Of Truth and Beasts

“Yes, that’s why I needed to see you. I have a confession to make.”

“A confession? I’m neither the premin nor a domin of your order. Why me?”

“Because ...” Wynn forced her voice into a contrite, distressed tone. “Because I lost my cold lamp crystal at Dhredze Seatt.”

A frown hardened Premin Hawes’s hazel eyes.

For a sage, this was an egregious oversight. Only those who reached journeyor status were given a crystal of their own as a mark of rank, achievement, and a presumed life devoted to the guild—to sagecraft itself.

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone,” Wynn rushed on. “So much had happened. My belongings were confiscated several times. I’m not even certain when or how it went missing.”

The premin’s frown deepened.

“Please don’t lecture me,” Wynn begged. “I feel terrible as it is, but I’m heading south tomorrow.” She paused, as if grief stricken. “I need a replacement ... to prove my status at the Lhoin’na branch.”

Hawes seemed about to speak but didn’t. The disapproval on her narrow face shifted to something more guarded and passive.

“Haven’t you been down in the archives?” she asked. “How were you studying without your crystal?”

Wynn swallowed hard. “Master Tärpodious took pity on me. He loaned me one reserved for apprentices approved to work in the catacombs.”

It was plausible, and hopefully Hawes wouldn’t check—at least not before Wynn was long gone.

Premin Hawes stepped forward so steadily that Wynn backpedaled out of the way. Shade was forced to retreat, and hit her rump against the passage’s other side.

“Come with me,” Hawes said.

She glided down to the middle iron door on the northward side. Just as Wynn caught up, the premin touched the tips of her narrow fingers against the door right where there should’ve been a lock. She closed them like a pincer.

The door’s iron bulged between her fingers and thumb.

A palm-sized disk formed out of the iron between the premin’s fingertips.

Wynn knew—everyone here knew—that the iron doors of the laboratories had been fashioned decades ago to be as impenetrable as possible. But in all her life, she’d never seen how they opened.

Hawes rotated her hand with a whisper, though the disk didn’t turn. Her delicate fingertips slid smoothly along the disk’s edge, and then she flattened her palm against it. The disk sank, vanishing flush into the iron.

With one quick twist of the handle, Premin Hawes pushed the door open.

“Wait here,” she commanded.

Wynn was still staring as the premin disappeared inside, closing the door to the barest crack. Again she wondered at Hawes’s skills compared to Domin il’Sänke’s dismissive comments. She didn’t have long for those thoughts.

Narrow fingers curled out around the door’s open edge.

Premin Hawes pulled it partly inward and stood blocking Wynn’s sight of the inner room. From behind her back, she held out one perfectly formed cold lamp crystal.

Wynn’s breath of relief was genuine as she took it. “Thank you ... thank you so much!”

With a respectful nod, she turned off down the passage. Shade scurried ahead in a clatter of claws on stone, quite eager to leave.

“Wynn.”

That one word made her flinch to a stumbling stop and turn.

Premin Hawes came down the passage in that glide that barely moved her robe. When she halted an arm’s length away, her hazel eyes never blinking, a tense moment followed that Wynn would never forget.

The premin held up another cold lamp crystal, as pure as the last.

Wynn stared dumbly at it, unable to move, until the premin snatched Wynn’s hand holding the first crystal. Shade only let out a half snarl before swallowing audibly. The premin opened Wynn’s hand with her own thumb and placed the second crystal beside the first in Wynn’s palm.

Wynn studied the pair, her thoughts utterly blank. When she finally looked up, Premin Hawes had turned away down the passage.

“In case your misfortunes continue,” the premin said evenly, “and you ... lose the first one.”

Frideswida Hawes turned into her study. The last iron door on the right shut with a clang that echoed down the passageway.

Wynn stood frozen. Had the premin of metaology known what she was up to? If so, how did she know?

Chane, lying on the bed in his guest quarters, opened his eyes to darkness. He sat up, fingering the brass ring still on his finger from last night’s foray into the city.

Climbing out of bed, he walked out of the bedchamber and into the study. Dusk’s tinted residue of light filtered through the canvas curtains beyond the desk, filling the room with enough for his night sight. As he glanced down toward the desk, the first thing he saw was one of Wynn’s journals. He looked away.

He had slept in his breeches and shirt. Both were now quite wrinkled, and he started back for the bedroom to change before meeting Wynn. His attention lit upon a recently added item among his scattered belongings on the desk.