Rhys sat in the Knight-Commander’s antechamber, waiting for the inevitable summons into his private office. It was a bare room of grey stone, furnished only with a pair of wooden chairs, little to recommend it beyond the enormous bay window that dominated the far wall. From there one could look down at the entirety of Val Royeaux, even as far as the port district at the sea’s edge. It was a spectacular view of the capital, one that few mages got to see; they were rarely invited into the upper levels of the White Spire—unless something had gone wrong, of course.
Which it had. None of the templars would actually say what had happened, but their grim faces spoke volumes. There had been another murder.
He glanced over at Adrian, grinning as she stormed from one end of the small room to the other. Back and forth, back and forth, like she was just getting going when a wall balked her and forced her to turn around. Then she would spit angrily and glare at the Knight-Commander’s great oaken door, as if willpower alone could command it to open. In all the years they’d served together in the Circle of Magi, he’d never known her to back down from a confrontation, imagined or real. Some people said it wasn’t very mage-like of her, a comment that could get her frothing at the mouth.
Rhys tended to chuckle at those remarks. What was a mage supposed to be like, anyhow? He knew what the common folk outside the tower thought. If they were kind, they’d say a mage was a thin old man with a white beard who spent all his time surrounded by scrolls and books. If they were unkind, then a mage was a sinister-looking fellow with black hair and a pointed beard, someone who lurked in shadows summoning demons whenever the templars weren’t actively preventing him from doing so.
Adrian was about as far from their idea of a mage as it was possible to be. She was tiny, for one, with a shock of red curls and freckles that still made her look like a child even though she was only a few years younger than Rhys, and he was rapidly approaching his fortieth. She despised such comparisons, and only Rhys could get away with the occasional teasing. If she was in a good mood. Plus, she swore like a fishwife.
Come to think of it, Rhys wasn’t all that mage-like himself. Adrian said he was too handsome, a comment that always made him laugh. He did think the grey that was starting to show in his beard was terribly distinguished, but it didn’t cause women to swoon as he passed. That he noticed. Beyond that, Rhys was terrible at lurking in shadows, and not what most people would consider “scholarly.” He’d done a great deal of field research in his time, but locking himself into a library and staring at books until his eyes became tiny was far from his idea of a good time. Not unlike being summoned to the Knight-Commander’s office.
It made him angry. Both he and Adrian were senior enchanters; having served the Circle of Magi faithfully in the decades since their Harrowing made them mages in full . . . but here they might as well have still been apprentices for all the consideration that got them today.
“This is bullshit,” Adrian swore. As always, she was far more willing to show her rage than Rhys. She stopped pacing for a moment and shot him a scathing look that said Why aren’t you doing something?
“You’re cute when you get like this.”
“You want to see cute? How about I set this room on fire? I wonder just how cute you’d think I was then.”
He chuckled lightly. “Well, I’d still think it was cute. The templars, on the other hand, might not agree.”
“It would bring them running,” she fumed. “I’m tired of being ignored.”
“Well, why don’t you tell them? They’re right in there, after all.”
“You think I won’t?” She spun around to face the office door. “We’ve been waiting over an hour! They can’t treat us like this!”
Rhys didn’t know whether to laugh or be horrified, and settled for a little of both. “Maker’s breath, woman! Calm down, will you? You know why they’ve brought us up here. Don’t plant more ideas in their heads.”
“You think those ideas aren’t already there? They’ve decided that one of us is guilty. Now they’re just trying to prove it.” She marched over to the empty chair beside him and sat down. Then immediately leapt back up, as if sitting was a concession she wasn’t willing to make just yet. “For all they know, it could be a templar doing these murders! Have they considered that? Who else has keys to the dungeons?”
Rhys sighed, rubbing his temples. It was, of course, only the fifth time in the last hour that Adrian had mentioned her favorite theory, as if he were the one who needed convincing. “You’re giving me a headache with all the yelling, you know that?” he complained.
“You’re as mad as I am, admit it.”
“If you mean mad as in crazy, then certainly. We’re both of us completely insane.” He gave her a sly wink, and though she rolled her eyes, she also chuckled ruefully. It worked to calm her down a little, as it always did. “I heard not all the victims were in the dungeons, actually. One of them was an apprentice.”
“You don’t mean Jolen, do you? I thought he failed his Harrowing.”
“That’s what everyone thought, but I overheard some templars talking about it in the courtyard a few days ago. They mentioned Jolen by name.”
“They talk where you can hear them?”
He winked at her. “You’d be amazed at this spell I know that involves looking really busy while actually listening. It’s amazing, and works even on templars.”
She ignored his jest, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Jolen was doing so poorly with his lessons. Enchanter Adria said all he wanted to do that last week was hide in his cell, he was that terrified of his Harrowing. When he didn’t appear as a Tranquil, I just assumed . . .”
“So did I.” He nodded. It wasn’t unusual for apprentices to simply vanish. The templars gathered you for your Harrowing in the middle of the night, without warning. Succeed at the test and you were a mage in full. Fail and you were dead. If you refused the test, you were put through the Rite of Tranquility and rendered an emotionless neuter. It was a preferable fate for some, but Rhys found that hard to believe—he couldn’t get near a Tranquil without shuddering. He would rather be dead than spend the rest of his life looking at the world through those dead eyes.
When someone failed their Harrowing, however, the rest of the mages weren’t told. The apprentice was just gone. It happened frequently, and considering a mage’s life was never his own—you could be transferred to another Circle or whisked off to some duty assigned by the Chantry without so much as a by-your-leave—one became accustomed to people coming and going. You didn’t question it. There could have been many more murders than any of the mages suspected, and only the templars would know for sure.
“They should tell us.” She seethed, her thoughts obviously mirroring his own. “They should at least tell the First Enchanter. They can’t keep us in the dark forever.”
“I suspect they would argue otherwise.”
He fully expected Adrian to explode once again, but instead she looked pensive. She turned and walked toward the bay window, staring out at the city below. He knew what she was thinking. He’d taken his Harrowing almost twenty years ago, and since then he’d let himself believe he was someone of importance to the Circle, that they valued his abilities and his contributions. It wasn’t easy to be reminded how untrue that was.
Ever since the Chantry ordered the closure of the College of Enchanters, things had been steadily growing more tense. Permission for travel had been suspended. Gatherings were forbidden, and even on those rare occasions when assembly was allowed in the White Spire’s great hall, the First Enchanter had little to tell them. He was supposed to be their leader and their advocate, but now it seemed he was reduced to a figurehead.
There was talk of rebellion, of course. There was always talk. Mages in the far-off city of Kirkwall had rebelled a year ago, and considering what happened to them Rhys wasn’t surprised the talk never went further than that. It did make him wonder if that might ever change. If Adrian had her way, it would, and sometimes he even agreed with her.
He jumped as the door to the Knight-Commander’s office suddenly opened. Adrian spun around, her vexed expression indicating she planned to give the man a piece of her mind, but both of them were startled to see a woman standing in the doorway instead. It was Knight-Captain Evangeline, wearing full templar regalia and clearly in no mood to be trifled with.
The First Enchanter was at her side. Edmonde was an elder statesman among the White Spire’s mages, a man so grizzled and bent by age it seemed like he could barely wear his black robes without collapsing. Now he looked defeated, his limbs trembling with such weariness it was only by leaning on his staff that he was even able to remain upright. He glanced at Rhys, his bleary eyes full of apology—for what he had told them or what was about to come, it couldn’t be said—and slowly tapped his way out of the room without a word.
Ser Evangeline watched the First Enchanter leave, and for a moment her rigid demeanor faded. She closed her eyes and sighed, the small and tired sound of someone forced to do the unpleasant. When she opened them again, it was as if the moment had never occurred. “Enchanter Rhys,” she said, indicating for him to enter.
Adrian stepped forward. “And what about me?” she demanded.
“In good time.”
“So I’m to be left out here until you’re bloody ready? Why are we being treated like criminals? If you want our help with an investigation, this is hardly the—”
“In. Good. Time,” the templar repeated in a steely tone. Her warning look said that her patience was wearing dangerously thin, and it was enough to give even Adrian second thoughts. Rhys shook his head at Adrian in a manner he hoped she would find discouraging. She clenched her teeth and glared at him, but kept her silence.
Rhys followed the Knight-Captain inside.
The office was unchanged from the last time he had been there. The same war trophies from the Knight-Commander’s younger days as a soldier. The same dull painting by some relative preoccupied with the pastoral Orlesian countryside. The same bookshelf filled with long-winded treatises on history and Chantry dogma. The fireplace had settled into a dull smolder, but put out enough heat to give the room a warm, smoky feel. About the only thing that was different about the office was that the Knight-Commander wasn’t there.
Instead, there was a stranger seated behind the massive oaken desk. Salt-and-pepper hair showed the man had some age, but his face was hewn from solid stone. The armor he wore was like a templar’s, but was charcoal black and emblazoned with a strange image that looked like the Chantry’s sunburst but with an eye in the center. Most noticeable were the man’s grey eyes: sharp and cold. This man was a warrior, and one who would kill without a second thought. For the first time Rhys wondered if he was in real danger.
“Sit,” the man snapped, nodding to the small chair across from the desk. Rhys found himself complying before he realized it. He sat there quietly as the man perused several sheets of parchment. The air was tense, and Rhys couldn’t decide what made him more nervous: the idea that whatever was written on those sheets was about him, or that Ser Evangeline stood at crisp attention next to the desk, her face completely blank.
He cleared his throat. No need for this to be unpleasant, after all. “Is the Knight-Commander going to be joining us?” he ventured.
The man glanced up from his reading, raising his eyebrows curiously at this impertinence. For a moment it seemed like he might say nothing. Then he put the sheets down, straightening them into a neat pile with slow deliberation. “Knight-Commander Eron is no longer the head of this order. I am Lord Seeker Lambert, and I will be in command of the White Spire until further notice.”
Rhys felt a chill run down his spine. He may not have recognized the symbol on the man’s armor, but the name he’d heard of. The Seekers of Truth, an order that stood above the templars as personal servants to the Divine. Nobody spoke of them except in whispers, and even then only to say that when a Seeker showed up you knew there was trouble. “Does this have something to do with the murders?” Rhys asked.
The Lord Seeker paused, his eyes boring a hole into Rhys’s skull. “You know about them?”
“Everyone knows. Just because you don’t tell us what’s going on doesn’t mean we won’t figure it out. We’re not idiots.”
The Lord Seeker glared over at Ser Evangeline, but she steadfastly refused to meet his gaze. The slight twitch in the corner of her mouth said I told you so. Then he looked back at Rhys, folding his arms. “Odd that every other mage in this tower professes ignorance on the matter. I’d be curious as to what you think you know.”
Rhys could lie, but what would be the point? It was entirely possible the Lord Seeker already knew what he was going to say. Still, it galled him to give in. He didn’t possess Adrian’s talent for invective, but he believed in standing up for himself. These templars didn’t control the tower because the mages asked them to, after all. They did it because they could, and because the Chantry said it was their holy duty. Mages were required only to be obedient, and Rhys wasn’t the sort of mage who could accept such an imbalance of power without chafing.
“I think there’ve been five,” he said lightly, “but I’ve heard as many as twelve. Nobody knows how many for sure.”
“Go on.”
“The first one was an initiate. A farm boy who was brought in from the southern Heartlands. We never even got to find out his name because he was killed in his cell two days after the templars brought him in.”
“Strange you would hear anything.”
“Not so strange. Initiates aren’t the only ones you stick in those dungeons, and they’re not soundproof. Someone heard screaming from one of the other cells, and not the normal kind. The day after, the templars were buzzing around the tower like hornets.”
The Lord Seeker shrugged. “Initiates die.”
Rhys felt his temper rising. The way the man said it, you’d think young mages dying was of no consequence. He tried to maintain his casual demeanor, keep the smile on his face, and not let this man get the better of him. It wasn’t easy. “Not screaming like that they don’t,” he managed through gritted teeth.
The Lord Seeker ignored him. “How did you hear about the others?”
“We . . . knew initiates were being brought in, but then we wouldn’t see them later as apprentices. The templars told us they’d been transferred to another Circle, but you can always tell when a templar’s lying like that. There were too many questions and surprise searches. And then Jolen died.”
The man glanced over at the Knight-Captain. “The fourth one,” she said with a nod.
“Ah,” he said. “Yes, I suppose it’s unsurprising that the order here wouldn’t be able to keep that quiet.”
“And why should you?” Rhys demanded, feeling his anger bubbling up despite his efforts to keep it under control. “If someone’s going around killing mages, don’t we have a right to know? The templars are supposed to be protecting us! Isn’t that part of why we’re locked up in here?”
The Lord Seeker leveled an icy glare at him, and he regretted his outburst instantly. He didn’t want to regret it—he wanted to keep on yelling, make these people see just how wrong it was to treat grown mages, mages with power, like they were recalcitrant children. In the face of that look, he knew it didn’t matter. He was a good judge of character. Given an excuse, this man would slit Rhys’s throat before he even got off a single spell. And he would do it with the same cool, unblinking demeanor that he had now.
The Lord Seeker frowned, drumming his fingers on the desk as if deciding just what sort of response was required. “Protecting you is part of the reason you’re in the tower, yes.” His tone was suddenly pleasant, which somehow made it all the more frightening. “The other part, of course, is that magic is dangerous. It can be dangerous through no intention of the mage, should a demon take hold of them, but not all mages have good intentions, do they?”
The question was ominous, and not entirely without merit.
“Do you know a man by the name of Enchanter Jeannot?” the man asked.
“Yes, of course. He’s a senior enchanter here, as am I.”
“Was, I’m afraid. Last night he attempted to assassinate the Divine, in front of many witnesses, and was slain.” The man watched carefully as he allowed that news to sink in.
Rhys felt cold, as if discovering he was walking on far thinner ice than he’d realized. There was more going on here than just the murders, much more. Jeannot tried to murder the head of the Chantry? How would he even get out of the tower? To do so without help seemed . . . unlikely. Suddenly it made sense why the Knight-Commander was gone, why the First Enchanter acted as he had. “I . . . I see” was all he could manage.
“He used blood magic during the attempt,” the Lord Seeker continued. “Were you aware that Jeannot knew such forbidden arts?”
“No, not at all.”
“Interesting.” The drumming fingers continued, the only sound in the room. Rhys felt a bead of sweat slowly crawling its way down his forehead. It was impossible to keep an entire tower of mages under complete control, not without locking all of them in cells like prisoners. The templars knew that mages snuck around behind their backs and gossiped, and it wasn’t unreasonable to think they shared other types of knowledge as well. Where there was one blood mage, there could be more. There could be dozens.
They think I know. Or that I am one.
“There have been six murders in the White Spire to date,” the Lord Seeker announced. “Four initiates and two apprentices. Whatever other numbers you’ve heard are speculation. Those six, however . . . they were interesting.” He indicated that Evangeline should explain. She seemed unconvinced this was a good idea, but acquiesced.
“All of them were stabbed in the heart and allowed to bleed out,” she began, her tone clinical. “No weapon was discovered. No evidence was found on the victims. As near as we can tell, whoever did this was able to get past the guards, unlock the cells, and leave without being noticed. By anyone.”
A sneaking suspicion wormed its way into Rhys’s head. He tried to refuse it, banish it from his mind completely, but it wouldn’t go away. Without being noticed . . . by anyone. It was all he could do to keep his thoughts from giving him away, and from the way both templars stared at him it seemed he wasn’t particularly successful.
The Lord Seeker leaned forward on the desk, steepling his fingers as he stared intently. “Now, it is possible that a templar could do this, and have his fellows cover up the deed. Perhaps a group of them, dedicated to acts of maliciousness against the very people over whom they are supposed to watch. It is deplorable, but has been known to happen.”
“I questioned the templars first,” Evangeline explained to Rhys, perhaps a little defensively. “We began alternating guard duties, transferred—”
“It is also possible,” the Lord Seeker interrupted, “that a blood mage could cause a guard to fall asleep or make him forget whatever he witnessed. Such spells of mind control are one of the reasons blood magic is forbidden. Blood spilled from a sacrifice, meanwhile, could be used to power something much, much worse. Something we can’t even guess at yet.”
“It could also be a demon,” Evangeline offered.
“If so, then it is a demon powerful enough to influence the mages of this tower.” The man shuffled through the pile of parchments until he found one in particular. He tapped it. “It says here that you are a medium, Enchanter.”
Rhys kept his face calm. “Yes.”
“You have a rare talent to detect and communicate with spirits and demons.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever detected or communicated with any here in the White Spire?”
Another bead of sweat found its way into Rhys’s eye. He wiped it away, hoping his hands weren’t visibly shaking. “Yes, but . . .the Veil is thin here. That’s part of my research. It should all be accounted for in the First Enchanter’s—”
“I’m aware of your research,” the Lord Seeker snapped, his tone carrying heavy disapproval. “I’m also aware it was discontinued almost a year ago, after the rebellion in Kirkwall. Well before the murders began. What about recently?”
“No, there’s been nothing.” That much was true, at least.
“It seems to me that someone with such talent wouldn’t allow templars to keep him from doing as he wished. We cannot follow you across the Veil. You could be speaking to demons on a nightly basis, and no one would be the wiser.”
“It’s not that simple,” Rhys insisted. “Consciously entering the Fade requires preparation, a group of mages working together. My research required painstaking work to protect me from the spirits I was contacting, in case—” “
In case you were corrupted,” the man finished for him.
“Learning more about spirits is important if we’re ever going to protect ourselves from them more effectively. Knight-Commander Eron scrutinized me after every ritual. He trusted me. If he didn’t . . .”
The man neatly replaced the sheet of parchment in the pile. “Knight-Commander Eron’s judgment did not assist him in safeguarding his charges, nor in finding a blood mage in his midst.”
Ser Evangeline scowled at that, but Lord Seeker Lambert didn’t notice. Rhys frowned, not liking where this was going. Not one bit. “Am I being accused of something?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
The Knight-Captain cleared her throat, ignoring the warning look she received from the Lord Seeker. She leaned toward Rhys. “I’ve seen you with Jeannot,” she said gently. “Both you and Enchanter Adrian. All three of you are part of the Libertarian fraternity. I think you can see why we’re concerned.”
And there it was. Rhys had been wondering when that was going to come up. The fact rankled enough to make him put aside any efforts to contain his anger. “So you think the Libertarians have all become blood mages? We’ll do anything to attain freedom for the Circle, even become the very thing that brought about the Circle in the first place?” He sat forward, glaring at both of them in turn. “Let me tell you this: I didn’t know Jeannot was a blood mage, nor why he did what he did. We weren’t close. If I’d known, I would have told the First Enchanter. It’s mages like that who give the fraternity, and us all, a bad name.”
“Then tell us who he was close with.”
Rhys folded his arms. “No.”
The Lord Seeker’s eyes widened. “You’re refusing to answer?”
“I am. I won’t be a party to persecuting my fraternity. We’re the first to blame for everything.”
“Then give us another answer.”
“You’re not looking for answers.” Rhys stood up, defiant. “This isn’t an investigation. Someone tried to kill the Divine, and you’re not going to be happy until you can string together a conspiracy that makes sense to you. So whatever you’re going to do, I suggest you do it. Lock me in the dungeon. Perhaps I can be the murderer’s next victim? That should clear me of suspicion quickly enough.”
There was a long and tense silence, punctuated only by Ser Evangeline’s sigh of disappointment. The Lord Seeker was coldly outraged. He rose from his chair and stiffly straightened his breastplate. “That was foolish.”
If the man expected a response, he didn’t get one. Rhys remained where he was, and the two of them locked glares. He knew this would probably get him imprisoned. They could leave him in there to rot, or even make him Tranquil—just to be safe. But Rhys no longer cared. A vanished apprentice was one thing, but he was a senior enchanter and a member of the Libertarians. Let them explain that to the rest of the Circle, to Adrian, and see how that worked out for them. Given the mood in the tower that had been building this past year, it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Get out,” the Lord Seeker finally growled.
Ser Evangeline stepped forward and took Rhys by the arm. He fought against being led away, still matching the Lord Seeker’s gaze. The man wanted a fight, and Rhys was tempted to give him one. But then he relented and allowed himself to be pulled out of the office, reminding himself that he was getting off easy.
He did, after all, know more than he’d let on. And they knew that now, too. Walking out of that room, he felt as if a noose had been slipped around his neck, just waiting for the right moment to tighten.
Adrian’s interrogation went no better than his. Far worse, if the extent of her later rage was anything to judge it by. Hours later she was angrily stalking from one end of the commons to the other, ranting to any mage who would listen about the conspiracy they were dealing with.
The commons weren’t really intended as a gathering area. It was a glorified landing outside of the mages’ chambers on the middle floors of the tower, allowing access to the central stairwell. There were no furnishings to speak of, just cold stone floors and a few small windows that let the chill in every winter. Statues lined the area at each supporting pillar, grave-looking depictions of warriors from an age long past. Rhys had always hated them. He felt their proud eyes staring down at him, judging him for having the temerity to possess magic.
But there was nowhere else for the mages to go. Rumors of the Lord Seeker’s presence had spread like wildfire, as had word of the attempt on the Divine’s life. By the time Adrian and Rhys had walked into the commons it was already packed. Everyone spoke in hushed voices—as if anything above a whisper would invite the wrath of the templars. The smell of raw fear permeated the chamber, but along with it came an undercurrent of anger.
What if the Lord Seeker invoked the Rite of Annulment? Rhys heard that question asked more than once. The thought of every last mage in the tower being put to the sword was difficult to contemplate. It was a right the templars possessed, meant to be used only as a last act of desperation when a Circle of Magi was completely lost to corruption. That was supposedly what had happened in Kirkwall. If the Rite of Annulment hadn’t been invoked since then, it was no doubt because the templars feared further rebellion—but how far could they be pushed?
According to Adrian, the same question should be asked about the mages. She didn’t believe what the Lord Seeker said about Jeannot. How could one man have gotten so close to the Divine? Adrian thought the entire thing suspicious, and suggested it was a templar ploy to turn popular opinion more firmly in their favor.
Rhys wasn’t as certain. There were rumors among the Libertarians of those who were no longer satisfied with peacefully seeking freedom, even more so now that the closure of the College of Enchanters had removed that option entirely. They wanted action, even if it involved dragging the rest of the mages kicking and screaming along with them. Rhys wouldn’t put it past such people to perform forbidden rites to give themselves an advantage, not to mention keeping their activities secret even from the rest of their fraternity. The templars had every reason to be nervous.
But they didn’t have all the facts, did they? As Rhys stood there in the commons, watching the crowd roil in its discontent like a sea before the storm, he felt only guilt. He was keeping a secret, from the templars as well as his fellow mages. He couldn’t tell anyone the truth, and the chances he would be able to do anything about it were looking slim.
Adrian marched over to him, already working up another head of steam. What was this, now? Her third wind? The talk in the commons had gone around in circles, and it was no closer to going somewhere productive now—though that certainly wasn’t for lack of Adrian’s effort. “Aren’t you going to do something?” she snapped.
He grinned at her. “I am doing something. I’m watching.”
“Do something else!”
“Dearest Adrian,” he chuckled. “What would you have me do, exactly? You seem to have the outrage covered. It’s taxing just to watch you.”
He tried to take her by the shoulders, calm her before she did something rash, but she pulled away with a resentful look. “Don’t give me that. You know as well as I do they’ll listen to you before they’ll listen to me. They always have.”
“That’s not true,” he demurred. But it wasn’t entirely false, either. Some of the younger enchanters had approached him already, probing with hopeful questions. Others were watching their exchange even now. They were waiting for him. He could see it in their eyes. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
“The First Enchanter is doing nothing,” she said, just loudly enough for the man to overhear. Edmonde stood not far away, gazing listlessly out a window. He’d spoken to no one, and his only reaction to Adrian’s statement was to close his eyes with a pained expression. Rhys felt badly for the man and the position this entire affair had placed him in. Couldn’t she see that? Rhys raised a hand to urge her to keep her voice down, but she knocked it out of the way. “The other senior enchanters are no better. You can do something, Rhys. Take charge!”
It was always the same demand. Adrian was headstrong and thus made enemies. Rhys was more charming, she said, and thus better liked. He could get her point across to those who wouldn’t listen, despite his protests that this would put him in the same position as she was in. “That’s not going to help,” he told her.
She sighed bitterly, her shoulders sagging. It was just one more time he’d disappointed her, after all. Adrian had been his friend for a long time—in fact, for a while they’d been more than friends, as much more as their life within the confines of the Circle would allow. But he would never be the leader she expected him to be, and so friendship was all they were left with.
“At least tell everyone about the murders,” she muttered. “You know they’re dying of curiosity, and I didn’t even get that far with the Seeker. Pompous, arrogant bastard that he is.”
Rhys hesitated. The murders were the very last thing he wanted to talk about. It turned out that he didn’t need to make a decision regarding that anyhow, as a moment later several guards entered the commons and ordered everyone to retire to their chambers. He wasn’t surprised. In normal circumstances Rhys and Adrian would be in the dungeons by now, along with anyone else who’d so much as greeted Jeannot in passing. Thankfully, the templars weren’t interested in provoking the mages further.
Adrian, of course, felt no compulsion to return the favor. Rhys saw outrage flash in her eyes, and waited for the inevitable scene to follow. Thankfully, the First Enchanter chose that moment to intervene. Edmonde turned from his window and quietly suggested everyone do as the guards asked. Tomorrow would be another day. That took the wind out of Adrian’s sails, and slowly everyone in the commons dispersed.
Rhys was relieved. This might give him the chance he was waiting for.
He spent the next several hours in his chambers, staring up at the ceiling from his cot. Occasionally he heard the footsteps of guards passing his door. It was fortunate that senior enchanters got their own rooms. As spartan as they were, they allowed privacy the dormitories didn’t. One could sneak out of a dormitory easily enough—apprentices did it all the time—but not without being seen by others sharing the room. Where Rhys needed to go, he had to be absolutely certain nobody else knew about it.
By the middle of the night, an utter stillness had crept over the tower. There had been no footsteps for well over an hour. It’s now or never, he told himself. Slowly, he sat up in the darkness, listening intently for the slightest shuffle outside that might indicate a sentry. Nothing.
Feeling around blindly, Rhys found his staff leaning against the wall. The wood felt warm to his touch, awakening from its slumber. The crystalline orb greeted him with a soft glow that filled the room, but Rhys darkened it again with a wave of his hand. Light was the last thing he needed.
Then he jumped. Something in the room had moved, just as the light went out. Steeling himself, he willed the staff to glow once more—and sighed when he realized it was only his reflection coming from the ornate standing mirror in the corner. A gift from Adrian, something she’d bought for him years ago when outings into the city had still been permitted. “You can admire yourself in it,” she’d laughed, and she so rarely laughed that he couldn’t refuse. It was the one extravagant thing he owned, however, and he still wasn’t used to its presence. Peevishly, he wanted to kick it over.
Calm down, you idiot, or you’ll do the templars’ work for them. He allowed himself to chuckle, and the fear drained out of him a little. The emptiness that remained left him shaky and feeling more than a little foolish.
Rhys darkened the staff again and crept toward the door. He worked the latch, trying to press it slowly, and was rewarded when the door cracked open with only the softest click. He peered out into the hall. A glowlamp was hung by the central staircase, but that was quite far away. Everything nearer was swallowed up in shadow. There was no one in sight, but that was difficult to trust.
Gathering his magic, he reached his mind across the Veil and summoned a spirit through. It was tiny, a wisp of a creature with barely any consciousness to call its own. The shimmering orb hovered over the palm of his hand, its magical hum tickling the hairs on the back of his neck.
“I need you to be quiet,” he whispered. “You can do that, can’t you?”
The wisp bobbed excitedly and dimmed. He barely even saw it now. Tossing it up into the air, he sensed its excitement as it floated out into the commons. Even such a small spirit took great joy in coming into the real world. They found the oddest things of endless fascination: a wooden chair, a piece of steak, a feather. Left to its own devices, a wisp would bob around random objects for hours, making strange trilling noises as it explored its environment.
The templars frowned on the use of even such benign spirits, although it was not strictly forbidden. The best healers, after all, summoned spirits of compassion to assist them. Such spirits did not linger and immediately returned whence they came, but the Chantry looked upon any who had the talent to contact them with suspicion—such as himself. Still, it had its uses.
Rhys waited. Just as he was beginning to fear the wisp had become distracted, he sensed its return. It came to rest on his open palm, emitting an odd set of excited sounds. He closed his eyes and tried to gather what impressions he could from its memory. The first images he saw were confused, and made it seem like the commons was filled with a dozen or more templars. Then he realized it had been looking at the statues, and couldn’t tell the difference. Typical.
But one of the figures had moved. He focused on that one sighting and received enough impressions from the wisp to figure it out. A sentry on the far side of the staircase. The hall was being watched after all.
“I need you to do one more favor for me,” he quietly asked it. The wisp floated off his hand, already quivering with anticipation. “I need you to lead the man away. It doesn’t matter where. Just a few minutes and you’re free to return to the Fade.”
It was a fairly complex command. The wisp twirled in place, shimmering slightly as it considered, and then floated off once again. Within minutes, Rhys heard a muted swear from the unseen guard. Footsteps followed, heading down the stairs at a rapid pace. Good. That would give Rhys the time he needed.
Slipping out into the hall, he turned not toward the staircase but toward the darker part of the commons. A tiny storage room lay hidden next to the dormitories. He crept there as quietly as he could, letting himself inside.
It was pitch black within, the air thick with the stench of stale smoke. He stifled a cough and willed his staff to glow. The light revealed a room barely deeper than his arm could reach, lined on both sides by rickety shelves filled near to bursting with the things the Tranquil used to service the mages’ chambers. There was also evidence that the apprentices frequented this storage room: the floor was a mess of breadcrumbs, ashes left by illicit kohl pipes, and depleted glowstones.
Funny, then, that the apprentices hadn’t discovered the loose stone on the back wall. If they had, they would have realized they didn’t need to hole up in a closet. Pressing the stone opened a hatch, and that led to a crawlspace beyond. From there, one could climb unseen past the kitchens and into the tower’s underground levels. There were many such passages in the White Spire; the few mages who knew about them guarded their secret jealously, lest the templars seal them up.
The next hour was spent crawling through interminable darkness and dust to find his way. Near the kitchens he had to shuffle between the walls, trying not to choke on the fetid air. Then the crawlspace finally turned into an exceedingly steep staircase. He could stand, but the walls were so narrow he could barely squeeze through. Everything felt closed in. Stifling. Suffocating.
His relief was palpable when he finally felt the air change. He knew the stairs led to an open chamber below, a room that belonged to one of many unused portions of the lower floors, and he was getting close. Rhys eagerly made his way down—too eagerly, in fact. One of the last steps crumbled under his weight, and with a cry of alarm he pitched forward.
The staff flew out of his hands, its light winking out as it landed below with a clatter, and he was not far behind. Trying to slow his descent by clutching at the walls, he only managed to make his fall more awkward. He twisted and bumped, smacked his head against the wall, and then finally met the ground at full force.
Ow.
Rhys lay there in the darkness, getting used to the pain. There was a lot of it, sharp and throbbing. Slowly he tested the extent of his injuries. Hand flexed fine. His feet moved. Nothing was broken, though his body begged to differ. A relief, to be sure.
There were no sounds of footsteps, nothing to indicate someone had heard his fall and come to investigate. That wasn’t surprising. This place wasn’t far from the dungeons, but the way sound traveled in the Pit, it was unlikely someone could find the source even if they overheard it. The guards didn’t generally roam this far anyhow, but there was always a first time.
Groaning, Rhys pulled himself to his knees. He felt around for his staff. His hands encountered dust, dust, and more dust. There were loose stones, as well, and rotten pieces of wood. Once this might have been a storage room, although how long ago was anyone’s guess. There were a few ancient crates and barrels, long empty and now just purchase for spider webs. Was there still a stool? Some intrepid mage had brought one down ages ago, but it wasn’t safe to sit on any longer.
Finally he found his staff. Closing his hand around it, he willed the orb to shine . . .
. . . and gasped in shock. Someone was in the room with him.
A young man sat on his haunches not five feet away, staring with haunted eyes from under a mop of unkempt blond hair. He was clearly neither a mage nor a templar, dressed in worn leathers near covered in dust and grime, and hadn’t seen a bath in ages. There was a furtive tension to the way he crouched, like a cellar rat caught out in the open—paralyzed by fear and yet desperate to run.
“Cole,” Rhys breathed, taking deep breaths to slow his racing heart. “You scared the life near out of me!”
The young man bit his lower lip, squirming uncomfortably. “I haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said. His voice had a raspy quality, no doubt from lack of use. “I thought you’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I told you it was becoming more difficult to get away, didn’t I?” Rhys stood up carefully. He brushed off some of the filth, frowning at the tears and bruises that would be more difficult to explain later. Then he stopped, remembering the reason he had gone through all this effort in the first place. He turned to look at Cole, wary of just how he should broach the subject. The young man was nervous enough as it was.
“There are some things I need to ask you about,” he began. “Important things.”
“Oh.” The way Cole twisted in place, like a guilty child eager to find any excuse to leave but unable to tear himself away, told Rhys everything he needed to know. Cole knew exactly what he was going to ask. He knew and had come to find Rhys anyhow, because he couldn’t help himself.
“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the murderer.”