She backed away into the hall as Shade watched her, but the dog did stay. Wynn hurried to ladle a bowl of soup, and then plopped a joint of roasted mutton on a spare wooden plate. A warm fire blazed in the hearth, and there were few people left in the hall. Wynn suddenly didn't want to sit locked in her own room.
And then Shade appeared at her side.
Either ignoring or not understanding that she shouldn't come in, the dog looked up at Wynn, then raised her nose, sniffing at the plate.
Heads turned their way, and Wynn almost fled the hall. But Shade kept poking at her arm and huffing. Wynn took a long breath. Trying not to meet any eyes, she strode toward the hearth. She settled at its right end upon the ledge, far from where most people sat at the tables.
Wynn set the wooden plate on the floor, and Shade began chomping on mutton. She set aside her bowl and stepped over to retrieve a water pitcher from the nearest table, along with an empty mug and bowl. Three initiates were still cleaning up, but none came to clear the tables nearest Wynn. She heard frantic whispering that grew louder as she headed back to the hearth.
'There's no such thing! It's just a wolf.'
'Kyne, don't get stupid!'
'Let go!'
'That thing could eat your whole head.'
'Oh yeah, well… you're just a big, ignorant coward… Let go of me!'
Wynn kept her head down, focusing on her bowl as she ate.
'Is she really… a majay-hì?'
Wynn flinched at the surprisingly close voice and looked up straight into an ivory face covered in freckles.
The girl in an initiate's tan robe and smudged apron couldn't have been more than thirteen. Her wonder- struck eyes peered cautiously at Shade, now with the mutton pulled off the plate and trapped between teeth and forepaws.
Wynn swallowed a piece of carrot. 'How do you know that word?'
'Reading,' the girl answered, still staring at Shade.
Wynn almost smiled. Now, here was a cathologer in the making standing before her.
'Can I pet her?' the girl asked.
Wynn glanced down. Shade had stopped chewing, her unblinking eyes locked on the girl. Wynn didn't know if Shade would ever submit to being touched by anyone else, but she preferred not to hurt the girl's feelings.
'She's still getting used to things here,' Wynn answered. 'Maybe later.'
The girl's expression fell, as overcome fear washed away in disappointment. She backed up and scurried off.
Looking down into her spoon, Wynn grimaced at the irony of worrying about a young initiate's feelings. Sages were dying over the ancient texts she'd brought here, but she still thought upon the wonder of one small girl. Had she ever been so naïve herself?
Probably.
Shade renewed chewing her mutton, all the way down to the bone, and then rose on all fours to lap water from the bowl.
Wynn's dinner became as tasteless as sawdust. Reaching out, she touched Shade's back, allowing a memory to surface of them sitting on the floor of her room that morning.
Shade raised her head with pricked ears and whined. Perhaps privacy seemed welcome to her as well.
Wynn picked up the bowl and plate and left them on a nearby table. Shade slipped ahead of her, straight toward the main archway, and Wynn hurried to catch up. Out in the courtyard the dog appeared to remember the way perfectly, heading for the south dormitory's door. But on the way up the stairs, Shade startled several apprentices. They all flattened against the upper landing's walls.
Shade padded past, giving them no notice, and Wynn followed quickly, not looking at them either.
She breathed a sigh as she reached her room. But when she slipped inside and Shade pushed in around her robe's skirt, Wynn kicked a folded slip of paper lying on the floor. Her name was written on its outer fold.
Someone had pushed it under her door—a common practice when a message was clearly addressed and the recipient couldn't be found. Leaning down, she picked it up and unfolded it. Her breath caught when she saw the handwriting and the message written in Belaskian.
I need to know you are all right. I am at an inn called Nattie's House, at the corner of Starling and Twine streets on the outskirts of the Graylands Empire. Come, if you can, and bring me a cloak. If not, send me word now.
Wynn held on to the paper as her concern grew. What was Chane thinking? If anyone had sneaked a peek at the note…
She didn't want to think of what might've happened from that. At least he hadn't been badly injured or was well enough to write. Yet he'd told her where he was, after insisting it was better she didn't know.
What had she done to him with the sun crystal?
'Shade,' she called. 'We must go out.'
The dog poked her head out from beneath the table-desk. For an instant Wynn considered showing her a memory of Chane—and then quickly thought better of it.
What might Shade sense—or see—in such a memory? Somehow the majay-hì hadn't picked up Chane's undead nature last night. Strange as that was, Wynn had no wish to give this natural hunter of the undead any more knowledge of Chane than was necessary. Not yet.
But she couldn't leave Shade locked in her room. If the majay-hì became agitated, and someone came at any sound of commotion, it would just cause more trouble. She would have to figure out how to keep Shade away from Chane when the time came.
Wynn grabbed her cloak and pulled the scroll case from its deep inner pocket. She still didn't know if the black figure had come after it or her last night. But leaving the scroll behind seemed a wiser choice. She stuffed the case deep under her mattress, bracing it against one of the bed's support boards, and then grabbed the staff from the corner beyond her desk.
She paused, staring at the leather sheath protecting the crystal.
If Domin il'Sänke found out, after her renewed promise, she might never learn how to use it correctly. But what else could she do? She couldn't go out without some means of defense. Though she still didn't know for certain what the black figure was, it had vanished after the crystal flashed. Sunlight drove all vampires into hiding.
One more thought occurred to her.
She dashed to her trunk, pulling out a tiny jar of healing salve. Would it even work on Chane? Either way, it wouldn't hurt to try. Then she spotted Magiere's old dagger tucked in the chest's side—given to Wynn as a gift.
Wynn stared at it. She'd used it more than once, even against the undead, and sometimes with disastrous results. Still, she couldn't ignore anything that might help keep her alive, and she picked it up.
Shade slipped under Wynn's arm and clamped her jaws over the dagger's sheath. At the brush of the dog's muzzle against Wynn's hand, an image erupted in her head and consumed her.
She saw the black figure.
Like a cloth-draped column of solidified night, it slipped straight through a building's back wall.
Wynn was disoriented in fright, and had no idea where she was in that memory. She seemed to be looking down an alley behind that place, but from a lower height, as if she knelt upon the filthy cobblestones. The noise of wood cracking, glass breaking, and other racket erupted from within the building.
And then everything in the alley suddenly raced by. She bolted, swift and low, along the alley floor, charging by the building and out the alley's far end. Swerving through the empty street, she rounded the city block to its front side. There she slowed, creeping along the buildings, finally coming to a stop. Above the peeling door of a garish and weathered shop, Wynn saw a worn painted sign.
Shilwise's Gild and Ink—the scriptorium where a folio had been left overnight and stolen.
She was crouched two shops down from it, but the scribe shop was now silent.
