“Orenda,” Quiroris walked around his desk, trailing his fingers on it as he went, “Please, go to your room and pack your things. We’re going to have to move you. Take your time.”
“I’m not a criminal,” Orenda told the group of adults who stared at her with different expressions and varying levels of trust.
“No one thinks you are,” Quiroris lied, “Please, go pack your things. I’ll send servants to help you. It’s gotten late. I think that we’d like to get settled.”
Orenda knew that the instant she was gone they would be deciding what to do with her, but there wasn’t exactly anything that she could do about it. She felt so powerless. She couldn’t speak to Ali, certainly couldn’t save him. She had seen the first fire elf of her life, but couldn’t get his attention. She needed to talk to Bubbider, but now she would be guarded every second of her life. She was a prisoner. Perhaps Tolith had been right. Perhaps they should have run when they had had a chance. She tried to remember the name of the safehouse that Ali had given her, by the docks, but she had no way of knowing if it was even still there. She thought of running to the print shop, but she doubted they could have hidden there for long.
So she nodded, took a deep breath, and made her way to her room.
Her frustration was almost too much to bear. She felt the magic flowing inside and around her, pressing against her skin from her blood, flowing over her quickly from the outside, licking at her and giving off sparks. She twitched when she stepped into her room and saw what had been done to her wardrobe.
Someone had carved a skull and crossbones into it, without removing her poster first, which had been shredded in the process. Looking at it, the rage that had been flowing through her seemed to reach a peak, hit some invisible force, and simply dissipate. She had felt too much for too long, and she suddenly felt nothing. She was floating a little above her body, looking down as she opened the wardrobe and began to lay everything out onto the bed. She felt that she was watching a play, not performing these actions herself, and for the first time in a long time, assessed the situation like an outsider, as if she had been sitting in the audience.
She thought of Ellie, who had died to protect others, who had tried her best to help her, but who had refused to tell her whom she had met with that solstice so long ago. She thought of Charles, who had been a secret earth mage all along, and of Susan who had almost escaped, who had come so close only to lose it all in the end. She thought of Bubbider, working in the school and stealing secrets little by little, and of Ali, who she thought was slowly dying of a lifestyle that he could not keep up. She thought of the print shop, of the woman Spring, and realized that it was on the side of her shop that she had seen the symbol painted the night she had come to the school. She thought of the madman on the street screaming his warnings, and wondered what path he walked. She thought of the students, blind to all of this, dancing through life on a pile of excess and nonsense. She thought of Quiroris, who seemed to have risked a great deal to keep her safe. She thought of Tolith clutching his father’s staff and shrieking about what it was like to have parents and to lose them.
She thought about all of this in a detached sort of way, as if it had all happened to someone else, and she thought of the mask that Captain Nochdifache wore, of how he looked when he walked out of the fire he had set, and she thought it looked very much like the mask on the symbol she had seen beside of Gareth’s signature. Was he Gareth? If he was, who was GF? And why didn’t he recognize her? He had looked right at Tolith, who was clutching her arm. If he knew her, why hadn’t he taken her with him?
It was a comfort to know that shifters were real, though probably not to the people she had seen being ripped apart. She hadn’t seen it very well in the panic, but she could piece together that the blood and flesh had to come from somewhere, that the screams had to mean something.
There had been so many screams that she wasn’t sure whether or not Toli’s father had died screaming. She remembered that the soldiers she had killed in the library had died screaming, so she assumed he had, as he had died in almost the exact same way.
She looked up to see Bubbider in the doorway holding a wooden box.
“Some of the slaves won’t come near you,” she said, “So I volunteered.”
Orenda looked up to make sure they were alone and spoke quietly, “I saw Ali. Saw him in the flesh.”
“Did you?” Bubbider had more interest than she had the energy to convey.
“He looks awful,” Orenda said, “He looks like he’s dying. I think that they’ve broken him.”
“He says he’s close,” Bubbider leaned in to pack Orenda’s things into the box, “I think that the voice he hears must be Lapus. It makes too much sense. Lapus must be the djinn.”
“I don’t know,” Orenda said, “I feel so strange, Bubby. I feel as if I’m sleepwalking, as if all of this is a dream or a play, and I’m simply watching it.”
“Too much has happened,” Bubbider said, “Captain Nochdifache should not have done that. He made a mistake. He made it more difficult for all of us.”
“That was strange,” Orenda agreed. “Are you alright? Is everyone alright?”
“There are rumors among the slaves,” Bubbider said, “there have always been rumors, Rendy, but now everyone thinks that you’re related to Captain Nochdifache.”
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“Do you?” Orenda asked.
“I don’t know,” Bubbider said, “I would like to think so. He’s a good man, Orenda, just a little mad. He has a right to be mad, if what he says is true. There is only so much one can take before they give in to madness.”
“Where am I going to live?” Orenda asked, “Felaern said that he was sending a servant for me. I assume that’s you.”
“You’re moving into his apartments,” Bubbider said quickly with no room for argument.
“The hell I am,” Orenda hissed.
“You are, Rendy,” Bubbider said quickly and sternly, “he knows everyone. He knows what happened to the fire elves. He knows every noble in the colony. He has a private library that has records of all the students and their parents. You can trace the lineage. You can tell us what the chain of command is. Stay on his good side. Do whatever you need to do.”
“Do I give that information to you?” Orenda asked her.
“Yes, as much as you can,” Bubbider told her, “And learn all you can, Orenda. You’re an amazing mage. You’ve grown so much.”
“While I’m thinking about it,” Orenda reached into her pocket and pulled out the first fire crystal she had ever found, “I want you to have this. You need a back-up. I’ve meant to give it to you for years, but I’ve always had… I suppose a crippling sentimentality.”
“Oh,” Bubbider took it and closed it in her hand, “Orenda… thank you.”
“May as well get it over with, then,” Orenda closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and requested, “Take me to this fresh hell.”
“Dismantle it if you have to!” Quiroris snapped at the humans who were trying to carry a bedframe up a set of winding stairs in the middle of the night. He had thrown open the double doors on the other side of his dining room and explained to Orenda that they led to his study, which would be her new bedroom, as soon as she had arrived. Getting a bed inside the room was proving difficult.
“Can we please talk about what happened with Lady Glenlen?” Orenda asked, “With Tolith? With the goddamn pirate!?”
“Language, Orenda, please,” Quiroris said, sounding as exhausted as he was, “You’re better than that.”
“Was that Captain Nochdefache?” Orenda asked, “Was it really?”
“I believe so, yes,” Quiroris said, “But your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never encountered him before.”
“Felaern, it’s the only fire elf I’ve ever seen!” Orenda pleaded, “And I watched him ride away on a werewolf! He killed a contingent of guards and set the public platform aflame with no focus!”
“He had to have some sort of focus,” Quiroris said, “he was wearing a full outfit, it was probably something under his clothes. If he’s as old as he claimed he may be good enough to cast from a crystal.”
“Are you really going to hold me prisoner?” Orenda asked, “Because those people can’t tell fire elves apart?”
“I kept you alive, Orenda,” Quiroris defended, “She wanted to have you executed. The crown has and will take down entire families for crimes as severe as Nochdifache’s.”
“What has he done?” Orenda asked.
“That wasn’t his first murder,” Quiroris explained, more than a little annoyed, “What do you mean ‘what has he done’? He killed a Nobleman- not just any Nobleman, the father of her only child! In front of a crowd! In a way that… we lied to Tolith about. It was not quick or painless and he did not pass out from the smoke inhalation first. His flesh melted from his bones. They’re going to have to close the casket at the funeral.”
“This is common behavior for him?” Orenda asked.
“Yes.”
“They called him a pirate,” Orenda said, “he claims to be a captain of a ship? How? He’s a fire elf. He couldn’t sail the sea.”
“I don’t know, Orenda,” Quiroris ran a hand through his hair, then began to braid it, “As far as I know, no one does.”
“Nice to know that shifters are real, at least,” he said after a beat, “The only other time I’ve ever heard something like that, there was a Nobleman back on the earth continent who claimed to have a cage fighter who was a shifter, but his story didn’t match up, so I thought it was probably a gimmick.”
“What do you mean?” Orenda asked.
Quiroris seemed happy to change the subject, so he continued, “I can’t remember exactly who it was, but I remember there was a cage fighter, Zack or Xac or something like that, who claimed to be a lapin, a wererabbit. Oh, you like rabbits, you’ll enjoy this story. But Kai didn’t do enough research on shifters to make it believable. They claimed that the human could change at will, not that he changed at the full moons. That way they could sell tickets any day of the month. It wasn’t really that long ago, twenty or thirty years.” He thought for a second and then amended, “Maybe fourty. I know it wasn’t much longer than that. I told you, Orenda, time runs together when you get to be my age.”
“Right,” Orenda said, “Well the werewolf was real. I saw it.”
“I saw it too,” Quiroris said, “I’m sure it’s destroyed half the city.”
“I would like to go to bed,” Orenda told him.
“I would like for you to go to bed as well,” Quiroris huffed, “But it looks like we’ll be up all night. Honestly… maybe I should call upon the carpender’s guild in the morning. These humans don’t know what they’re doing.”
“I think I would prefer that,” Orenda said, because everyone who was busy taking the bed apart looked like they would really rather be asleep.
“In a few years,” Quiroris said softly, “Perhaps Lady Glenlen will forget that she wanted you sent away. I’ll send glowing reports, and she’ll eventually come to see you as the shining citizen that you are.”
“You’re dreaming, Felaern,” Orenda told him.
“Some of the other faculty think that you’re a risk, financially,” he went on, “That people will be reluctant to send their children here, knowing that you’re studying here. But I don’t think so.”
“I can see their point,” Orenda told him, “Perhaps you should send me away somewhere and be done with it.”
“I suppose you can sleep in my bed tonight,” Quiroris thought aloud, “I can sleep on the sofa in the sitting room.”
“Will you be comfortable?” Orenda asked, “It seems improper for someone my age to turn the elderly out of their bed.”
“I’m not dying of it,” Quiroris huffed, “I’m as spry as I ever was.” He walked past her and into the sitting room, threw open another set of doors and disappeared inside. He came out a few minutes later with a blanket and a pillow and set up a place for himself on the sofa, then returned to the dining room.
“That will be all, gentlemen,” he said to the group of humans he’d assembled, “I’ll see you all in the morning. Orenda, leave your things on the table there if you like, and I’ll show you to bed.”