Azure made a low, two-note whistle. Shannon cast an inquiring sentence to her and received an instant reply: she had heard something unusual.

Shannon squinted at his door. No one was spellwriting in the hallway, but farther away, in what must have been a stairwell, shone a ten-foot trail of golden text. He had seen such a thing before: it was a train of a half dozen wizards, all casting flamefly spells to illuminate the dark stairs.

Something was wrong. Deadly wrong.

Shannon scooped up Azure and formed with her the textual exchange that allowed him to see through her eyes. Back at his desk, he stared at the spell he had just written.

He had to get the text to Nicodemus; the boy’s life depended on it. Even more frightening, Nicodemus’s connection to prophecy meant that his survival might be essential for the fight against the Disjunction and hence for the preservation of human language.

“Hakeem, help me!” he whispered.

Glancing up, he saw the train of flamefly spells begin to wink out as their casters came closer.

He looked back at his spell. It was too long for Azure to carry in her body. And he didn’t have time to transfer it to a scroll and have Azure to fly it over. He needed something that was already written.

After scanning his desk, his blind eyes fell on familiar Numinous paragraphs. Azure provided a mundane image of the manuscript: it was the scroll that had, just a day and a half ago, granted him permission to begin research on the Index.

Hushed voices sounded in the hallway.

With shaking hands, Shannon found an inkhorn and a serviceable quill. He rarely wrote mundane letters and he did not trust his exhausted fingers to produce anything legible now. So he dipped the quill’s feathered end in ink and used it to paint a wide, sticky stripe over the mundane writing which had granted permission for his research.

Quickly he forged the Numinous paragraphs that would lift the ban on the Drum Tower’s door. He slapped these onto the head of the scroll along with a common language note which when translated would read “key for wards.”

Knocking sounded at the door. “Magister Shannon,” Amadi’s voice called.

“A moment!” Shannon replied. He had to write something more to Nicodemus about the other passages-had to do it before the sentinels could interfere. Amadi would never allow Nicodemus to have such a powerful text.

“Shannon,” Amadi called, “you must open this door!”

Shannon went blank with fear. How could he let Nicodemus know what he was thinking?

Suddenly his mind leaped forward with thought. He forged a few phrases that when translated would read “Research ***” and slapped it at the top of the scroll. Then he forged what would translate into the single word “Dogfood,” copied it once, and then thumbed one word above the first paragraph and the other above the second.

A wall of silvery text shown from the other side of the door; doubtless the sentinels were preparing to knock it down.

Shannon rolled up the scroll and bound it with a Magnus sentence. “To Nicodemus,” he whispered, binding the Magnus sentence to Azure’s foot. “And beware of the sentinels guarding the Drum Tower.” He repeated these instructions in Numinous.

Behind him came a crash as a spell ripped his door from its hinges.

He leaped forward and punched the wooden screen out of his window.

“Magister!” Amadi called. “Do not move!”

Azure made her high two-note whistle and with a clatter of wings flew out the window.

SHANNON LET OUT a long, relieved breath. Amadi began shouting and rough hands grabbed his shoulders and turned him around. The room was ablaze with censoring texts. There must have been seven sentinels in the room.

“Amadi,” he said coolly, “I hope you can justify this breach of law and custom.”

“Magister,” she replied from somewhere to his left, “I’m afraid I can.”

He looked in her direction. “And how is that?”

She told him about the bookworm infection and the private library filled with incriminating manuscripts. She then explained about a wounded construct that had been trying to return to his quarters.

“You think I would be foolish enough to write a curse that would return to my own quarters?” he asked incredulously.

A different voice responded. It took a moment for Shannon to recognize it as Kale’s. “The chances of the bookworm being wounded in just that way-losing its ability to subtextualize and its homing protocol-are very slight. You could have safely assumed you would never be identified. But unfortunately, Magister, chance conspired against you.”

Shannon snorted. “Or the true villain has fooled you into accusing me of his crimes.”

Amadi responded dryly. “We’ve searched your quarters more thoroughly than before. We swept the room for subtexts.”

Kale spoke. “We found a subtextualized chest strapped to your ceiling. It holds a fortune in Spirish gold.”

For a moment Shannon could not understand what he was hearing. How could the golem have gotten that much coin into his room? The thing couldn’t spellwrite within Starhaven’s walls.

“So who was it, Magister?” Kale asked. “What Spirish noble was paying you to disrupt this convocation and why?”

“Amadi, you’re making a grave error,” Shannon said hoarsely.

His former student let a moment pass before replying. “Did you know that Nora Finn was also taking bribes from a Spirish noble?”

He nodded. “I read of it in her journal.”

“Why did you not tell me?” Amadi asked.

Shannon scowled. “Because I was more concerned with convincing you of the true villain’s existence.”

Amadi let another silent moment pass. “Or perhaps you were glad to be free of a competing spy. Tell me, Magister, how did the Spirish gold come to be in your quarters?”

“It was put there.”

“By your clay monster? Impossible. As I told you: I had a sentinel watching your quarters. What’s more, all the doors and windows were warded and then protected by robust, bisecting texts. Even if your monster did sneak past my guards, the thing would have been cut in half at the waist. It would have had to hide the chest and escape with half a body.”

Shannon’s blind eyes widened. A clay golem could do just such a thing. “Amadi!” he blurted. “The thing must have done its spellwriting in the Bolide Garden and then used prewritten texts to sneak in and hide the chest. Search the surrounding area. Somewhere you’ll find a deposit of clay.”

“Magister,” Amadi said in a low tone, “the Bolide Gardens are being renovated. Do you want me to slop through all that mud for a lump of clay that looks like a monster?”

Shannon took a deep breath. The monster had planned well. After planting the research journal in his quarters, it must have thrown itself down into the garden. There the golem could have deconstructed amid the dirt piles.

But Shannon couldn’t convince Amadi of that. Not here at least. “So you suspect I’m a spy,” he said, changing tactics. “Do you also believe I killed Eric and Adan, my own students?”

The room grew quiet. “Some remember how vicious a politician you were back in Astrophell; more than one voice has suggested that-”

“That I murdered my own students to disrupt this convocation?” Shannon growled. “That I sold my soul to some illiterate lord? Amadi, I have never heard such a foul suggestion. And I’ll swear under any power you like that I-”

“The witch trial hasn’t begun yet,” her cold voice interrupted. “Do nothing rash. In this room stands every free sentinel under my command.”

Shannon began to respond but then stopped. “You mean, every sentinel but those you sent to guard the Drum Tower and Nicodemus?”

“Still trying to convince me that the clay man is after your cacographers?” Amadi asked. “I think you’d better hold your tongue, Magister. We have wards on the tower’s doors and windows. No one’s getting to a cacographer tonight. Besides, I couldn’t spare the spellwrights to guard the place if my life depended on it. The libraries need every free author to contain the bookworm infection. Unless of course, you can tell us how to eradicate the infestation?”