Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (31 page)

“I should hope not.” An alarm now would mean we’d been found out before the food ever got to Stormwind. “Unless they decide to keep it quiet,” I add.

“Always the optimist,” Kenta mutters, and then laughs, a soft, stifled sound.

I eye him askance. “What are you laughing about?”

“You,” he says, shoulders shaking. “At least, the you I remember. Never mind. Where will you go now?”

“I’ve got that planned,” I reply, knowing better than to share details that might hurt either of us, should one of us get caught. “You need to leave before they close the gates.”

He nods, a jerk of his chin, his eyes moving to the window. “You know the building.”

“Yes.” On our way to here, we walked past the building where Kenta will meet the phoenix
,
a few city blocks from the gates. I also memorized the directions to his rented room. If I end up leaving separately from Stormwind, I’ll be able to find them.

But Kenta still stands against the wall, his gaze on the gardens visible through the window. There is no trace of laughter in his eyes now. “Kenta,” I say gently, “whatever happens, I made these choices. I don’t want you to regret them.”

“It’ll take a miracle for you to walk out of here.” Kenta almost snarls the words as he turns his gaze on me. “I told myself I wouldn’t sit by and let you do that again, back when it first happened, before we thought you dead. This afternoon, I thought I could help you, walk with you as I promised myself. Now I’m going to break my word.”

“You’re not—”

“I am.”

“It wouldn’t make sense for you to stay,” I point out. “You can’t touch the wards and there’s no reason for both of us to risk our lives. Someone has to meet the phoenix.”

“I know the
reasons
.
” His voice verges on a growl. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m breaking my word.”

I bite my lip to keep from arguing. He finally faces me, and in the failing light, I see the pain in his eyes. And I finally understand why he has helped me so much now; he still has not forgiven himself for my “death,” for the sacrifice I made to save him and the Ghost. Just as Alia has not forgiven herself. We are all carrying so much hurt.

I say the only thing I can think of. “I’m sorry.”

He snorts. “Even if it was your fault, I wouldn’t blame you.” He shakes his head, takes a step, and turns back to me. “Tomi?”

I nod, the nickname — so foreign, so completely
right
— settling into me.

“Get out alive.”

Once Kenta departs, I take the stairs down, coming to a stop at the first closed door — classroom or storage room, I can’t say. I slip a charm or three into the crack beneath the doors, turn tail, and leave, up the stairs and out of the building.

I spend the next hour closed up inside the servants’ washroom in the basement of the next building over. After changing into my old clothes and pulling on Stormwind’s mage robes, I sit on the floor and wait. From down here, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s happening in the rest of the Mekteb. I remain where I am until I hear a high wail that raises the hair on the back of my neck, making me cringe. It’s certainly not the sort of siren one could ignore.

I make my way upstairs as the wail repeats. Outside, the glowstones under the arcades and throughout the gardens have burst into sun
-
like brilliance, driving out every shadow. Against their brightness, the forms of the lycan guards — dozens of them — show clear and frightening. They move systematically and fast, small groups combing through the gardens while others search the surrounding buildings.

As I stand at the doorway, two mages race down the stairs, taking the hallway at a run.

“What’s going on?” I ask them, stepping back as they approach.

The foremost mage slows, assessing me with a quick, shrewd glance. “Who are you?”

“Journeyman Zainab Tanaka,” I say helpfully. It had seemed as good a name as any while I sat waiting in the washroom. “Is it the rogue mage again?”

“No,” the second mage says, glancing past me to the doors. “It’s Mage Stormwind.”

I blink at them. “What?”

“She escaped,” the first mage snaps, starting forward. “We haven’t time to talk. If you want to help, come along. You can at least be useful keeping the apprentices from leaving their buildings.”

I follow after them. “I’ve experience in tracking,” I say, having no intention whatsoever of getting shut up with a bunch of frightened children. I have work to do.

“We’ll see,” the mage says.

Outside, I trail after the mages as they move to intercept a team of lycans coming down the arcade. They call out a greeting, demanding information.

The lead lycan slows to speak with us, gesturing his men to continue on. “We’re expanding the search to the outer buildings. Join one of patrols. The mage may still be dangerous. If you catch up with her, call for reinforcements. Don’t attempt to engage her. We don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“She’s a high mage gone rogue,” retorts the first mage. “She’s capable of a great deal.”

“Only if she managed to break the binding spell holding her,” the lycan says. “There’s still a chance we will catch her on campus. If she makes it to the city, it will be … difficult.”

“How long has she been missing?” The first mage demands.

“Anywhere from ten minutes to an hour. We need to move quickly to find her.”

The mages nod in agreement, and start forward once more. I follow them, parting ways with the guard and continuing around the corner of the building to the path there. At which point, I say, “I’m going to check for students here,” and duck into the side entrance of the next building—White Raven Hall
.

The mages say something to my back, but I let the door close behind me without answer. The hallway lies empty. Good. I count to five hundred, then slip back out. The mages are long gone, the path between the buildings momentarily empty, the search already widening out, just as I’d hoped. I jog along the path, then turn up the back of the building, following the paths toward the back of Shahmaran Hall.

As I move, I catch glimpses of the boundary wall through the gaps in the next set of buildings. A reddish cloud rises above the walls, two or three times its height, so thick that it completely obscures the distant lantern
-
and glowstone-lit buildings. In actual depth it might be no more than a pace or two across, but from here it appears impenetrable. Without reaching out with my mage senses to assess it, I can’t know its exact nature. I would guess it was originally designed to keep the campus safe from outsiders, rather than to keep people in. I wonder if the mages involved have adjusted it, or if raising it was merely a visible way of alerting the campus and city. Either way, I won’t be climbing any walls to get out.

As I near Shahmaran Hall, I cut across the flower beds and paths, headed for the window I separated from the building’s magical defenses. With the glowstones shining brighter than lanterns, the bushes below the window offer scant cover. Not good.

Another search party composed of two mages and two lycans rounds the far corner of the building as I stand before the windows. On impulse, I raise a hand, drawing their attention. The lycans break into a sprint, the mages hurrying after them.

“I don’t know if it means anything,” I tell them as they reach me, gesturing toward the window. “I was assessing the spells on the building — I couldn’t understand how she got out.”

The elder mage, a stocky middle-aged man, wheezes up to us, clearly displeased at having to run after the guards. “Who are you?” he demands. “Why are you here alone?”

“Journeyman Zainab Tanaka,” I say easily. “And I’m searching for the prisoner, or an explanation, or both.” He blinks, taken aback. It’s amazing what a name and an attitude of entitlement does to make a person appear legitimate.

The lead lycan takes a step forward. “You’ve found something?”

“This window,” I gesture at it again. “The spells have been tampered with. If someone opened this window after the alarm was raised, it wouldn’t matter. It’s been … cut off, for lack of a better word.”

The mages exchange a single, horrified glance and step closer to the window. The second lycan follows them, no doubt to check for a scent. I turn to the first lycan who remains by me. “I’ve never heard of anything, but is there a magic that can hide or change a person’s scent?”

“We didn’t think so,” he replies darkly.

“You don’t scent her out here?”

He shakes his head. “We’ve already searched the building for her scent, and done a round out here. Nothing.”

“I’d like to go inside, look at the windows from there, maybe take a look at her cell.”

The lycan turns his full gaze on me. I wait, trusting the fact that I’ve shown them something they missed. He’ll humor me, I expect, because they’re already grasping at straws.

“You think you’ll find something?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. But I’d like to look.”

“Bekir,” the lycan barks to the second guard. “I’ll escort this mage around front, then rejoin you.” He jerks his head at the muttering mages, one of whom lifts a hand to assess the window. “See what they say.”

The second mage, a short man with a graying beard, shoots us an annoyed look. “You expect a journeyman to find more?”

The lycan raises his brows. “She’s found more than anyone else, hasn’t she? Or has the spell not been tampered with?”

“It’s changed,” the stocky mage says heavily. “But I don’t know that girl and neither do you. And she’s only a journeyman. If there’s more to be found, you’ll need a mage. We’re coming with you.”

The lycan shrugs and turns on his heel, striding back the way they came. I have to trot to keep up. The mages mutter with irritation as they hurry after us, Bekir bringing up the rear. We continue around to the front of the building, passing under the arcade to the main doors guarded by four lycans and two more mages.

“Kemal.” A lycan guard raises a hand in greeting.

With a sharp gesture toward me, my escort says, “She found a flaw in the protective spells on the building. She and the mages want to assess the building’s spells from the inside.”

One of the mages on guard at the door frowns at me. “What difference does it make? Stormwind’s already escaped.”

I fix him with a cold look. “We need to know if anyone is helping her. If we can learn how she escaped, we may have a better idea of how to search for her.”

The stocky mage pushes past me. “As a high mage, I have every right to enter this building if I think it will forward the search.”

The mage on guard draws himself up. “And what do you think you’ll find? We’ve already been through the building twice.”

“Yet you missed the window that was no longer connected to the ward spells encircling this building. We are looking for subtle magic here, things that might be overlooked.” The stocky mage all but sneers at the guard mage.

“Fine,” he capitulates, glowering. And then, to the lycans by his side. “Let them in.”

One of the guards takes a key from his belt and unlocks the door. I sense a ripple in the wards around the building — the key is spelled to work with the defenses, allowing its holder to pass through without trouble. Now that’s a key I could’ve used.

When we step inside Shahmaran Hall, the mages hesitate, unsure which way to go. The lycans who brought us in, Kemal and Bekir, watch them in silence.

“The window will be this way,” I say, stepping forward. The halls are brightly lit, eerily silent. The noise of our passing fills my ears. I lead them down the hall, pausing at the door before the one I want. I can feel the lycans’ gaze on my back, measuring my actions. I peek in, then shake my head and continue on to the next one. Stepping in, I move quickly across the room and press my hand against the window, my robe brushing over the sill.

“Move back,
journeyman
,” the stocky mage blusters. “Allow a full mage to assess that, if you please.”

I step back with a stiff nod, glowering at the ground. But I’ve accomplished what I’ve needed to. Any moment now, the lycans will realize they need to search for scents here. They won’t be surprised to find mine, the fresh covering the old.

I move to stand by the lycans. “Was there anything unusual about the escape?”

Kemal presses his lips together, shakes his head. “We cannot figure out how she got past us, but she wasn’t there when we went to retrieve her dinner tray.”

“It looks like she might have climbed out here, perhaps even before the alarm was raised. I can’t say how she got past the guards. Or how she masked her scent.” I pause thoughtfully, keep my voice low as I go on. “I’d like to see the room where you were holding her, check if there’s anything there that’s been tampered with, or any sign of spells.”

Kemal exchanges a glance with Bekir, then nods. I return my focus to the mages, wondering what else they hope to find on this side of the window that they didn’t see from the other side. After another minute or so, they complete their assessment.

“This should be reported to First Mage Talon,” the stocky mage says.

The lycans dip their heads.