Stout, narrow tables and squat casements were stuffed with more texts, as well as odd little contraptions of metal, crystal, glass, wood, and leather. A rickety old armchair of worn blue fabric was stuffed into the back right corner beyond the messy, dark, and aged desk that contained a dozen or more little drawers. Atop the desk’s corner sat a dimming cold lamp next to an array of brass articulated arms that each held a framed magnifying lens.
“How much have you gained in this pursuit?” Hawes asked.
Again Chane wavered, but he would learn nothing if he kept his progress from her. She was the only one capable of helping him, though he had no idea why she did so.
Unshouldering one of his packs, he pulled out a book with which they were both familiar: The Seven Leaves of Life. It was only two leather-covered flats with one long sheet of old paper between, folded back and forth into seven panels. To this he added two small, cloth-wrapped bundles.
Hawes looked at the latter as he laid them on her desk and unwrapped the first. Its contents riveted her attention, but for only an instant. The strange gray mushrooms had gray caps that spread in branched protrusions, each branch splayed and flattened at the end in a shape a little like a leaf.
“Muhkgean,” Hawes said, clearly needing no confirmation from Chane. “These dwarven mushrooms will do no good unless you’ve managed to ...”
Her gaze shifted to the other small bundle.
Chane pulled open its cloth.
Tiny pearl-colored petals—or leaves, judging by their shape—shimmered like silvery white velvet in the cold lamp’s light, though they were as delicate as silk. The remaining stems and leaves beneath them, though wilted, were a dark green, nearly black even in the light.
“Anamgiah ... the Life Shield,” Hawes whispered, and then looked up at him. “Where did you get these?”
“In the open plain on the way into the Lhoin’na’s forest and their capital. I did not steal them. They grow wild there.”
Why did he feel the need to defend himself? It was none of her concern where he had gotten them.
“Can you assist me now?” he asked. “Give me further instructions to make the concoction in the text?”
This time, he wanted something conclusive, something he could put into practice. His own body was nearly indestructible; Wynn’s was not. He needed anything that might keep her whole and sound, no matter the cost.
Hawes glanced at the book in his hand, and her brow creased. “I don’t ... Healing is not one of my fields. Premin Adlam would be more able—”
“No.”
Besides Wynn, he trusted no one here with this exploit other than Hawes, and he barely trusted her. He had not even told Wynn of what he was doing.
“I was not suggesting that you go to him for assistance,” Hawes said, and a bit of annoyance slipped into her tone. “But he knows more of these matters than I.”
She looked down at the two open bundles for a long moment, and then held out her narrow hand without even looking at him.
“Leave the book and the components with me,” she instructed. “I will look into testing the process.”
“No.”
Hawes’s head barely turned, but her nearer thin eyebrow arched, and her gaze could have struck like a winter cold snap.
“If you thought to manage this yourself,” she said evenly, “you would not have come to me. I will keep your secret and provide you with the result of my efforts. In exchange, I will take a portion of these components, not more than a fifth, for my own interests.”
Chane’s throat tightened. He feared—no, more than feared—leaving one of his precious books, as well as these rare ingredients. There was no telling how soon he could reenter this place, but she was correct in one thing: if he did have any notion of how to attempt what was written in this text, he would not be standing here.
And strangely, Hawes’s attempt to bargain made him less reluctant. She would gain something from this, as well.
“Agreed,” he rasped, and laid the book in her hand, which had not lowered or moved since she had extended it.
“Where will you be staying?” she asked.
He would not go that far, and shook his head. “I will contact you in a few days.”
A long pause followed, and then she nodded.
Chane wanted to thank her but did not know how. So he simply turned and left the study, closing the door behind him. Taking the stairs two at a time, he made his way out and stepped into the courtyard. His thoughts once again turned over which route he should use to get out of the guild. He had taken only six steps into the courtyard before he stopped cold.
Four sages stood before him, two wearing brown robes and the other pair in the midnight blue of metaologers. They were not gathered as a group but spread in an arc, all facing him. One brown-robed sage was a small, pretty woman. Chane had never spoken to her, but through Wynn he knew who she was. Ginjeriè was the youngest sage ever in the Order of Naturology to be appointed as a domin.
“Please stay where you are,” she told him, and the two metaologers stepped forward.
They were waiting for him. How had they known he was coming? Had someone seen him go inside?
“Is there a problem?” Hawes’s voice sounded behind him.
Chane glanced back and found her standing outside the door he had just exited.
“No, Premin,” Ginjeriè said, bowing her head slightly. “Premin Sykion wishes to speak with this man. We were sent to bring him.”
Chane wanted to wince. The Premin Council knew he had returned, and he was being called before them, likely to give his own account of the long journey south with Wynn. Both he and Wynn had expected them to corner her first, though not quite in the way it had been done. The situation had suddenly changed again. Perhaps in questioning him first, they thought to gain something to trip her up.
Chane glanced back at the other four sages.
Could he refuse to go? Unless he had broken a law, the council had no legal hold over him. But he guessed that the council had not been adhering to the law of late, and the fact that two of the four sages were metaologers struck him as suspicious.
He would avoid hurting a sage for almost any reason; he had self-sworn this upon returning tonight and while waiting for Wynn. Flawed as the guild might be, those who lived, worked, and studied here were still far above the common cattle of mortals.
Yet he still carried the scroll.
That meant everything to what Wynn saw for the future. He could not allow himself to be hauled before the Premin Council, or, worse, to be locked inside a room by Hawes’s potent thaumaturgy. He knew firsthand what she was capable of.
Chane tensed as the two metaologers took another step, and he heard Hawes approaching from behind.
Wynn waited in her room for Dorian to return with Shade, but sitting still grew too much for her. She began taking stock of her belongings, wondering what to hide should the council decide to confiscate anything. Not that she had many places to hide something in this little room.
She’d already passed the content of all her old journals to Shade via memory-speak and then burned them. Memory-speak was as easy as talking for Shade, and she never forgot anything once it was soundly lodged in her understanding. She was the perfect vessel for secrets that no one could open, even if someone ever figured out that she held them.
Wynn’s one remaining journal contained only convoluted encryptions of a few key notes to help her as needed. Even sages fluent in the Begaine syllabary would need a long time to decipher it. But there were other items here that Wynn feared losing.