Page 120 of Turncloak

“No, we need you at the caves,” Levan said.

Relar looked from the kingpin to his librarian. “I’m not going to run. Why would I leave my grandmother in jeopardy? If I disappear, so does your protection.”

Levan sighed. “Fine. Harrow, to the tavern. Relar, to the woods, but take Rasso. Savage beasts wander the Forest of Lost Souls, including several known fallowwolves. You should be left alone if you’re accompanied by Rasso. Saffron, Miret, and I will scope out the caves.”

It struck Saffron that Levan was far more trusting than he used to be. Harrow had always insisted he was loyal to no one, and yet the kingpin was more than happy to leave the King’s Prophet with enough alone time that he could be feeding their movements back to the Crown. And Relar had known affiliations with the Whitewings, had beheaded Levan’s right-hand mage. The boy should be dead, but he wasn’t. He was here, out of some vague nurturing instinct of Levan’s.

There was a sort of nihilism to Levan’s decisions, as though the promise of unmaking twenty years and starting his life over rendered what happened in the present obsolete. But Saffron knew they had to be more careful than normal—they had to evade capture, ruin, so that the conditions in which they could rewind the years would still be possible.

Everyone seemed uneasy as they went their separate ways.

“Saints.” Saffron stood atop a craggy cliff by the Cinereal Sea, a sharp wind snapping through her hair and cloak. “Where do we begin?”

The inlet was far larger than it looked on a map, with hundreds of tidal caves surrounding it. The water was low, though the tide was waxing quickly, and the sheer quantity of the caves left Saffron with a sinking feeling. Because of the tides, they’d only have time to cover a few every day before they disappeared back underwater.

Levan raised a brow. “Why do you think we brought Miret?”

“Hmm?” Miret peered out across the sea, as though searching the horizon for the secrets of the known universe.

Levan turned to Saffron. “Your father’s letter said the entrance to the cave containing the prophecy was warded. We don’t need to search inside each one, because the very fact of being able to go inside must mean it’s not the right cave. In theory we could rent a boat and sail around the inlet, attempting to shove a hand over the threshold of each one—wherever we meet resistance, we know we’re in the right place.

“However, these seas are treacherous, unpredictable. Prone to sudden storms, riddled with scarsharks. We’d have to get so close to the caves that the boat could be thrashed against the cliffs at any moment, and many have stone shards jutting through the water in front of them. A natural defense, tricky to navigate in a vessel, and surely the type of hard-to-reach spot Sarcane would have chosen.”

Miret rocked on his heels, rolling the balls of his feet back and forth. He wore some kind of leather slipper, despite snow on the ground. “I’m still waiting to hear how I might be useful.”

“Oh hush, you old crone.” Levan smiled, rare dimples divoting his cheeks. “You’ve always been able to pick up magical frequencies better than anyone I know. So we walk around the edge of the cliffs on foot, and you feel for a powerful ward below.”

It took several hours, pausing every two dozen yards as Miret closed his eyes and placed a palm over his heart to search for the resonant hum. Eventually they struck gold halfway around the inlet.

After standing still as an old oak for several minutes, Miret peeled his wrinkled eyes open and murmured, “It’s one of these three below—I can’t pick out exactly which.”

Inching as close to the edge of the cliff as she dared in high winds, Saffron peered down to the thrashing gray water below. “If I had to hazard a tactical guess, it would be the one with the natural rock barrier surrounding it.”

Levan nodded. “We’ll have to abseil down, when the time comes.”

“When the time comes?” Saffron turned to him, aghast. “We aren’t going now?”

A terse head shake, his golden hand gesturing to the darkening sky, the storm-bruised clouds. “Not with the sun setting, the tide coming in, and a ward still in place.”

“You’re the most powerful mage I’ve ever known,” Saffron argued, a rare impatience rearing inside her. Usually she was adept at biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike, but knowing the Fifth Prophecy may be hidden beneath her very feet was taunting. “Can’t you strip out the ward by force?”

Saffron was surprised by the slightly wounded look on Levan’s face, as though she had crossed a line by acknowledging how powerful he was. Was it crass, when she knew what terrible things had been inflicted upon him in the name of said power?

“Only as a last resort,” he replied evenly. “We don’t know what other kinds of heinous magic we’re going to face in that cave, and I can’t be weakened so severely.”

Miret nodded his assent. “We also don’t know how strong the ward is—and that’s crucial before attempting to strip it. It might be held by a single wardkeeper, and Levan would certainly be able to overpower that, but it could also have been cast by far more mages. The effort could kill him.”

Saffron swallowed hard. There were many cases during her time on the streetwatch in which thieves had underestimated the strength of a ward, and had drained the lifeblood from their bodies in their attempt to breach it. “So we find the wardkeeper—or wardkeepers—and convince them to drop the ward.”

“And if they refuse?” Miret asked mildly.

Saffron shot Levan a dark, wordless look, and judging by the grim expression on his face, he feared for how far she might have to go.

52

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Restraint