The guest room was basically the same as the first one we’d gone into. There was a desk on the wall nearest the door. To its right, facing the door, was a closet. The left side of the room held a bed and a clear space for meditation or pacing the floor while waiting for an appointment. Inquisitor Rhône hadn’t brought many personal touches from home with him. I glanced in the closet and found five sets of identical red robes, as well as two pairs of slippers.
I shuffled through each of the robes quickly and found nothing of value. I lifted his pillow, peeked under the bed, and even raised the mattress. There was nothing in any of those hiding spaces, either.
That just left the desk.
I rolled the chair away from it and carefully opened the center drawer. I found a slim notebook with a red cover emblazoned with a stylized Empyrean Flame. I opened it, flipped through the pages, and found nothing. Either Rhône had used an invisible ink that I didn’t have time to uncover, or it was simply an empty journal Rhône hadn’t gotten around to filling. Either way, it wasn’t my prize.
I moved on to rifling the drawer on the right side of the desk and found much more interesting material within.
A small black box, with a glossy, almost mirror-smooth exterior, sat at the front of the drawer. I carefully lifted it from its resting place and set it on top of the desk. Even more intriguingly, a stack of letters lay at the back of the drawer. They were all enclosed in thick, cream-colored envelopes. They also had wax seals, or the remnants of broken ones, on the flaps. There was no information on either the front or the back, though the wax that remained gave the vague impression of a spiral, or a circle. Curiosity demanded I lay several of them out on the desk to get a better look at the image, but a sudden noise in the hall outside set my heart jumping into my throat and froze me in place.
“Headmistress.” Clem’s voice was tight. “You surprised me.”
“And you surprised me,” the headmistress responded sharply. “What are you doing here, Ms. Hark?”
“Oh,” Clem said. “I was reminiscing about my first year. I visited my mother in this part of the school then, and I thought—”
“Ms. Hark,” Cruzal said with a sharp edge to her words. “Surely you don’t think I believe such a flimsy excuse. What are you really doing here?”
I didn’t have time to listen to the rest of their conversation, but I knew Clem would find a way to wiggle out of her predicament. I had a very specific mission to complete, and I’d just run out of time. I opened the lacquered case and glanced inside.
The box was lined with thick black velvet. It held only two items. One of them was an oblong stone sculpture with a slight curve along its length and rounded edges. One end was jagged and sharp, as if it had been broken off a much larger piece. That was weird. The other item was an orichalcum compass with a ring of numbers and letters running around its outside edge. The red-gold treasure’s aura filled the room with its glow. This was an item of immense power. It had to be the prize.
“And if it’s not,” I muttered to myself, “I’m taking it, anyway.”
I returned the envelopes to the drawer, then closed the box carefully and slipped it inside my robes. I wouldn’t trust it there for long, but it was a fine makeshift sack for the short amount of time it would take me to cross from the Rhône’s room back to the empty one.
Except, I couldn’t go back there. It was too close to Cruzal. I padded across the inquisitor’s quarters, soft and stealthy as a cat, slipped behind the curtain, and eased myself outside. I pushed the window closed, then slipped along the ledge until I reached the second window from the inquisitor’s room. This one wasn’t locked, and I slipped inside, quiet as a mouse.
Cruzal and Clem were still talking in the hall, so I took a seat on the bed and waited quietly for them to leave.
I heard Clem muttering to herself as she walked back down the hallway, but I could no longer hear Cruzal. I waited, then waited some more, then waited even longer. I really had no idea if the headmistress was out there in the hall or had moved on to pester someone else. If I got closer, I might be able to detect her core. But then, she’d be able to detect mine, as well.
I’d just have to take my chances.
I eased the door open, peered outside, and when I saw no one, I headed back to my room as fast as I could go without attracting unnecessary attention by running.
As I made my way back, I couldn’t shake the image of those wax seals. There was something familiar about the curl at the bottom. It bothered me to no end, and snippets and snatches of its appearance flickered through my thoughts right up until I reached my doorway.
And then, just as I stepped into my room, it hit me.
I knew exactly where I’d seen that symbol before.
On the backs of the robes of the Shambala team.
The Bonds
“DON’T GET ANGRY,” HAHEN said as soon as I’d entered the room.
My eyes flicked from the rat spirit sitting on my desk to the dragon dangling its legs off my headboard to my other guest, who was perched on the edge of my bed.
“You know I would have seen her in class tomorrow,” I said to my mentor. “I’m not sure why you had to bring her here.”
“I’m
