Nicodemus stepped back as it reached the top of the promontory. Its skin was pale gray, its long hair snowy white.

Its eyes were as wide as a man’s fist, their pupils slit vertically like a cat’s. Its beaklike nose bent over a soft chin.

It smiled to reveal flat teeth and then cast a Wrixlan sentence into the air. “You are correct: we are dead. Welcome, spellwright, to our final resting place.” It bowed.

After taking a deep breath, Nicodemus bowed to what could only be a Chthonic ghost.

CHAPTER Thirty-three

A sharp knock woke Amadi in her cot. For a confused moment she stared at the stark white walls of her Starhaven cell. In her dream she had been wrestling a giant bookworm. Her now bandaged forearm ached.

The knock came again and she struggled up from her pallet. Outside her window the sky was still black. “Who knocks?”

“Kale, Magistra.”

“Enter,” she called to her secretary and pulled on a night robe.

The young Ixonian slipped into the room.

“Kale, I shudder to see you. I can’t have slept more than an hour. Has the bookworm infection returned?”

“No, Magistra.” The man’s eyes were wide. “Another death, one of the cacographers.”

Amadi drew in a sharp breath. “Shannon escaped?”

“No, he’s still imprisoned beneath the Summer Tower. Nicodemus’s female floormate, Devin Dorshear, is dead. Both Nicodemus and the big man they call Simple John are missing. Near midnight the young cacographers heard shouting. Until a quarter hour ago, they were too frightened to leave their rooms.”

Amadi swore. “But the wards. No one should be able to get in or out of that tower.”

Kale pressed a hand to his mouth. “I take full responsibility, Magistra. I was the one who suggested we leave the tower unguarded. It seems Shannon somehow slipped Nicodemus a key to lift the wards. I take full responsibility.”

“Nonsense,” Amadi snapped. “I had the command.” She turned to her bed chest. “Rouse the sentinels. Alert all the guards. I want a search begun before I’m fully dressed. I’ll personally go to the provost’s officers.”

Kale nodded and turned to go.

“But Kale, I’ll first examine the dead cacographer. I want two of our sentinels on hand. Where did the murder happen?”

The man paused at the door and looked back. “Drum Tower, top floor. I’ll send two spellwrights straight away. Nothing’s been touched… but the body, Magistra, it’s… gruesome.”

A QUARTER HOUR after being awakened with news of Nicodemus’s disappearance, Amadi found herself in the Drum Tower frowning at a dead lesser wizard.

The girl’s face had been crushed by blunt words. A puddle of drying blood surrounded her body. “The killer was a clumsy spellwright,” Amadi said to the sentinels behind her. “Must have used a leadshot spell or something simple.”

Amadi clenched her teeth. She was almost certain Shannon was guilty of some foul play. Surely the old wizard was in the pay of a magically illiterate noble. Why else would he have hidden so much money in his quarters? Why else would he be connected to the bookworm infestation?

However, now it seemed she was dealing with two murderers. “A cacographer did this,” she said. “Nicodemus or the big one.”

She wondered if Nicodemus had killed Nora Finn at Shannon’s behest. “You there,” she said to one of sentinels. “Go to the Summer Tower and rouse Shannon. I need some questions answered.”

With a nod, the man ducked out of the common room.

“Another strange thing is all this dust,” Amadi grumbled, now pacing about. Mostly the powder was scattered across the room, but next to the door lay a pile of the stuff covered by what looked like a white bed sheet. Even stranger, one corner held a small mound of splinters.

“You,” Amadi said to the remaining sentinel, a tall woman with gray hair. “Search the other Drum Tower residences. Tell me if you find similar dust or splinters in any other room.”

As the woman hurried through the door, Kale appeared. He was chewing his lower lip. A bad sign. “What is it, Kale?”

“Word from the librarians, Magistra. One of Starhaven’s most valuable artifacts is missing.”

“Destroyed by a bookworm?” she asked.

The secretary shook his head. “It was in a secure chamber and the Main Library was never infested.”

Amadi closed her eyes and took a long breath. “Let me guess: either Shannon or Nicodemus was the last one to use this artifact.”

Kale nodded. “There’s more. The artifact is a reference codex called the Index; it can access all text stored in Starhaven. And whoever has the artifact has looked up the touch spell.”

“And how do we know this?”

“Every copy of the touch spell in the academy is now misspelled.”

Amadi frowned. “By accessing texts through this artifact the user is misspelling them?”

Kale nodded. “And all the misspelled touch scrolls are infectious. They cause manuscripts touching them to misspell. An entire pedagogical library in the Marfil Tower has been destroyed.”

“Nicodemus!” Amadi growled. “If the boy accesses a text in the Stacks or the Main Library, he could destroy all of Starhaven’s holdings.”

Kale nodded again.

Amadi swore. “First the bookworm infestation, now this. Chaos incarnate has come to Starhaven.”

“Magistra… are you saying-”

“Do you doubt it, Kale? Think of the disorder that has spread across Starhaven. Think of the murders, the deaths, the corruption. Think of the scar-an Inconjunct breaking the Braid. The boy seems destined to spread chaos.”

Kale took a long breath. “We cannot be certain the counter-prophecy is coming to pass.”

“Cannot be certain, but we now have enough evidence that we must act.”

She made for the door. “I will question the librarians. I want to learn more about this artifact. You will go to the Erasmine Tower and tell the on-duty officers what has happened. If we don’t catch the boy, his mind will rot the pages from our books as a tumor rots flesh. They must wake the provost and tell him that most likely we’ve found the Storm Petrel.”

FELLWROTH, MORE COMFORTABLE now in a new clay golem, stole through the forest south of Starhaven. Two hours until dawn. The air was cold, the sky black. The strengthening wind roared through the woods.

Roughly an hour ago, the signaling texts from Nicodemus’s keloid had ceased entirely. At the time, Fellwroth had still been forming a new golem and so had missed the chance to determine the boy’s location more precisely.

However, it was clear that the last signal had come from somewhere in this forest-hence Fellwroth’s current, systematic combing of the mountainside. Presently, he followed a deer trail into an elm thicket. He had hoped the keloid’s signal texts would recommence, but now it seemed the boy’s new protector was blocking them indefinitely.

Here the wind was producing a continuous snow of falling leaves. Fellwroth scowled; without another keloid signal, his current search was unlikely to reveal anything other than more autumnal foliage.

A few hours ago he had spoken to a subtextualized Nicodemus on the road to Gray’s Crossing. Had his words convinced the boy? Likely not. If Nicodemus meant to surrender, the whelp should have returned to Starhaven by now, and none of Fellwroth’s rewritten gargoyles had reported such.

Fellwroth snatched a falling leaf out of the air and wondered why Nicodemus had not accepted his offer.

Only two possibilities suggested themselves: first, threats against Nicodemus’s life might be insufficient to win the boy’s surrender; or second, the whelp might feel safe now that he had a protector to block the keloid’s signals.

Fellwroth crushed the leaf and considered who might be concealing Nicodemus. Not a deity; he would have sensed another divine presence by now. Nor could it be the girl druid acting alone.