Felun

This Library gate was completely different from Shadowsong’s. Felun supposed the empty foyer had been a stroke of luck back then, the result of constantly having staff and guards on call—and then suddenly, not. Here, though, the Academy had taken additional measures.

A wall of brassy clockwork rose up before them, gleaming under the overhead runelight like it’d been hand-polished not hours ago. In a place like this, Felun wouldn’t be too surprised if that was actually the case. The suggestion of a door was anchored throughout the mess of pipes and gears, so tangled it almost hurt his head to look at. A small slot was set into the whole mess, at about eye-level.

Felun cleared his throat and readied his runequill. “Should I—”

“Of course not,” Iolite said. “Save your strength for what might be to come. This is, after all, why we hired that forger.”

Iolite reached into the body of the jelly-creature stuck to her shoulder and rifled around before withdrawing a small card. Felun glimpsed intricate traceries of ink and the outline of a glowing insignia before she pressed it into the wall-slot. The slot hissed, incinerating the card, and clockwork ticked to life, segments of wall whirling upon their axes. Violet light flickered to life above the door-outline as it hissed and swung open. The wall began to tick with a different rhythm, signaling a countdown to even the most inexperienced ear.

They hurried in, no prompting needed. The door clanked shut moments after Saiph whisked her tail through.

The Library foyer was cream and gold and detailed in an overwrought fashion like the rest of the Academy. It was much smaller than the one they’d encountered in Shadowsong, though; fewer desks, and a clear lack of staff—though Felun spotted a pair of librarians off to the side, tied to their chairs. They had cloths over their mouths and eyes, and were busy trying—and failing—to shimmy out of their bindings. Iolite gestured for silence as they passed them, venturing deeper into the Library.

“Keep your attention pricked for those Gala ladies,” Iolite murmured when they were out of earshot. She still held the stone generating an inattention-field, but it was starting to flicker, powering down. “But caution is not overneeded. Let’s make swift work of this. Silverwater, you carry Felun. Saiphenora will need her hands free.”

Felun bit back a protest as Silverwater adjusted the satchel on his shoulder and grabbed him by the wrists, hoisting him aloft. A fuzzy field of magic encircled him as they rose higher yet, cushioning his weight. The effect seemed to be an inherent property of being carried by faeries—in Silverwater’s case, it seemed more pronounced, for which he was grateful. Silverwater also seemed less likely to fling him around like Suria did, which was a plus.

Iolite stowed the dying spell-stone into her bag and pulled out a pair of silver gauntlets, donning them swiftly. Then she led the way, flying low over the stacks. Felun eyed the end of the room, which twisted off to the right—so far, this place looked normal. When they turned the corner though, a different corner loomed up ahead; the Academy Library zig-zagged like a poorly-charted dungeon route, only with more books. It was a poorly-disguised infinity, one that felt tamer than the brain-hurting visuals back in Shadowsong.

He spotted nothing strange among the corridors of shelves. No dead bodies and no entrances into looming labyrinths. When the landscape did change, it was relatively subtle; tiled floor merged into hard-packed dirt. The ivory shelves started looking more beat-up, scratched and grimy with age. Cabinets began interrupting the shelves, and disjointed boxes were planted about, looking for all the world like mundane strongboxes. Ahead, a new wall loomed: golden lines, like the bars of a birdcage. It brought the Healer to mind, huddled on the floor of his cell and allegedly still busy throwing up and shivering half to death.

Iolite swooped down to where the shape of a door sat, already opened. Saiph alighted next, before Silverwater set him down none-too-gently—but hardly on par with being flung face-first into a sand dune.

“Curious,” Iolite murmured as she landed by the door. To his surprise, she didn’t immediately walk through. “This sort of gate is not overly complex for an Archival area, but it is obstacle enough. What calibre of a thief-band are we following, do you think?”

Saiph replied in faery words, a grumbling remark.

“In the human tongue, please,” Iolite chided. “We want Felun to feel included, don’t we?”

“I include the human,” Saiph said, voice verging on petulance. “I had instructed him to use my familiar-name. And I have offered him lichen tea in the past, though it was not my fault he refused. Is that not enough for you?”

Felun winced inwardly, avoiding Saiph’s sour-faced stare. His eye caught on something glinting on the dirt floor, a few feet away. He bent down to inspect it: a rudimentary lockpick, snapped in half and scorched at one end.

“They must’ve just got through,” he said aloud. “Warded lock. Could’ve been installed by staff.”

“I don’t like their scent,” Saiph grumbled. “There is something familiar about one of them. Perhaps even two.”

Iolite frowned, sniffing at the air. “Not the Scion-mage? You are a better tracker than I, Saiphenora—but I would have recognised it, I assure you.”

“No,” said Saiph. “Her…companion, perhaps. Likely perhaps. But they have drenched themselves in scented oils. It is difficult to tell.”

Silverwater nodded sagely. “Such is the tradition at human gatherings.”

“Is that complaint I hear?” Iolite said, wings flashing with indecipherable patterns. “This human-gala has cleared out the staff. You should be grateful.”

“It wasn’t complaint,” Silverwater replied.

“Onwards, then,” Iolite said, with an irate flicker of wing. “Injure the humans if you feel like it, so long as you do not become injured yourself. It would not do to impede our progress.”

Saiph drew an arrow from her quiver, a gleam in her eye. Silverwater nodded, readjusting his hold on Felun’s satchel. Stepping through the birdcage-wall was accompanied by a stranger sensation; the air gained a thicker quality, like a soup formed from enchantment. Felun glanced up and winced at the way the ceiling wavered overhead, bowing inwards like a thousand hulls seen from underwater, like a ghost-fleet. He turned his gaze away when it started to hurt his head; the dirt floor was now speckled with dying grass strands. They continued on foot as the stacks became disjointed in shape; narrow shelves rose on all sides like trees.

They spotted the trio of women at the first clearing they came across, huddled around a lone pillar. Silverwater came to stop in the shadow of a shelf, signaling them to stay behind him.

Felun squinted. The pillar looked like an ordinary decorative pillar, but for the abundance of keyholes studded across its surface. He’d need to get closer to tell, but so far it didn’t give off the resonance of an outwardly dangerous construct—judging by the size of the thing, the enchantment was likely an indirect one, linked to the sets of rolling stacks further in. Two of the women were arguing in low voices as the third knelt at the base of the pillar, fiddling with a lock.

Beside him, Saiph inched to the side and nocked her bow.

“Yes?” she whispered. “Or no?” There was a bitter eagerness behind the words—a fervor he’d seen in more than a few dungeonrunners: the ones with an unhealthy hunger for near-death experiences.

Iolite’s tongue flickered out to wet her lips. Spell-light sparked in her eyes. “Controller-station,” she murmured. “Well, why not? If we get them out the way, Felun can break the tamper-guards and I may be able to map—”

Saiph let fly. Felun was already pulling shielding runes from his book, sticking them to his body.

The arrow sheared through the arm of the woman working at the lock; she gave a cry of pain, then sprung a shield around herself.

The two other women scattered, diving for cover—one behind the pillar, the other dashing towards the shelves. Her body shimmered with spell-light, before it duplicated itself. One copy ran in one direction, the other in the opposite. Felun’s brain skipped to a halt as he processed it. Illusion? Had to be.

Saiph lifted off, making for the closest copy of the illusionist. The woman behind the pillar peered out, raising something in her hand—

A familiar sound cracked through the air, loud and sharp.

“Pistol,” Silverwater said, pulling a dagger from his hip. “Iolite, this—”

“Yes, yes,” Iolite said, almost impatiently. “You stay with Felun, then. Retreat if you must. Saiph and I can handle it.”

“What?” Felun hissed as Silverwater hauled him further back through the shelves. “Why the hell are you picking a fight? I thought you guys couldn’t—”

“We don’t respond well to getting filled with iron, no,” Silverwater said. “Stay low.”

“But Saiph and Iolite—”

Silverwater looked him in the eye, pupils pinpoint. “The syrup will take care of things.”

Felun shook his head, fighting the urge to peer out from behind the shelf. Stress seeped into his temples, an uncomfortably familiar weight. “Pretty sure it’s the same lady from the alley. Suria made me play the Magician for nothing?”

“No,” Silverwater said, sounding irate. “We are not all the same. Contrary to what you might think, Suria and Iolite do harbour concern for the likes of Winterbird and Curlew and myself.”

Felun blinked. “What? So you’re…”

“Weaker? I suppose you could say that.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You didn’t,” Silverwater said. “But you thought it.”

More shots cracked in rapid succession. Felun counted them as they came: two, three, four, five, six. The shots stopped. Spellfire sizzled to fill the silence. Another shot—wait, what? His stomach clenched at the memory of staring down that barrel. How many bullets had she brought to reload with?

Felun tensed as he heard footsteps coming their way. Silverwater’s spines pricked up. He pivoted, swinging Felun’s satchel into the fleeing woman—red-haired, the Rosalie illusionist?—as she made to pass them. The satchel connected with a muffled thud, and she shrieked.

Silverwater fell into a crouch, flipped the knife in his hand, and stabbed down—right through the tendon of her ankle. Felun flinched at the motion, though he braced himself well enough for the ensuing scream.

Saiph landed seconds later, skidding to a halt.

“I had her,” she complained, bow in hand.

“You certainly did,” Silverwater said, driving the knife deeper. “Go assist Iolite.”

Rosalie screamed hoarsely and cast a spell, an explosion of eye-searing green. Silverwater flutter-hopped out of range, and Felun took a few steps back himself.

Saiph scoffed. “Have fun with that.”

She departed in a flurry of white sparks. Felun eyed the writhing Rosalie on the floor and tried not to let his unease show. Silverwater must’ve seen something on his face, though, because he made a chuffing faery-sound—the equivalent of a sigh.

“Don’t look so surprised, Sungrazer Zhao. I do have my talents.”

Felun hadn’t been surprised, so much as faintly nauseous. He kept his mouth shut as Silverwater retrieved the satchel and pulled a net from its depths, woven from ironwood. He flung it over the struggling Rosalie, weakening her movements.

From the clearing came a shout—Saiph’s, he realised. Moments later, there came a thud of body against nearby shelf—books spilled onto the ground at the impact, pages puddling.

“Of course,” Silverwater said, seemingly more to himself than to anyone else. He shook his head, kicking the satchel over to Felun. “You stay here.”

Silverwater ducked out of sight and reappeared moments later, dragging a groaning Saiph by the arms. She’d been wounded—shot?—in the stomach. A puncture spilled clear faery blood. One of her wings looked scorched, crisped at the edge and withering inwards. Felun grabbed for his rune-book, alarm churning in his gut—he was no apothecary, but that looked bad. The best he could do was stasis. The book flipped its pages at his thought, seeking a best match. It didn’t have to go far; he’d stocked up, after Ishaan.

“At ease, Zhao,” Silverwater said. “Your help is appreciated, but not necessary here.”

Silverwater rifled through the satchel again, withdrawing another vial of faery honey. Saiph groaned as she gulped it down—the flow of blood from her wound slowed to a lazy trickle, and her wing began to uncrinkle itself.

“Overconfidence does not suit you,” Silverwater said as he pushed her into a sitting position.

Saiph spat. “Better me than Iolite.”

“Are you alright?” Felun blurted out, hand still frozen over his book. “Do you need anything?”

“Thoughtful of you to think so,” Silverwater said, “but in this instance, a stasis would impede the healing.”

“Fetch me another,” Saiph complained, poking at the hole in her stomach. Felun cringed inwardly at the sight. At least she didn’t seem to be in much pain. “It is taking too long.”

“No,” Silverwater said. “You’ll already be feeling it tomorrow.”

“Iolite is against two,” Saiph argued. “She needs—”

“She needs you to remain stable,” Silverwater said. “You’re a General now: act like it.” He paused and tilted his head to the side. Felun strained his ears and caught the edge of whispery chatter. “Ah. You are called for, Breaker Zhao.”

“What?” Felun said. Spellfire was still crackling in the not-too-far-off distance. “Now?”

“Iolite says there is a persistent shield that needs unraveling.”

Felun refrained from asking her to tell him herself. Instead, he bolstered his protective runes and reluctantly cast a shield-dome of his own. He made his way to the clearing by flitting from shelf to shelf, ducking behind cover like he’d been taught to, back in Ironport—not that he had a very helpful team on his side, this time.

The pillar came into view, and Iolite with it. She circled overhead, shooting beams of spell-light from her gauntleted hands—the two other women were huddled beneath a dome-shield. One of them—Kion?—seemed intent on holding it up while the other shot back with spells of her own. Had the pistol run out of ammunition? He damn well hoped so.

Still, the other mage was going to aim at him as soon as he let himself in sight. He peeled an inattention-rune from his book and stuck it to his forehead. Then he loaded signs for spell-piercing and shield-breakage onto his arm, and charged.

The inattention-rune brought him a few extra seconds. He made it halfway across the clearing before the mage noticed, shooting a spell meant to knock him off his feet. His protective runes took the hit as he drew his arm back, flinging the readied bundle of breakage.

It connected, dead-center. The shield shattered, clean as anything. Kion’s hands glowed with the beginnings of another shield, but Iolite’s spells beamed down and slammed her companion into the pillar. Kion hesitated, then took off into the shelves.

“Get her.” He winced as Iolite’s voice boomed unexpectedly into his ear. “She has run out of bullets. I will tell Silverwater to circle round, intercept. Go.”

He went, reluctantly. Kion sprinted further into the Library; he lost sight of her once, twice, but the stacks were honeycombed here, corridors full of holes—not so easy to hide, a double-edged sword. Hopefully Silverwater would catch up and cover for him, fast.

No such luck. Kion came to a stop and turned to face him, posture tensed into a fighting stance. A fresh shield flared to life around her—he could probably break it, but his book was running dry on that front. He’d need time, and Kion would run the second he started writing.

It was definitely her. The different hairstyle had thrown him off, as had the frilly, floral spill of off-the-shoulder dress. But the face was the same—he could match it to the cold-eyed snarl back on some nameless Glister street: glasses cracked, cheek scored with Suria’s scratches. Her shoes, though glittering, were flat-soled. There was a knife in her hand. Where had that come from?

Her eyes met his own, narrowing in confusion—then her gaze slipped down to his hands, the bandages there, and he saw the moment recognition sparked.

“You,” she said. “I knew you weren’t a bloody Magician.”

Silverwater was coming, he reminded himself. He thought to stall for time—better yet, to get her away from him. “Look,” he said. “Just, go, okay? I don’t want to fight.”

“Yeah?” she said. Her weight shifted further onto the balls of her feet. “Is it true you’ve got a Healer for ransom?”

He winced. “I’m not—”

She fired a spell. His book jerked through the air and blocked it with open pages. She fired again. The book saved him, again.

“Really,” he said. “You should go. They’ll kill you.”

She hesitated visibly, hand hovering at her hip, reaching for the pistol holstered there.

“I’ll try to make sure they don’t hurt your teammates,” he added.

Her eyes narrowed. When she turned and ran, he made a token attempt at pursuit, until a burst of smoke flooded the stacks. He slowed and coughed, eyes stinging, until a flash of silver streaked overhead and Iolite’s voice crackled against his ear once more.

“Return to the controller-station,” she said. She meant the pillar, he guessed.

By the time he got back to the clearing, Iolite was standing on top of the pillar, directing Saiph to drag Kion’s companion out of the way. Her blob of an orange bag was folded over the unconscious—he hoped it was just unconscious—mage’s face like a lurid helmet, built for suffocation.

“Felun,” she said amiably, hopping down from her perch. “Would you be so kind as to remove the tamper-seal? Saiph! Bring the…ah, yes.”

He shrugged his acquiescence as Saiph dumped his satchel at his feet. Dragging it to the base of the pillar, he drew his usual protective circles before planting his hands onto its surface. Enchantment hummed beneath his touch, sunk so deep it was barely-palpable. Skillfully made—new, though. Far newer than what he’d gone up against, back in the Songian labyrinth.

“Stand back,” he said, just in case. “If I faint, or start puking, drag me out with the stick in the satchel. Not with your hands.”

“Understood,” Iolite said, her voice the very definition of serenity. Probably easy to sound like that, he thought bitterly, when she wasn’t the one risking her skin.

When he dived, the tamper-seal billowed up to meet him with sweet falseness, webbings of entrapment stapled out in shards of lullaby-sensation, drizzled syrup and warm dough. He sensed adaptation-workings as it twisted itself around the folds of his brain, coaxing and crooning, trying to drown him in a wall of summer-warm feather-down. From the coils of the enchantment came the scent of sunshine and wisteria, cramming itself down the back of his throat. Was that what it thought he wanted? Whoever had woven this had tried to be elegant and failed.

He breached the false-layer and came face-to-face with turgid snow and midnight suns, blinding in their radiance. The pillar undulated as he picked at the strands of light holding it together, sending sparking arrows at his physical body. The circle of runes soaked them up without trouble, though it did slightly worse with its shrieking death-rattle as he finished unraveling the layer. Creative. He hadn’t prepared so well for that; his ears were bleeding, now.

The final portion of the tamper-seal took a hard left into the realm of sterile and spiking; it almost resembled Iolite’s Hive lab in its starkness, filled with crushing jaws and marbled teeth. When it finally fell apart beneath his fingers, the taste of iron was dripping down the back of his throat. The spasm back into his body was as disorienting as always, a split-second of dizziness that never went away with practice. He stumbled backwards, dispelling his protective runes.

“Done,” he said, swallowing traces of his own blood. His hands, barely-healed over, were starting to itch again. “Go ahead.”

“Thank you, Felun,” Iolite said, flexing the joints of her hands. “Saiph, fetch him some refreshment from his bag. Both of you, keep clear.”

Saiph tossed him a can of prune juice. He gulped it down as Iolite strode up to the pillar. The structure was ever-so-slightly bowed now, its surface riven with cracks. She circled round opposite and put her hands to the surface, a mirror of what he had done. Imprints of light swelled where she touched, rippling bluer than any ocean.

She spoke a word, so bloated with power that it sounded grotesque.

Winds whipped from nowhere, racing along the ground and scratching up a film of dust. His ears spiked with pain, popping with twin gushes of blood as the air squashed flat with magic. The spell-light at Iolite’s hands blotted and thinned in separate measures and took on a liquid quality, wet-on-wet like Yuying’s watercolours. Her magic skulled through the air, jagged as a dying pulse. The threads of it snarled under his skin like fishhooks, pulling.

Iolite pushed, and the pillar splintered further; its keyholes fractured as one. Light spiderwebbed across the cracks in burnished constellations. She threw her head back, arching her wings, eyes afire. A fissure split open at her forehead, the cleft spilling light. When she snarled, the sound of her hiss echoed back upon itself, multiplying like a swarm. The juice can slipped from his fingers, spilling a puddle across the dirt.

The pillar split in two. It was inaudible beneath the deluge of that hiss, burrowing into his ears like biting insects. Beside him, Saiph had fallen to her knees, gripping her head in both hands.

A hundred doorways pierced the air, outlined in spell-light, stretching from floor to undulating ceiling. Iolite forced them open with keys of light, scalloping off her shoulders like a sea swell—like wavecaps, like white horses.

Objects spilled from the lips of each doorway, landing with muffled impacts: parchments and packets, painted scrolls and strings of stone. Iolite snapped them shut, disappearing each in turn, working her way across the grid of doors—some poured light, others a blur of scent or noise. When she came to a door that gushed fish and freshwater, she allowed it to flow for several seconds, the river ploughing into parched earth, before slamming it shut.

Doors glowed and winked out in turn, dropping their rubbish or regalia in turn. Several times, Iolite waited on the ones that shed rivers, but shut them after moments of consideration. A dozen doors opened and winked out in turn, then a dozen more. By the time the last doorway winked out in a wisp of dying light, the dirt had turned to slush beneath their feet.

Iolite let go of the pillar, every last keyhole leaking smoke. She staggered back, losing her footing—only a last-second sweep of her tail prevented her from toppling entirely. As it was, she dropped to one knee, panting for breath. Felun winced at the ringing overlaying the air, every sound muffled—or perhaps that was just him and his bleeding ears.

Saiph sprang to the air, gliding the distance over. Felun hurried uncertainly after her; by the time she reached Iolite, she was speaking rapid-fire faery words, each of them laced with a tone of concern.

“It is alright,” said the Archivist Iolite. Her third eye slid open the slightest fraction, a blue-white line in the middle of her forehead. “This place simply does not possess a fraction of what we seek. I have my answers now.”

She put a glowing hand to her mouth and said, “Silverwater. We reconvene.” Then she coughed, shoulders slumping.

“Will you need honey?” Saiph asked, worry touching the edges of her voice. “I will bring—”

“No need,” Iolite said, patting Saiph’s shoulder. “A potion will do. The fennel one, if you would. And the burdock tincture, for Felun here.”

Saiph hurried back to the edge of the clearing. Iolite turned to face him, third eye blinking as if to clear itself.

“How was that for breakage, Felun?” she asked. He had to read her lips to follow along; if he didn’t know better, he could have sworn she seemed genuinely cheerful.

“Impressive,” he said warily. His ears were, he noted, still trickling blood.

She made a chittering sound, as soft as silken wingbeats. “Fortunate as it is, that I have not lost my touch.” She straightened up, coughing some more. “This is as good of a first foray as any.”

Saiph returned with the potions and Felun’s satchel slung over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Saiph,” Iolite said. She handed him one of the two vials, the contents lichen-green in colour. “Drop this into your ears, Felun. You look quite ill.”

He did so as she drank her own vial, and felt immediate relief as the ringing ceased. The potion beat back the muffledness, and sound wavered back into a semblance of clarify. He rubbed at his eyes with itching hands, scanning the damp ground for some clue of what they’d come here for. Not an amphora, he knew, but what? Iolite hadn’t actually bothered to tell him; she seemed happy about his work on the pillar, at least.

Silverwater swooped down shortly thereafter, cradling a bleeding gash on his arm and with no Kion in sight. He was also, Felun noted, missing one of his knives.

“The mage found a doorway,” he said by way of explanation.

Iolite merely sighed and bandaged him up, pouring potion across his cuts. “A doorway leading nowhere particularly useful, I assure you. Let the guards come for them; the gala should be winding down about now.” She circled round to his back, splashing potion over scrapes on his wings. “My, you’ve got yourself into some trouble.”

“Overconfidence,” Saiph snickered under her breath.

Silverwater ignored her, addressing Iolite instead. “You are not concerned with exploiting a link to the Scion-mage?”

A faint smile graced her features. “I already have a link to the Scion-mage. Besides, she is not yet a priority. Not until the kingdom needs to fall.”

Silverwater’s gaze roved over the clearing, alighting upon the hundreds of books half-sunken into the slush. He twisted his neck to look at Iolite. “Your surveyance went well?”

“No sea here,” she said, recorking the bottle. “But it was as good as result as could be expected, otherwise. Confirmed no outliers. Harvest proceeds, we take our ins with the Glister Hive, and now…” Her third eye flashed, weeping sparks of light. “…Now this is only the beginning of the end.”