opened her eyes and looked at him. “You were supposed to write some warning magic.”
This made him scowl. “You mustn’t say ‘warning magic.’ A spellwright would say ‘a warning spell’ or use a spell’s specific name.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
Kyran continued to scowl. “I did set a warning spell. The boy walked right through it. Wherever he touched the text, the rune sequences reversed or twisted. He corrupted the spell without even knowing it.”
“And he gleaned your subtext.”
“He did.” Kyran glared at her with beautiful brown eyes. “You shouldn’t have talked to him for so long. What if you had another seizure?”
She shrugged. “You would have invented an explanation. To him I seem human.” She looked at the tower into which Nicodemus had disappeared. “He’s been cursed, you know.”
“You see it, too?”
“Feel it.”
A rook called from high above the fastness. They looked up.
“The boy looks like you,” Kyran said.
“Yes. Interesting to find so much Imperial blood in an obscure, minor noble.”
“Hiding him from the other druids won’t be easy. Nor will be taking him.”
“Goddess below, Ky!” Deirdre swore. “Stop thinking like a rabid lycanthrope. We can’t ‘take’ the boy. True, he must go to our goddess’s ark without delay, but there are complications. You must think of our escape and how the wizards will react. He must go willingly.”
Her protector was silent for a long moment. “He intrigues you,” Kyran repeated at last.
“He’s a child.”
A new subtext was weaving darkness around Kyran’s waist, returning him to invisibility. He stared at her silently as the subtext continued up to his shoulders.
She scowled. “You’re jealous?”
“Far from it.” The subtext covered his chin. “I remember when I intrigued you, so I don’t envy the boy.” His eyes became soft and then disappeared. “I pity him.”
FROM AN EMPTY gargoyle’s stoop high up on an abandoned tower, the creature looked down into the moonlit Stone Court. A boy dressed in black was making for the Drum Tower. Two figures robed in white stood among standing stones.
“Druids,” the creature muttered. “I hate druids.”
The two white-robes below had spoiled his chance to catch the boy. Had he acted immediately, he could have charged into the courtyard, killed them, and censored the boy. But their unexpected presence had delayed him too long; a moment ago he had spotted a wizard in a nearby courtyard casting two new guardian spells. Now was the time for retreat.
Worse than ruining this particular opportunity, the white-robes could create much larger problems. Long ago, on the ancient continent, the creature had faced the druids when their magical school was at the height of its power. The millennia that had passed since then had reduced modern druids to little more than gardeners and carpenters. Even so, the white-robes knew more of the ancient magics than the wizards. Unless handled carefully, the druids could make it all but impossible to reach the boy.
A cold autumn wind whipped about the creature’s robes, making them flutter. When he crept away from the ledge, his legs ached and a dull pain throbbed across his forearms.
This body would not last much longer.
“No matter,” he muttered, turning away from the Stone Court. Perhaps an important wizard or druid would wander away from the inhabited buildings. In the meantime, he could write a few nightmares.
Where Amadi sat, Shannon saw only darkness. Now, more than ever before, his blindness both frightened and infuriated him.
“You believe,” he said, forcing his voice to be calm, “I pushed Nora Finn from the Spindle Bridge?”
“I seek the truth in all places,” Amadi answered evenly.
Shannon grasped the arms of his chair so hard his fingers ached. Was her accusation a disguised attack or an earnest attempt to discover the murderer? There was no way of knowing.
“What you’re saying is absurd; I have no connection to Nora’s death.” He stood and walked to the window. “Wouldn’t I have blood on me? Nora’s or my own?”
Amadi’s chair squeaked in a way that told him she was standing. “Magister, the body was discovered five hours ago. The villain has had ample time to conceal evidence. And you are connected to the murder—twice connected. Four days ago, Astrophell sent a colaboris spell awarding Magistra Finn the Chair for which you two were competing.”
“So I killed Nora to steal her honors?” He faced the window. “Fiery blood! Do you think—”
“Secondly,” Amadi broke in, “Magistra Finn’s body was riddled with a misspell, and you are the academy’s authority on misspells.”
“I am a linguist researching textual intelligence. Of course I study textual corruption and repair.”
He heard Amadi’s boot heels click against the floor. She was coming toward him. “I wasn’t thinking of your research—although that provides a third connection. I was thinking of your mentally damaged students who misspell texts simply by touching them.”
So there it was, the Northern fear of cacographers. He turned his head to show her his profile. “My students aren’t damaged,” he said in a low tone.
“I believe you’re innocent.”
He turned back to the window.
“Magister, if you help me, I can clear your name. But I must know everything you know about misspells and misspellers.” She paused. “Your reputation makes this a perilous situation. If you’re seen as resisting my investigation, it will go poorly.”
“My reputation?”
“Every spellwright in this academy knows how important you were in Astrophell. More than a few think you are bitter, perhaps paranoid. Everyone saw how fiercely you competed with Finn for academic appointments.”
“I might be competitive, Amadi, but you know I would never murder.”
“To prove that, I need your cooperation.”
Shannon took a deep breath in through his nose. She was right. Resisting might paint him with shades of guilt.
Now, even more so than before, he had to show that he had become an innocent researcher without political ambition. “If I cooperate, may I continue my research during your investigation?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s begin with the misspellers. Why are they here?” Receding footsteps told Shannon she was walking back to her chair. Likely she wanted to sit down again. He didn’t follow. As the junior wizard, she could not politely sit while he stood. He remained by the window.
“In Starhaven,” he said, “as in other wizardly academies, a spellwright must achieve fluency in one of our higher languages to earn a wizard’s hood, fluency in both higher languages to earn a grand wizard’s staff. Spellwrights who cannot learn either may still earn a lesser wizard’s hood by mastering the common languages. But a few fail even this. Their touch misspells all but simple texts. Here, in the South, we call such unfortunate souls cacographers.”
Amadi grunted. “It’s the same in the North. We simply do not name dangerous