ChaoticArmcandy

  A short, sharp pattern of knocks and the saferoom door swung open. Aralia ducked in, nodding to Monarda, who closed and locked it again.

  Ellie was sitting at the table, eyes wide, both wrists cuffed together in front of her. The silence in the small room tightened as Aralia met her gaze.

  Aralia prowled over and settled herself into a chair, letting her piercing golden stare do its work. At first the girl’s eyes dropped nervously, before struggling back up with a visible effort to meet hers and hold it. Aralia raised her eyebrows slightly, impressed at the spark of defiance she saw there.

  Ellie swallowed but didn’t look away, her glower only growing in response to Aralia’s silent, searching gaze. Finally, the tension broke with a snap as she leaned forward. “So Alexi was yours the whole time?” she blurted, venting indignation even as she flushed dark red.

  Aralia narrowed her eyes. “Yes, and he was doing something important for me. Which your impudent little gambit messed all the way up. What were you doing in the Tower, Ellie?”

  Ellie winced, and her eyes flicked to Monarda, standing by the door.“I-I was going to follow you, and eavesdrop,” she admitted. “I didn’t realize it would risk anyone’s life other than my own. I-I wanted bckmail on you, to protect myself.”

  Monarda shifted slightly, her unspoken shade turned up to a deafening volume.

  “Is that so?” asked Aralia coolly, staring the girl down.

  Ellie squirmed in her seat, cheeks reddening.

  The girl was such a transparent liar, thought Aralia. “Tell me,” she warned, “or I’ll make whatever Monarda did to you look like a picnic.”

  Ellie took a deep breath and sat up, her eyes fring, her voice edged. “Look, I’m sorry I messed up your pns, but you won’t even tell me what’s going on!”

  “That’s for your own protection, as I’ve said many times, and you haven’t answered my question.”

  “Well, I’m trying to, okay?” Ellie closed her eyes, opened them again. Her hands were trembling. “You cim you’re keeping me in the dark for my own protection, but you have no idea what I need to survive!” Her voice wavered with emotion.“You know more about my own people than I do, and the—the halia, and where it really comes from, and you’re hiding it from me on purpose!”

  Monarda shifted again, this time uncomfortably, but Aralia couldn’t look away from the girl in front of her and the fiercely bared plea in her hazel eyes.

  “I can’t do that anymore, Aralia. It’s too much to ask of me, to just live with my head down, hiding for my own sake, alone, without anyone else like me.” Ellie took a deep breath, and forced the rest of the words out, one by one.“None of you can give me what I need to survive this pce.” She tore her eyes away and looked at her cuffed wrists, resting on the table. “That’s why I followed you,” she muttered. “B-because I needed a way to make you tell me more.”

  There was a held breath of a moment that seemed to stretch forever, then Aralia looked away, unable to push the girl any more.Her heart was breaking with the weight of the manipution she was about to undertake, the scale of the maneuver she was about to propose.

  She let out a long sigh. “Uncuff her.”

  ~ ~ ~

  I came to a halt, teetering, wondering breathlessly if I had just confessed too much, and in so doing signed my own death sentence.

  Words had just poured out of me and into her golden hawk gaze like clear spoken fire. It was like some older and sterner presence in the universe had lit a match for me, in the dark tumult of my insides, and I had merely named what it showed me, stepping from one precarious stepping stone of a word to the next until they’d run out.

  I squeezed my eyes closed, hyper-conscious of the cuffs binding my wrists together on the table. I felt empty, bereft of the current that had carried me, washed up and vulnerable, stranded on a sandbar with no way off of my own.

  Now I would finally find out if I was anything more than a fun toy for Aralia to use and discard. Perhaps all the tenuous hints she had dropped about her secret solidarity and ancient oaths would carry some weight. Perhaps not. At least I had protected Mi. My nails were bright slivers of sensation, digging into the flesh of my palms. There was silence like the soar of a leap before the plummet, then—

  Aralia sighed. “Uncuff her.”

  I stared at her as Monarda came around the table and unlocked my wrists. Did she believe me? “A-Aralia?”

  I had expected to face at least some fury, or disappointment, or hurt. Not this quiet, burdened resolve. Did this mean she wasn’t going to turn me in? I drew a careful breath, felt the heft of my life slowly twisting, dangling by a thread over empty space.

  Her mouth made a twist as she watched me. “Our options are narrowing fast, Ellie. Now is the time for a frank conversation about what you wish to do, before it is too te to make any choice at all.”

  I blinked. She was offering me a choice? Now? Of all the things I’d least expected…

  “You heard me,” she said impatiently, as though she’d read my thoughts off a page. “Though after what you pulled today, I’m tempted to confine you to quarters until I can have you smuggled out and bundled onto a ship bound for safer waters.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “It would be expensive and risky, but far safer than the alternative.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” I stammered, tensing.

  “Your life is far from the only one on the line here, Ellie. You want to know what’s going on? You want answers to your questions? Fine. I cannot put others at undue risk, but I’ll tell you as much as I can. Enough for you to make your own decision.”

  “What decision?” I sputtered. “You keep saying I have some choice to make but so far you’re the only one calling the shots!”

  “I will expin,” said Aralia, her gaze intent, unwavering. “But this knowledge will come at a cost. From now on you will be implicated.”

  “I’m already implicated,” I snapped.

  “Your ignorance protected you. You can’t be tortured for something you don’t know,” she countered.

  “You can absolutely be tortured for something you don’t know,” I argued. My entire life experience of being bullied for being too feminine, without yet knowing I was a girl, fshed before my eyes.

  “Have it your way.” Aralia rolled her eyes with what I felt was a little too much familiarity, considering our positions.

  I clutched the edge of the table to keep my hands from flying up in frustration. “Will you just tell me?”

  “You weren’t the only one subverting Apomasaics and producing halia, Ellie,” she said heavily. “And the tracks you left are far from the only ones.”

  I stared at her.

  Mi.

  “There are gring inconsistencies between the stockroom supplies and the ledger,” she continued grimly, “far more volume of reagents and precursors than you alone could have accounted for, including some materials that have been put on a Ministry watchlist since I began to teach Apomasaics. Given the current social hygiene panic and the kuffa witch hunt atmosphere that’s being drummed up as we speak, a Ministry investigation and audit is probably inevitable.”

  I paled. “W-what are you saying?” I stammered. I felt abruptly tremulous, sick and shaky with fear. And a dawning sense of betrayal—my own.

  I’ve put Mi in danger.

  My mind reeled.

  Mi. Mi had been synthesizing alterant. This whole time. Of course she had. And she wouldn’t have cooked the stockroom ledgers to hide the inconsistencies the way I had—she couldn’t have.

  The memory of Roxa bribing and hexing me over the stockroom counter fshed before my eyes. They must have been taking reagents the fast, brazen way—theft.

  “I’m saying that the administration will net someone,” she snapped. “Apomasaics is the Ministry’s prize jewel right now, and it is guarded jealously. If I burn every favor I have, there is a slim chance I could succeed in keeping you hidden, but even if by some miracle that works, they will tear apart the files of every alchemy student and faculty member, assemble a list of likely suspects, and systematically hunt down everyone on that entire list for questioning.” She gave me a meaningful look.

  My eyes widened even as my thoughts raced. Even just on paper, an Opali student would be the obvious culprit. Her origins would put her at the top of that list. There was no question.

  I stiffened as a thought struck me. Did Aralia know about Mi already? I stared at the older girl in horror.

  She must suspect. She’d asked me to watch Mi, to spy on her. But there was no way to know for sure without asking outright, and I couldn’t take that risk, in case my hunch was wrong. My heart was beating so fast! I clenched my hands to still their shaking.

  “This is the nightmare’s logic,” Aralia said bitterly. “Only if someone takes the fall will anyone else gain some measure of safety.” She shook her head. “If there is another way out of this, I have not thought of it yet, and I have a decade’s experience in turning their own weapons against them.”

  If someone takes the fall...

  I blinked rapidly.

  “Ellie.”

  I refocused on Aralia’s crystalline gaze.

  “I want you to take some time to think. If you wish to flee, I will try to get you aboard a ship to a port of your choice, but I cannot offer you much more than that. And the investigation will likely go forward.”

  I took a shuddering breath. Roxa, too. They would both be caught.

  “If you decide to stay, and surrender yourself to the administration, there is a very good chance I can protect you, after a fashion, as well as halt any further investigation. Do you understand? This maneuver might help us prevent anyone else from falling into the Ministry’s clutches.”

  I stared at her, my mind reeling.

  She sighed. “I won’t lie to you, it’s no small gambit. You’d be making yourself totally vulnerable. You’d have to trust me, Ellie. ”

  “Trust?” I swallowed, my heart battering against my throat like a trapped, bewildered bird against pane gss. “Y-you?”

  Did her gaze soften, or was it merely a trick of my traitorous hope? “The administration will defer to me for the terms of your controlment. That much I can promise, at least.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to fight down my mounting panic. “What would happen to me?” I said in a small voice.

  Aralia spoke reluctantly. “You’d be automatically stripped of any legal status of personhood. As a nonperson, you’d fall into the category of school property. It’s been a while but there are precedents. Harmine maintains a collection of certain specially enchanted bonds that could be pced on you, to enforce obedience and prevent escape. You’d be confined to the grounds of the University, by means of sorcery.”

  I shivered.

  She looked at me sympathetically. “However, I would be able to exert discretion over the manner of your captivity. For appearances sake, I’d have to keep you on a somewhat short leash, but unofficially,

  you’d have at least some say over your habits and movements.”

  “You’d let me come and go as I please?” I asked quietly.

  “No.” Aralia hesitated. “I wish I could promise that, but the reality is that some amount of performance would be necessary. And I’d prefer you to have a chaperone, even when moving along the underground staff passages, for your own safety. Likely Monarda or Alexi, when they have the time.”

  I flushed, an unexpected heat fluttering in my lower belly at the thought of Alexi leading me around by a leash wherever he pleased. I knew exactly how that would turn out. I fidgeted, scolding myself internally. Really, Ellie, this is not the time.

  Aralia’s face was studiously bnk, which only made me blush harder and almost groan aloud. I was so overwhelmed, how could I even begin to parse this decision? I watched with a combination of dread and relief as she pushed back from the table and rose.

  “I have urgent matters to attend to elsewhere, so I’ll give you some time to consider your options.”

  “How much time?” I asked hopelessly.

  Aralia looked at me, and for a moment I saw the crushing weight inside me reflected in her tawny gaze. I blinked.

  “I’ll need a decision by nightfall, Ellie.” Then she looked at Monarda, and a brief flicker of understanding passed between them, too quick for me to read. “Take care,” she said, somehow to both of us at once. Then she strode to the door and in moments she was gone.

  ChaoticArmcandy