by John Bierce
Rhodes snorted in amusement. “We spent quite a while looking for you, but you’re good at hiding, I’ll give you that.”
His expression turned somber again. “Then I finally found you again, entirely on accident, and your friends interfered.”
Rhodes seemed to collect himself again. “I still don’t know why I got so angry at you and your friends after that. They kicked my ass and mocked my family, so of course I’d be angry, but looking back… I’ve never been so angry as I was then, or as I was in the labyrinth. It’s like I was a totally different person. Messing with you was fun, but I was actually trying to hurt you in the labyrinth. I thought I was better than that, that I had more control than that. I thought I actually deserved all the praise, that I wasn’t just another spoiled noble whose family thought they shat gold.”
Rhodes laughed bitterly. “I thought wrong, though. Aedan’s made sure to remind me of that daily. I’ve gone from golden child to the shame of the family— the apprentice that dishonorably attacks others in the labyrinth, then flees like a coward and leaves them to die. I’m not even sure why Aedan bothers to keep me on anymore. He keeps talking about earning my redemption, but every time the goal seems to have moved a little bit farther away.”
Rhodes folded in on himself even more. “I think he enjoys my misery. Fitting, really, given how I treated you. Aedan loves talking about you, by the way. The apprentice I abandoned in the labyrinth has become the famous one, while I’m just known as a coward. Not a day goes by that I don’t hear about the deeds of the Stormward.”
“So, what, you’re here to apologize for the way you treated me last year?” Hugh said, his mind still racing. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? He didn’t even mind that damn title for once.
“Honestly, I really don’t feel bad about that,” Rhodes said. “It really was funny. What I feel bad about is abandoning you in the labyrinth. I could have easily made a couple more trips down to retrieve you, but the instant we landed, all my wrath dissolved into cowardice. I couldn’t think of anything but getting to safety. I’m shocked I even rescued my own teammate. And this after you saved all of us with that levitation spell.”
“Bakori probably wouldn’t have let you,” Hugh said distractedly.
“Who?” Rhodes said, visibly perplexed.
“The demon lurking down in the labyrinth? The one who had spent the year manipulating us?” Hugh asked.
“There’s a demon in the labyrinth?” Rhodes asked, his face pale.
Hugh nodded vaguely. “Yeah, and he was probably manipulating you too to ensure I’d end up in the depths of the labyrinth. You’re an awful person, but you attacking me was somewhat out of character, as was you just fleeing.” Hugh didn’t bother mentioning why Bakori had wanted him in the depths of the labyrinth.
Rhodes worked his jaw as though he was incapable of forming words.
“I’m pretty sure Aedan was briefed on Bakori, if not why he was luring us down into the depths,” Hugh said. “He was in the party that rescued my friends and I, right? So I really don’t know why he wouldn’t have told you, unless he’s just that cruel.”
Hugh stood up to leave. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone I’m a warlock. You owe me that much.”
He strode off down the hallway.
“Wait!” Rhodes called out, sounding desperate and hopeful. “You’re not lying to me?”
Hugh stopped and turned, looking Rhodes in the eyes. “I’m not lying to you.”
Rhodes was shaking, though from what emotions Hugh couldn’t tell.
“There’s really a demon in the labyrinth?” Rhodes asked. “I’m not a coward?”
“There’s really a demon in the labyrinth,” Hugh said impatiently, and turned to go. “You’re probably not a coward, you were probably being manipulated by the demon.”
He’d only made it a few steps farther when Rhodes called out again. “Why are you telling me this? After everything I did, you could have just left me to suffer.”
Hugh turned to look at him. “Two reasons. First, because I’m a better person than you. Second, because you just solved a problem for me entirely by accident.”
He turned on his heel and strode off down the hall.
“What problem?” Rhodes said, the confusion audible in his voice.
“I’m about to add another deed to my legend,” Hugh said.
He might be a better person than Rhodes, but that still left room for a little gloating, and even if Hugh hated being called Stormward, he couldn’t help but think that Rhodes had to hate it even more.
Rhodes called out something else behind him, but Hugh ignored it, sending frantic mental signals for his spellbook to find Godrick and Talia and drag them to his room. He managed to keep to a brisk walk until he was out of sight and earshot of Rhodes, then burst into a run, heading towards Ilinia’s guest rooms to find Sabae.
If he was right, Rhodes had just blown the investigation wide open. Hugh knew who the traitor was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Departures
“So… what, you’re just leaving like that?” Sabae demanded. “You’ve spent a paltry few weeks here, and you’re just going to up and leave just like that? Did your negotiations even accomplish anything?”
The winds in Ilinia’s suite continued blowing, picking up the archmage’s clothes and folding them. Globules of water darted between them, washing the clothes and then draining away their moisture before the winds settled them into her grandmother’s bags.
“They were mostly just an excuse to visit you, dear,” Ilinia said distractedly as she shuffled around the massive suite of rooms that had been assigned to her, packing documents and ordering her aides around.
Sabae stared at her in disbelief. She’d spent the past few weeks being dragged in her grandmother’s wake, but she’d had precious little time to actually spend with Sabae, apart from a few sessions of Ilinia criticizing the magic Alustin had been teaching her, and a few interrogation sessions about Kanderon, the Librarians Errant, and the events in Theras Tel.
Ilinia reached out and pushed Sabae’s mouth closed. “Don’t gape, dearie, it makes you look like a fish.”
Sabae pulled back and snarled. “I told you what’s waiting in the labyrinth for us, and you’re just going to leave us to our fates?”
“I’ll be a hundred leagues away by the time you enter the labyrinth,” Ilinia said cheerfully. “Your friend Hugh is on his way here. He seems like he’s in quite a hurry.”
Sabae ignored that for now. Her grandmother loved showing off her windtalking abilities. Hugh probably wouldn’t be here for a good few minutes yet.
“There’s a literal demon down in the labyrinth!” Sabae shouted. Several of her grandmother’s aides gasped, but both Kaen Das ignored them. They were all loyal, and Ilinia had her ways of ensuring her security from scrying. “It survived battle with Kanderon, what could we possibly do against it?”
Ilinia waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Feh. Kanderon’s not so impressive.”
Sabae just glared at her. She’d seen her family assessments of the local great powers, and Kanderon had sat atop the list for centuries. Ilinia, Indris, and a few of the more reclusive Skyreach Range powers were the sphinx’s only real competitors in the southwest of the continent. Anything that could survive battle with her was far out of Sabae’s league.
“Everyone out!” Sabae snapped. Ilinia’s aides weren’t technically obligated to listen to Sabae, but considering her tone of voice, they moved almost as fast as they would have for her grandmother.
Ilinia just raised her brow at that, but didn’t contradict her.
Once the door closed behind the last of the aides, Sabae turned and glared at her grandmother. This was a calculated risk, but…
“There’s a traitor on Skyhold’s council, Grandmother.”
Ilinia chuckled. “I’m well aware, dearie. I’ve spent more than enough bribing them.”
Sabae rolled her eyes. Of course she was. “I need
to know who it is.”
“…So you can report them to Alustin? That would be cheating, wouldn’t it? I thought you were supposed to discover the traitor yourself,” Ilinia said, sipping from her flask.
Sabae actually snarled out loud at that. Of course Ilinia knew about the investigation.
“The traitor is working with the demon Bakori,” Sabae said. “If we can unmask him or her, we can get out of having to go into the labyrinth again.”
Ilinia chuckled. “You don’t listen well when you’re in a mood, Sabae. I won’t be helping you cheat, nor do I approve of a Kaen Das backing down from a challenge.”
Sabae made a high-pitched noise. Facing certain death at the hands of a demon was hardly a reasonable challenge.
“You’ll be fine, dear. I have faith in you. Enough that I’m not going to be worried about you, even from a hundred leagues away. Now, your short little warlock friend will be here soon, give your grandmother a kiss before she leaves.”
Sabae opened her mouth to argue, but the air in the room seemed to constrict, locking it back shut again. Her grandmother pecked her on the cheek, then the wind opened the door and sent Sabae stumbling towards it.
“Good luck with your finals!” her grandmother called out behind her.
The wind propelled Sabae straight out the door and into Hugh. Before they could pick themselves up off the ground, the door slammed shut behind her.
“I figured it out!” Hugh hissed. “I figured out who it is!”
Sabae clamped her hand over Hugh’s mouth automatically, before he could say anything else. “Not here. Let’s head to your room.”
As they strode off, Sabae couldn’t help but glare back at the door to her grandmother’s room.
She hadn’t even managed to work up the nerve to ask her grandmother about arranged marriages. Part of her was daring to hope that the fact that it hadn’t been brought up yet meant that Ilinia didn’t have marriage plans for Sabae, but she did her best to suppress that part— Ilinia wasn’t the sort to let go of any advantage, and there was too much political value to be gained for the family from arranged marriages for there to be any chance of that.
Godrick and Talia met them on the way to Hugh’s room, and they didn’t look pleased to Sabae. Well, Talia didn’t look pleased, at least, since Hugh’s spellbook was literally hauling her down the hallway by her hair. Godrick was visibly torn between concern and struggling not to laugh.
“I’m going to blast this stupid book into bits, Hugh,” Talia said, staggering behind the book as it floated down the hall.
“Let go of her hair,” Hugh ordered.
The book let go, then dodged behind Hugh to get out of Talia’s line of fire.
Sabae rolled her eyes at that. “No time for book burnings, Hugh has had something of a revelation, apparently. The sort of revelation we should only talk about privately.”
Talia and Godrick immediately grew serious at that, and no one spoke again until they reached Hugh’s room.
Where an unpleasant surprise was waiting for them.
“Hugh, you are an idiot,” Talia repeated. “A complete idiot.”
“It’s not Hugh’s fault I was snooping through his stuff,” Avah yelled.
“It’s his fault he left sensitive documents where you could find them!” Talia yelled back.
Sabae pulled at her hair in exasperation as she watched That Old Pile of Junk leave the harbor. This was seriously the last thing they needed right now.
“It’s not that we don’t like you, Avah,” Sabae said, turning away from the window and kicking Talia’s shin discreetly when it looked like she was about to comment, “it’s that they’re secret documents that we’re literally not allowed to share with anyone. We could get in a ton of trouble for this. And not just academic punishment sorts of trouble.”
Avah stared at her in shock. “Wait, this isn’t just some sort of exercise? There’s actually a traitor in Skyhold?”
Hugh, who was helping Godrick collect the scattered suspect dossiers, made a quiet, unhappy noise.
“Why would anyone let apprentices participate in this sort of thing?” Avah demanded. “This is way, way too dangerous!”
“We can handle ourselves just fine!” Talia snapped.
“I’ve seen you go up against Anders in training!” Avah snapped back, “and you sure can’t handle him. What’s he going to do if he finds out you know he’s selling out Skyhold?”
The room got quiet as everyone stared at Avah.
“Anders isn’t the traitor,” Hugh said.
“Of course he is,” Avah insisted.
“What, you figured that out from ten minutes with dossiers we’ve spent a year looking through?” Talia demanded with a nasty look.
“A few hours, but yeah,” Avah said. “Haven’t you ever wondered how he can afford it?”
“Afford what?” Godrick asked.
“The silk!” Avah said.
“He’s from Tsarnassus, isn’t he? They’re the biggest suppliers of silk on the continent,” Sabae said.
Avah rolled her eyes. “And what, you think they just give it away to their citizens? Silk of the lowest quality is still absurdly expensive, and Anders is not wearing the lowest quality. Any one of his outfits is probably worth as much as a small sandship, and I’ve seen at least three of them. This dossier has assessments of his finances in there, and there’s absolutely no way he could afford them on his own without taking bribes or embezzling or something.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Ah think she might be right,” Godrick finally said.
“And I have a few suspicions where the money came from,” Sabae muttered.
Talia’s mood had taken an astonishingly fast turn for the better. “I told you it was Anders,” she told Sabae with a gloating smile.
“You thought it was Anders because that’s how it would have played out in one of your novels,” Sabae pointed out, “not because of any decent investigatory technique.”
Talia stuck out her tongue, still smiling broadly.
“It’s not Anders, though,” Hugh said.
Avah and Talia both shot Hugh glares.
“Or… oh, no. It might be Anders, but it’s not just Anders,” Hugh said, clutching at his hair.
“Wait, I thought you called us here because you figured out who it was,” Talia said. “But you were just wrong about it, and your girlfriend just had the answer ready to go?”
“I did figure it out!” Hugh said. “Or, well, Rhodes sort of accidentally figured it out. It’s Rutliss!”
“Wait, how is that pompous jerk Rhodes involved in our investigation now?” Talia asked. “Are you just letting everyone find out about our investigation?”
“He’s not! He just mentioned something when he cornered me earlier— that part of why he treated me the way he did was because I never could have afforded Skyhold’s attendance on my own,” Hugh said.
“He cornered you?” Sabae asked, a little alarmed at that.
Hugh’s spellbook poked out from under the bed, looking a little alarmed as well. Well, alarmed at something other than Talia’s future vengeance— it had been hiding under there since they got back, though it had at least listened when Hugh had asked it to help prevent them from being scryed on.
“It’s fine. I’ll tell you about it later. It’s not important right now,” Hugh said in a rush. “He was right, though, I couldn’t have afforded Skyhold, and nor could my family. They could barely afford my ticket here. So far as I know, no-one paid for my tuition at Skyhold. I think Bakori must have arranged it— and, since Rutliss is the Bursar, he must have fudged the books to make it look like I’d paid.”
Avah raised her hand. “Who is Bakori, and how exactly could you not notice that you hadn’t paid anything to go to school?”
Sabae opened her mouth to try and offer a reasonable but not alarming explanation, but Talia beat her to the punch. “Demon, lives in the labyrinth below the school, has mental manipulation mag
ic, had plans for Hugh that he disrupted, and now he has a grudge against Hugh and probably means to kill him.”
Sabae sighed in exasperation as Avah turned pale. That little revelation really wasn’t going to be great for Hugh and Avah’s relationship, but now was hardly the time to worry about that. Sabae would be having words with Talia after this was all over, though.
If they made it through, anyhow.
“There’s a problem with yer theory, Hugh,” Godrick said. “Even assuming it wasn’t one of Rutliss’ underlings who did it— and we have no idea how many of them have been influenced by Bakori— his department isn’t the only one that could have gotten you in.”
“Wait, there’s really a demon below Skyhold?” Avah said. “Talia isn’t just messing with me because she doesn’t like me?”
“Talia likes you just fine,” Hugh said.
Sabae rolled her eyes at that.
“Abyla’s department could a’ slipped you in as well,” Godrick continued. “Admissions is actually responsible for collectin’ tuition for new students. It’s a telling piece a’ evidence, sure, and it could give up the game, but not without a bit a’ further research.”
“So there’s two traitors, and we don’t know who one of them is, then,” Talia said.
“At least two,” Sabae said. “Both Abyla and Rutliss could be traitors, even if only one of them is being manipulated by Bakori. Hell, the fact that we know there are multiple traitors even casts doubt on Tarik being innocent, so we could have all four suspects as traitors, though that seems unlikely.”
“I read a book once where all the suspects turned out to have worked together,” Talia said.
Sabae rolled her eyes. “We’re not basing our investigation off the novels you enjoy, Talia.”
“It worked for Anders,” Talia said.
“That was pure coincidence,” Sabae replied.
Talia stuck out her tongue at Sabae.