I poked my head a little bit farther out, and saw a tall, slender figure in the hallway. He had on an expensive-looking cloak and had a stately figure, gray hair brushed back in the same style that Brandel wore.
His father.
I had known Brandel’s father was a noble of some sort, but had never seen him. I still didn’t recognize him.
“I’m as prepared as I can be. I have my ways, you know.”
His father chuckled. “I know you do. Do you know how expensive it was for me to obtain that vial? Don’t waste the opportunity.”
Could he be involved?
The vial was one I had seen before, and I understood it was Djarn magic that helped store power within it, but I hadn’t known where he had gotten it. I thought maybe it was from Elaine, but what if there were some other source?
“I won’t waste it,” Brandel said. “I will keep asking about my testing, too. With all of the activity that’s been going on around the Academy these days, I am not sure whether I will be tested any time soon.”
Could he be looking in my direction?
I stepped back, pushing the door slightly closed, then realizing that my flaming seal around the door was still there. If he saw it, he might know that somebody was here.
I doubted Brandel had enough strength to push past my seal. I had pulled through several cycles, using as much power as I could to strengthen it, but there was the possibility that he had some way of tapping into his own power to break the seal.
“I will push on your behalf. I do have some influence with the king, you know. Not as much as I once did, and I blame that damn advisor of his,” he muttered. “But still enough.”
“Thank you, Father. I won’t disappoint you.”
“I would hope not. We need you and your talents to represent the family.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what talents Brandel had that would allow him to represent the family, but I wasn’t about to say anything out loud.
This time, I could swear that Brandel looked in my direction. He had to have noticed that the door was cracked open.
I stepped back, and their voices became muted.
I heard footsteps, and they were moving along the hallway.
I held my seal over the door, but I didn’t close it entirely. The movement would have drawn attention.
There wasn’t any other way out of the office. As much as I would’ve liked to climb out a window or escape some other way, I was stuck here until they were gone.
Thankfully, given that Brandel was with his father, he wasn’t going anywhere.
I looked back to the bookshelves. I had searched through most of these shelves—looking for some hidden compartment, anything that might show me what else Jerith had been up to or a list of people he had been working with—but hadn’t found anything.
It was a waste of time.
Now if Donathar had left any belongings, I might’ve found something there, but his quarters had been raided by Thomas who brought his findings to the king. Given that Donathar was the one at the palace, and had been targeting the king directly, he had been of far more interest to the king than Jerith.
That didn’t mean that he was of any less interest to me.
He had been with the Djarn, and he had learned some of their techniques, but even those had remained elusive to me.
As much as I wanted to ask Natalie about them, I simply did not know anything more about them.
I waited until I could no longer hear the voices, then headed to the door, poking my head up.
I should’ve chosen my time better. I tried to come in the middle of the day, when it wouldn’t look so strange for me to be in the hallway, but maybe I should have come first thing in the morning. I typically wake up before anybody else in the Academy, so no one would have even known I was here.
After waiting another moment, I pulled the door open, slipped out, and closed it again, replacing Thomas’s pattern over the door.
It was a complicated pattern, but the very first time that I had discovered it sealing off the door, I had studied it until I could master it. I had been working with Thomas often enough that I knew his techniques, at least those he had shown me. There had to be more that I didn’t quite know yet.
I hurried down the hallway, reaching the main stairs leading down through the Academy, when I paused.
I could still hear Brandel and his father speaking.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying, their voices were too muted for me to make out, but they were still down there.
“Ashan?”
I spun and saw Ames approaching.
He was a thin student about the same age as me, and he was dressed in gray robes. Many within the Academy preferred to wear robes, but I didn’t. It was probably from my time outside of the Academy, and the fact that I had come to the Academy itself as late as I did.
“Ames. How are you?”
“I was visiting with Master Eleanor, but I wasn’t expecting to see you. Were you working with one of the instructors?”
I debated what to say. I didn’t like the idea of lying to Ames. He was one of the few students who had been kind to me, and one of the few who I felt any sort of affinity to, even though I wasn’t sure that we could ever truly be friends. It was hard to feel like I could really be friends with anyone within the Academy.
“I was just looking for Thomas.”
Ames chuckled. “I don’t think that he’s been at the Academy more than a few hours ever since taking over leadership of it.”
I started to smile, but I could see Ames was more annoyed than amused.
“I think he’s preoccupied,” I said.
“He’s always been preoccupied.”
“Has he?”
Ames regarded me for a
