked through the campus walkways, Delmin and Kaiana right on his heels. The whole thing didn’t make any damn sense.
“But if—” Delmin started to say for the fifth time.
“Not here,” Veranix hissed. The campus was far too crowded—as crowded as he had ever seen it. All year long everyone had been talking about the Grand Tournament of the High Colleges, but he had never really conceived of how big and encompassing the whole thing would be. He could barely walk from Haveldale Center to Almers or the carriage house without bumping into a few dozen other people.
It occurred to him, with the cloak on, if he bumped into another mage or magic student, it could be very problematic. He was still focused on the illusion of his school uniform, but that wouldn’t withstand the scrutiny of direct contact.
As they crossed out to the south lawn, it became clear that the crowds would make things more difficult. It was filled with people, wearing the uniforms of twenty-four different schools, all standing about, shouting, dancing to the music from the band that had spontaneously formed on the lawn.
“Blazes,” Kaiana muttered from behind him.
“Right,” Veranix said. “We go into the carriage house, it’s going to get noticed.”
“I was thinking about the lawn,” Kaiana said. “It’s going to take all autumn to recover, and only then if we get some decent rain.”
“Come on,” Veranix said, leading them into Holtman Hall.
“Am I allowed to go in there?” Kaiana asked.
“Probably,” Veranix said. Holtman was the services center for this cluster of boys’ dorms—kitchens and dining halls, laundry, custodial, maintenance. As it was part of the boys’ dorms, female students were forbidden from entering—Jiarna Kay caused a stir when she followed them in last semester—but since female staff ran most of the things in Holtman, Kaiana surely could enter without trouble. Surely. Especially given her new position.
“So why are we going in here?”
“Did you never follow the Spinner Run to the end?” Veranix asked.
“Oh, right,” she said, glancing around the hallway. Holtman was quiet and relatively deserted right now. Probably was only unlocked because the housing staff was just now having supper. A bit of conversation and activity could be heard over in the dining hall.
“This way,” Veranix said, leading them to the storage room where the Spinner Run started. It was little more than a large closet, where the housing staff stored mops, buckets, barrels of vinegar, and whatever else they used to clean. It was almost always locked, but Veranix had long since mastered flipping the latch with a wisp of magic. The trapdoor down to the run was in the back corner, virtually unnoticeable if you didn’t know it was there. Veranix only knew it was there because the other end was in the carriage house, and he had first come through from there. There wasn’t even a way to open it on this end—it was clear the original
use was to get from the carriage house to here without being seen.
He had always wondered about its history—why was a tunnel built from Holtman to the carriage house, why was it forgotten about, and why was it called the Spinner Run? He only knew that because of the brass plaque at the bottom of the ladder, which just added to its mystery.
Delmin stopped in the storage room. “Is this private enough?”
“It could be,” Veranix said. “But if someone happens to come in, there’s going to be questions about what the blazes we’re doing here.”
Delmin glanced back at the door. “True. Did Professor Alimen ever do any masking work with you?”
“Masking?”
“Yeah, you create something like a wall between us and the door, so someone looks in, they see an empty room, don’t hear anything.”
“No, never,” Veranix said. That did sound like a practical thing to learn how to do, though he wasn’t sure how to do it. It wouldn’t be too different from the shrouding and appearance changes he did with the cloak’s help.
“The professor probably presumed he didn’t need to encourage Veranix to be more secretive,” Kaiana said. “Let’s move on. We’ll definitely have the carriage house to ourselves.”
Veranix magicked open the trapdoor and went down the ladder, conjuring up a floating ball of light for them to see by. Kaiana and Delmin came down behind him.
“You really come down here?” Delmin asked.
“It’s been useful,” Veranix said. He sometimes thought that he—or Kaiana—should make some effort to clean up the tunnel. At least clear out the cobwebs. But there was something to its mystique as a true secret passage that he loved. “It certainly has been a good place to hide my gear.”
“This is true,” Kaiana said. “Though having a special tunnel that leads right to where I would sleep never gave me much comfort.”
As they reached the other end of the tunnel, Veranix wondered who, if anyone, might have lived in the carriage house decades ago, and if “spinner” meant something in those days that was long forgotten.
Best not to think about it.
He climbed up the ladder into the carriage house, and immediately found that they weren’t going to be alone in there. Two voices cried out, followed by the sound of scrambling bodies. By the time Veranix was out of the trapdoor, he could clearly see who was in the carriage house, as Phadre Golmin was brushing dirt off his coat and slacks, while Jiarna Kay had her back to them both, fastening up her blouse.
“Evening,” he said dryly. “I take it you two didn’t come to the opening ceremonies.”
“Veranix,” Phadre said, flushed and out of breath. “Capital to see you here, old sport. Wasn’t expecting . . .”
“Anyone?”
“No,” Jiarna said, turning around to face them.
“Oh, Saint Hespin,” Kaiana said, coming up the ladder. “You two do know I still live here, don’t you?”
“I thought you had moved into the staff apartments,” Jiarna said. “Aren’t you entitled to that?”
“Mine aren’t going to be ready until the fall,” Kaiana said. “That’s what I’m told.” Many of the detail perks of Kai’s promotion had been delayed. Though Veranix did wonder what he was going to do when the carriage house was no longer Kaiana’s space.
“Sorry,” Jiarna said.
“Where are you staying right now?” Delmin had come out of the trapdoor. “I know you were using the extension provision after getting your letters, but didn’t the Tournament kick you out of the dorms?”
“Yes,” they both said in unison.
“We had to be out of our rooms by today,” Phadre said. “But our residencies at Trenn College don’t start until the first of Oscan.”
“And the caravan we’re taking to Yin Mara isn’t until the twenty-second of Soran,” Jiarna added. “Meaning we have over two weeks with no place to live.”
“One week, really,” Phadre said. “We can rent rooms in Aventil, but not during the Tournament. Nothing around.”
“Obviously,” Veranix said. “Sorry about that.”
“So what’s up, chaps?” Phadre asked. “You all here on some Thorn business, then?”
Veranix felt his throat tighten for a moment. When he could find his voice, he glared at Jiarna. “You told him?”
“I told him,” she said shamelessly. “You can trust him.”
“Yes,” Phadre said excitedly. “I mean, I was a bit skeptical with it all at first, but Jiarna reminded me of the business with that Jensett fellow, and what you were doing to stop him, and I remembered the incident at the dinner. And the dining hall. And . . .”
“Thank you, Phadre,” Veranix said.
“I will say, it certainly made the events around my defense make much more sense.”
“All right,” Veranix said. No need to be coy or circumspect. “So, Kai. You found vials?”
She reached into her pouch and pulled them out, handing them over. “Three of them, right by Haveldale Center.”
Veranix held one of them up to the lamplight. Thin residue. Had to be effitte.
“What’s this, then?” Phadre asked.
“Drugs on campus,” Kaiana said. “Effitte, specifically. Which is coming in over from Dentonhill.”
“Presumably,” Delmin said. “We presume it’s coming in from Dentonhill.”
That got Veranix’s blood boiling. “Oh, come on, Del, where else would it come from?”
“It probably is from there,” Delmin said. He then looked at Jiarna and Phadre, “You know he mainly had a thing with stopping the drugs and the drug lord out of Dentonhill. Fenley.”
“Fenmere,” Veranix growled.
“Right, yes,” Phadre said. He reached out for the vial and took a look at it in the light. “Well, I certainly can’t say I approve of filth like this on campus. Right?” He looked to Jiarna.
“So, with the tournament on, you’ve got hordes of new bodies on campus, and with that, their bad habits,” Jiarna said. “Through that, you’re going to get a few users. What can you do about it?”
“Find the source, shut it down,” Veranix said. “And then find the source’s source, and so on.”
“Problem is, Calbert,” Jiarna said, “all you’ve got to go on is the fact that it’s here. You’ve got nothing else to work with yet.”
“She’s right,” Kaiana said. “And you can’t just go out there and smack around students like you do the scrubs in shady pubs.”
“Especially with an All-Eyes out for you,” Delmin said.
“What’s this?” Phadre asked.
Veranix sighed. Might as well say it all. “Apparently the Constabulary in Aventil are hunting for me. At least, that’s what we’ve heard.”
“Why?” Phadre asked. Constant questions. He seemed genuinely curious, but there was a tone of pointed accusation in there. Maybe Veranix was just imagining it. Phadre was a true academic, and perhaps he was employing the Method of Questions.
“What was it?” Veranix asked Kaiana.
“Dead body somewhere in Aventil,” she said. “I don’t know more than that.”
“I should verify that,” Veranix said.
“Colin?” Kaiana asked.
“Or Reverend Pemmick.”
“There are more people on the team, here?” Phadre asked.
“Not now,” Jiarna said quietly.
“All right,” Phadre said. “Forgive me, Veranix, it’s just . . . I mean, you were here on campus, performing in the opening ceremonies, so we know you weren’t out there killing anyone.”
“Do we?” Delmin asked. Veranix turned hotly on him. “You were out there, Vee. Blazes, you’re still wearing your Thorn clothes and weapons under an illusion of the uniform.”
“He can do that?”
Veranix relaxed the illusion, show
ing Phadre the full effect. “I was out there, but not in Aventil. I wasn’t even . . .”
Everyone was looking at him expectantly.
“There are other situations I’m dealing with. Finding the dens in Dentonhill. Fenmere’s people trying to expand into western neighborhoods. Missing kids . . .”
“Missing children?” Phadre asked.
“Tonight I was . . . see, a few months ago some boys from a doxy camp told me kids are going missing. Kids—especially children of doxies and other street folk—are vanishing in Dentonhill, and elsewhere in the city. Since then, I’ve kept in contact, tried to find out what I could, but . . .”
But he hadn’t done a damn thing. He wanted to help them, find out what was going on, save the kids if he could. Problem was, he didn’t have the first clue what to do about it. Scouting around Oscana Park wasn’t working. He wasn’t an inspector.
“You’re trying to tackle all of that?” Phadre asked. “Saints, you’re . . . I don’t know how you do it.”
“With help,” Kaiana said.
“Right, right,” Phadre said. “So you first need to figure out who is selling the drug on campus, and stop them. How do you normally do that?”
Veranix took off the bandolier holding his bow and quiver and sat down on a bench. “Normally? Find some low-level user or dealer, and scare them into telling me their source. But in Dentonhill, it’s not that hard to find someone who’s connected to effitte. On campus, with hundreds upon hundreds of visitors and guests? Kaiana’s right, I can’t do that.”
“Then something top down?” Kaiana offered.
“As in, find one of the upper-level folk, and squeeze them? The only one I really know of is Bell. Problem is, he’s gone completely to ground. Haven’t seen a bit of him. He might have ended up in the river for all I know.”
“So,” Delmin said, “different kind of plan needed.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” Veranix said.
Delmin furrowed his brow. “All right, if it’s on campus, then we need to find who is buying. Buyer leads to seller. To find who’s buying, we need to find who is using.”
Jiarna’s eyes went wide. “A social strategy!”
The Imposters of Aventil Page 3
