James

Fifteen days had passed since he’d slipped through the Wards with the Orb hidden in his bag. It was still there, wrapped in a cloth and buried under an assortment of supplies, snacks and documents. Some nights he swore he could hear it hum. Once he’d been startled awake by a female voice whispering something about marmot boys being far too early.

He hadn’t been able to go back to sleep for hours after that one.

Worse was the message he’d sent off when he first arrived in A’triyes. Had Thorne received it? What if he hadn’t? Two weeks was a long time to be offline during a mission, and knowing Alexandre, he’d be branded a traitor for less. But he wasn’t a traitor. Was he? Just because he was entertaining the research into folklore didn’t mean he wasn’t working for the cause. But why was he delaying the journey to Agartha Nova?

Surely his brother-of-heart would understand. James had, after all, always been a bit obsessed with white-robed angels and akatian spirits. There wasn’t much else he could do. The image of Alex’s expression when they parted flashed before his eyes. Dangerous. Mad. Sharp. Was it his imagination when he imagined that he’d been sent off to his death as some sort of punishment?

“James?” Vee’s voice came from his shoulder, shaking him out of his spiral.

He rubbed at his eyes, before putting on a smile. “Sorry, got lost in thought there.”

“Everything all right?”

“Just thinking.”

She nudged him playfully. “About how to best betray us in a way we will never see coming?”

He didn’t laugh. “Something is coming, Vee. I wish I knew what.”

“Well, it is not my glorious enchantment degree, that’s for sure.”

“Still having trouble with the pronunciation?”

The glare was almost venomous. “Yeah.” Vee sighed. “I should just ask my father for fifty gold now and be done with it. There is no way my fee is not going up come fall.”

“Don’t give up on it. You’re brilliant.” But Vee’s expression didn’t change. “What’s wrong?”

“Alana.”

James racked his brain before remembering the name of her best friend. “The aspirant, right?” Vee nodded. “What about her?”

“It’s the tenth. Her Final is today. A proper Walk.”

He knew from the scattered hints that realmwalking was dangerous if one’s mind wasn’t made for the immense scope that the combination of the Veil and the Weave entailed. Some minds even fractured. He squeezed her shoulder.

“She’ll be alright. If she’s anything like you.”

A small ray of sunshine blinded him, and he squinted toward the west where the sun was making its slow climb up above the peaks.

“Why are we here at this hour, anyway? What was so important that we had to take this risk?” A crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Not that I mind.”

The massive Academy loomed silent in full view from where they stood by the iron wrought gates. The grounds were silent, the guards nowhere to be seen. Without the draw bridge, he’d had to scale the river at a point just below the Academy, keeping low while circling back around to wait for Vee.

They were so close, huddled in shadow, that he could smell the fresh scent of her hair, see the specks of gold in her otherwise hazel eyes. Maybe he wasn’t a spy. Maybe he was just a lost man.

To his surprise, she hesitated, biting her lip in a rare tell. It was so unlike her, he immediately paid her his full attention.

“I found something,” she signed at last. “In the Library.”

“About the Eight?”

She tugged him deeper into the shadows until it was difficult to make out her gestures. “There is a corridor there that dates back to the very foundation of the Academy. I am talking before the Wars. Before the Sundering. It bears their name, carved into the stone. James. It is not a replica. It is old.” She emphasized the last with a fervent expression. “It means they were here with the first settlers. That is two thousand years before your nursery rhyme. At least. Look, I know you do not believe it like I do, but I need you to believe me.”

James let out a slow breath, his heart racing. “I believe you believe.”

“That is not good enough, James.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Vee,” he signed with a sharp flick. He glared at his hands. They couldn’t tell her what he wanted to say in the way he wanted to convey it. “Look, we don’t have the same stories. That is a fact. And the stories and scraps we do have? They don’t align with any record the Academy or the Syndicate recognizes. The Old Guard are ghosts.”

Her expression darkened. “They are real.”

“I know. But maybe… maybe there is something else at play here.”

“She paused. “Like a cover-up?”

“Exactly.”

“Why? Why go to all this trouble?”

It was his turn to put a lid on his excitement. “Why not? It’s the perfect plan. Create a myth, spread it to every corner of every realm with just enough crumbs to keep the stories apart. Then any anomaly, any event you can’t or won’t explain? Blame it on a convenient legend. A rag-tag band of dangerous, faceless ghosts.”

“I suppose…” she trailed off with a torn expression.

James reached for her with a gentle smile. “Whatever the truth is, Vee, I promise you we will find it. And I’ll be right there beside you.”

She nodded, but there was a crinkle in her forehead that didn’t smooth. Without another word, she produced a brass key from inside her tunic and approached the narrow side door.

“What are you doing?”

“Opening a door. Which leads to the laboratories. Which, if you know where to look, leads down below.” She flashed a grin. “I swiped this from my supervisor last night. You’re about to see what no outsiders have ever had access to. So try to look appropriately impressed.”

Despite himself, his chest tightened. How many times had he not wondered what secrets all these doors held? How useful would it be for the insurrection? How proud they would be if he came back with firsthand intel of the Guardian’s training grounds?

Guilt quickly followed elation. Vee trusted him. Not that she didn’t know who he was, she just didn’t know the full story. She didn’t know about the device Alex was gathering parts for, or about the Insurrection. Or the fact that every step he took beside her edged him closer to betrayal.

Still, curiosity won.

With a soft click, the door shut behind them. Their footsteps echoed too loudly in the hall they crept through. After what could have been minutes or half an hour, he stopped short when they climbed out of a tapestry into a massive hall.

Before them rose a wall, towering taller than the cathedral he’d visited every week with his parents when he was a kid. Gilded reliefs shimmered in the morning light, refracted by the equally tall windows overlooking the grounds.

Veins of gold weaved and knotted themselves into an enormous depiction of a tree with swaying leaves and branches reaching out into every corridor and hall.

He tapped Vee on the shoulder and pointed at it when she looked back at him. With a smile she signed world and tree. No, that wasn’t right. It was like the signs for world and tree, but the placement and mouthing were different. A blank stare met his own.

“You do not know her?” she asked, incredulous.

Something clicked in his mind. “Oh, I see, it’s religious.”

“It is the goddess of the ethereal and fate.”

“Inside an arcane academy?”

She pursed her lips and flicked him on the arm. “Do not ask questions that I do not know the answer to, illevan. She is here, she is our protector, we walk in her Light like all akati before us.”

“Fair enough,” James relented.

But his eyes kept going to the tree. The image shifting as he stared at it. The branches spreading in a fractal pattern across the marble until they formed a circle with the tree at its center. Again, James stumbled.

Vee tugged at him hard, pulling him behind him until they were out of the foyer and inside another narrow hallway which may or may not have been covered by a wooden panel. They were swallowed by pitch blackness until Vee struck a small lamp, casting a red glow that barely pushed back the dark from around them.

She slammed him against the wall, her signs sharp and angry. “What are you doing? Someone could have spotted us. Get your head in the game or tell me what is going on. Right now.”

“I’ve seen that tree before.” His blood pounded in his ears. There was a noise in them too. Dull roaring engines. A thousand murmuring voices. Familiar and eerie. It was the same sensation as the temple, without the blue haze.

“Where?”

James swallowed. “In Japhaia. A hundred years ago. On a woman wearing white.”

Vee took a step back. “Oh.” Silence stretched between them. “You don’t think…?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I was dying, and it was a hallucination. Or maybe it was Ay…uh—”

“Ayursha,” Vee spelled out for him with an unreadable look. “Maybe.”

A corridor stretched out before them, appearing endless. Clearing his throat, he pushed himself off the wall.

“Where are we?”

“Catacombs,” she shrugged as if that explained everything.

“Very cool,” he nodded. “Also—why?”

“Because, as an outsider, you are banned from the Library. That place I spoke of? This is the other side of that wall.” She pulled him down another corridor that looked exactly the same. “We could solve the mystery.”

“Because, of course, all secrets are kept in creepy tunnels and places no one’s supposed to go.”

“Exactly.”

“Wonderful.” James sighed.

They walked in silence until she added out loud: “Also, there’s another place down here where someone has carved into the wall. The script is old, really old. But different, too. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. You’ve traveled more. Maybe you recognize it.”

“Lead the way.” He followed in her footsteps and the soft red glow of the lamp.

Ancient, crumbling corridors with strange niches and twisting cobwebs went by in a disorienting mess as Vee led him further and further into the maze below the Academy. He’d lost his sense of time when she stopped and placed the lamp in a hollow in the wall with a trembling hand.

James touched her arm, gently turning her to face him.

“This it?” he asked but caught the look on her face. “What is it?”

She lifted her eyes to his, a challenge in them. “Will you listen now?” He nodded.

They stood in a small alcove barely wide enough for the two of them. Vee began to speak, slowly at first, then with more and more passion until it all came tumbling out of her.

Long troop movements and dull stakeouts had trained him for this, for the occasions when only stories marked the time that passed. That included caverns and journeys on endless roads as much as it did to shady bars or dusty catacombs. Stories of war and romance, of demons, monsters, and faeries, filled with riddles and puzzles. Most were tall tales, but some had roots in truth. Those were usually either hilarious and awkward or darker. Forgotten.

That was the kind of stories that Vee told him now. Myths and memories, drawn from whispered legends passed around campfires and nursery rhymes. Tales of the Old Guard. Some he had heard before, he knew the bones of them, but not all. Far from all. Stories of war and riddles and chaos and rifts.

James didn’t interrupt. He watched her eyes bright with conviction. Her language painted brushstrokes that looped, spun, shimmered in the soft glow like light on water. Inside, he felt something stir again. Something he hadn’t felt for a long time.

But it wasn’t the details of her stories that interested him—but the differences.

Suddenly, there was a soft vibration coming from the bracelet on her wrist. A karai’i.

“Oh gods, is that the time? Damn, I promised I’d meet Alana after her Final.”

The momentary jealousy was quickly swatted away. “You know, one day I’d like to meet this strange friend of yours.”

“You would like her.” Vee laughed, and it sounded like bells. “You are both reckless and equally bad at following the rules.”

James didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered and settled on both. It vibrated again.

“It’s okay,” he waved her apologies away. “Go. I’ll meet you at the Horse later.”

“You got it.” Vee got a few steps before turning back, her robes flaring around her. “Stay out of trouble.”

“No promises!” he called after her, watching her disappear.

“Nice of her to leave the lamp,” he thought, realizing she’d been perfectly fine without it due to her infernal bloodline.

Left alone in the bowels of the Academy, James took a moment to ponder his good fortune. Here he was. A spy all alone. Besides, he never could resist a mystery. With certain glee, he retrieved the lamp and went exploring.

Before long, the air cooled. His unease was balanced only by intrigue when the corridors twisted again, narrowing into a deep descent carved from even older stone. The walls were slick and dark with condensation. Despite the chill, James found himself sweating. Each breath came shallow.

The lamp fluttered, casting long, dancing shadows that made the walls come alive. Silence lay heavy this far below, interrupted only by strange echoes of falling drops and rushes of displaced air. It was an absence of sound, yet a presence too.

He should turn back. But his feet took him further, deeper, until he turned a corner and stopped dead. Was that the smell of ancient tomes in the air? Was this where Vee had wanted to go?

The wall was broken, etched with carvings that looked almost desperate. Deep, uneven gouges hacked into the stone with something much cruder than a chisel. Letters tumbled over each other in a jumble of languages. To his horror, he saw ancient illevan next to Infernal, next to High Akatian, and Celestial. It was as if the writer had run out of words in one language and scrambled to finish the thought in another. And another. And another.

James reached out, fingertips brushing the grooves. What little scraps he could make out sent chills down his spine even as his heart remained traitorously calm in his chest.

We remember.

We wait.

We guard.

Do not fear our names.

Beware the key.

Gate that opens—fall away.

He froze, his fingers touching the word Key. Surely not? How could it be here? Carved into ancient stone, buried beneath the greatest institute for arcane learning in all the world? It must be a different key. Not his. James took a step back, unease tightening the grip on his gut. Slowly, he turned, sweeping the light across the walls.

The light fell on a small line etched but an inch above the floor, half covered in dust and grime, and in clear common.

Know the Eight that roam the realms. Know the prince and the named.

James staggered back, breath catching as pieces slammed into place of a puzzle he didn’t know. The corridor was empty and yet—

“Keep going, child. I have my eyes on you.”

James spun around, hand clutching the handle of a blade at his hip. “Vee?” His voice was too loud. “Not funny.”

Only silence answered. But the shadows did not feel empty. It felt like something was watching.