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I grate the last few words through my teeth as I throw the last book aside. Popping the seals on the scrolls, I discover nothing but faded ink.
The contraptions on the lower shelves look like they might be something to do with the bugs—to examine the creatures and test them.
Where else would he hide something? Someplace he wouldn’t think anyone would look if they happened to come into his room.
My gaze slides back toward the tank with the beetles. Or someplace most people wouldn’t want to disturb?
Gingerly, I set my hands on either side of the tank and lift it. At first glance, my spirits sink—the desk is bare beneath it.
But then I bother to hold the tank up higher and check underneath.
There’s a folded paper with its corner wedged in the seam along the edge.
My breath catches in my throat. I snatch the paper out, set the tank down, and unfold my discovery on the desk.
It’s… a bunch of circles. Three in a lopsided triangle here, three in a differently lopsided triangle there. Five different configurations, spaced far apart on the thin paper with sketchy lines, as if Wendos were simply doodling different patterns.
But why would he hide a doodle of a trios of circles?
“Does this mean anything to you?” I ask Julita.
I’ve never seen anything like that. I mean, justlike that. It could symbolize three towers or spires or windows or whatever. A lot of buildings have those.
Yes, because we like to do things by threes in recognition of the godlen. Three overall domains they belong to, three of them in each. But that hardly narrows anything down.
Peering closer, I notice what might be a smudge on the underside of the paper. I flip it toward me and hold it up to the late afternoon sunlight streaking through the window.
There are several smudges—faint imprints of ink as if this paper was pressed into another one it was resting on top of.
The imprints are too vague to identify any definite shapes or writing… but something about the overall pattern strikes a chord of familiarity in me. Darker clumps and touched spaces winding in between…
Like a map. Like a city map, with winding streets and clumps of buildings.
Why was Wendos marking circles on top of a map—and why in clusters of three?
“He said he was going to high places,” I murmur.
An image flashes through my mind—the old woman I saw in town earlier today, tapping three fingers against her chest in the row of three to honor the divinities.
And Alek’s comment about the daimon.They’re under the governance of all the godlen.
If you wanted to control the wild spirits, you’d need to call on all the gods. And if you wanted to control them on a larger scale than ever before…
Maybe you’d want to get as far from mortal activity as possible. In three different spots, to echo the divine pattern on as large a scale as possible.
What are the highest places in the city?
My mouth has gone dry. I shove the paper into my pocket and run out of the dorm, Stavros’s short sword bumping against my thigh.
Ivy, where are you going now?
“I need a better vantage point.”
I scramble up the stairs to the fifth floor that holds the dome. The hall that surrounds the ballroom is lined with windows.
I walk from one to the next, trying to clear my head of any sensation. Focusing my gaze on the tallest buildings I can see beyond the square.
Coming around the corner, I find myself facing the Temple of the Crown. And in that mere glance, a jitter of wafting magic tickles into the broken space inside of me.
