Cold Steel

“You didn’t tell us about the architecture,” said the chair-bound girl with a yearning sigh.

She kissed them all around, and whispered something in the ear of the girl that made the child blush with the pleasure of having been given a secret treasure to cherish at her frail breast.

The bent crone escorted us to the withy gate.

I faced her. “Holy one, do you know where the headmaster went? Prince Napata?”

“Strange it is that I do. He came here the day he left and he mentioned in particular that should two young Kena’ani women happen by to ask for his direction, I should tell them he is gone to Treverni Noviomagus, where the Rhenus River splits into two channels.”

Once we got outside the gate, Bee turned to me and frowned. “Our experiment did not go so well, did it?”

“I did not find Prince Napata in his study on the Feast of Mars Camulos, that is for certain. But if he left a message for us here, that means he wants us to track him down. Perhaps that is what the dream meant, that we would discover where he had gone.”

Rory was waiting by the gate, his figure half concealed behind one of the entry pillars. “I saw the other man lurking here, the one called Eurig who fed us.”

I chewed on my lower lip. “He must be spying, but for whom? Probably everyone now knows we were at the law offices. Let’s see if we can recover our gear before we go.”

After making sure no soldiers or spies loitered in sight, we hastened down Academy Hill under glowering clouds. The rain held off until we reached Falle Square. We left Rory in the alley to stand guard. A wind swept in with waves of freezing sleet that drove Bee and me through the back gate with more haste and less caution than we ought to have used. I ran across the courtyard to kneel by the basement window, peering into the dim kitchen to make sure there was no fire and that no skulking visitors were awaiting us. The chamber was empty, just as we had left it. The driving sleet stirred up fallen leaves as it drummed on the cobblestones. Shuddering, I raced back to the carriage house.

Bee had already pried up the boards and opened the chest. “Help me!”

The double doors were cracked open just enough to give light to work. Sleet pattered on the roof and wind rattled the shutters. We set the dash jackets aside, for they would have to go on top, and split the tools and practical clothing into the three packs.

“I had hoped the headmaster might help us get to Haranwy,” I said, shivering. “Don’t you think it’s strange that he quit his post and left Adurnam right after we fell down the well?”

Bee gave me an indignant look. “Of course it’s strange. Why bide in Adurnam for so many years and suddenly leave? What do we do, Cat? I can sell several of my gold bracelets for money for passage on a coach to Noviomagus. It’s a long way. It will be so expensive.”

“It will take weeks of travel even if the weather improves. I don’t dare wait so long. We don’t even know if the headmaster can help me. I have to go to Haranwy to ask Vai’s brother for help. His people know how to hunt in the spirit world. Once we get to Haranwy, you and Rory can go on to Noviomagus. Anyway, it’s better to go to Haranwy first now that the mansa and the legate know we’re here. They’ll be watching the roads. But we can walk by back lanes and footpaths, where it’s easier to hide. We’ll need only food, for we can beg shelter in haymows and stables. I remember the route well enough, past Cold Fort and through Lemanis…” I trailed off, remembering Cold Fort.

Never before marrying a cold mage had I had to consider the uses of illusion. In Southbridge Londun, Vai had woven the illusion of a troop of turbaned soldiers riding down a road, a feat that would have impressed me more had I liked him at the time. In Expedition he had done nothing but play with the illusions of small objects, forming light into the shape of lamps or a gleaming necklace with which to adorn me, because in Expedition cold mages had less magic to draw on. Yet he had woven illusions out of cold fire so skillfully they had seemed like solid objects, impossible to know as intangible unless you tried to touch them.

Rory and I had almost been caught near Cold Fort by a troop of mage House soldiers under the command of a cold mage. They had ridden across a field under a mask of illusion that made them invisible to unsuspecting eyes, but not to cold steel.

Too late, I closed my fingers over my cane. The ghost hilt buzzed with the energy of cold magic pouring into it.

“Quiet.” I got to my feet. “Abandon everything. Go out through one of the windows. Meet me at the hat shop.”

Bee grabbed the little knit bag with her sketchbook. I crept to the carriage house door. The cistern was covered by a plank lid. Unswept leaves from the apple and pear trees littered the ground. The big brick oven was closed tight. Behind, Bee stuffed the flasks and my sewing kit into the knit bag as she eased toward the shuttered windows.