Thirday, 28 First Winter

2889 Tranquil Era

After yesterday’s conference call, both Premier Casals and Zeynel canceled their remaining appointments for the week. The premier also send Malou a message that night excusing her from her work-study for the rest of exam week. So you can focus on studying, my dear, the message explained. While that wouldn’t normally be concerning, it was given the circumstances.

At the very least, going to work-study would’ve been a distraction from worrying about what Zeynel’s next step would be and whether she would be able to figure it out in time to help him protect the Teir. Her mind kept going back to Brosch’s murderers and the ease with which they’d killed him even though he didn’t have what they wanted. Would Zeynel be next?

Malou’s stomach twisted, and she gritted her teeth. If only he’d told her something—anything. Then she wouldn’t have to be so worried she’d lose him next. She only hoped he had more tricks up his sleeve that she didn’t know. After all, she was convinced he’d used magic to turn off the Teir when he’d showed her how to use it. Maybe that explained his demeanor on the call with Commander Nunziata yesterday. He had to have a plan. He always had one.

When Malou’s exam period ended for the day, she gathered her bag and headed out with the rest of the students. However, Rupa was waiting for her just outside the building with a bright smile. She waved to Malou with her whole arm as she weaved through the crowd of students to her.

“Malou!” Rupa cringed and ruffled her dark bangs. “That was loud. Sorry. I just didn’t think I’d get to see you again so soon. Campus is so big and all…”

If Malou wanted to meet Haddou on time, she needed to hurry. So as everyone else peeled off toward the dining hall, she gestured for Rupa to follow her to cut toward Ehlers Hall where she was to meet with Haddou. “A pleasant coincidence then. Walk with me?”

“Sure, of course,” Rupa said although she was already walking beside Malou. “It’s not a coincidence, though. I’ve been waiting for you…since I have a message for you.”

Malou almost missed her next step. “From the vice-premier?”

“Did I hear that right?” Laure chimed in.

Rupa nodded, offering a letter and a small box about the size of her palm. He’d never addressed a message to Malou before, and he’d never had her deliver anything other than a letter to anyone. Whatever this meant, it probably wasn’t good. Had Zeynel found out that she’d intercepted his message yesterday? Or maybe he knew she’d been tapping his calls? Could also be that he’d caught her listening in to the call yesterday.

“I’ve also got a message for Gavriel Eng,” Rupa said, then bit her lip for a moment. “The vice-premier said you’d know where to find him so to deliver yours first. Do you know where he might be right now?”

“No,” she lied without hesitation. If Zeynel hadn’t wanted her to read that letter first, then he wouldn’t have told the girl she’d know where he’d be. “I’m meeting up with him soon, though. I can take it to him.”

“Really? I’m already late for my exam, but the vice-premier had said the messages were time-sensitive. Thank you!” Rupa hugged Malou too quickly for her to hug back, then the note was in her hand and Rupa was waving over her shoulder as she ran back the way they’d come. “Thank you again! Good luck with whatever exams you have left! You’ll do great! See you!”

Once again, Rupa reminded her of Elodie even though she had at least five years on her cousin. They were both about a head shorter than Malou and seemed to think Malou was a better person than she actually was.

“Laure, can you track Gavriel for me?” Malou ripped through the envelope with her name on it first as she continued toward Ehlers Hall. “I think he should’ve just left the flat since we have dinner plans with Viggo. Either at the cafeteria in Alloula or Alloula Library’s pub.”

Zeynel’s scribbled message was even shorter than what he’d written to Brosch:

the key

Whatever that meant. Clicking her tongue, she imagined the ink on the words fading into the white parchment as if it’d never been there, then stuffed the blank paper into her overcoat pocket. “The key” must be in the box. She snapped it open and stopped in her tracks.

It was Zeynel’s gilt pocket watch. The one that matched her father’s. She ran a finger over the intricate design surrounding the watch face but pulled her hand back when a shock of electricity jolted through her. Then she gripped it in her hand tightly just to be sure what she’d felt—magic laced into the gold, into the gears, as if it’d been made with it.

Her father’s pocket watch didn’t have any magic. She knew that for a fact because she visited her father’s grave and held it close to her heart every year on the anniversary of his death. Had her father done this for Zeynel before his death? What was so important that it needed a magic key to open?

How frustrating. The questions would never end, would they?

Throat tight, Malou attached the pocket watch to her chatelaine like how Zeynel and her father had worn theirs. She quickened her pace toward Ehlers and focused next on Gavriel’s letter. Zeynel must want to make her choose between respecting her best friend’s privacy or delivering it unsealed so he knew what she’d done. Unfortunately for him, she chose option three.

Malou could make the envelope invisible—imagine pressing it between her hands so that the sizzle of her magic would spread a thin coating of invisibility over the outside of the envelope—while leaving the letter inside visible. But she wanted to practice something new. She slid her tingling fingertip along the top edge of the envelope, corner to corner, and imagined magic slicing like a knife through the paper. Pretty convenient.

When she pulled back, she found a clean cut and pulled out the message. Her breath caught. The words seemed to stare back at her. This wasn’t a note from Zeynel. Even after all this time, she recognized her father’s selective cursive even if she didn’t know why he signed the letter with a Svaran word rather than his name:

You must tell her everything.

- Molniya

When had her father written this message? More importantly, when was Gavriel supposed to receive the message? Either her father had asked Zeynel to wait until this exact moment to give it to him or Zeynel had withheld the note until now. Both possibilities begged the question of why this moment, why now of all times.

What Gavriel was supposed to tell her, Malou guessed it had to do his promise to her father. The night before he died, her father had set both her and Gavriel down in front of the hearth in their old house. With the warmth of the flickering false flames warming their linked hands, he’d asked them to promise to keep each other safe. Gavriel had promised first, and when she’d made her promise, her father had tickled her palm with magic. She’d giggled and Gavriel had accused her of not taking it seriously. Nowadays, she accused him of taking it too seriously, but the way he looked after her even after her father’s death made her wonder if keeping that promise was part of the sponsorship she was asked not to question.

The timing though. That didn’t sit right with her. If her father had timed this, then didn’t that mean he knew that the Teir would be in this type of danger even before his death? Maybe that was possible if he’d asked the Teir, and that could be true even if her father hadn’t directed Zeynel to wait to deliver the message.

But the most likely explanation for the timing of the message? Zeynel, of course. Perhaps whatever Gavriel was keeping from her benefitted him somehow. That meant telling her now benefitted him, too.

Finally, she passed under the ivy-covered archway of Ehlers Hall’s west courtyard. She ran her finger along the envelope’s cut edge with her fingertip again, imagining it exactly as it’d been before. She’d deal with it when she got home and handed the message to him.

“Laure, did you find him?”

“He left the flat fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds ago and disappeared into the underground tunnels in Kashani Hall.”

That was the closest building to Lussier with access to the secret passageways. It took about fifteen minutes to get to Alloula from there. If he’d gone to the pub from the tunnels, then Laure wouldn’t know if he arrived. Even if she was sure he’d be at Alloula, something in her had to make sure she knew where he was right now.

“Let me know when you see him next.” Then she added for good measure, “And delete the footage of him of him leaving Lussier and anything with me or Haddou.”

“Easy enough,” Laure said.

As always, Ehlers stood in dark, haunting beauty with dark stone masonry and iron-paned windows. The second-story offices were alive with professors grading exams or taking tea with one concerned student or another. Her dad once had an office here as well. She remembered its twisted turned walnut desk and leather upholstered chairs.

The west entrance’s double doors opened to a gold-chandeliered foyer with a staircase winding to the second floor. Malou ignored the stairs, instead grazing her father’s silver over the moldings on the wall to her left until a door popped out of the wall. Theoretically, his silver shouldn’t work after a decade, but she’d made sure it did.

Mounted lamps brightened the spiral staircase’s black walnut walls down to the Room of Antiquities—the room that stored the Teir. After all, Ehlers Hall had been named after two sisters who were in the group that created the tiny machine according to her father. He’d taken her down here a few times when he was alive. It’d been exciting, a little secret between the two of them. So many secrets.

As she walked down the stairs, Malou remembered how one of his hands slid down the railing while the other held hers. They keep the Teir down here to keep it safe, he’d said with a smile. The Teir is undetectable here. Back then, his words gave her comfort. Now she realized that she had no idea what he meant. Maybe they were words to placate a child. The Teir probably wasn’t safe anywhere.

“Finally,” Haddou said when Malou got to the bottom, the staircase opening to a small oval room where the walls were lined with bookcases towering into the shadows hiding the ceiling. The gold and silver titled spines gave the room a feeling of grandiosity, of overwhelming knowledge.

“I’m not late,” Malou pointed out and joined Haddou in front of the cabinet in the middle of the room. The cabinet gleaned all oiled ebony, marble, and gemstones. Each of the four sides of the cabinet opened to a labyrinth of more drawers and more doors, each as intricately decorated as the next.

Haddou folded her arms over the front of her kaftan—this one more muted than the last but equally as intricate and beautiful. “You’re not early, either. We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s start with what you know. What did Lavrras teach you about magic?”

Malou released a long breath, not sure where to start. The first story he’d told her about magic was before she knew it was real and that she could use it. A bedtime story about the creation of the universe from a singularity of magic that expanded endlessly, willing creation all over the cosmos. That’s why magic is in everything and everyone. Magic is life itself, he’d told her with twinkling eyes.

“Not a lot,” she said, fisting her hands in her coat pockets. Part of her still wanted to hold back, her father’s voice in her mind sounding just like it did when she was ten years old. “Just the basics.”

Haddou gave her a long look. “Do you get this from Zeynel—this thing where you never answer me straight? Because Lavrras was always straight with me. He trusted me, and I trusted him. Simple. Easy. So either trust me or don’t. If you do, then don’t hide shit from me. If you don’t, then why would you want to learn anything from me about magic anyway?”

“I’m sorry,” Malou said quickly because she was. “I already decided to trust you, and I need to learn magic. If I can get stronger, then I can protect the Teir from the empire. Or from anyone. I could’ve saved Professors Brosch’s life, too. Maybe even Professor Pak before him, or Professor Warsami before her, or—”

“Are you saying that I didn’t do enough to save them since I can use magic?” Haddou asked, leaning against the bookcases with a soft smile that told Malou she knew the answer to the question would be no. “Do you think I should use magic to save the Teir right now from that Commander Nothing or whatever?”

“You weren’t there. I was at least there when they killed Brosch.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have been. I’m betting you didn’t go over there to protect him. I’d bet my whole life savings that you had no idea what was going to happen, and I’ve saved quite a bit of money in my old age. I won’t stop you from feeling guilty, though. That’s your prerogative and not a bad one to use as motivation. So tell me what you know about magic.”