4.87: The Room

I’m not an idiot. I knew the stuff he’d said about helping clear Cheryl’s name was bullshit. Not the position she was in, all of that sounded like it was probably true, and he might even believe she was actually framed (although he was probably pretending to agree with me on that, too), but Fiore wouldn’t take on the Council like that. He’d done what he could to protect me from being put under geas, in a mild and nonconfrontational kind of way, because I’d been his responsibility at the time, but pulling out all the stops to try to defend this woman he didn’t even know from a government who had full control of the narrative and absolutely wouldn’t stand for anyone proving they’d framed her? No way. Even if that could work, it’d be far, far too risky for Fiore to stick his neck out like that. He didn’t do personal risk. And there was absolutely no way that it could work. Nobody actually involved in this cared whether Cheryl and her master were guilty of that they’d been accused of; they’d only been accused of that specific crime to tie up the ‘why did the Pit break’ loose end. Clearing their names was meaningless and impossible.

So why had Fiore made such a big show of pretending otherwise?

I listened. He’d mined for information about Cheyl, I’d covered any nervousness or hesitation by deflecting to accusing the Council of framing her, he’d considered this and decided it made sense, we’d talked about why and what they wanted to do, I’d insisted I was going to clear her name and he’d offered to help… ah. There. Halfway through the conversation, he’d mentioned that he knew Cheryl was the one accused because I’d told di Fiore about it. (Meaning he was talking to his nephew about stuff, had their relationship improved? None of my business.) But I’d done that when trying to convince di Fiore of Cheryl’s innocence, meaning that when I’d walked into that office, Fiore must have already known that I thought she’d been framed. So his whole ‘oh, that makes sense’ realisation when I told him was definitely an act, and he’d had time to consider and prepare the rest of the conversation in advance. That didn’t really tell me anything new, exactly, but it did confirm that he’d been jerking me around the whole conversation. If he was really interested in clearing Cheryl’s name, wouldn’t he have lead with that, instead of having a whole conversation pretending I’d been convincing him then and there? He didn’t want to help Cheryl, but he’d put work into convincing me that he did. Into convincing me that I’d convinced him of the danger and need to act, trying to make me feel in control of the situation. Because he wanted information about her from me, which could only mean that he wanted to find her location and turn her in; there wasn’t any other reason to need such information.

What an arsehole.

Well, I could lead him along, too. There was no point in trying to clear Cheryl’s name and no reason to actually tell him anything. Cheryl was just going to have to keep hiding the best she could, and her master… well, I couldn’t do anything for him, either. I didn’t even know him. He wasn’t my responsibility in any way.

Except that he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit because my friends had wanted to help me stay in school.

Well, that… wasn’t something I could do anything about right now. I had a world to save. I glanced down at the Lake of Inquisition. At some point, some point soon, I was going to have to take a vessel filled with a potion and go down to the heart of the school below that place, and change… everything. I was going to steal the greatest source of power from the High Council and completely alter Refujeyo from then on. And I still hadn’t figured out how to do that without killing Malas and unleashing his very dangerous spells upon the world, so there was going to be a death toll.

If the Council would go this far for Cheryl after what she did, if Fiore was right that the crime they’d framed her for was enough to kill her if they wanted and they were going to use it to strongarm her into anything they wanted… what would they do to me and Kylie?

It wasn’t worth worrying about. What had to be done, had to be done. And we didn’t even have all the details of what needed to be done yet, so scaring myself further was counterproductive. I needed to work harder for our goal, not be distracted by things like this.

A couple of days later, I had an opportunity.

“I’m fine,” I insisted to Malas as he sorted through his desk, making sure his on-hand material supplies were fully stocked an organised. He moved with sharp, efficient motions, displaying his stress and anticipation. “I’m fine, I can still work.”

“You and your bonded mage both show up at my hospital with splitting headaches, today of all days, and you’re fine?”

“Ha, yeah, sorry about the timing.” I rubbed my forehead. I wished he hadn’t reminded me of the headache. It really was very distracting, and only made worse by the creeping buzz of Kylie’s magic being slightly displaced throughout my body.

“The timing isn’t a problem,” Malas said, which was clearly not true. “The fact that this is happening is concerning. Need I remind you how dangerous your bond is? Random troubling changes like this are not fine.”

“It might not be the bond. We do a lot of stuff together, we might’ve just both eaten the same weird thing. Or caught the same virus.”

“I don’t generally let my apprentices work with a virus, either. You’re under medical observation.”

“I can be medically observed and work. I’m still going to be in the same room, there’s no reason not to – ”

“Go to bed, Kayden.”

“You could use help today.”

“Go to bed.”

I sighed and went to bed. Kylie was in the bed next to me, eyes shut against her own splitting headache. We’d pulled back the curtain between our beds to disrupt the soundproofing enchantments between us so we could talk.

“How are things out there?” she asked.

“Busy, but they won’t let me help.”

“Of course not. You’re under medical observation.”

“Oh, don’t take Malas’ side!”

The reason Malas was so busy today wasn’t from an influx of patients. At least, not yet – Kylie and I were the only patients in the ward. It was because today was the first pit comp since the Pit had been reopened, and as much as the powers that be insisted that everything was in working order now, nobody was quickly forgetting what had happened to Saina. Malas wanted to be ready. There were about ten hours of back-to-back competitions booked (apparently a lot of people had been antsy to get back into the Pit), and Malas wanted himself and his most experienced apprentices on hand and waiting. More than half of his apprentices weren’t even on campus (I still had no idea where they went), meaning that for the next ten hours or so, a rotation of moderately experienced apprentices with access to an emergency alarm would be on staff. Apparently this was normal practice for situations where Malas couldn’t be present for long periods, such as during Initiations. It was my first time seeing it done, though.

The first apprentice on duty was a woman in her early twenties I didn’t know named Ada. I waited until Malas had definitely left and she’d settled in behind his desk to mess around on her tablet before pulling two small vials out of my bag and handing one to Kylie.

“You’re sure this won’t make me grow tentacles or something?” she asked.

“You wound me, Kylie.” I downed my bottle. “It’s just an antidote. I’m no master potioncrafter, but I can make a fucking antidote.”

“Okay but the last potion you made gave me this enormous headache, so you can’t be that good at it,” she teased.

“A potion designed to make headaches, making headaches. Who would have thought.”

She downed her antidote. “Why does a headache-inducing potion even exist?”

“Helped us, didn’t it?” I grit my teeth against the nausea of the magical antidote neutralising the other potion in my system. Soon, I felt better. “I don’t feel great about this part of the plan,” I admitted. “Faking a potential medical problem and all that. What if there’s an emergency at the Pit and they need these beds?”

“If there’s a medical emergency that requires using every bed in this hospital, I’m sure Malas will have absolutely no problem kicking us out,” Kylie pointed out. “How long do we need to wait?”

“Two hours, until Lee’s shift. The dude takes the longest bathroom breaks in the world. We should have plenty of time to explore the drug storage room.”

“And if he walks in on us?”

“Then he’ll assume we’re trying to steal drugs and I will definitely get fired. Actually, the Council might be looking for ways to legitimately expel you so Fionnrath can have you. So we should be careful not to get caught.”

“Is this even worth it? This risk? To peek into a backroom that might get us absolutely nowhere?”

“We have no idea what kind of a clock we’re on. Do you have any other ideas for moving forward?”

She sighed. We’d had conversations like this before. “Let me know when it’s go time.” She laid back in bed and pulled out her tablet.

The wait for Lee’s shift felt like forever. The wait for him to go to the bathroom felt even longer. But eventually, the way to medicine storage was clear. I tossed a spare set of my apprentice robes to Kylie. “Let’s go.”

I smeared some soft wax over the first two holes on Cheryl’s key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.

The medicine storage room looked the same as it always did – a little table, shelves of stock – except for the back wall. Right in the middle of the back wall was a small wooden door. The same small wooden door I’d seen last time.

“Yes!” I whispered. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“Come on,” Kylie said, pushing past me into the room. The door didn’t have any locks on it, magical or otherwise. If didn’t have any alarms that I could see, although it was impossible to be certain with magic. Kylie opened it.

Inside was a bedroom. It was fastidiously neat, with hospital corners on the bed and every surface clean. Malas’ bedroom, I had to assume. That made a lot of sense, actually; Malas was in the ward about sixteen hours a day, he had to sleep close by. He had to be on hand to be roused for emergencies. So, this was his bedroom.

That was really anticlimactic.

We didn’t go in. We weren’t going to go poking randomly around a guy’s bedroom for no reason. I closed the door, trying not to look too let down by the discovery. This didn’t help us! I’d put so much work into this, and it didn’t help us at all!

“Try another combination,” Kylie said.

“What?”

“Another combination! Of holes on the key! There are six holes, with two of them forming the default override for the back wall of the room. It doesn’t need four holes to designate one room, right? Other combinations might lead to other places!”

It was worth a try. We left the storage room, locked it, and I smeared wax over another hole. Unlock, enter…

There was no door in the back wall this time.

There was no back wall at all.