“I don’t think so.” Emily followed the older woman up the driveway, thinking hard. “Did the Grandmaster - Hasdrubal - not fix them properly?”
“We went over them,” Lady Barb said. “Miles and I checked them repeatedly, while” - her voice hardened, just for a second - “he checked them too. The wards should not have decayed for years. Your intruder might well have damaged them.”
She stopped outside the door. “Shall we see if the wards still hold?”
Emily nodded, not daring to say a word. Lady Barb had been incredibly strict when she’d taught Emily concealment and obscurification charms. She certainly hadn’t listened to any excuses after a charm failed to stand up to her for less than ten minutes. Emily hadn’t liked her teaching methods, but she had to admit they’d been effective. She probably had the best protected notebooks in Whitehall.
Lady Barb raised a hand and started to probe the wards. Emily felt them respond, pushing Lady Barb’s magic away. The older woman started to slip through the first set of wards, but the second recognized her probes and shoved them back into the first set of wards. Emily felt a moment of hope, followed by relief when Lady Barb stepped back. She looked relieved too.
“Good enough,” she said. “I take it you removed Frieda’s access rights?”
“Yes,” Emily said, as she unlocked the door. “But I’ll put them back when she’s recovered.”
“If she ever does,” Lady Barb said. She pulled Emily back as the door opened. “Be careful, Emily. You don’t know what Daze might have left behind.”
Emily stepped into the darkened hallway, sniffing the air. A faint smell of ... something sickly-sweet wafted down the corridor, something that bothered her more than she cared to admit. The lanterns lit up as she muttered a spell, drawing power from the wards. She stepped forward, using the wards to scan for anything dangerous. There was nothing obvious. She reminded herself, sharply, that a trap didn’t have to be magic to be dangerous.
He could have filled the cellar with gunpowder and fitted a clockwork timer, Emily thought, sourly. It wouldn’t be that hard.
She glanced into the living room. Her heart almost stopped. Daze had ransacked it, throwing books everywhere as he searched the shelves. A painting she’d never had the heart to remove lay face-down on the floor, the canvas torn and broken. She cursed Daze under her breath as she picked it up and placed it on the table. The paint had crumbled, destroying the portrait. The four young men it had shown were gone forever.
“He was searching for something,” Lady Barb observed. “Your books?”
Emily shrugged as she looked around the room. Desk drawers had been yanked out and dropped on the floor, their contents strewn over the room; bookshelves and cupboards had been emptied, as if Daze had expected her to hide something behind them. He might have been right, too. He - or Frieda - had definitely found a way into her hidden safe. They’d managed to remove Malice, after all.
“Probably,” she said.
The rest of the house wasn’t much better. Daze had opened rooms she’d left sealed, then rummaged through them in search of ... in search of what? Emily didn’t know what he thought he’d been looking for. She made a mental note to go back to the bookshelves and try to determine what was missing, although she was all too aware that she didn’t have a comprehensive list of her collection. The former Grandmaster had left it all to her, but he hadn’t given her a manifest. He’d presumably known the entire collection back to front.
And he might have handed a book or two over to Fulvia before I awoke, Emily thought, as they inspected the kitchen. Thankfully, Daze hadn’t made that much of a mess in the kitchen, although some of the milk had gone off. Who knows what he did?
“We’ll check the safe now,” Lady Barb said, once they’d inspected the bedroom. “Unless you have a good idea of what’s missing.”
“I don’t know if anything is missing,” Emily said. She wished she’d had time to check the house after Daze’s death, but she’d thought getting back to Whitehall was more important. In hindsight, that might have cost her. “What was he looking for?”
“Knowledge is power,” Lady Barb said. “He might not have known what he was looking for himself.”
Emily scowled at her chest of drawers. The thought of someone poking through her underwear ... she felt her gorge rise and swallowed, hard. She was almost sure that her stepfather had played with her underwear, such as it was, a time or two ... she reminded herself, firmly, that her stepfather was on the other side of an impassable barrier. For all she knew, he was dead. She was fairly certain that she would never know. And if Daze had been looking at her clothes ...
My measurements probably aren’t a secret, she thought, wryly. Queen Marlena’s seamstresses and dressmakers knew her size, after all. Alassa and Imaiqah had measured Emily the first time, before she’d ever set foot in Zangaria. And I was at Daze’s mercy. He could have done a great deal worse to me if he’d wished.
She put the thought aside as she walked into the back room. It didn’t look like much, purposefully so. Bare walls, no windows, only one entrance leading directly into the master bedroom. Void had helped her to fit the safe behind the wall, working complex charms into the wards to keep it hidden; later, she’d hung her dresses from a railing and then cast preservation spells, relying on them to conceal the hints of magic from the safe. In theory, it should have been impossible for anyone to find it. Emily honestly wasn’t sure how Daze had found it. Frieda couldn’t have told him something she didn’t know herself.
Unless she figured it out at some point and never mentioned it to me, Emily thought. It was possible, she had to admit. Frieda wasn’t anything like as well-educated as Emily or Imaiqah, let alone Melissa or Alassa, but she was far from stupid. Or Daze just searched the house until he found it.
Her lips twisted as she saw her dresses torn from the railing and pitched to the floor. Queen Marlena would be annoyed, if she saw the damage. Each dress cost more money than the average commoner in Zangaria would earn in a year. Normally, a young noblewoman would be lucky if she had more than two or three such dresses. They’d be constantly repaired, growing older and older with their wearer, then passed down to the owner’s children when they came of age. Only the very richest could afford so many dresses for their own daughters, let alone give them away. And yet, Emily had never been able to find a polite way to turn the offer down.
“Check the safe,” Lady Barb ordered. “Carefully.”
Emily stepped forward, reaching out with her magic. The wall seemed to twist in front of her, the stone bending in directions her mind refused to grasp as the pocket dimension came to the fore. A haze of powerful charms rose up in front of her, magic crawling over her body as they verified her identity time and time again. Emily felt her skin crawl as the probing grew more intense, unsure if she should be pleased or annoyed that Void had built so many protections into the safe. By the time she cut her skin to allow it to sample a little of her blood, she felt itchy all over - and in desperate need of a shower.
The pocket dimension unlocked, revealing a single large room. It wasn’t part of the house, not really. Anyone who went looking for a room that wasn’t on the plans - or a wall that was much bigger than it needed to be, suggesting the presence of a hidden compartment - was doomed to disappointment. And yet ... it did draw some of its power from the wards. Daze might just have checked the spellwork time and time again until he found the power link and traced it to the safe. Emily stepped back as the magic locked into place, pushing the thought aside. She thought - she was fairly sure - that everything Daze had known had died with him.
“He did a good job,” Lady Barb said, reluctantly. “But you will need to set up another safe.”
Emily glanced at her. “Why? He didn’t tell anyone.”
Lady Barb swatted her rear, none too gently. “How do you know he didn’t tell anyone?”
Emily considered it for a long moment. She hadn’t been unconscious that long, had she? And y
et, Daze had had some time to tell Fulvia what he’d found before Emily had fought her way back to consciousness. Come to think of it, he’d clearly found the safe before Emily had reached the house. It made her wonder, grimly, just how long he’d lurked in her house. Frieda had vanished several times before she’d attacked Celadon, after all. She might have gone to Dragon’s Den and let Daze into the house.
“I don’t know,” she said. Moving the safe - or building another one - was beyond her. She’d need help. “But for the moment, I don’t have time.”
“Pack the delicate books into a trunk and take them back to Whitehall,” Lady Barb ordered, bluntly. “You don’t want your house to be burgled while you’re gone.”
Emily nodded, then turned her attention back to the safe. There had never been very much in it; a handful of books, her exam results from Whitehall, and a set of letters she’d exchanged with her friends over the years. She picked up the first book and frowned, remembering when Void had given it to her. He’d told her to study it, but she hadn’t had much time over the last couple of years. The other books were rarer, save for one Caleb had given her. She felt an odd pang as she picked it up. Should she give it back, now they were no longer together? Or should she keep it?
She packed it and the rest of the books into the trunk, careful to ensure that there were layers of cloth between them. Some of the older books were charmed to make life difficult for their readers - or anyone who would try to steal the books without asking permission. Emily felt her skin crawl - again - as she wrapped Malice up, wondering if she should simply burn the book. The dark magic within its pages could unleash nightmares in the wrong hands. But the thought of destroying a book felt like blasphemy.
“I need a shower,” she said, when she was done and the safe was closed again. “That book ...”
“Understandable,” Lady Barb said. “But first, let us check the rest of the house.”
It took nearly three hours to go through the entire building, searching for magical and non-magical traps. There were none, as far as Emily could tell. Daze didn’t seem to have spent any time preparing them, although she had to admit he’d been focused on Frieda rather than anything else. Lady Barb seemed displeased as they inspected the cellar - and the small collection of junk Grandmaster Hasdrubal had left to Emily - but even she unwillingly conceded that there didn’t seem to be any threats. She checked the wardstone, thoroughly, while Emily took a long shower. Her skin still felt unclean after touching Malice, even though she’d washed herself thoroughly. The book was a menace. She was quite relieved that Lady Barb had taken the trunk back to Whitehall while Emily had showered.
“I should clear up the mess,” Emily said, as they stood in the hallway. She wasn’t sure where to begin. Four rooms looked as if they were bombsites, while two more weren’t much better. And the rest were still quite messy. The potions lab had been searched so thoroughly that half the stored ingredients needed to be tossed out. “And ...”
“You’ll need to leave it,” Lady Barb said. “Come back later, if you have time.”
Emily shot her a sharp look. “Why? Where are we going?”
“Celeste,” Lady Barb said. “I think we should try to retrace Frieda’s steps, don’t you?”
“If we can,” Emily said. “And Daze’s?”
“I doubt we can follow his,” Lady Barb said. “But we can try.”
She leaned back. “Take a cloak and make sure you wear it,” she added. “You don’t want to be recognized.”
“I never get recognized,” Emily reminded her. None of her paintings looked remotely like her, save for a handful she’d sat for personally. Even then, the artists had touched up her appearance, making her look more mature on one hand and more exotic on the other. “No one gives me a second glance in the streets.”
“Celeste is one of the places where you might well be recognized,” Lady Barb told her, bluntly. “Take a cloak, then we’ll go.”
She watched through narrowed eyes as Emily carefully slid the wards into place, recharging the anti-teleport ward to keep people out of the garden. It wasn’t that much of a problem - Emily didn’t particularly care about the grass or flower beds - but it set a bad precedent. Besides, anyone who started outside the walls would have to expend energy breaking through those wards before tackling the house itself. It would give her time to respond to any threats.
“Not that bad,” Lady Barb said, grudgingly. “But we will be coming back soon to check and recheck them until they’re solid.”
Emily nodded as they walked down to the gates. The wards parted at their approach, allowing them to step into the city. It was one of the richer and quieter parts of Dragon’s Den, but hundreds of men and women were still making their way around town while hawkers and traders attempted to sell them everything from cheap food to live animals and second-hand books. She shook her head in wry amusement, reflecting on just how used she’d become to the smell of the city. It wasn’t something she’d enjoyed when she’d first come to the Nameless World. But then, the townsfolk had actually started cleaning the streets now. It wasn’t a big innovation, not compared to gunpowder, but it might just save more lives in the long run.
“Read all about it,” a broadsheet seller bellowed. He must have been using magic to amplify his voice. “Councillor Bunche has resigned! Councillor Mencken to take his place!”
“Lost treasures discovered in the Desert of Death,” another seller thundered. “Treasure seekers on way to find more!”
Emily rolled her eyes as a third broadsheet seller came into view. “Exclusive,” he bellowed, drowning out the other two. “Exclusive! Read all about it! Councillor Bunche has reclaimed his seat in a snap election!”
Lady Barb nudged Emily as the sellers started shouting at each other. “Do they bother to check the news before they start printing?”
“... Probably not,” Emily said. It was quite possible the first broadsheet seller was out of date. It was also possible that the third broadsheet seller was peddling lies. There was no Internet to spread truths - and lies - around the world at the speed of light. Hardly anyone had any way to check what they were reading. “Shall we go?”
Lady Barb took her arm. “Why not?”
Chapter Fourteen
EMILY GRITTED HER TEETH AS THE teleport spell snapped out of existence, depositing them both in a grassy field. A road ran alongside the field and straight down to a city, passing through a guardhouse before vanishing somewhere on the other side of the walls. Like Farrakhan - and unlike Alexis - Celeste didn’t seem to have any suburbs outside the walls. She supposed that made a kind of sense. A city in danger of being attacked wouldn’t want anything that might give prospective attackers cover as they approached. But Celeste was well inside the borders and teeming with magic-users to boot. She couldn’t imagine who would attack the city.
“Come on,” Lady Barb said. “Let’s go.”
A line of horse-drawn carts was slowly making their way through the gatehouse. Emily followed Lady Barb as she led the way past the carts and up to the pedestrian entrance. The guard eyed them both suspiciously, then waved them through. Emily felt a ward brushing against her protections as she walked through the gate, but nothing happened. Whatever the ward was looking for, it wasn’t on her person.
She nudged Lady Barb. “Do they want us to register?”
“Not as long as we’re out of the city before nightfall,” Lady Barb told her. “Celeste isn’t that paranoid about uninvited guests.”
Emily nodded, slowly. She’d never been to Celeste, yet she’d heard of it. Frieda had told her quite a bit. The city was a perfectly legitimate hub for magical enterprise - there were more sorcerers and magicians per square mile than anywhere else in the Allied Lands - but it also had a seedier side. A buyer could find almost anything within the city, if he knew where to look; forbidden tomes, illicit potions, slaves ...
She looked around with interest as they turned onto a street. Celeste looked quieter than Dragon’s D
en or Farrakhan, the people on the streets keeping a respectful distance from one another as they went about their business. There were no slums, no dark alleys where the poor congregated, just two or three-story buildings or row upon row of shops. The majority of the shops were definitely magic, she noted. There were more apothecaries in one street than there were in the entirety of Dragon’s Den. Even the non-magical shops were heavily warded to defend themselves against thieves.
“This way,” Lady Barb said. “And don’t bump into anyone here.”
Celeste was definitely quieter than any other city, Emily decided, as they walked through a maze of orderly streets. She couldn’t hear any chatter, even though she could see lips moving ... a faint blur surrounded the speakers, suggesting the presence of some rather unusual privacy wards. Even the handful of children and teenagers on the street were quiet, as if they were nervous of what would happen if they raised their voices. It felt creepy, in many ways. She couldn’t help wondering why Frieda had enjoyed it so much.
Perhaps it gets louder at nightfall, she thought. Or perhaps there are places where people can talk freely.
“Frieda worked for Master Zach and then Master Lathes,” Lady Barb commented, as they stopped outside an apothecary. A sign on the door said ZACH. “When we talk to them, you’ll have to take the lead.”
Emily swallowed, then nodded. She disliked talking to strangers, particularly strangers who might feel unfriendly, but there was no choice. Lady Barb couldn’t do everything for her. It was just something she’d have to do. She braced herself as they stepped through the door, a handful of wards scanning them before parting to let them into the shop. A spicy smell greeted them, something that made her stomach rumble. It had been hours since she’d last eaten.
“Welcome to my shop,” a voice said.
Emily looked into the darkness and saw a short, immensely fat man smiling at her. She couldn’t help thinking of him as a butterball, even though she knew it was cruel. His head was bald, but he had a large red moustache and bushy sideburns that didn’t look remotely natural. If she hadn’t been able to sense the magic surrounding him, she would have thought he was just an assistant. It was odd, very odd, to see a fat magician. Magic normally burnt fat faster than any amount of regular exercise.
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