by B N Miles
They listened to Apelles as he walked across his living room. The sound of stoked embers crackled in the otherwise silent house. His footfalls led him past the bedroom door and Sam could have groaned aloud when he heard the squeak of an armchair. Apelles seemed to have a need to unwind after a long, hard day of stealing shit.
Sam resigned himself to wait for another hour. Luckily, it didn't even last for ten minutes.
There was a clunk. Then a thump. And then Apelles walked to the back of the house, sloshed some water around in a bucket, and strode toward the bedroom door. As his light footsteps got closer, Sam crouched, ready to cover Apelles' sight with deep black shadows.
This is it. I can't screw up. I can't screw up. In his mind's eye, he saw Apelles on the ground in a chokehold, apologizing and saying, 'I'll tell you whatever you want to know. Please don't hurt me.'
As silly as it was, Sam held onto the unlikely image because if he didn't, his nerves would crawl up into his chest, into his throat, and out of his mouth to be sprayed on the floor in a pile of yellow and black sick.
The doorknob turned, the door swung open, and everything happened so quickly that it blurred together in a frenzy.
Sam's fingers twitched, calling the shadows to his will. Usually, they snapped into form the second he called them, but that time, they didn't snap—they practically crawled. His legs felt unsteady, his stomach queasy. It was just enough time for Apelles, not currently blinded by blackness, to snap his attention straight to Sam. The older man must have moved toward him or something, he could only guess because suddenly, Drina shot from her place beside the bed and made an attempt on the spymaster.
He watched in horror as Apelles, without looking away from Sam, held out his hand. Drina's forehead collided with the flesh of his palm. She gasped, flinched, swiped at him with the dart, but he knocked her wrist aside and simply pushed her to the ground with seemingly minimal effort.
The dart clattered to the floor.
Drina shrieked, but Mattie threw out her hands and stifled the cry with her talent. Then the brunette bolted to her feet, her eyes rolling wildly around the room, her breathing coming out fast and ragged. She put a hand to her chest and backed up, her hand blindly grabbing behind her for something that wasn't there.
"What did you do?" Sam snarled, his fists balling at his sides. He didn't wait for an answer. He ignored his churning stomach and dove at Apelles, one eye on his opponent and the other on the dart between them.
He hit the ground before he ever saw Apelles move. Spirits, he was freakishly fast, either that or Sam really was extremely sleep deprived.
He sat up and looked at Drina to make sure she was okay. She was shaking, but Rosin was holding her and whispering. Mattie was circling Apelles, clutching her old dagger.
As for the spymaster, he had yet to ask why they were there, nor had he called for help. He didn't look concerned in the slightest and if anything, his expression was mildly amused.
He wasn't taking them seriously, the smug asshole.
They might be first years, but determination made people dangerous no matter what age they were.
When Apelles looked at Mattie, Sam took his chance. He scrambled for the dart and shot to his feet. The silver of the needle flashed in the firelight from the open door. Apelles didn't even look at Sam as he caught his arm and twisted it around.
Sam hissed, his arm buzzing with numbness and flapping uselessly in Apelles' grip. The spymaster spun him and wrapped his forearm across Sam's throat in a punishing grip.
The spymaster's face screwed up, no longer amused, but annoyed. Drina was still in the corner, hiding her face in Rosin's shoulder, but Mattie was right in front of Apelles, her knuckles white around her dagger.
They wouldn't kill him, of course. But he didn't know that. For all he knew, Mattie was dead set on cutting him open. Unpredictable people were more dangerous, more frightening—people didn't like not knowing what somebody's motives were, how far they were willing to go,
"I never pegged the four of you for the breaking and entering type," Apelles said, his voice deceptively casual.
None of them responded. Sam's jaw ticked and he fought through his panic to focus on the fact that they needed a new plan. Contingencies B and C were reliant on Drina, but she had dissolved into a quivering, frightened little girl. Apelles' chokehold got a little tighter and Sam gagged.
"Alright, children," Apelles said. "I think I deserve an explanation."
"Release Sam and Drina first." Mattie snarled.
Apelles gave Sam a gentle shove. "Sure. As I've demonstrated, it would be stupid for any of you to try your luck with me, so I assume none of you will make any foolish decisions in the meantime."
He took five long strides toward Drina and placed his palm on the back of her head. She stiffened, sniffed, then turned around with wide, confused eyes.
"Don't worry, Drina, it was just a nightmare. You won't retain any permanent damage." Apelles said it so casually, like he was talking about the weather and not whatever horrors he'd inflicted on Sam's crew member
Drina looked at Sam, like she didn't know what Apelles was talking about. Sam nodded at her; it was fine, they'd talk about it later.
"Now," Apelles crossed his arms, "explain yourselves."
The four of them sat at Apelles' table, a small square thing situated beside the kitchen. The spymaster stood over Sam with his arms crossed, like the stern teacher he was, watching the rest of them as if they were misbehaved toddlers.
"So, which one of you would like to start?"
Sam swallowed the lump in his throat and looked at Mattie, who was glowering. She liked failing even less than he did.
He didn't know why Apelles hadn't called for assistance. The fact that the man was letting them explain themselves rather than simply sending them off to Mode's office—or worse—made him nervous. They couldn't beat him in a fight and it was clear that he wasn't going to let them leave without explaining themselves.
If Sam's theory was right, Apelles knew exactly why they were in his house, so why bother with this game?
A sliver of doubt formed in his mind. What if he'd been wrong about Apelles the whole time? What if it was somebody else who broke into the administrative building? What would happen to them if Apelles was the culprit and he was just buying time by making them sit there and explain themselves? What if he'd somehow sent a message to some of his associates and they were currently closing in on the cottage?
"Sam," Apelles said, "you seem to be the ringleader in all of this. Why don't you explain why you broke into my house and viciously attacked me?"
Just tell him. He'll know why either way.
Sam somehow managed to find his voice despite his uncertainty. "We thought you stole the Cipher," he blurted.
Apelles' eyebrows lifted high on his forehead. "Excuse me?"
"The Cipher," Sam said, "the one that decodes all the foreign messages. We heard that somebody broke into the administrative building and stole it. And that night, I saw somebody that looked like you going into the building. So, I thought..."
Apelles rubbed the bridge of his nose and huffed a humorless laugh. "The Cipher to decode all of our messages," he muttered. "Ridiculous."
He dropped his hand and looked at them. "While I commend your dedication to your country, not only does such a cipher not exist, but I definitely would not be the one to steal it."
Sam's face heated up.
"Somebody did break into the building, but they only stole some notes from a meeting from the beginning of the term. The culprit returned a few days ago, after you and I ran into each other, and although I will thank you for alerting me, again, he took nothing of import. If there was an important document, such as a cipher, I assure you that it wouldn't be sitting unguarded in a school administration building."
"I don't understand, then," Sam said. "Why would they take such a big risk to sneak in and grab meeting notes?"
"I suspect that they are probably idiot
s. There are some important documents there, but they aren't important for the security of the country. Headmaster Mode ordered wards to be set up in any case. Whatever the thief is after, he won't find it, and if he continues to try, he will be caught."
Sam eyed him suspiciously and Apelles rolled his eyes. "While your disbelief would usually be of no concern to me, I would rather you not try and pounce me again. Come, I'll show you a copy of the official report."
Sam walked outside, passing Apelles as the spymaster held the door open and shooed the lot of them from his home. It was strange, the weight that shed from his shoulders like snakeskin. The country wasn't in danger, the instructors had the situation well in hand. He’d pushed himself too hard for no good reason. He could stop now, he could rest.
Apelles had all but laughed at them, at the logic they held. When he'd broken everything down so simply and didn't kill them, it made Sam realize how ridiculous they sounded. Even though there was a thief, nothing pertinent had been taken. Apelles had shown Sam the copy of the report, signed and sealed by Mode himself. Every detail on the document matched exactly what Sam knew, exactly as Apelles had relayed the tale.
Sam had never been so happy about being wrong before.
And even after spying on Apelles and ambushing him in his own home, the spymaster still gave Sam the allowance to keep watching the culprit. 'For practice,' he'd said. Apelles had a way of making everything sound condescending, but Sam accepted the task without complaint. Apelles may not take the thief seriously, but there was a chance that the thief could take something more important later. Either that, or Apelles was very, very good at hiding his worry.
"Goodnight, professor." Drina sidled up to Apelles and batted her eyes at him, unfazed by the nightmare spell he'd cast on her not an hour before.
Apelles' lips thinned. "Child, you are neither old enough nor substantial enough to be more than a gnat in my eye."
"Substantial enough?!" Drina huffed, "Have you even seen my chest?"
"No," he deadpanned.
"Whatever. Sam appreciates it." She flipped her hair over her shoulders and gave Sam a wide, conspiratorial grin. She was trying to get a rise out of Apelles. The only people who thought it was funny were Rosin and Mattie.
Sam rolled his eyes at the brunette as she sashayed past him, but he turned to follow her regardless. Before they got more than a few steps from Apelles' cottage, however, an ugly sound blared through the darkness, something that sounded like two dozen geese screaming in fear. Apelles moved so fast that by the time Sam turned to look at him with a question on his lips, the spymaster was already darting off.
Before Apelles got far, though, he glanced back at Sam and his crew, drew to a stop, and leveled a stern finger at them. "Do not follow. If he escapes again, you will focus on the task I have given you and call for me if you see him."
With that, he was off, blurring into the night like the wind. Sam had the urge to follow, to disobey, but his body was quick to remind him that he should do as he was told and get some rest. The instructors were more than capable of handling one thief and if they weren't, Sam might catch him out some other time. Either way, the thief wasn't taking anything that put anybody in danger, and really, that was the only thing he cared about to begin with.
Sam tilted his head toward the main building and gave the girls a small, weary smile. "Want to get some rest tonight?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Mattie said.
20
Once again, the staff failed to catch the thief. Since then, the school had been on such high alert that the faculty enlisted the fourth and fifth years to patrol the grounds. That had started almost three weeks ago. Apelles had been so casual about the thief when they met him at his house, but whatever the thief had taken this time, nobody was playing around, joking, or looking casual about it. The teachers seemed on their toes, their eyes darting around the classroom whenever they thought the students weren't looking.
As for Sam, he kept diligent watch as he promised Apelles he would. Sometimes, one of the girls would take a shift whenever he got too tired to do it himself, but for the most part, he took on the bulk of the work. Even when the girls tried to insist otherwise, it didn't feel right to just let them do it. After all, what if the thief actually showed up? Would they know what to do? Would they be able to capture him themselves if need be? He had no idea. Sam liked to think they could handle it, but anxiety gnawed at him at the thought of letting the matter fall to Drina or Rosin. He knew Mattie could do it, but Mattie was a different matter.
The lockdown itself was miserable, students weren't allowed to walk the hallways together casually. Not without an escort or the ever-watching eyes of the fourth and fifth years, which meant Sam couldn't sneak into the girls' rooms nor they his. He didn't want to go to mess around or anything, although that would have been fun. Just for reviews and checkups of the watches.
It was a lucky thing Sam was able to make it to his spot every night, but it usually took an hour of planning beforehand because they switched the rotations so often. So he stayed out for four or five hours, sometimes he even fell asleep and woke up at dawn to stumble back to his room. But nothing ever happened. It felt like he was wasting his time, like whatever the thief had taken had been the thing he'd been looking for all along.
But he couldn't know because Apelles wouldn't tell him what the thief was after, nor what he took. And even though Apelles had brushed it off before, Sam knew there was something more going on. The spymaster acted far too casually, and Sam had observed time and again that Apelles was not a casual man. He never smiled. He never beat around the bush. He was straightforward. Mean, even.
That was alright, Sam would figure it out sooner or later on his own. He always did. His gut told him the situation with Franklin and the strange woman in the classroom had something to do with it all, so maybe he would investigate that on his own. Maybe Franklin knew who the thief was and the woman, possibly the thief's associate, threatened to kill him. Or sell him out. Or blackmail him. Any one of the options was viable payment for the potion master's silence.
Whatever Franklin was into, he was in over his head and Sam briefly entertained the idea of approaching his teacher and asking him if he needed help, but he squashed the idea quickly. Despite how open Franklin was, he was still formally trained as a spy, and by nature, spies were not forthcoming with information regardless of whether it would help them.
"A girl so sweet, lo' there, he said, and the vase cracked in her hands. Haven't you a care, she said, you tread into my lands. You desecrate this sacred place, this altar of Arete. The shards fell in the mud below, like pearls laid at her feet." Sam muttered the catchy lyrics to himself, twirling a strand of grass between his fingers. It was as dark as it usually was on his watch, which was to say that everybody but Sam was asleep in their beds while Sam sat under his usual tree beside the administrative building.
Sam opened his mouth to sing the next verse, but something caught his attention, and he closed his mouth before straightening. A small man-shaped shadow formed beside the school, getting closer and closer and gaining substantial shape until he recognized Apelles walking toward him. For a moment, he thought was the thief. What did he want right now?If Apelles planned on hanging around, maybe Sam could take advantage of the privacy and ask the spymaster what exactly was going on. Maybe this time, Apelles would entertain an answer.
When the spymaster finally drew up in front of him, he leaned his hand against Sam's tree and hovered like a pine.
"I've noticed that you've taken most of the watches, Sam."
No 'hello,' no small talk, just straight to the point.
Sam shrugged.
Apelles crossed his arms. "The bags under your eyes are quite telling. And you almost fell asleep in class the other day."
Sam shrugged again. "I like to be outside." Apelles made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat before he, too, shrugged and moved the topic along. "I haven't gotten any reports from you thi
s past week."
"That's because there's been nothing to report," Sam said back.
"Ah. So it's not going well, I assume."
"You'd be the first to know, wouldn't you?"
He could feel Apelles’ eyes boring into the side of his face. Sam didn't look up. Apelles sighed and folded his legs under him, taking a seat next to Sam. It wasn't like the man to get on the ground next to a student for no good reason.
"Did you know that I was the one to scout you?" Apelles said, breaking the moody silence. Sam's eyebrows twitched.
How?
Apelles hadn't been his recruiter, Lebert was, and Sam had never seen Apelles in the city. He's pretty sure he would have remembered a face like the spymaster's, all sharp and angular.
"Oh?" Sam twiddled his blade of grass, waiting on his teacher to elaborate.
"Oh indeed," Apelles said. After a moment of silence, the older man broke it with a sigh. "It wasn't just your talent, you know."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"I saw you and Mattie, or, specifically, I saw you and your crew breaking into a house. And I noticed the way you guided them. You didn't have to make a sound, you didn't say a word. There was an unspoken communication. They obviously relied on you to tell them what needed to be done, and you'd obviously been very successful with running your crew, considering you have no arrest record. I picked you not because of your talent, although shadow magic is admittedly one of the school's favorite talents. I picked you because of the way you lead people, Sam. You have potential. And we need more of that."
When Sam frowned heavily at Apelles, the spymaster waved him off. "Believe more or don't, but it's true. Better than your shadow magic is your ability to bring a diverse group of people together and coordinate them into a team regardless of who they are or what they can do."
Apelles stared at him with some sort of meaningful expression on his face that Sam couldn't decipher. He was too tired for this.