Nicodemus sat heavily in on his sleeping cot. “And, Dev, I’m sorry about what I said today in the refectory-about your wanting to get married. I just assumed that because you gossip so much about who’s fooling around with whom… well, that-”
“It proves you’ve got donkey dung for brains, I agree,” Devin retorted. “But you’re not entirely worthless; everything you told me about Los becoming the first demon helped with Magistra Highsmith today.”
Nicodemus opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound she said, “Anyway, like I said, I have to go to janitorial in the refectory. I’ll be back at some unholy hour in the morning. It’s just you and John here tonight. The young ones are asleep despite all the excitement the sentinels outside caused.”
She ticked off a few obscenities about sentinels writing wards on their door. “I have to call out and wait for the guards to open the door.” She looked up. “You know why they’re bottling us up or why we’re not allowed to leave Starhaven?”
Nicodemus shook his head. He had promised Shannon his silence.
“Well, if any of the cacographic girls get upset tonight they’ll be coming to you. Think you can handle that?”
When Nicodemus said that he could, she left without closing the door. Tiredly he rose and shut it himself. When he turned back, he saw his newest knightly romance lying under his cot. A weak smile creased his lips.
After lighting a bedside candle and covering the window with its paper screen, he sat on the bed and retrieved the book. It was The Silver Shield. The peddler had wanted seven Lornish pennies for the romance; Nicodemus had talked him down to four.
It was a plain codex, leather-bound, without metalwork, and clasped with a simple rawhide cord.
Lightly, he ran his fingers down the spine and remembered the many long between-duties hours he had spent reading.
As the logs in the fire began to crackle, Nicodemus opened the cover and stared at the first line. He passed his eyes over it four times, but each time he saw the letters and not the words. His attention wandered to the illuminations drawn in the margins. Two mounted knights charged each other. A spear-wielding soldier battled a black, scaly-tongued monster.
He lay back, propped up his head on a pillow, and he rescanned the first line. But still his mind refused to read. Slowly, carefully, he traced a finger along the illuminations.
In the morning perhaps he would scold himself for sentimentality, but now his chest rose and fell with a slow sigh.
As a boy he had wanted to escape into such a story. In his dreams, he had populated the nearby woods with imaginary monsters that he could venture out to defeat.
He had wanted to don armor and clash with Tamelkan, the eyeless dragon, or Garkex, the horned firetroll, or maybe a neo-demon who distorted magical language for its own purposes. He had wanted to restore the peace, save the kingdom, be the hero.
One of these boyhood longings echoed through his heart now. Slowly he laid the open book on his chest. He closed his eyes and tried to find the dreams of youth.
He wanted to see a flock of birds, white as snow, flying high above bare stone peaks that surrounded a verdant valley. He wanted a sword on his hip and a chance to walk down into that valley at sunset. He wanted to find night resting on the waterfalls, golden firelight half-hidden in the human dwellings.
And so he fell slowly, gently into sleep. At first he dreamed of the things he had longed for, and he knew peace.
But then came the nightmare.
MAGISTRA AMADI OKEKE stifled a yawn as she began another circuit around the Dagan Courtyard with her secretary.
“But what if neither Shannon nor Nicodemus is connected to the recent deaths?” Kale asked, rubbing his eyes.
It was late and they had been discussing their investigation for hours.
As Amadi considered Kale’s question, she looked out into the courtyard. The wide rectangular space was illuminated by incandescent prose strewn along the surrounding spires and vaulting arcades.
Walkways divided the yard into quarters, each of which held flower gardens with a few stone benches tucked into shrub-lined alcoves. On some of these sat green-robed hierophants enjoying the crisp air after a night of treaty negotiation in stuffy libraries.
In the courtyard’s center stood a copse of aspen trees, their outermost leaves already autumn gold.
Amadi turned back to Kale. “It’s exceedingly unlikely that we will discover a delegate or another academic who wished Nora ill. That’s why we must focus on Shannon.”
Kale shook his head. “Magistra, you’ve always said a sentinel can’t afford to ignore unlikely possibilities. Shouldn’t we question more Starhaven wizards and foreign delegates?”
“Kale, you’re upset that I withdrew some authors from your investigations. But we are terribly shorthanded, and we must guard the Drum Tower and Shannon.” She exhaled in exasperation. “I’m still amazed by his story of a creature turning from flesh into clay.”
Kale shrugged. “Maybe the old man’s lost his wits.”
“Or maybe he only wants us to think he’s lost his wits. Or maybe Nicodemus truly is the Storm Petrel and has corrupted the old fool’s mind. It’s all too dangerous with those two.”
Kale looked at her. “And what of the provost’s request to post more sentinels around the delegates’ sleeping quarters?”
Amadi rubbed her eyes. “Sweet heaven, that’s right. If a delegate ends up dead, the provost will have me skinned alive. But how can we come up with any more authors?”
“I’ve inspected the wards on the Drum Tower,” Kale said carefully. “It would take a master spellwright to disspell them. Perhaps the guards are superfluous?”
Amadi chewed her lip as they turned a corner. “Tempting, but no; we’ll leave the guards until I know more about Shannon’s story. There’s a chance he’s telling the truth.”
Kale said nothing.
Amadi looked back at the courtyard. “Starhaven must be the strangest bit of architecture humans have ever inhabited.”
“Why’s that?”
She gestured first at the courtyard in general and then at the aspen trees in its center. “Look at these interlacing arches, these brightly tiled fountains. We’d have to ride clear up to Dar for a better example of royal Spirish architecture. And yet at the center of all these minarets are aspens. Aspens! There should be palm fronds swaying in a sea breeze, not gold leaves quaking in thin mountain air.”
Kale smiled. “It is odd to think of the royal Spirish colonizing this place. They must have been miserable when it snowed.”
Amadi nodded. “Three kingdoms tried to remake this chunk of Chthonic rock in their image. All failed, and now we wizards play in the ruins.”
Kale chuckled. But before he could say what he found funny, the sound of running feet filled the courtyard.
Amadi turned around to see a young Starhaven acolyte skid to a halt. “Magistra Okeke, you’re to come to Engineer’s library immediately!”
Amadi frowned. “On whose command?”
The boy shook his head. “Don’t know her name, Magistra. A grand wizard, she wears a white badge and three stripes on her sleeves.”
Amadi swore. Only a deputy provost could wear such marks. “Take us there quickly,” she said.
The boy turned and ran. Amadi hiked up her robes and followed.
They pursued the young page through a blur of hallways to an archway large enough to admit seven horses running abreast.
Beyond sat an extraordinarily wide library. Long ago Starhaven engineers had filled the place with a row of limestone bridges that spanned the width of the room.
Along each arch stretched wooden facades decorated in the ornate Spirish style and converted into bookshelves. A labyrinth of traditional bookshelves flowed beneath the bridges like a river’s convoluted currents.