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But it had actual fur when I grabbed it. It felt like a real rat—it moved like one.
It bit like one, as the blood dribbling over my hand can attest.
A chill seeps through my body. Something is very wrong here, and I’ve never seen anything like it.
Eleven
Ivy
As he lays the cord in a loop on the floor, Stavros shoots a wary look at the small canvas bag I’m clutching. “What exactly is your big surprise?”
My fingers curl tightly around the bag’s neck. “I think it’d be better if we all discuss it together.”
The former general is going to find my story hard enough to believe without me needing to tell it twice.
He grimaces but lays out the second circle of cord without remark. His is red. Mine is black.
The cords are the key to the new meeting room King Konram set up for us before he left on his courtly tour. We each got a different color.
The other men have kept their own cords, of course. Stavros hasn’t budged about holding on to mine as well as his own, so I can’t use it unless I have his permission.
Who knows what horrible riven things he thinks I’d get up to on my own in a room full of books and maps?
It doesn’t matter anyway, since I’m not likely to be attending meetings without him present. I manage not to roll my eyes at him when he steps back from my loop and gestures toward it as if to say, “Go ahead.”
As I step toward the ring of cord, my chest tightens just a little. Icanthank my wretched magic for the fact that using this enchantment sends a wriggling sensation right down the middle of my soul.
The cords must have been blessed by Jurnus, the godlen concerned with travel as well as communication and weather, through the gift of a dedicat who made a particularly hefty sacrifice.
Girding myself, I step into the center of the loop—
And with a thud of my heart and a shudder through my veins, I’m standing in a matching loop positioned between a set of bookshelves and a gilded wooden desk.
I step out of my cord and nudge it off to the side just as Stavros’s massive form pops into being next to me, as if out of thin air. He doesn’t look remotely disturbed by our means of arrival.
We’re the first to arrive. I take a moment to survey the space, which we’ve only used once before.
According to Stavros, this room is somewhere within the palace, next door to the college. The king told him the cords’ power wouldn’t extend much farther than that, as incredible as it already is.
I can’t say whether we really are inside the palace and not just some secluded room on the campus, because the room hasn’t got any windows. The only illumination gleams from a chandelier overhead, with candles I have to assume light up magically when there’s movement below and snuff themselves out when we’re gone.
It’s hard to imagine King Konram assigning one of his staff to stop by on a daily basis just to replace those that have burned out. The thick wooden door next to one of the bookcases is secured by three different locks that even we don’t know how to open.
We can’t go out into the palace… but presumably no one can get in either.
The desk is certainly fit for a king: broad, heavy, and glinting with gold detailing. Four leather-padded chairs stand around it, as if he decided there’d never be any need for all five of us to sit down at the same time.
Set against the walls on either side, the massive bookcases rise all the way to the ceiling. One is packed with books of history and theology, the other with scrolls on the same subjects as well as various maps.
A narrow doorway leads to a smaller supply room with blank paper, ink pots and quills, and more recent records from the college and around the city. Everything King Konram thought we might need for our pursuit of the scourge sorcerers.
I’m not anywhere near as well-versed in the college library’s materials as Alek is, but he swooned when he saw some of the volumes that’d been hidden away in the royal collection. It was almost too bad when Stavros hauled him over to begin the actual meeting.
Only almost. I don’t need to become any fonder of the eager glint that can light up the scholar’s bright brown eyes than I already am.
The space is like a fancier version of our old archive room—an archive befitting a king. Including an additional feature I’m not sure how to feel about.
Hanging on the wall by the supply room door is an ornate mirror about half the size as the one we used to speak to King Konram more than a week ago. I’m guessing this one could be used for the same purpose, unless he thought fixing our hair would be vital to the cause.
