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Does he expect to be let in on our discussions here when he returns to Florian?
Pushing aside that uneasy thought, I set my bag carefully on the tabletop. A waxy scent laces the air, telling me that the bases of the candles are real rather than conjured. I breathe it in, but I can’t take any comfort from the subtle sweetness.
This is going to be a difficult conversation no matter who’s involved.
Casimir arrives next, his short waves faintly damp as if he’s just toweled off from a bath. I yank my gaze back to the table before the heat that sparked between my legs at the sight can flare any hotter.
He notices the bag on the table at once. “What did you bring, Ivy?”
I have to meet his eyes then; have to smile because I don’t want to be a jerk. Even though a twinge runs through my gut with the memory of seeing him with his patron this morning.
“I made an interesting discovery today,” I say. “I thought we should discuss it.”
Benedikt arrives with a typical jaunty grin. As he saunters over to me, he digs his hand into his pocket. “I have a little present for you.”
He retrieves a locket dangling from a chain—just like the ones the men all carry. “I had my merchant echo the blessing on mine, so yours should work the same way. It seemed about time you had one.”
My skin prickles with my sense of Stavros looming nearby. Benedikt wasn’t around when the former general dismissed Casimir’s suggestion that I needed a means to summon the rest of them.
“Oh,” I say, reaching to take it carefully, a little concerned that Stavros might swipe it out of my hand. “Thank you. Hopefully I won’t need to use it again.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Benedikt replies cheerfully, and hesitates as his gaze slides to Stavros. “Did I beat you to the punch, Stav? If you were having one made too, it can’t hurt to have a backup.”
“It’s fine,” Stavros says, but Benedikt’s brow knits at the edge in his voice.
He laughs it off a moment later and flops into one of the chairs with a return of his carefree air. Alek materializes a moment later, shooting a longing glance toward the bookshelves before joining us.
Stavros points his prosthetic hand toward me. “Ivy has something to share with us.”
He manages to make it sound like a punishment.
Ignoring his mood, I tug open the mouth of the bag. “This is going to sound crazy, but I promise you, I know what I saw.”
I saw it too, Julita pipes up.I mean, it was insane, but it was also real.
I slide the broken pieces of the clay rat out onto the tabletop. As I nudge them into an approximation of their correct form, all four of the men lean closer.
“Is that a sculpture of arat?” Benedikt asks in an amused tone. “What, did you pilfer it from a shrine of Kosmel to try to catch his attention again?”
Rats are one of the godlen of trickery’s symbolic animals, but I don’t think my divine acquaintance had anything to do with this one.
I shake my head. “I saw a rat nosing around on the fourth floor of the Domi. Something seemed… off about it.” Benedikt doesn’t know about my magical sensibilities because he doesn’t know about my actual magic, but hopefully the others can guess what I mean. “I tried to catch it so we could examine it, and it attacked me. I killed it accidentally—and it turned into this.”
I motion to the clay figure.
No one speaks for a few seconds. Alek’s lips part, but it takes another beat before he gets any words out. “You’re saying an actual rat turned into clay?”
“Yes,” I say. “The second it died. Which makes me think it wasalwaysclay, just someone magicked it into looking and acting alive.”
Stavros clears his throat. When I look at him, his gaze burns into mine. “That’s an incredible feat. You’re suggesting the scourge sorcerers were responsible? Not anyone else?”
Benedikt’s forehead furrows in confusion. “Why would we think it’s anyone else?”
I know exactly what the former general means. He’s suggesting my fathomless magic was responsible somehow.
I glower right back at him. “I can’t think of anyone else who’d have an interest in doing something like that.” Including myself.
Casimir rubs his chin. “There are a lot of purposes a scheme like that could serve, aren’t there? The conspirators could be using small animals totally under their control to spy on staff or retrieve items or create some kind of effect. But I’ve never heard of anyone with a gift that could bring inanimate material believably to life.”
