ChaoticArmcandy

  Monarda crossed the room quickly and steadied Crissa’s other side. Sharp brown eyes fred at Mi. “Expin. Right now. What happened to her?”

  “Listen t’her, Mona,” said Crissa thickly. “She saved me.” She squinted at Mi. “I think.”

  Mi hesitated, wondering how much to share. “I think she’s just stunned? We were attacked—by revenants. Crissa said they’ve been following and watching her for days.”

  Monarda gave her a bnk look.

  “I-I think we should assume Crissa is being dowsed,” Mi said in a rush.

  “Great,” said Monarda sarcastically. “So you came here.”

  Mi flushed in realization of her error. If Penelope was indeed dowsing Crissa, they had just led her straight to what was clearly a secret location. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Monarda gred at her as Crissa swayed between them. “Are you a sorcerer, too?”

  “I—” Mi bit her lip. “Not exactly.”

  “Bellwitch,” Crissa confided in a loud whisper. “At least, ’m pretty sure…”

  Mi cursed. “Tiny gods, Crissa, shut up.”

  “Bellwitch?” said Monarda sharply. Her eyes dropped to where Mi’s shirt had rucked up to reveal the stilled bell strapped to her side. “You’re an Opali bellwitch?”

  “Read about them in….um….Tecum Hermeticus,” Crissa mumbled to no one in particur.

  Mi hesitated.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to snitch.” Monarda’s initial frostiness was rapidly melting away. She stared at Mi with open curiosity. “Is it true?”

  “Barely,” admitted Mi, resisting the urge to fidget under the other girl’s gaze. “Don’t expect me to conjure some angel from a tale, though.”

  “Sawit,” mumbled Crissa dreamily. “Really…big….bird.”

  Mi desperately wished the tiny blond girl would just stop talking. “Can we put her down somewhere?”

  “Hm.” Monarda nodded at the door she’d been guarding. “Help me get her through there, and the rest of us can figure out what to do about this dowsing business.”

  “‘The rest of us?’”

  Monarda’s mouth quirked, but she did not answer the question.

  Mi’s gut twisted. This secret she’d kept even from Roxa was suddenly leaping and spreading like wildfire. How many more strangers would know before nightfall? She tugged self-consciously at her shirt hem, pulling it down over the stilled bell at her side.

  Haltingly, they supported Crissa across the room and through the far door. It smmed behind them with an echoing bang, and Mi stared around in fascination at the scene before her.

  They stood in a rge tunnel, the apex of which curved nearly twenty feet above their heads. To their right, the tunnel—which was really an enormous pipe, Mi realized—ended abruptly in a cave-in of tumbled debris. To their left, it ran for several hundred feet before it curved out of sight. At the bend, a faint glow of brassy white light was visible.

  Monarda whistled sharply, and from further down the pipe came an answering whistle.

  Mi squinted and saw three figures approaching, silhouetted against the distant light.

  “Mona?” One of them called. “Who else ishere? What’s going on?”

  The leftmost of the figures cracked a chemical lightstick and held it up. In the sudden wash of illumination Mi saw a grim-faced young woman who closely resembled Monarda, cradling a crossbow and fnked by two young men.

  As Monarda unched into a rapid expnation, Mi stared at the older-looking boy’s face, feeling an itch of familiarity. Where had she seen that cloud of wiry, golden hair before? He was wearing the clothes of a day borer, heavily soiled, as was the young woman, but something about the way he carried himself jarred that perception.

  “She’s being dowsed?” growled the young woman. Her stare roved between Mi and Crissa. “Well, could be worse.Thank the nameless gods you’re not dead, Crissa.”

  She turned to the other boy, who looked slightly out of pce in his finer garments. He tensed a little under her stare, as if slightly afraid of her. “All right, sorcerer boy, get in the River and keep a sharp watch. I want to know the instant anything moves out there.”

  He nodded quickly and closed his eyes, fingers crooking into a casting stance. Mi felt an almost imperceptible shift as his spirit hit the current.

  “Emilia,” warned the otheryoung man, the one whose face she found so familiar.

  “Right.” The woman gestured to Crissa. “Come on, Crissa, sit down.”

  “Nope,” mumbled the Ursilian girl, head lolling. “Mm fine. Really.”

  But Mi and Monarda were already lowering her to the smooth, curved floor. Mi straightened, only to find herself confronted by Emilia.

  “So. Mi, is it? You’re a student here?”

  Mi nodded. “Aren’t you?”

  “Me?” Emilia scoffed. “No, I just work here.” She cocked her head. “And you’re Opali, eh? Something of a bellwitch, as well?”

  Mi kept her face studiously bnk. The young man with the cloud of golden hair was kneeling by Crissa, checking her pulse, but Mi was quite sure he was listening closely to the conversation. His deft movements signaled long practice. Healer-trained, then. She didn’t know any Medicava students, did she?

  “Come now,” Emilia chuckled. “You’re wearing one, aren’t you?” She pointed to the telltale lump of the bell strapped to Mi’s side, under her shirt.

  “It seems to be no more than a mild concussion,” the young man interrupted briskly and stood. He gave Mi a careful look of appraisal. “Something hit her quite hard, yet without leaving any mark at all, at least externally.”

  Mi was saved from the need for expnation by the stirring of the sorcerer boy, who startled suddenly and opened his eyes.

  “They’re coming,” he blurted.

  Emilia’s attention snapped onto him. “Who’s coming?”

  “Multiple dowsing spells, coming from the north end of campus, all bound to converge on her.” He gestured to Crissa. “I think they were already active, but they just entered the edge of my range now. A whole cadre of sorcerers, at least.”

  Emilia swore colorfully, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Sorry, ‘milia,” mumbled Crissa. “Gonna be mad at me now?”

  The sisters exchanged a frank look.

  “Let’s move her,” said Monarda quickly. “Before they get here. It’s not too te.”

  “We don’t have much time to think of a better idea.” Emilia turned to the healer. “Pasha?”

  “We can’t take the risk,” he said grimly. “Ministry dowsing protocols are relentless. If they have maps and compasses, and they can solve a triangle, it’s only a matter of time before this spot is marked. As much as I hate it, we need to burn the cargo.”

  “It hurts me when you’re right,” she sighed. “Go ahead, Mona. Make it so.”

  Monarda strode off down the pipe. Beyond her, in the faint glow of distant light, Mi could barely make out the blocky silhouettes of stacked crates. Smugglers? If this pipe leads to the canal, and the canal leads to the river…that must be how they move contraband.

  Emilia’s gaze returned to Mi. “Alexi, go with her.”

  “I recognized some of the casters, Emilia,” Alexi said quickly. “They know me. If I’m seen, even a glimpse from a distance—”

  “Yes, yes,” she waved dismissively. “We’ll be long gone before they find the way down here. Now go.”

  He trotted off, and Emilia rolled her eyes. “Listening to him tell it, you’d think he was the only one running a risk,” she muttered.

  “Crissa,” Pasha’s voice was calm and insistent. “We need to know who’s dowsing you and why.”

  Crissa squinted at him. “Um. ‘nelope? Duh.”

  Mi took a deep breath, and felt the crosshairs of their attention settle on her. “So Penelope Caul is trying to kill me,” she said levelly.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged bitterly. “A grudge. Maybe she doesn’t like my face. Does it matter? I think Crissa’s involvement is a coincidence.”

  “But she doesn’t know you’re a bellwitch?”

  Mi hesitated.

  “She’s a Hierophancy operative, Mi. I’m trying to assess our threat here, and to do that I need to know if she suspects Crissa or you of being anything but normal students.”

  She met Pasha’s clear, tawny gaze and held it. “You’re Andartes, aren’t you?”

  Silence. Emilia and Pasha’s faces were inscrutable.

  Mi took a deep breath. “I’ve kept my bell a secret until today. Crissa was with my roommate when they were attacked by Penelope’s bootlickers a few days ago. She helped fight them off, and that’s how she got mixed up in it.”

  Both Pasha and Emilia were watching her closely.

  Mi gestured in exasperation. “I came with Crissa today because she said you might be able to help. That’s the only reason I’m here. I’ve barely survived Penelope’s st few attempts on my life. This time, she resorted to sorcery I barely imagined possible.”

  Pasha exchanged a troubled look with Emilia.

  Mi bit her lip, resisting the urge to outright beg. They were all a few too many fatal secrets deep with each other by now. She was gambling hard that these people were Andartes, because there were really only two ways this might go.

  The infamous smugglers might be her natural allies or they might use her to mop up their tracks and discard her like a dirty rag afterwards. Her enigmatic usefulness as a bellwitch could make the crucial difference that tipped the scales, but on the bance sheet of worthy trouble, that usefulness would have to outweigh her equally enigmatic liability.

  “Everything’s ready,” called Monarda as she re-emerged from the darkness, followed closely by Alexi. She was idly twirling what looked like a grenade. “Can I blow it all up yet?” She tipped a jaunty wink at Mi and the Opali girl felt herself rex a little.

  “Can you wait for one second, you little arsonist?” groused Emilia. “Mi, come help me with Crissa.”

  Mi started towards her, then stiffened. “Wait,” she blurted. “Before we leave, how will you make sure the dowsers won’t just keep tracking us?”

  Emilia frowned. “Once we leave, our hotshot sorcery boy here can ward Crissa until she recovers enough to do it herself.” She raised a questioning eyebrow at Alexi and he nodded. “It’s a pity they might be able to find this location, but at least it will blind them to our next one.”

  “I don’t think these are all ordinary dowsing spells we’re dealing with,” said Mi carefully. “I told you, we weren’t just coincidentally attacked by Eaters—Penelope has an entire vial of Crissa’s blood, now that she’s running one of the Arcane boratories. I-I think somehow she was setting revenants on us like a pack of hounds on a scent—what if she can track Crissa through the River that way? Among my people, there are old, old stories of such things.”

  Pasha was looking at her with a strange intensity. Mi’s heartbeat was racing. Was she proving her worth to him right now, or did she sound unhinged, disposable?

  “Impossible,” said Alexi quickly. “Even the most powerful sorcerers of Harmine cannot bind revenants to their will. No human has, not for a thousand years, if it ever was possible. It’s been quite thoroughly studied.”

  Mi ignored him, speaking directly to Emilia and Pasha. “Penelope must have had those revenants following Crissa, waiting to catch us together. We were alone, all the way down here, when an Eater from beyond the Sixth Abyss sought us out and attacked us. Can your sorcery boy handle one of those? Because Crissa couldn’t.” She met Pasha’s gaze firmly. “I was the one who dealt with it.”

  “I’m right here,” muttered the sorcery boy.

  “Were there any Eaters in the River just now, Alexi?” Pasha’s gaze was fixed on Mi, and it seemed to sharpen with every additional moment. “Anything odd that you noticed?”

  “I—well, yes,” Alexi stammered. “There was a pack of them, just deep enough in the current that I could feel them. But that doesn’t mean—”

  “Hush,” said Pasha. “What do you suggest, Mi?”

  Mi took a deep breath. “I know a pce we can bring her where they can’t find her.”

  “Where?” Emilia frowned.

  “It’s a room deep under the Archives that’s cut off from the flow of the River. A cistern. Crissa showed it to me herself. We can hide her there until we figure something else out.”

  “Thassmart,” enthused Crissa.

  Emilia nodded. “Perfect. We can use the underground service corridors to get there.”

  “Once you do, stay with Crissa for at least a few hours, until you’re sure her level of consciousness is improving. I’ll be in touch soon.” Pasha turned to Mi. “Will you stay with them?”

  “Not for long.” She hesitated. “I have a room in the Stormcroft dormitory. Third floor. If you slip a message under my door, I’ll see it.”

  Emilia beckoned her over to Crissa’s side. “Help me get her up.”

  Together, they helped Crissa to stand, and hefted her through the metal door, and the airlock beyond.

  Pasha had already slipped away into the warren of passageways.

  “Go with them, Alexi,” Monarda said, pausing in the threshold. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Behind her, Mi heard the echo of the grenade bouncing down the smooth curve of the pipe and then Monarda smmed the metal door and scampered after them.

  There was a muffled whump, followed by a chain of even rger bsts. Monarda whooped as a rain of dust trickled down from the ceiling of the corridor.

  Emilia sighed. “All that ordnance, down the drain.”

  “Look on the bright side,” said Monarda cheerfully, though her voice carried an edge. “There were sooo many alchemical aerosol weapons in those crates. Whoever opens that door next is going to gas themselves twelve different ways.”

  Crissa giggled.

  ChaoticArmcandy