“Yes!”

Shannon turned toward his former student. “Berr died three hundred years ago. You do know at least that, don’t you?”

Silence filled the room for a moment, then Amadi’s chair creaked a loud complaint as she sat heavily.

Shannon stiffened.

“Please continue, Magister,” she said acerbically. “What have I misunderstood? What was so terribly benign about that misspelling murderer?”

Shannon turned away and spoke in short, clipped words. “It was an accident. One of Berr’s misspells killed a handful of acolytes. He admitted guilt and they allowed him to stay on as a low-ranking librarian. The boy was only trying to learn. No one would teach him, so he experimented. Unfortunately, two years later, a misspell killed several wizards. Berr fled into the deep Spirish savanna and died.”

“So cacographers are dangerous, then?”

“Not once in the three hundred years following James Berr has there been such a dangerous cacographer. It is the Northern fascination with misspelling that makes you suspect that every cacographer is a viper in the bush. A fascination, I might add, that has been championed by the counter-prophecy faction, much to the detriment of our academies.”

“Magister, I know you have tangled with the counter-prophecy leadership. But I would be careful what you say. Your own provost has spoken sympathetically of their interpretation of prophecy.”

Shannon pushed a stray dreadlock from his face. “And you, Amadi, where does your allegiance lie?”

“I am a sentinel,” she replied. “We do not play the game of factions.”

“Of course you don’t,” Shannon said coldly.

“I did not come here to be insulted, Magister. I came for information.” She paused. “So, tell me, are there any Starhaven cacographers with particular strengths?”

Shannon exhaled through his nose and tried to calm down. “A few.”

“And has any cacographer learned to spellwrite in the higher wizardly languages?”

Shannon turned. “What are you implying?”

“The misspell that killed Magistra Finn was written in Numinous.”

Shannon stood up straighter. “I’ll not have you trying to blame a cacographer simply because you’ve been frightened by a villain who used a misspell.”

“You were never so protective of your students in Astrophell.”

He laughed dryly. “You didn’t need protection, Amadi. These children are different.”

“Different or not, you can’t protect them from a just investigation. I ask again: Do you have a cacographer who can write in the higher languages?”

“There is one. But he would never-”

“And who,” Amadi interrupted, “is this boy?”

“My apprentice.”

CHAPTER Seven

Before Nicodemus had taken five steps away from the druids, he began forging the Drum Tower ’s passwords.

Elsewhere in Starhaven stood doors that would not open unless fed hundreds of elaborate sentences. But the Drum Tower ’s door required only one sentence written in a common language.

Even so, it took Nicodemus an eternity to forge the necessary dim green runes. They had a texture like coarse, stiff cloth. As he worked, he could almost feel Deirdre’s stare jabbing into his back.

As soon as the passwords were complete, he dropped them on the black door handles. A tongue of white runes flicked from the keyhole to pull them into the lock. Nicodemus waited impatiently for the tumbler spell to disengage the device. As soon as the iron bolt clicked, he slipped into the entryway and heaved the door shut.

“Bloody awful woman!” he swore. It was a relief to escape the druid’s questions about how he had failed to fulfill the Erasmine Prophecy. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask any wizards about him. Given what Shannon had said about the Astrophell delegates, renewed wizardly interest in his keloid might be more than embarrassing; it might be dangerous.

He turned and hurried up the stairs.

The Drum Tower had long been used to store the stronghold’s emergency grain cache, held against a possible siege. But because Starhaven was too far from civilization to tempt a greedy kingdom, it had never needed this surplus. Therefore no complex security spells lined the Drum Tower ’s halls, and no complex passwords were needed to open its doors.

For these reasons, the tower’s top floors made an ideal home for the academy’s most severe cacographers, who could not spell the passwords for the main residential towers.

However, unlike the rest of Starhaven, the Drum Tower had limited space. This forced the tower’s master, Magister Shannon, to live elsewhere and required the older misspellers to govern the younger. Nicodemus shared such caretaking duties with his two floormates.

The oldest among them was Simple John, who as far as anyone knew could say only three things: “no,” “Simple John,” and “splattering splud.” This last was John’s favorite, which he often used when casting his many soapy janitorial spells.

Most people were terrified when they first encountered John. He stood over seven feet tall and possessed large, meaty hands. His red nose was too bulbous, his brown eyes too beady, his horsey teeth too big. But anyone who looked past John’s appearance could not help but love his gentle manner and lopsided smile.

Devin Dorshear, Nicodemus’s other cacographic floormate, was less well loved. The acolytes had nicknamed her “Demonscream Devin”.

When she was focusing, little separated Devin from a lesser wizard. However, she would often stop spellwriting halfway through a text to contemplate an open window, a creaking board, a handsome wizard. This had gotten her into many unfortunate situations, none helped by her gift for screaming unlikely obscenities-a talent she effectively wielded against leaking inkwells, torn parchments, and the generally rude.

Wizards were less impressed by her effusive obscenities, and so Devin had learned to curb her foul mouth around superiors.

This is how Nicodemus, as he climbed the last few steps, knew no one with authority was present in their common room. “Ooo, you dirty son of a rat-eating butt dog!” Devin screamed. There followed a loud crash.

“Splattering splud!” Simple John called, laughing heartily. Another crash, more obscenities.

Nicodemus looked up to heaven and said, “Not since Los became the first demon has there been so much chaos as now exists on the other side of this door. Celeste, goddess, haven’t I had enough tribulations for one night? Perhaps you could put them to sleep. I promise to clean up whatever they’ve done.”

Crash, laughter, crash. “Drink goat piss, you slimy pigeon penis!”

Nicodemus frowned at the closed door. “Dev, do pigeons even have penises?”

Simple John bellowed a battle cry of “SIIIIMPLE JOHN!”

Sighing, Nicodemus opened the door and stepped inside. Immediately, he jumped back to avoid a Jejunus curse that shot past in a pink blur.

Of the common magical languages, Jejunus was the weakest-so weak, in fact, that it was used only for teaching. It had a simple syntax and its large pink runes were identical to mundane letters; this meant that it was almost impossible to misspell and hence safe for cacographers. Perhaps more important, their soft, muddy texture made them safe to handle.

The curse that had missed Nicodemus’s nose by inches had read, “FIND [John’s left butt cheek] and LABEL with (I’m a gelatinous poop sucker).”

Nicodemus groaned.

“Simple John!” trumpeted Simple John. Another crash.

Peering into the room, Nicodemus saw a proud John holding up several sentences that read “ERASE [Devin’s spell].”

The big man had slipped his arms out of the slits sewn into the tops of his sleeves so as to better see the language forming in his giant muscles. All around John lay overturned chairs and scattered pages.

The big man forged another Jejunus sentence in his bicep and slipped it down into his balled fist. Laughing uncontrollably, he cocked his massive arm and with an overhand throw cast “FIND and HIT [Devin’s right butt cheek].”