CHAPTER 39 – Portents Unveiled in Black

For the second time in the same day, Saphienne was woken by her window rattling.

She yawned as she sat up, ears sweeping down and not quite rising to their usual height in her tiredness. Her eyes were slow to focus in the dawn light, and she wiped the sleep from them as she stumbled from bed and crossed over to her window, struggling to pull herself together. “Faylar… couldn’t you have knocked on–”

But Faylar wasn’t throwing stones at her window.

Saphienne blinked. Moving more cautiously, she reached out and unlatched the window, her expression guarded as it swung open. “What are you doing here?”

Hopping onto the windowsill, Peacock spread his vibrantly yellow wings and fluttered them in happy display as he bobbed up and down. “Good morning! Sorry for waking you, Saphienne. Your room is…” The familiar swivelled his head from side to side, chirping as he took in the furnishings. “…Quite bare. I imagined there would be more books–”

“Peacock.” She stifled another yawn. “Why are you here?”

“No fun.” He settled down, folding his wings together as he drummed his talons on the edge of his perch. His voice took on the inflection of his master’s, though tinged with pompousness. “Almon sends a message: today’s lessons are cancelled. He has been called to attend on urgent business of vital importance.”

Several different thoughts collided in Saphienne’s head at once — and she deliberately held them down as she nodded. “What’s going on?”

“I shan’t say…” He tilted his head. “…Because I’m not sure. Almon received a message by Translocation last night. He had me fetch two apprentices for him, and they’ve had me circling the local woods and reporting back to them on what I see. I think they’re looking for something, or someone.”

Keeping her cool, she frowned. “Something was stolen? Or a person’s gone missing?”

“Your guess is as good as mine!” He whistled a descending note as he turned around. “Enjoy your long rest; I have to give Iolas the good news.”

“Wait.” Saphienne pretended another concern. “What about tomorrow?”

“If I’m not sent again,” Peacock answered, “assume you’re to attend. See you later, Saphienne!”

She watched the figment take flight, then leant out the window to check he was flying off toward where she had heard Iolas lived — watching until the garish bird vanished into the morning forest.

Moving methodically, Saphienne shut the window, stripped off her nightwear, then fetched fresh underclothes, quickly dressing in her pale grey robes as she thought through the various possibilities portended by the cancelled lesson.

The simplest was coincidence, with whatever Almon was working on being unrelated to the events of yesterday. Her intuition told her this was unlikely. At the other extreme, it was possible that Almon had learned everything she’d done, and had sent Peacock to lull her and the others into lowering their guard while punishment was prepared… but that was fanciful paranoia. The Wardens of the Wilds could easily detain them all — and if keeping her at ease was the goal, Peacock wouldn’t have shared anything.

No, if this was related to what she had done, either Almon knew nothing about her involvement, or he knew just enough to suspect her. Perhaps Peacock had been sent to cause panic? As a disciple of Hallucination, Almon had the necessary cunning to expose her guilt through a manipulative ruse.

She had to find out what was going on, and avoid suspicion.

Downstairs, Faylar was still asleep on the couch. Her mother’s silk robe had tangled around his legs. She hesitated as she stood over him, studying the way his ears wiggled in time with his soft snoring, his face flattened against the cushions. Very delicately, she crouched down and brushed his hair out of his eyes, whispering his name.

His eyelids fluttered. “Mm… mother?”

Any other time, she would have made fun of him for that. “Faylar, wake up.”

Opening his eyes, Faylar took a moment to recognise Saphienne. He shut them again as he groaned. “I’m on your couch.”

“Not for much longer. You need to go home.”

He sighed as he pulled his arms under his chest, prying himself up onto his elbows. “Don’t suppose you have any more tea, do you?”

Saphienne nodded toward the kitchen as she stood. “Help yourself to whatever you want. Just make sure that the door shuts firmly when you leave — it slams in the wind.”

She was nearly out of the house when he asked, “Is this your mother’s?”

Without looking, she knew that his confusion toward his makeshift bedding was really surprise that Saphienne had covered him with it. She smiled down at her satchel as she opened the front door. “She has plenty of others. Just leave it on the couch.”

* * *

Her explanation for attending was simple: she didn’t trust Almon’s message.

Yet the moment she arrived at his home, Saphienne surmised that her master harboured no suspicion toward her. A thick line of white powder had been poured across the ground surrounding the flowerbeds, and she could see that it curved out of sight around the building, only to reemerge on the opposite side, encircling his sanctum in a ward.

She crouched down and followed the trail with her eyes until she saw a desiccated slug. Salt: that made sense to Saphienne, since salt prevented plants from growing. Perhaps that was of ritual significance to the boundary, which she felt confident was to exclude woodland spirits.

Nervously, remembering what had happened when Celaena first entered a magic circle, she stepped inside and continued on to the classroom.

Almon was not within when she opened the door — but two other elves paused in their work to wordlessly look up. They appeared more tired than her. Both were dressed in the black robes of senior apprentices, each older than Iolas but not as old as full adults, one kneeling on the floor surrounded by spread papers, the other sat on the wizard’s chair with a metal bowl held in one hand and a weighted necklace hanging from her other.

“Oh…” Saphienne shut the door behind her. “…I see. The lesson really is cancelled.”

The apprentice sitting on the chair sighed, and she lowered the necklace to her lap as she turned to yell up the stairs. “Master! One of the unproven apprentices is here.”

Squawking answered her — and Peacock hopped down from the next floor, peering through the banister with his beak slowly opening. “Well, really! The nerve of you…”

Before Saphienne could say anything, the wizard called down after his familiar with withering dryness. “I anticipate that Saphienne ignored the message — or did the sun rise in the West this morning?”

Folding her arms, she glared up at the ceiling as she answered back. “You might have been testing us.”

The kneeling apprentice rubbed his lower back as he straightened up, asking a question of their master. “Should we send her away?”

Almon laughed, his echoing voice betraying high spirits. “She can wait; I’ll be down to address you all when my preparations are done. Peacock, attend me.”

Peacock clicked dismissively, and fluttered back upstairs.

Shrugging, the physically grown boy went back to studying his papers. “Might as well make yourself comfortable, then. He’ll be at least another hour, now.”

The girl slumped back in the chair. “Gods, you’re right… he’ll have to start over.” She fixed Saphienne with a mournful look, then laughed wryly, shaking her head. “Thank you for the unnecessary interruption; you’re living up to your reputation.”

Riled, but with her anger held in check by overriding concerns, Saphienne crossed toward them as she unfolded her arms. “Please excuse me; you have me at a disadvantage. Unless I’m mistaken, we haven’t been introduced — and I don’t recognise either of you from around the village.”

“You’re not wrong,” said the apprentice on the floor. “We hardly see daylight, these days. Not really much time for socialising…”

His peer nodded, and she carefully rested the bowl on an arm of the chair. “The Great Art leaves room for little else. Perhaps you’ll find out one day. But we haven’t really answered your unspoken question, have we?” The girl stood, the long braid of her brown hair uncoiling to her waist, and despite her fatigue she gave Saphienne an elegant bow as she swept her hand toward her fellow student in black. “My gloomy companion here is Rydel; I’m Taerelle.”

Saphienne did her best to match the depth of her bow. “Saphienne.”

“We know,” Rydel said, his eyes still on his work. “You’re the would-be prodigy.”

Taerelle laughed as she heavily sat back down. “Our master has mentioned you. Apparently, your intellect is remarkable…”

“And you’re prone to causing problems.” Rydel glanced up. “At least for our master. Did you really disbelieve his meadow?”

Grinning, Taerelle leant forward. “And did you tell him to his face that his flowers were rubbish?”

Saphienne wasn’t sure about how they regarded her; she decided to err on the side of caution. “I didn’t say his flowers were bad, just that the details were wrong: that’s how I knew it was a hallucination. And yes,” she admitted, “I disbelieved it. I didn’t know that would collapse the spell.”

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The pair glanced at each other, exchanging enigmatic smiles, and then chuckled together, Rydel returning to his task as Taerelle thoughtfully steepled her fingers.

“Dare I ask,” Saphienne hazarded, “what our master has said about me?”

“You can ask,” Rydel allowed. “But I’m not going to answer.”

Taerelle clicked her tongue scornfully. “Coward.”

“You tell her, then.”

“I will.” She reached behind her shoulder, pulling forward her braid to dangle beside the chair, playing with it as she studied Saphienne in aloof amusement. “He makes no great secret of his opinions. And I understand there’s very little love lost, between you and him.”

Saphienne smirked. “It would seem so.”

“Interesting phrasing.” Her eyes were a cold blue, but they sparkled with warmth. “He’s mentioned that you pick up on theory faster than anyone he’s ever taught, but that you’re very conceited, prone to being contrary, and you’re most animated whenever you’re having an argument with someone. He thinks you might make a good wizard, if you survive whatever lesson in humility awaits you.”

The irony wasn’t lost on Saphienne, doubly so because she couldn’t show it. She folded her arms again, rocking on the balls of her feet. “Well, at least he’s thinking about me.”

“That’s the spirit,” Taerelle grinned. “I’ll let you in on a secret: our master can be wrong about people.”