Ass.Kell kept his mouth shut because it wasn’t worth it.
“He’s pressed on the plate, and those divination spells on the chair rail, exactly opposite each other, activated,” Jubilee said.
“So the system is half armed?” Lorzok asked.
“I can’t see the spells near the roof, but I’m assuming they’re ready,” Kell said.
“Shh.” Jubilee cut the noise with a sharp chopping hand.“Tripped the plate, activated the divination spells…are they looking at each other, do you think?”
“I don’t know if they’re looking, exactly, but I was thinking something like that,” Lorzok said. “And if one spell ‘eye’ can’t see the other one, it will set off an alarm, or perhaps the spells next to the ceiling.”
Kell stopped himself from raising his hand. “I have a guess.”
Their silence waited for him to continue.
“I think those transmutation spells are going to spew some kind of gas, or fire arrows,” Kell said. “Something that will stop thieves without hurting the art.”
“Gas would be conjuration or evocation. I think it’s arrows. Why not? I could complain that arrows are a cliché, but we don’t need this to be more complicated,” Saeldian huffed. “I shouldn’t have dropped that illusion. Of all the foolish, short-sighted, hapless things to do—”
Uh oh.“Don’t be like that, Sheld. You couldn’t have—”
Lorzok got there first, laying one hand on Saeldian’s fashionably bared shoulder. “You couldn’t have known you would still need it.”
“I should have prepared for the possibility.”
Saeldian would tear themself apart over this mistake anyone could have made, and Kell’s mistake was way worse than dropping a spell that probably wasn’t needed. Kell had to stop this. “Hey. I’m the one who screwed up. You have to get me out of this mess I put us in. What did you want to use your illusion spell for?”
“If I put mirrors in front of the eyes—”
“They will keep seeing what they expect,” Kell said. “You always were the best.”
Saeldian brightened at the praise before remembering to scowl.
“Could you use a cantrip?” Jubilee said.
“Lorzok’s too big for it,” Saeldian said. “But also, moving the cantrip to cover us might mess up the angle and trip whatever the divination spells do if they can’t ‘see’ each other, and then we’re pincushions.”
“I trust your judgment,” Lorzok said.
Saeldian grabbed another pinch of wool. They closed their eyesand unfurled their hands in a bit of showiness. A moment later, a thin floating mirror appeared, hovering just in front of the eye spells. Saeldian held up one hand to ask for a moment and then relaxed. “I was worried I’d set them at the wrong angle.”
“Can I get up?”
“How will I know if it worked if you don’t?”
“Great.”
Saeldian beckoned. “It’s fine. It would have triggered the trap by now.”
They had a point, but Kell watched Saeldian tense as he stood up. Nothing happened. Jubilee and Lorzok both sighed.
“There we go,” Saeldian said. “We’re down seven minutes. Nothing else can go wrong. I don’t have any major spells left.”
They picked out a path on the ordinary squares, coming closer to the Kiss of Enduring Love. “We don’t have much time. Tell me why this fabulously valuable spell gem isn’t in a glass case.”
Kell wasn’t Saeldian’s junior partner anymore. He didn’t need managing! “Because it wouldn’t catch the light nearly as well if there were a layer of glass in the way, even if the light was inside the case.”
“So is it just hanging there, unprotected?”
