Terror Forty-Three - Discovered

I tug at my robes. It’s a good thing I’m not curvy because they’d probably be even more uncomfortable then. “I think we’re about as ready as we can be.”

“Yep,” Esme agrees. She glances to the doorway, then nods. “Right, this passageway leads into the servant’s quarters and the kitchens. Most of this building is made to take care of stuff like that.”

“Where’s the place with the books then?” I ask.

“It can be in two places. There’s a library two buildings over. It's in the sort of mansion part of the academy, where all the important priests live. Second floor up. It’s going to be real risky getting there.”

“Right,” I say. “And the other place?”

“The main administration building. It’s near the back of the academy. I think that’s where they do all the paperwork and stuff to run the church. I bet there’s a lot of that. It would make sense that they check on books there.”

“So we’re looking at the library first, right?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Esme agrees. We’re on the same page, I think. Both of us nod at each other at the same time, and I can’t help the upwards twitch of my lips.

“Lead the way then,” I say. “Felix, can you keep, uh, attention out ahead? Tell us if anyone’s around. I’ll do something similar.”

“I can do that,” Felix says.

I move over to the door, feet squishing in my not-entirely-dry shoes. It’s not locked. I guess it wouldn’t make sense to need keys just to get water from the basement. I lean against the door and listen as hard as I can.

“Sounds clear,” I whisper back to the others.

Felix nods, and seeing as how I trust her hearing, I tug the door open with a whump and stare into a dull, poorly lit corridor made of interlocking stones with old mortar between them. Stepping up, I look around and make sure there’s no one nearby.

Then my little friend I sent out earlier returns and nestles into the crook of my neck before buzzing. The coast is clear.

“This way,” Esme says as she turns to the right and starts walking ahead of us.

“Shouldn’t we walk normally?” Felix asks. “If we’re trying to look like we’re supposed to be here?”

“Oh, right,” Esme says. She stands taller, no longer walking all hunched over like someone in a children’s book.

The only reason I was walking in a similar way is because I saw her doing it first. I clear my throat and walk normally next to my friends.

The corridor ends at a staircase that leads up a floor and to another doorway. This one is an old wooden thing, all thick and reinforced with a metal bar. There are obviously people on the other side. Metal is banging against metal, and I can hear talking, even if I can’t make anything out.

“The kitchens,” Esme whispers. “We just need to walk right past them and into the rear courtyard. It should be safe there.”

“Right,” I say. “Lead the way.”

Esme pushes the door open and we’re assaulted by the scents of a working kitchen. There’s meat being cooked, and vegies stewing in something. I can hear Felix sniffing at the air.

“Remember, act normal,” Esme says.

We step into another long corridor, this one with brick walls and wooden panelling. To the left is a wide archway leading into a kitchen where a dozen people in aprons are tending to big cauldrons and chopping up veggies with quick strokes of sharp knives.

I stare ahead and follow Esme as she walks towards the far end of the passageway. It takes me a few seconds to notice that Felix isn’t next to me.

I stop and turn, finding her looking into the kitchen with her mouth open. She’s staring at a row of heavy pans, all of them filled with steaming stews. There are plates with prepared meals on them nearby too, next to a stack of bread loaves that look fresh from the oven.

I reach a hand out and tug Felix after me. “Later,” I say. How can she be hungry again?

We pause to let some serving staff move by, all of them carrying trays with heavy-looking cauldrons atop them.

“You three!”

I nearly jump out of my skin as a woman walks up to us. She doesn’t look very kind, with a mean glare on and a spatula in one hand that she waves around like a sword. “You’re early. A miracle. The trays are there.” She points to a table with some stacks of bread and plates and even more food.

“Um,” Esme says. “Okay?”

“Well, come on, move!”

I jump forward and rush to one of the trays, then grunt as I lift it off the table it’s on. There’s a big pot of stew that looks like it’s still boiling away in the centre. “To the, uh, eating place, right?” I ask.

She stares at me. “They get stupider every year,” she mutters. I almost drop the tray on her toes. “Yes, the mess hall, where you eat. Go!”

I bob my head up and down while my friends grab two more trays, Esme one with plates, and Felix the one stacked high with bread. “We’ll be right back,” I say before scurrying off after the people that just left.

“What are we going to do with all of this?” Esme asks as soon as we’re out of hearing distance.

I wince at the pressure on my fingers and start to weave a bit of magic, then stop. I could be detected using Dark magic here. Better to just endure the old fashion way. “Now no one’s going to stop us,” I say.

“Yeah, but I don’t know where the mess hall is!”

“Whe chan fhand it,” Felix replies.

She has a loaf of bread jutting out of her mouth.

I shake my head. “We’re not looking for it. Where’s the library, Esme?”

We exit out into the full light of day. We’re nowhere near the wide open courtyard Felix and I spied on last time, but rather off to one corner of the academy that’s out of the way. There’re some gardens nearby, and a greenhouse, as well as a small barn that has some chickens pecking around it.

The others carrying trays are already quite a ways away.

“The library is at the other end, past the cathedral,” Esme says.

The cathedral’s hard to miss. It’s the big building with the towers and the arch-covered architecture. There are a few banners draping down the sides too, with Héroe’s symbol on them.

“I think the food’s supposed to be brought that way anyway,” I say.

“Looks like it,” Esme agrees.

“Mmhmm,” Felix mumbles past a second loaf.

We carry the food with us, past the barns and what looks like a stable, and then past the back of the cathedral. It’s still a pretty building from the back, with a well-manicured lawn and some statues standing guard around the walking paths, but I still think that my home’s nicer.

“Is that it?” I ask as we move past the cathedral. The staff before us turn to the right and move on towards what I guess might be the main keep? It’s a boxy building tucked up against one on the academy’s walls, not one of the places I need to worry about.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Esme says.

Before us is the library. Or at least the building with the library in it. A shorter building, with a peaked roof and a small garden all around it. It looks almost like an afterthought, really.

“Where do we put the food?” Esme asks.

I walk over to a bush, bend down, and shove the tray under it. Hopefully no one will follow the smell. Then Felix does the same, though she pauses to dip a loaf in the stew before taking a bite.

“What?” she asks when I stare. “Waste not.”

Esme giggles and moves over to the doorway. “Come on.”

I run after her, then straighten myself and try to look like I’m supposed to be here. So far we haven’t seen any other acolytes, and most of the people have been staff, so I figure we’re doing pretty well so far.

Esme opens the door and we walk into a building with some offices to one side and a sitting room on the other. A staircase leads up to a floor where I can see a bunch of books on shelves.

Is this it?

“Who are you?” a sharp, mean-sounding voice asks. “And what are you doing here?”

Oh no.