That’s when the art of ‘fighting blind’ was explained to me. In times of need, your Quivven illuminates your surroundings, mapping the territory in intricate detail, meaning darkness or blistering light can be easily overcome. Standing in the dark passageway, I close my eyes and wait for my Quivven’s magical powers to kick in — faint, blue light forming, stretching into fine lines.
The light settles until the fragments of glass buried into the wall become a colourful movie of a thousand parts … each piece of glass offering a different aspect of life in The Royisin Heights. It’s a unique surveillance device devised by a woman whose family created the Follygrin. Sianna is well conditioned in secrecy, understanding the link between living as a recluse and having a vantage point on the outside world.
After all, your hiding place is only as good as the security that surrounds it — Francis Follygrin knowing this better than anyone. Sianna’s grandfather lived as a ghost for decades, guarding a fragment of dark sorcery in a sacrifice as great as any I know. Sianna has her own hideout now, implementing the same window onto the world that the Follygrin provides: a touch of magic offering a vision of all things magical.
I wonder if this glittering passageway looks out onto the Society as a whole, believing it probably does, allowing Sianna to stay in touch with the world she’s distanced herself from. I’ve never understood why people don’t just return to the above-ground world, having had enough of magical living. I couldn’t but nor could I live such an isolated existence without family and friends close by.
Maybe when I’m older I’ll have had enough of all things magical, although I can see myself teaching with Jacob if that happens, wanting to hold onto the coat tails of wonder. I hope that day never comes but you never know in life — the reason I try to squeeze every moment of joy out of each day, reminding myself that standing in a kaleidoscope passageway is way better than dodging curses and creatures on the battlefield.
We’re only tracking down a comrade who’s anger’s got the better of her, meaning if she doesn’t make an appearance soon we’ll say our goodbyes and head back to safer realms in The Society Sphere. There’s a globe-shaped building in The Winter Quarter, for instance, and a friend hoping to get his first kiss on a glittering bridge.
“Pinch your skin where the Quivven’s buried,” Sianna advises, “capturing the light in your hand.”
I glance at Conrad and Lucy, never having heard of this trick before. Conrad tries it first, smiling as a tanzanite glow shimmers in his closed hand. Lucy and I do the same, copying Sianna as she kneels and places the captured colour of her Quivven onto the stained-glass floor, keeping her palm pressed down as the floor fills with light.
“Reminds me of The Floating Floor,” Conrad whispers as he kneels beside me — a reference to the magical floor in The Cendryll, creating an illusion of water when you walk across it. The Floating Floor has its own secrets although my attention is firmly fixed on what’s about to revealed below: the underground world of The Royisin Heights shimmering into life.
24
The Hidden Few
I study the gathering of well-dressed men and woman standing in what can only be described as a ballroom: a grand building dominated by chandeliers. A cocktail bar runs around the circumference of the underground space, drawing crowds to their preferred section. Kneeling to inspect the space more closely, I wonder what magical tonics are being mixed by the bar staff: remedies for recluses and people on the run.
Part of me wonders why the Society would allow such a place to function, blatantly offering tonics to the desperate, but that’s only my perception; I imagine Sianna will tell us more in due course. There will always be places where the less savoury characters gather, either in plain sight or hideouts such as the underground chamber of The Royisin Heights.
Society elders are not naïve enough to think peace is a permanent state of bliss; it has to be managed via monitoring and clear messaging, dealing with the wayward in a variety of ways. The glamorous space viewed through the stained-glass floor is one of these ways: a place where quiet revelry and mild mischief are managed until judgement arrives in the form of Night Rangers or sleeping soldiers.
Judgement is closing in on Neve and Odin so there’s no need to rush into an unfamiliar place, so I decide to sit cross-legged on the floor, studying every figure who enters and leaves, wondering what disguise Neve is using to hide her movements. There’s also Alice Aradel’s old mob to look out for: Eschen Blin, Roland Gupp, Morval Crake and Golen Rais.
Eschen is the most likely to make an appearance — the cousin of Odin and Neve who, according to Sianna, has provided Odin with shelter with the aim to conceal him in the shifting world of figures visible through a stained-glass floor. They obviously can’t see us looking down at them because no-one looks up. I also wonder if they can hear us due to Sianna explaining how each cocktail of remedies disfigures in different ways: temporarily, of course.
You could say this secret hideout is the perfect place for the creative witch or wizard, able to use their imagination and wit to evade those tracking them down. Unfortunately for Odin and Neve, we’ve bumped into an old comrade on our arrival in The Royisin Heights — Sianna Follygrin — as skilled as anyone in the art of covert movements.
If Sianna has created a way to observe her surroundings, I’m confident
