The Wise Man's Fear

I shrugged and began to get to my feet.

“Three talents and five,” he said. “It’ll be used, mind you. And a stirrup, not a crank.”

I calculated in my head. “Will you accept an ounce of silver and a spool of finely drawn gold wire?” I asked, bringing them out from the pockets of my cloak.

Sleat’s dark eyes unfocused slightly as he did his own internal calculations. “You drive a tight bargain.” He picked up the spool of bright wire and the small ingot of silver. “There’s a rain barrel behind the Grimsome Tannery. The crossbow will be there in fifteen minutes.” He gave me an insulted look. “Two hours? You don’t know anything about me at all.”

Hours later Fela emerged from the shelves in the Archives and caught me with one hand against the four- plate door. I wasn’t pushing on it, exactly. Just pressing. Just checking to see if it was firmly closed. It was.

“I don’t suppose they tell scrivs what’s behind this?” I asked her without any hope.

“If they do, they haven’t told me yet,” Fela said, stepping close and reaching out to run her fingers along the grooves the letters made in the stone: Valaritas. “I had a dream about the door once,” she said. “Valaritas was the name of an old dead king. His tomb was behind the door.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s better than the dreams I have about it.”

“What are yours?” She asked.

“Once I dreamed I saw light through the keyholes,” I said. “But mostly I’m just standing here, staring at it, trying to get in.” I frowned at the door. “As if standing outside while I’m awake isn’t frustrating enough, I do it while I’m asleep too.”

Fela laughed softly at that, then turned away from the door to face me. “I got your note,” she said. “What’s the research project you were so vague about?”

“Let’s go somewhere private to talk,” I said. “It’s a bit of a story.”

We made our way to one of the reading holes, and once the door was closed I told her the whole story, embarrassments and all. Someone was practicing malfeasance against me. I couldn’t go to the masters for fear of revealing I was the one who had broken into Ambrose’s rooms. I needed a gram to protect myself, but I didn’t know enough sygaldry to make one.

“Malfeasance,” she said in a low voice, slowly shaking her head in dismay. “You’re sure?”

I unbuttoned my shirt and took it down off my shoulder, revealing the dark bruise on my shoulder from the attack I’d only managed to partially stop.

She leaned in to look at it. “And you really don’t know who it might be?”

“Not really,” I said, trying not to think of Devi. I wanted to keep that particular bad decision to myself for now. “I’m sorry to drag you into this, but you’re the only one . . .”

Fela waved her hands in negation. “None of that. I told you to ask if you ever needed a favor, and I’m glad you did.”

“I’m glad you’re glad,” I said. “If you can get me through this, I’ll owe you instead. I’m getting better at finding what I want in here, but I’m still new.”

Fela nodded. “It takes years to learn your way around the Stacks. It’s like a city.”

I smiled. “That’s how I think of it too. I haven’t lived here long enough to learn all the shortcuts.”

Fela grimaced a bit. “And I’m guessing you’re going to need those. If Kilvin really believes the sygaldry is dangerous, most of the books you want will be in his private library.”

I felt a sinking sensation in my stomach. “Private library?”

“All the masters have private libraries,” Fela said matter-of-factly. “I know some alchemy so I help spot books with formulae Mandrag wouldn’t want in the wrong hands. Scrivs who know sygaldry do the same for Kilvin.”

“But this is pointless then,” I said. “If Kilvin has all those books locked away there’s no chance of finding what I’m looking for.”

Fela smiled, shaking her head. “The system isn’t perfect. Only about a third of the Archives are properly cataloged. What you’re looking for is probably still in the Stacks somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding it.”

“I wouldn’t even need a whole schema,” I said. “If I just knew a few of the proper runes I could probably just fake the rest.”

She gave me a worried look. “Is that really wise?”

“Wisdom is a luxury I can’t afford,” I said. “Wil and Sim have already been watching over me for two nights. They can’t sleep in shifts for the next ten years.”

Fela drew a deep breath then let it out slowly. “Right. We can start with the cataloged books first. Maybe what you need has slipped past the scrivs.”

We collected several dozen books on sygaldry and closeted ourselves in an out-of-the-way reading hole on the fourth floor. Then we started going through them one at a time.

We began with hopes of finding a full-fledged schema for a gram, but as the hours slid by we lowered our hopes. If not a whole schema, perhaps we could find a description of one. Perhaps a reference to the sequence of runes used. The name of a single rune. A hint. A clue. A scrap. Some piece of the puzzle.

I closed the last of the books we had brought back to the reading hole. It made a solid thump as the pages settled together.

“Nothing?” she asked tiredly.

“Nothing.” I rubbed my face with both hands. “So much for getting lucky.”

Fela shrugged, grimacing halfway through the motion, then craned her head to one side to stretch a kink out of her neck. “It made sense to start in the most obvious places,” she said. “But those will be the same places the scrivs have combed over for Kilvin. We’ll just have to dig deeper.”

I heard the distant sound of the belling tower and was surprised at how many times it struck. We’d been researching for over four hours. “You’ve missed your class,” I said.

“It’s just geometries,” she said.

“You’re a wonderful person,” I said. “What’s our best option now?”

“A long, slow trawl of the Stacks,” she said. “But it’s going to be like panning for gold. Dozens of hours, and that’s with both of us working together so we don’t overlap our efforts.”

“I can bring in Wil and Sim to help,” I said.

“Wilem works here,” Fela said. “But Simmon’s never been a scriv, he’ll probably just get in the way.”

I gave her an odd look. “Do you know Sim very well?”

“Not very,” she admitted. “I’ve seen him around.”

“You’re underestimating him,” I said. “People do it all the time. Sim’s smart.”

“Everyone here is smart,” Fela said. “And Sim is nice, but . . .”

“That’s the problem,” I said. “He’s nice. He’s gentle, which people see as weak. And he’s happy, which people see as stupid.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Fela said.

“I know,” I said, rubbing at my face. “I’m sorry. It’s been a bad couple of days. I thought the University would be different than the rest of the world, but it’s just like everywhere else: people cater to pompous, rude bastards like Ambrose, while the good souls like Simmon get brushed off as simpletons.”

“Which one are you?” Fela said with a smile as she began to stack up the books. “Pompous bastard or good soul?”

“I’ll research that later,” I said. “Right now I’ve got more pressing concerns.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Trust

While I was fairly sure Devi wasn’t behind the malfeasance, I’d have to be a fool to ignore the fact that she had my blood. So when it became clear that making a gram was going to require a great deal of time and energy, I realized the time had come to pay her a visit and make sure she wasn’t responsible.

It was a miserable day: chill with a clammy wind that cut through my clothes. I didn’t own gloves or a hat,