Chapter 47: Off-letter

Chapter 47: Off-letter

Kalen spent the remaining hours before dawn trying to figure out how to monitor the attic room without looking like he was spying on it. It was no simple task. If he volunteered to clean up there, hed be too obvious when the letter-collector came. Theyd question him. Theyd wonder why he hadnt removed the conspicuous packet of letters from the floor.

Maybe theyd use spells on him, and hed blurt out everything.

Unsafe.

And all the other chores he could do would take him away from the area eventually. He couldnt just polish the candlestick by that door to the stairs all day long.

Finally, he settled for an activity that was bound to go uninterrupted. Though it wasnt the most daring or creative idea hed ever had.

I might be praying a lot today, he told Priestess Riat. She was the only person in the church who kept track of him regularly anyway. For the souls of my family. I feel like I should. So I cleaned part of the cellar last night to make up for it.

The corner of the cellar he was referring to had been cleaned for ages. It made it nicer to practice spells down there.

Once hed obtained her permission, he sat on his new favorite pew, clasped his hands piously in his lap, and listened with his eyes closed. The attic stairs were noisy. From this spot by the door, he would hear footsteps if he was paying attention.

This will work for today, but if they dont come, Ill have to try something else tomorrow.

And when they did come, hed just take a quick peek to see who it was.

I only have to do anything if its Tomas. He was trying to look after me. He wont tell the others about me. He wont be too angry that I read the letters I hope.

Actually, couldnt Kalen get away with claiming he hadnt read the letters at all? Picking them up and touching the seal didnt mean hed read them. Most people couldnt read. Tomas shouldnt know whether or not he could.

Maybe nobody will come at all, and Ive got it wrong. Maybe the Orellens are gone. Or the Acresses did take them away in the night. And now theyre more than gone.

His hands tightened against each other. He listened.

It was strange to pass a morning with your heart pounding and your eyes closed, interpreting the world though nothing but your ears and the occasional stolen glance. Every set of footsteps called his attention, but they never turned toward him and the door he guarded. To calm himself, he pulled together the spell pattern for Startled Bird and then let it fall apart just before it was completed. He did it over and over again.

This is the least calming spell I know how to cast, he admitted to himself eventually. He remembered the way the practice apples had been sliced by blades of wind and thrown with force against the tombs. Ears of the East would be more peaceful.

But he kept practicing the combat spell anyway.

How fast would I have to be to even make use of it? Four minutes is the best I can do after all this time studying it. Would one minute be enough? Half of one? Less?

I guess I could go around with it always half-formed inside my pathways. Always nearly ready to be completed.

He sighed. That sounds like something a mad person would do. And Id never be able to think about anything else. Id just go through life in a daze trying to hold it in

Suddenly, there was the faint cry of a hinge to his left. Kalen stilled and cracked one eye open. He glanced at the door to the staircase. It was closed.

Was it the other door then? The side door of the church? They need to keep that locked. And I need to oil those hinges.

He waited. It wasnt long before he heard footsteps on the stairs.

I was right. I really was. Someone came for the letters.

Hed been acting on the assumption that they would, so he didnt know why he felt surprised. He stood up and hurried outside. They would find the letters and then exit the church again, wouldnt they? They would come out the side door most likely. All he had to do was stand across the street and watch for Tomas.

It wont be him. It will be some other person, and then all of this will be over. Theyll do whatever theyre going to do. And Illdo whatever Im going to do.

He tried to pretend he didnt notice the sick feeling in his own stomach. It came on whenever he thought about what he was going to do with himself a month from now. Or after winter ended. Or when there were no more small wrists in Granslip Port without the Acress bracelet on them.

Ill be fine.

Kalen stood watching the side door from as far away as he could. He was going out of his way to feign an interest in the filthy sludge of snow and ice beneath his feet. He didnt want to be seen. He didnt want the Orellen to be Tomas. Hed already decided on both of those things.

So he didnt understand why, when an older man with short dark hair and a close-trimmed beard emerged from the side door, he felt like hed lost something. The man was tucking something into the inside of his coat and looking around as if to be sure he wasnt followed. A frightened look was on his face.

Those are definitely the letters, arent they?

The Orellens had their messages now. His mistake was uncovered. His part was done.

Its nothing to do with me from this point on. All I have to do is what I have been all along.

Clean the church. Say nothing. Be Nerth. Hide. Until another answer came along.

Instead, Kalen followed the man.

He berated himself for it with every step he took. He had enough self-control to make himself keep his distance at least. He followed the unknown Orellen from such a long way away that he should, by all reason, have lost him a dozen times over. But the man didnt seem to know the streets he walked, and every time Kalen finally thought his foolish chase had been ended by fate, the fellow would reappear in the distance looking flustered.

Finally, Kalen stepped out of the path of a plodding donkey and looked to see the man whod taken the letters entering a house painted the same shade of gray as most of the others on this street. It wasnt a nice place. You could always tell by the chimneys, if the disrepair of the houses themselves didnt give it away. In the good neighborhoods, they were burning all the time, filling the air with clouds of smoke that sometimes settled over the city and made Kalen feel like he was choking on every breath.

Here, only a couple of buildings had lit their fires despite the cold.

I know where at least one of them is living now. So what? Its not like Im going to do anything with the information.

#

After midnight, hidden by darkness and his cloak, Kalen took his spying board and left it below one of the shuttered windows at the front of the gray house. It was the only place that would work. The house was built side by side and back to back with other buildings.

This is crazy, he thought as he hurried to place it there with the spells anchoring pattern toward the wall. Just leaving something magical right here on the street! On the doorstep of a bunch of practitioners.

I dont even want to do this, so why am I?

He kicked sooty snow over it so that it was partially covered, then he turned and walked back the way hed come.

Do I want them to find me? Is that it?

He didnt think it was. He was terrified that they would. Hed spent only a moment hiding the board because he could barely stand the idea of being caught.

He kept looking over his shoulder all the way back to the church. When he was safely back in his pitch black closet in the cellar, he sighed.

What am I doing? he murmured. If theyre magicians they probably know a thousand ways to keep people from spying on them. I just wasted the last of my paint renewing the spell circle on the board, and I took a risk for no reason.

He would see tomorrow. He would go to the graveyard and cast Ears of the East, and he would see that he had been a fool. There would be no voices from the house where the Orellens were hiding.

None.

He was so angry with himself that he barely slept, and he sprang up only a few hours later and nearly jogged through the dark streets until he reached the graveyard. Ears of the East was still the easiest of all the mage spells hed learned, and he was already pulling his pathways into position for it as he stalked between the tombs to one of his preferred spots. He sat down on the frozen ground, glared up at the stars, and blew on his cupped palms as he connected the final pathway.

Stupid. You didnt even check which direction the breeze was coming from.

He felt the familiar, gentle swirl of air in his hands.

Then, he heard a faint scratching noise.

Oh. Its working. I dont know what that is, though.

It could have been anything, a rat clawing at the board maybe.

No people sounds. See! Youre behaving all wrong for no reason, Kalen.

He was choosing to ignore the fact that it wasnt even light out yet, and most people were probably still asleep.

point in arguing about it anymore, a mans voice said tiredly. Weve been at it all night. Either Lizen will come in time, or we will assume shes gone off-letter. Either the letters have been tampered with, or they have not. We will send again to the Seniors, and ask them to

There was a pause.

Now wait a minute, Rillard, said the same mans voice. Theres no call for that kind of talk. Weve come this far; we can trust the Seniors to give us good advice even if

A thump. A rattle. A sharply in-drawn breath.

This is frustrating. I think only one person is standing close enough for the board to pick up his voice right now.

The spying board had that strangeness about the way it collected sound. Surely if Kalen had been standing beneath the window, he would have heard everyone talking. Or none of them.

But he definitely wouldnt have heard the sound of swallowing or a person scratching themselves. And he could hear that now.

Kalen pressed a hand to his mouth so that he wouldnt make a sound as he crept down the passage toward the cellar door, scarcely touching the floor with his toes for fear of his footsteps being heard.

Blasphemy, the priest breathed.

Cob groaned. Dont tell me you actually believed you were right and every practitioner on the continent was wrong about that? I suppose we were all shocked, too. Were still not certain how they managed it. Even if you heal a corpse, it shouldnt live the way their spares do. But that they have somehow accomplished the impossible is undeniable.

I

When we prove you wrong, your own congregants will turn on you. They will say you hide demon-makers in your attic.

The portalists once employed by the church are no longer here, the high priest said quickly. They left with no warning some time ago. Allow me to repeat your offer from earlier; you may search and see for yourself!

Theres no need for that. As I said, Im not here representing the Enclave today. Im here representing myself. I am telling you that our elders will not take any more of a tongue lashing from you, and I hope that you, in your wisdom, will not deliver one.

Something thumped against the table.

Even if I had come on behalf of the Enclave, I would not need to search. The old magicians youve been keeping here were never important enough for the drama that has surrounded them. Theyre only third circle family members whose faces and names were known to us. If they had any true value, they would not have been left here for so long.

A chair scraped the floor.

The Acress Enclave seeks the Orellen children who need protection from a clan turned to dark deeds. And we seek the powerful Orellens, who enacted those very deeds and chose to walk a path no sane or righteous man would walk. And we seek theblasphemies, as you called them just now. Cobs voice was slow and serious. If you think about it, should we not be allies?

Kalen didnt hear anymore. He was too far down the cellar stairs, in the pitch blackness. Startled Bird was almost finished. Hed dropped some pieces of the pattern while he was distracted by the conversation, but he was putting them back together quickly.

He kept at it while he followed the route hed memorized back to his isolation cell and reached for his sunstone. By its light, he found Swift Wind Magery, the crystal skull, the money, Yardas braid, and a few other things.

All the most important things. He stuffed them into his satchel and stood there, spell ready. He imagined the distance. He could only cast Startled Bird at a very specific distance, but hed memorized it fairly well.

He took a few paces toward the staircase.

Here. Right here. If someone steps down from the bottom step, and I cast, I can hit them from this place. And then I can run and run. Ive got the skull. Ive got the money. I can get myself to the Archipelago without Zevnie or Arlade, and I can participate in the tournament on my own and get a master there. And they dont even like continental practitioners there, so nobody will care about Acresses or Leflayns or Orellens at all.

He tucked his sun crystal away so that he was in darkness again, then he waited. And waited.

He reminded himself that he did not expect Cob Acress or the woman who had vanished from his side to come down here. Hed heard what was said. There was no reason for them to check the cellars. He expected them to walk out of the church without searching it.

So why am I doing this? Why am I standing here weaving and reweaving this pattern as it fails? The pattern for a terrible spell that will hurt someone badly

Just in case.

Startled Bird was just in case.

He stood in the dark for so long that his legs started to ache. When he finally left the cellar again, the bag full of all the most important things was still wrapped around him. He peeked in the kitchen. It was empty. There were some fruitcake crumbs on the table.

Should we not be allies?

What if the high priest said yes? If not today then someday soon

Kalen left the church and spent the rest of the day in the graveyard. He sat there alone in the cold with his things, casting Ears of the East and listening to the house where Tomas was. He heard voices from time to time, but they were saying nothing important.

When some people were in hiding, they still worried about steeping the tea for too long. What an odd thing.

Finally, toward evening, the spell cut out.

Hed overused the board. It would have to be re-imbued with magic before he could do it again.

How do I get Tomas to come out of the house? How do I talk to him without any of the others seeing me?

After night fell, he headed toward the neighborhood again. It was a terrible part of the city to try to find a hiding spot. The houses with the shared walls, the many residentsKalen felt terribly exposed standing there under his gray cloak. Much too obvious to try to pick up the board and fix it.

I cant just knock on the door and ask for him

But I could knock and pretend Id gotten the wrong house? And maybe Id spot him?

They all looked the same. It probably happened on occasion.

Who are you there?! shouted a womans voice, and Kalen jumped like hed been scalded. He whirled to see a pale face peering at him through the crack in the door of the house hed been sheltering beside. Lurking around for ages in the night like a thief!

Im sorry, he said. Imy brother was supposed to meet me on this street, but he hasnt shown up yet. Maybe Ive got the wrong place.

Away with you! Go sneak around someone elses house.

She slammed the door.

Pigshit. Now what?

And was he really going to carry all of his things around with him like this? That was more suspicious than anything. Even under the cloak he must look quite bulky.

But now that hed had the fear of being caught without them, and being unable to run away because of it

I wish Lander were here to carry it for me.

His cousin would do it. He was always offering to carry heavy things for Kalen. It had started when they were little, and he liked showing off that he was stronger. And then it must have become a habit for them.

He walked down the street and back again several times, hoping that he wouldnt look so much like he was a lurking thief but afraid it only made him look like more of one. It was night. He had his hood pulled as low as it would go over his face, and he was keeping one eye always on the house where the Orellens were hiding. So it was no wonder when he almost bumped into a man bundled up in a rough brown coat and a scarf.

He was just standing at the end of the street looking up at the sky.

Kalen dodged around him and mumbled an apology.

Then, he realized who it was. He kept walking, glancing back again and again, afraid Tomas would disappear.

What do I say? I wanted to tell him it was me that read the letters, but how do I do it? Do I just go ahead and say it right here in the street?

Tomas hadnt recognized him when he brushed past, but he had been startled from his reverie. He was heading down the street again toward the house. Suddenly terrified he would lose him, Kalen spun and dashed after him.

At the sound of the hasty footsteps, Tomas stiffened and looked back.

Kalen stopped in front of him and threw back his hood.

Tomass eyes widened. Nerth? Whatwhat are you doing here so far from the church?

Kalen stared up at him. He still didnt know what he was going to say even as his mouth started to move.

I learned to read.

Tomas looked confused.

I learned to read because you told me to, Kalen said again.

Then he stood there waiting.

The older boys face went so pale. Youwhat do you mean you?

It was me who read them, Kalen said quickly, and as quietly as he could. I didnt know what they were until I did, and then I was sorry. But I didnt know how to put the wax back on. I was scared to tell any of the others so I was hoping to find youandhere you are.

Was Tomas angry? Was that why his face was so peculiar?

He leaned down toward Kalen. You recognize me? he breathed.

No. But it would take a long time to explain that hed just reasoned out who the other boy was.

Youre my first memory, he said instead. I think I remember almost everything you told meyou gave me three chocolates to do it, after all.

And then, to Kalens shock, Tomas Orellen hugged him.

Oh. This is

Hesitantly, he hugged back.

It felt more natural than he had imagined it could.