The hush of the Archives absorbed the sound of their footsteps as they walked down the curving nautilus spiral of the Ramp. The dry, filtered atmosphere and steady glow of alchemical lamps gave no hint of the damp, wind-lashed outside world that lay beyond this windowless, underground realm. They descended for longer than Mila ever had before, the Ramp narrowing as it burrowed like a flaring conical drill into the earth.
Roxa chose a level and led Mila away from the Ramp, along a passageway lined with bookshelves. She paused at several intersections to consult the scribbles on a scrap of paper, before beckoning Mila to follow. After a tangle of labyrinthine turnings, Roxa paused outside of a door and frowned at the scrap of paper.
To Mila, it looked like the entrance to any other reading hole, except that this door was wider and heavier-looking, and its dark, glossy wood was carved with mind-numbingly complex patterns reminiscent of spreading ripples and waves.
Roxa knocked, and a muffled voice sounded. “Come in!”
They walked into a circular room with high curving walls that arched overhead to form a domed ceiling—every surface engraved with the same tightly rippling,undulating patterns. The door clicked shut behind them.
Standing in the middle of the room was a black-clad girl with light, wavy hair.
“You must be Mila.”The echoes of her words magnified and reflected and overlapped as her voice bounced around the space, refracting. Clarissa looked around, annoyed. “Hold on for a moment.”
She went around them to the door, which Mila noticed had the same unbroken, rippling patterns carved on this side of it, and laid both her hands flat against its surface. There was a tiny shift in pressure that Mila felt in her ears, and then all at once the patterns all around and above her began to glow a faint and eery blue.
Clarissa turned back towards them. “There, now it will be impossible to eavesdrop on us,” she said seriously.This time her voice didn’t echo at all.
Mila frowned. “Who could eavesdrop on us? And what is this place?” The sound of her voice seemed to be absorbed by a soft, unyielding dullness before it reached the walls.
“Good questions,” Clarissa said with a faint smile and spread her arms. “Second one first—in thanopelagic terms, this a cistern. But as for what it’s doing here, and why it was built, I really have no idea!” She seemed enthused by this. “I only know about it because of my father—he showed me how to seal it. He says staff rarely come down here anymore.”
She sobered. “As for the eavesdropping, I’m worried that I’m being followed.”
Roxa shook her head. “Unlikely. I cast a spell to check this entire level. The only beating hearts down here are ours.”
“Not here,” said Clarissa flatly. “Followed in the River. By revenants.”
A pause, as Roxa digested this. “You think you’re being tailed? Is that possible?”
“I didn’t think so,” Clarissa said grimly. “But I’ve spent the last few days combing through more of the misfiled Avrora Remnant translations that I found down here and, well, it’s…I don’t know anymore.” She shuddered. “Also, there are some nasty new rumors swirling among the faculty about the research being done in the Arcane laboratories lately. My father still has a few old friends that tell him things.”
“Oh,” muttered Roxa. “Shit.”
Mila looked back and forth between them. “What?”
“Penelope has been running one of those laboratories for almost a term now,” Roxa muttered. “It’s unusual for a student, even a Prefect, to be given such a position, but she has family connections in high places.”
“Oh, that’s true enough,” said Clarissa bitterly. “My father was a professor here, before she had him sacked—he works as staff in the Archives, now. No regular student could have gone against a faculty member like that, even an Ursilian one. At least back then.”
Mila turned to Clarissa. “How do you know you’re being followed in the River?”
Clarissa hesitated. “It might not make sense to a non-magic user.”
Mila suppressed an eye roll. “Try me.”
“I can just...feel attention on me.” She shuddered. “Hungry attention. It started after Roxa and I fought off those loyalist tools who attacked us—the ones she called Penelope’s bootlickers. I’ve had glimpses, too. The same pack of revenants, sneaking and lurking just a bit deeper than I can tell. So far they’ve kept their distance, but…”
“And you think Penelope can track you that way? You think these Eaters do her bidding?” Roxa’s tone was incredulous. “I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
“Nasty. Rumors,” repeated Clarissa emphatically. She hesitated. “And now that Penelope is in charge of the laboratories, she has access to the files of all the sorcery students, including blood vials.”
Roxa groaned. “I forgot about that. My diplomatic status allowed me to refuse to give mine.”
Mila stared at Clarissa. “She has your…blood?”
“It’s a holdover practice from Old Harmine,” said Clarissa grimly. “All students that take classes in the Arcane Tower are required to register a vial of their blood. Supposedly it’s an emergency safety measure. It can function as a link if one goes too deep into the River and loses their way—the administration can get help to them quickly. In practice, it’s a threat that maintains the power of the faculty over the more powerful students.”
She takes a shuddering breath. “This is the only place I know of that is sealed off from the flow of the River. We’re immune to all dowsing and malfeasance, and revenants cannot get in. If we want to discuss how to remove Penelope, this is the safest place to do it.”
Mila snorted. “Knowing who she is, do you think we can just assassinate her and get away with it?”
“It’s a risk,” Clarissa admitted. She met each of their gazes in turn. “I stayed up late last night, thinking this through. I’ve seen firsthand how Penelope makes her kills. She’s methodical, thorough, even fastidious. I think the only way to survive here is by striking first and faster and harder.”
“Why not blackmail?”
“Blackmail?” Clarissa snorted. “With what? My father and his friends searched hard for that kind of leverage, but the Cauls are an old dynasty, with many enemies. Their secrets are very locked down.”
“My mother is going to be furious with me,” muttered Roxa, and sighed. “I was hesitant to suggest this, but while you two might not be able to survive the consequences of killing her, I stand a much better chance. I’m protected by diplomatic privilege as well as my rank.”
Mila pursed her lips. “A dueling accident? Roxa, her reputation as a sorcerer isn’t bluster. And if you lose…”
Clarissa nodded in Mila’s direction. “She’s right. It’s risky to go toe-to-toe with Penelope Caul even on one of her bad days. Better to kill her instantly, from behind, without warning.”
“She’s too high profile. An anonymous assassination risks a Ministry investigation, and the inquisitioning of suspects. Too many people know about her grudges. I’ll not open Mila or you up to that. Besides, a legal duel is not the only way for me to kill her and get away with it.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“A trap, of sorts.” Roxa chewed her lip. “But one she thinks she’s laid for us. I play the bait, goad her into luring me in, and wait for her to spring it—once she has me in her power, she won’t be able to resist rubbing my face in her victory. She’ll take her time with the mocking and taunting and cat play. But once a noose is tied, it can be slipped onto one neck as easily as another. Once she’s admitted overt harmful intent and capacity towards my person, no diplomatic court the Ministry can throw at me will hold me at fault for the violence I do to her. All we need to do is learn her patterns, pick the ground carefully, procure a few weapons, and wham bam thank you ma’am—she dies an embarrassing, foolish death in her own trap, which is really our trap.”
Mila made an incredulous face. “Then everyone knows it was you!”
“Exactly, hence no investigation. Think about it. If she tries to assassinate me and fails, I’ll be blameless—far moreso, legally speaking, than if I killed her in a dueling accident—she’ll be dead, and the whole affair will be an embarrassing diplomatic incident for the Ministry. All we have to do is make her look bad enough. Anyway, this way I bear all the risk, as I should.”
“No,” said Mila flatly. “We have no idea how her family will respond, especially with how things are going now, and I refuse to count on diplomatic privilege to keep them from trying something. Not to mention the risk of walking into a trap in the first place. It’s too risky.”
Roxa crossed her arms. “What, then?”
“Her life isn’t worth your life, Roxa. Or any of our lives.” Mila looked back and forth between them. “This is not chess. We are not bartering pawns for rooks, or knights for queens. I refuse such rates of exchange and the use-thought logic of risk that justifies them.”
“That risk will not refuse you,” Roxa pointed out. “The question is whether we succeed before she does.”
Mila wanted to growl and throw up her hands. You’re not listening to me! “Is that some military officer talking,” she said acidly, “or is it you?”
Roxa flinched, frowning at her.
“We can make it harder for her to strike at us by looking out for each other,” said Mila, more gently. “Together, we are safer than we’ve ever been alone.”
“Mila,” Roxa was shaking her head, her eyes imploring. “You’re not taking the threat of her seriously enough. We’ve gotten unimaginably lucky so far—that’s the only reason you’re alive, not training and not sorcery and not friendship. Please, think about this the way that Penelope must be. Try and see it through her eyes—you’re the one that’s so good at reading sharks. Three or four goons didn’t work last time? She’ll just send ten next time. She can do that.”
You’re the one that’s so good at reading sharks. The words hit with an exact precision, cracking the seam in Mila’s defenses and striking the raw nerve beneath. Breathtaking shame boiled up, with astonishing speed and ferocity.
~ ~ ~
She has passed the mouth of this alley every day, to draw water and carry it back. But on this morning, as she treks past with her eyes cast down, a pailful of fish guts sails right into her face. She freezes in shock, unable to believe it. Her hair, her clothes, her buckets of clear well water, all fouled.
Then the jeering begins in earnest.
“Rassa child! Her eyes are like dead fish eyes!”
“She was made by ghouls, it’s so obvious.”
“Look at her shark eyes! So flat and cold.”
“Look everyone! Look at the shark-eyed rassa!”
~ ~ ~
“I have the understanding of sharks? Well I can sure smell it on you,” said Mila coldly. “This is a half-cocked, self-sacrificial, blustery bird crap of a plan, Roxa, and I’m not letting you throw your life away on it.”
Roxa scowled. “I’m not going to let you throw your life away underestimating the threat Penelope poses! This is all my fault, anyway!”
“Exactly,” retorted Mila. “So listen to me when I tell you about the risks I’m willing to stake my life on and the risks I’m not!”
They stared at each other in flinty silence. Roxa growled and looked away first, her hands flexing helplessly at her sides.
Mila turned to Clarissa, whose eyebrows had climbed quite far towards her hairline, watching the exchange. “What about you? Got any better ideas?” It came out more viciously than she’d intended.
“I’ve already heard three, actually,” stated Clarissa, her voice neutral. “We need to gather more information on Penelope’s habits, to find a vulnerability we can exploit. We need weapons. And we need to protect each other in the meantime. I have some friends who may be able to help us, but I wanted to check in with both of you first, before asking them.”
Mila exhaled slowly. “Yes. Thank you.”
Clarissa frowned thoughtfully. “I’m supposed to meet up with them tonight. Would you like to come along? It would give me a chance to vouchsafe you both.”
“And if the threat of Penelope watching you through the River is real?” said Roxa skeptically. “Won’t your presence compromise them, too?”
“I’ll be well warded,” said Clarissa firmly. “And even if the worst of what’s hinted at in those Avrora Remnant fragments is true, I doubt she can actually eavesdrop on my conversations.” Clarissa sighed. “And if we isolate from each other because we’re afraid of taking risks, then she’s already won. We have to be honest with ourselves that it’s dangerous to take any effective actions at all, while still doing what we can to keep each other safe—but in ways that bring us towards each other, instead of isolating us.” She looked at each other them in turn. “I think this is a risk that makes sense.”
Mila found herself smiling at the tiny Ursilian girl. She looked over at Roxa, her voice softening a little. “Want to join us?”
Roxa cleared her throat. “I think I’ll go do some snooping on our quarry, instead.”
Mila gave her a penetrating look.
“I have better access to the kinds of places she spends her time.” Roxa glanced away. “Besides, Clarissa is more than capable of wiping the floor with anyone who tries to jump you, while I’m elsewhere.”
Mila hesitated. “Are you sure?” She was on the verge of blurting out some kind of apology, but Roxa was already turning away.
“’Course I’m sure, I told you, she’s murder in a fight. We can meet up for dinner together, later.”
“That wasn’t really what I meant,” muttered Mila at her friend’s back.
“Let’s see, how did you…” Roxa muttered to herself as she laid her hands on the glowing door.
Clarissa swooped to her side and showed her how to unseal the enchantment.
Roxa looked back and nodded at both of them in turn, but avoided Mila’s eye. “Keep each other safe for me.” Then she was gone.
Clarissa turned to Mila. “Are you two usually so…?”
But Mila was hardly listening. She stared after Roxa, a troubled little furrow gathering between her eyebrows like an approaching storm.
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