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Chapter 3: Silver and Pebbles
Alex did not return the following day. Garrett told himself that it did not matter. That it was helpful, even. The youngest prince of Averene was a complication, one with hidden and not-so-hidden motives, a young man who wanted to bed attractive persons and compose derivative sonnets and please his father, the King.
They finished the cheese and bread with supper. Garrett made spring onion soup, and he and the students shared Alex’s wine, the flavors of honey and wildflowers. The moon came up, a half-full silvery crescent that found a match in white marble walls and Lorre’s reflecting pool.
The moon did not know where Alex had been all day. Garrett ordered himself not to ask.
He draped the scarf across the bookshelf in his own small bare room, letting it hang in folds and swoops, anchored by a treatise on ley-lines and a volume of recently published retold magical folk tales. The color blazed against the simple backdrop, a celebration, in vibrant life.
Lorre did not return that day either, so on the next morning Garrett asked the students to help him decipher the heap of age-speckled silver the Grand Sorcerer had deposited on his desk. It had some chains, and some flat plates, and some etching that might’ve been either runes or time. They put it on a bench in the sunny open central garden, and regarded it with many senses.
“I think it was in a river,” Quen said. “Someplace north. Icy. I can feel the…the memory of cold.”
“Good. What else?”
Jennet’s eyebrows scrunched together. “I’m not sure I’m good at this one. I don’t know the past.”
“No, I don’t expect that. Sorry. Think about futures. What you might see. Where you might see it.”
“It just…looks brighter. Like…you’ve polished it. And it’s on a shelf.”
“Well,” Garrett said, “we know we’ll keep it. That’s something. What else?”
“Visitors,” Jen said, and Garrett said, “What?” and then realized she was pointing down the hill. He turned.
And then he did not precisely run out of the half-built school, or partway down the unfinished road. He came to a stop, dusty, panting. “Lilac. Maggie.Alex.”
Alex’s eyes did a quiet softening, warming: pleased. “Hi.”
“Um,” Lilac said, and shuffled a foot, in a pink slipper. She was tall and blonde and apologetic but not ashamed; she was clutching Maggie’s hand as if prepared to fight the world for her petite black-haired laundress’s daughter. “We’re back.”
“You are. How—why—of course you’re welcome back. Where did you—no, come up, first. We’ve got tea. Silverberry and mint. We might be out of bread.”
“You’re not,” Alex said. “I brought more. And two kinds of cheese, and vegetable pasties. I haven’t tried those, so I hope they’re edible.” He was holding the basket again, though—Garrett frowned a little—something in his movements seemed off, not merely because of the small weight of shopping. Each step possessed a fraction less grace than usual, as they went back up to the school’s open wing. Less elegant feline smoothness.
Garrett dropped back to walk beside him. “Are you all right?”
“Marvelous. I brought back your students.”
“I know,” Garrett agreed. “How did you do it?”
“I didn’t sleep with anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.” It was almost his usual flawless teasing.
“No. I mean. I wasn’t asking that.”
“You weren’t? How tragic.”
“I’m being serious. Lorre told me they were alive and said not to bother about it. But you found them.”
“You were worried.” Alex winced slightly, shifted the basket to the other arm. He’d worn grey and black today: tight leather, and a shirt with long and ruffled sleeves. He’d tied his hair back, sharply, though stray waves snuck out around his face. “It wasn’t that difficult. I know some of Theo’s friends. And I know where two young women, one of them very wealthy, might decide to hide out and be lovers in the Jasmine Quarter.”
“Oh.Oh. They’re—they were—they’ve known each other for two months!”
Alex looked, for an instant, like he was trying not to laugh. Lilac and Maggie had gone ahead, had stepped into the garden, and were surrounded by fellow apprentices, chattering like magpies in a friendly sorcerous nest. “They’re nineteen and in love. And they weren’t sure they wanted to be magicians if it involved eating dandelions and camping out in half-finished buildings—”
“That’s not my fault!”
“I didn’t say it was. And Lilac’s mother would never let her marry a laundress, and they decided the best idea involved running away for a bit to figure things out. They were in the second boarding-house I checked. The second most expensive. Lilac’s never had to live without scented soap.”
