I frowned.
“I can say, however, that because of those stories, nobody is much interested in taking that sort of job again,” Sleat said conversationally. “Not that there is much call for that sort of work around here to begin with. We’re all terribly civilized.”
“Not that you would know about it, even if it were going on.”
His smile came back. “Exactly.” He leaned forward. “Enough chatter then. What is it you’re looking for?”
“I need a schema for a piece of artificing.”
He set his elbows on the table. “And . . .”
“It contains sygaldry Kilvin restricts to those of El’the rank and higher.”
Sleat nodded matter-of-factly. “And how quickly do you need it? Hours? Days?”
I thought about Wil and Sim staying up nights to watch over me. “Sooner is better.”
Sleat looked thoughtful, his eyes unfocused. “It’s going to cost, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to produce it on an exact schedule.” He focused in on me. “Also, if you get caught you’ll be charged with Wrongful Apprehension at the very least.”
I nodded.
“And you know what the penalties are?”
“‘For Wrongful Apprehension of the Arcane not leading to injury of another,” I recited. “‘The offending student may be fined no more than twenty talents, whipped no more than ten times, suspended from the Arcanum, or expelled from the University.”
“They fined me the full twenty talents and suspended me two terms,” Sleat said grimly. “And that was only some Re’lar-level alchemy. It will be worse with you if this is El’the-level stuff.”
“How much?” I asked.
“To get hold of it in a few days . . .” He looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Thirty talents.”
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach, but I kept my face composed. “Is there any room to negotiate that?”
He gave his sharp smile again, his teeth were very white. “I also deal in favors,” he said. “But a thirty talent favor is going to be a big one.” He looked at me thoughtfully. “We could perhaps work out something along those lines. But I feel obliged to mention that when I call a favor due, it’s due. At that point, there isn’t any negotiation.”
I nodded calmly to show him I understood. But I felt a cold knot forming in my gut. This was a bad idea. I knew it in my bones.
“Do you owe anyone else?” Sleat asked. “And don’t lie to me or I’ll know.”
“Six talents,” I said casually. “Due at the end of the term.”
He nodded. “I’m guessing you didn’t manage to get it off some moneylender. Did you go to Heffron?”
I shook my head. “Devi.”
For the first time in our conversation Sleat lost his composure, his charming smile fell away entirely. “Devi?” He pulled himself up in his chair, his body suddenly tense. “No. I don’t think we can come to an arrangement. If you had cash it would be one thing.” He shook his head. “But no. If Devi already owns a piece of you . . .”
His reaction chilled me, then I realized he was just angling for more money. “What if I were to borrow money from you so I could settle my debt with her?”
Sleat shook his head, regaining a piece of his shattered nonchalance. “That is the very definition of poaching,” he said. “Devi has an ongoing interest in you. An investment.” He took a drink and cleared his throat meaningfully. “She does not look kindly on other folk interfering where she’s staked her claim.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I guess I was taken in by your reputation,” I said. “Silly of me, really.”
His face creased into a frown. “What do you mean by that?”
I waved my hands dismissively. “Please, give me credit for being at least half as clever as you’ve heard,” I said. “If you can’t get what I want, just admit it. Don’t waste my time by pricing things out of my reach or coming up with elaborate excuses.”
Sleat seemed unsure if he should be offended. “What part of this seems elaborate to you?”
“Come now,” I said. “You’re willing to run against the laws of the University, risk the wrath of the masters, the constables, and the iron law of Atur. But a little slip of a girl makes your knees quivery?” I sniffed and mimicked the gesture he’d made before, pretending to ball something up and throw it away over my shoulder.
He looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Yes, that’s exactly the case,” he said, wiping tears of genuine amusement from his eyes. “Apparently I was fooled by your reputation too. If you think Devi is a little slip of a girl, you aren’t nearly as clever as I thought.”
Looking over my shoulder, Sleat nodded at someone I couldn’t see and waved his hand dismissively. “Go on with you,” he said. “I have business to do with rational people who know the true shape of the world. You’re wasting my time.”
I felt myself prickling with irritation, but forced myself to keep it off my face. “I also need a crossbow,” I said.
He shook his head. “No, I’ve already told you. No loans or favors.”
“I can offer goods in exchange.”
He looked at me skeptically. “What sort of crossbow?”
“Any sort,” I said. “It needn’t be fancy. It just needs to work.”
“Eight talents,” he said.
I gave him a hard look. “Don’t insult me. This is mundane contraband. I’ll bet ten to a penny you can have one in two hours. If you try to gouge me, I’ll just go over the river and get one from Heffron.”
“Get one from Heffron and you’ll have to carry it back from Imre,” he said. “Constable would love seeing that.”
I shrugged and began to get to my feet.
“Three talents and five,” he said. “It’ll be used, mind you. And a stirrup, not a crank.”
I calculated in my head. “Will you accept an ounce of silver and a spool of finely drawn gold wire?” I asked, bringing them out from the pockets of my cloak.
Sleat’s dark eyes unfocused slightly as he did his own internal calculations. “You drive a tight bargain.” He picked up the spool of bright wire and the small ingot of silver. “There’s a rain barrel behind the Grimsome Tannery. The crossbow will be there in fifteen minutes.” He gave me an insulted look. “Two hours? You don’t know anything about me at all.”
Hours later Fela emerged from the shelves in the Archives and caught me with one hand against the four-plate door. I wasn’t pushing on it, exactly. Just pressing. Just checking to see if it was firmly closed. It was.
“I don’t suppose they tell scrivs what’s behind this?” I asked her without any hope.
“If they do, they haven’t told me yet,” Fela said, stepping close and reaching out to run her fingers along the grooves the letters made in the stone: Valaritas . “I had a dream about the door once,” she said. “Valaritas was the name of an old dead king. His tomb was behind the door.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s better than the dreams I have about it.”
“What are yours?” She asked.
“Once I dreamed I saw light through the keyholes,” I said. “But mostly I’m just standing here, staring at it, trying to get in.” I frowned at the door. “As if standing outside while I’m awake isn’t frustrating enough, I do it while I’m asleep too.”
Fela laughed softly at that, then turned away from the door to face me. “I got your note,” she said. “What’s the research project you were so vague about?”
“Let’s go somewhere private to talk,” I said. “It’s a bit of a story.”
We made our way to one of the reading holes, and once the door was closed I told her the whole story, embarrassments and all. Someone was practicing malfeasance against me. I couldn’t go to the masters for fear of revealing I was the one who had broken into Ambrose’s rooms. I needed a gram to protect myself, but I didn’t know enough sygaldry to make one.
“Malfeasance,” she said in a low voice, slowly shaking her head in dismay. “You�
��re sure?”
I unbuttoned my shirt and took it down off my shoulder, revealing the dark bruise on my shoulder from the attack I’d only managed to partially stop.
She leaned in to look at it. “And you really don’t know who it might be?”
“Not really,” I said, trying not to think of Devi. I wanted to keep that particular bad decision to myself for now. “I’m sorry to drag you into this, but you’re the only one . . .”
Fela waved her hands in negation. “None of that. I told you to ask if you ever needed a favor, and I’m glad you did.”
“I’m glad you’re glad,” I said. “If you can get me through this, I’ll owe you instead. I’m getting better at finding what I want in here, but I’m still new.”
Fela nodded. “It takes years to learn your way around the Stacks. It’s like a city.”
I smiled. “That’s how I think of it too. I haven’t lived here long enough to learn all the shortcuts.”
Fela grimaced a bit. “And I’m guessing you’re going to need those. If Kilvin really believes the sygaldry is dangerous, most of the books you want will be in his private library.”
I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. “Private library?”
“All the masters have private libraries,” Fela said matter-of-factly. “I know some alchemy so I help spot books with formulae Mandrag wouldn’t want in the wrong hands. Scrivs who know sygaldry do the same for Kilvin.”
“But this is pointless then,” I said. “If Kilvin has all those books locked away there’s no chance of finding what I’m looking for.”
Fela smiled, shaking her head. “The system isn’t perfect. Only about a third of the Archives are properly cataloged. What you’re looking for is probably still in the Stacks somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it.”
“I wouldn’t even need a whole schema,” I said. “If I just knew a few of the proper runes I could probably just fake the rest.”
She gave me a worried look. “Is that really wise?”
“Wisdom is a luxury I can’t afford,” I said. “Wil and Sim have already been watching over me for two nights. They can’t sleep in shifts for the next ten years.”
Fela drew a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Right. We can start with the cataloged books first. Maybe what you need has slipped past the scrivs.”
We collected several dozen books on sygaldry and closeted ourselves in an out-of-the-way reading hole on the fourth floor. Then we started going through them one at a time.
We began with hopes of finding a full-fledged schema for a gram, but as the hours slid by we lowered our hopes. If not a whole schema, perhaps we could find a description of one. Perhaps a reference to the sequence of runes used. The name of a single rune. A hint. A clue. A scrap. Some piece of the puzzle.
I closed the last of the books we had brought back to the reading hole. It made a solid thump as the pages settled together.
“Nothing?” she asked tiredly.
“Nothing.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “So much for getting lucky.”
Fela shrugged, grimacing halfway through the motion, then craned her head to one side to stretch a kink out of her neck. “It made sense to start in the most obvious places,” she said. “But those will be the same places the scrivs have combed over for Kilvin. We’ll just have to dig deeper.”
I heard the distant sound of the belling tower and was surprised at how many times it struck. We’d been researching for over four hours. “You’ve missed your class,” I said.
“It’s just geometries,” she said.
“You’re a wonderful person,” I said. “What’s our best option now?”
“A long, slow trawl of the Stacks,” she said. “But it’s going to be like panning for gold. Dozens of hours, and that’s with both of us working together so we don’t overlap our efforts.”
“I can bring in Wil and Sim to help,” I said.
“Wilem works here,” Fela said. “But Simmon’s never been a scriv, he’ll probably just get in the way.”
I gave her an odd look. “Do you know Sim very well?”
“Not very,” she admitted. “I’ve seen him around.”
“You’re underestimating him,” I said. “People do it all the time. Sim’s smart.”
“Everyone here is smart,” Fela said. “And Sim is nice, but . . .”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “He’s nice. He’s gentle, which people see as weak. And he’s happy, which people see as stupid.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Fela said.
“I know,” I said, rubbing at my face. “I’m sorry. It’s been a bad couple of days. I thought the University would be different than the rest of the world, but it’s just like everywhere else: people cater to pompous, rude bastards like Ambrose, while the good souls like Simmon get brushed off as simpletons.”
“Which one are you?” Fela said with a smile as she began to stack up the books. “Pompous bastard or good soul?”
“I’ll research that later,” I said. “Right now I’ve got more pressing concerns.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Trust
WHILE I WAS FAIRLY sure Devi wasn’t behind the malfeasance, I’d have to be a fool to ignore the fact that she had my blood. So when it became clear that making a gram was going to require a great deal of time and energy, I realized the time had come to pay her a visit and make sure she wasn’t responsible.
It was a miserable day: chill with a clammy wind that cut through my clothes. I didn’t own gloves or a hat, and had to settle for putting up my hood and wrapping my hands in the fabric of my cloak as I pulled it more tightly around my shoulders.
As I crossed Stonebridge a new thought occurred to me: maybe someone had stolen my blood from Devi. That made better sense than anything else. I needed to make sure the bottle with my blood was safe. If she still had it, and it hadn’t been tampered with, I’d know she wasn’t involved.
I made my way to the western edge of Imre where I stopped at a tavern to buy a small beer and warm myself by their fire. Then I walked through the now familiar alley and up the narrow staircase behind the butcher’s shop. Despite the chill and recent rain, the smell of rancid fat still hung in the air.
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
It opened after a minute, then Devi’s face peered through a narrow crack in the door. “Well hello,” she said. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
“Business mostly,” I admitted.
“Pity.” She opened the door wider.
As I came into the room I tripped on the threshold, stumbling clumsily into her and resting one hand briefly on her shoulder as I steadied myself. “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed.
“You look like hell,” she said as she bolted the door. “I hope you’re not looking for more money. I don’t lend to folks who look like they’re coming off a three-day drunk.”
I settled wearily into a chair. “I brought back your book.” I said, bringing it out from under my cloak and laying it on her desk.
She nodded at it, smiling a bit. “What did you think of good old Malcaf?”
“Dry. Wordy. Boring.”
“There weren’t any pictures either,” she said dryly. “But that’s beside the point.”
“His theories about perception as an active force were interesting,” I admitted. “But he writes like he’s afraid someone might actually understand him.”
Devi nodded, her mouth pursed. “That’s about what I thought too.” She reached across the desk and slid the book closer to herself. “What did you think about the chapter on proprioception?”
“He seemed to be arguing from a deep well of ignorance,” I said. “I’ve met people in the Medica with amputated limbs. I don’t think Malcaf ever has.”
I watched her for some sign of guilt, some indication she’d been practicing malfeasance against me. But there was nothing. She seemed perfectly normal, cheery and sharp-tongued as ever. But I had grown up among actor
s. I know how many ways there are to hide your true feelings.
Devi made an exaggerated frown. “You look so serious over there. What are you thinking?”
“I had a couple of questions,” I said evasively. I wasn’t looking forward to this. “Not about Malcaf.”
“I’m so tired of being appreciated for my intellect.” She leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. “When will I be able to find a nice boy who just wants me for my body?” She gave a luxurious stretch, but stopped halfway through, giving me a puzzled look. “I’m waiting for a quip here. You’re usually quicker than this.”
I gave her a weak smile. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I don’t think I can match wits with you today.”
“I never suspected you could match wits with me,” she said. “But I do like a little banter now and then.” She leaned forward and folded her hands on the top of the desk. “What sort of questions?”
“Did you do much sygaldry in the University?”
“Personal questions.” She raised an eyebrow. “No. I didn’t care for it. Too much fiddling around for my taste.”
“You don’t seem to be the sort of woman who’d mind a little fiddling around,” I said, managing a weak smile.
“That’s more like it,” she said with approval. “I knew you had it in you.”
“I don’t suppose you have any books on advanced sygaldry?” I asked. “The sort of things they don’t allow a Re’lar access to?”
Devi shook her head. “No. I’ve got some nice alchemical texts though. Stuff you’d never find in your precious Archives.” Bitterness was thick in her voice when she said the last word.
That’s when it all came together in my head. Devi wouldn’t ever be so careless as to let someone steal my blood. She wouldn’t sell it to turn a quick profit. She didn’t need the money. She didn’t have a grudge against me.
But Devi would sell her eyeteeth to get into the Archives.
“It’s funny you should mention alchemy,” I said as calmly as possible. “Have you ever heard of something called a plum bob?”
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