The place was filthy and dilapidated. Walls lined with warped wooden planks surrounded unpainted doors no better off than the front one. She heard someone coughing somewhere behind one of those doors, but Ghassan quickly headed for the stairs at the passage’s end. They climbed upward, though Wynn shuddered more than once at the sharp creaks of the steps beneath her feet.
When they reached the top floor, the domin headed down the only hallway. Raising her crystal, Wynn could see nothing more than old doors and one open, unshuttered window at the hallway’s end. And that was where the domin went. When he stopped before the window, perhaps reaching for its waist-high sill, Wynn looked back past Chane and Osha at all the doors along the way.
“Which one is for us?” she asked.
“None of them,” the domin answered.
Wynn was about to turn back when she heard Osha suck in a sharp breath.
She looked up to see his lips parted below wide eyes staring over the top of her head. At a clunk, as if a door had closed, Chane dropped the chest, grabbed her shoulder, and jerked her back behind him. She half fell into Osha, who caught her, as Shade’s growl erupted with a clack of teeth.
Even in Osha’s grip, Wynn regained her feet and spun about, though he held on when she tried to take a step.
Ghassan il’Sänke was gone.
Wynn lost her voice as she peered around Chane’s side. Shade inched back as Chane stepped in and ... strangely, hesitantly extended his hand through the open window, as if afraid to do so.
“Where is he? Where did he go?” Wynn managed to get out.
Chane swung his hand to the window frame’s side and began tracing and feeling, gripping and pushing, all around it. He did the same to the wall on both sides and below the window.
Much as Wynn couldn’t see how the domin had escaped, Chane’s actions were too bizarre. “What are you doing?”
“There was a door,” Osha whispered in Elvish. “He went in ... and then the door was gone.”
Wynn had no idea what that meant, but Shade’s hackles were up. The dog backed up another step with a mewling growl like a spooked cat.
“Ridiculous,” Wynn said. “He must have hopped out the window when I turned my back and the crystal’s light was blocked from—”
The wall around the window swung away.
Osha pulled Wynn close, Shade crouched with a snarl, and Chane hopped back in, pulling his shorter sword.
There in the opening shaped like a doorway stood Ghassan il’Sänke.
Chane leveled his sword at the domin.
With an exasperated sigh and a roll of his dark eyes, Ghassan hooked a boot’s toe around the open door’s bottom corner. Wynn finally noticed that the passage’s end wall had suddenly changed and ... looked like a door.
Solid and made of dark, stout wood beams, unlike all the others along the passage, it was also iron-banded and had a matching lever handle. From what Wynn could see there was no keyhole in the plate around that handle. She finally closed her mouth with a swallow.
“My apologies,” Ghassan said a bit tiredly, raising his hands in plain sight. “The door slipped from my grip. It is heavy and spring-loaded to shut if left open. Please come in.”
“What is this?” Chane demanded.
Ghassan took a slow breath with an extended exhale. “As I told you, this place is safe and clearly no one will find us here.”
And then he simply stood there waiting and glaring.
Chane inched in to tap the door’s frame with his sword’s tip. The frame still looked like part of the outer wall.
The domin scowled, then scoffed and leaned away when Chane inched his sword through the opening. Shade rumbled even louder, and when Wynn tried to take a step, Osha held her back.
Chane stood staring at whatever lay beyond the door and then turned his glare—and his blade—toward the domin.
“How?” he demanded.
After another extended sigh, Ghassan answered flatly, “That is a longer conversation than I care to have out here. Now, are you coming in or not?” He turned his annoyance on Wynn as if Chane’s sword meant nothing anymore.
Wynn pulled out of Osha’s grip and stepped closer as Chane back-stepped to reach down for the chest without taking his eyes off the domin. She pushed past both him and Shade for a closer look, and what lay beyond in that softly lit place was as shocking as the hidden door.
Shelves lined three walls and were filled with scrolls, books, and plank-bound sheaves, just like those of the archives below the guild branch in Calm Seatt. Unlike that place, everything here was pristine without a hint of dust, and all was made of dark but shimmering wood.
Several cold lamps with crystals provided light around the interior. One rested on a round table encompassed by three cushioned chairs. By the lamps’ ornate brass bases, they had to have alchemical fluids producing mild heat to keep the crystals lit. All chairs were high-backed, and their finely finished near-black wood was intricately carved in wild see-through patterns.
To one side stood like-carved folding partitions separating another area covered in large floor cushions of vibrant patterns with shimmering embroidery. At the back of the sitting area was an open door to another room, and in there were several beds as lavish as the cushioned sitting area. Clean, fringed carpets defined various sections of the floor.
Though impressive, it all struck Wynn as rather cluttered. The last fixture she noticed left her a bit dizzy and disoriented.
In the rear wall, between the cushioned area and the door to the bedroom, was a window exactly like the one she had faced in the passage moments before. Through it, she saw the same night-shrouded buildings across the same back alley, and she absently stepped in.
This was nothing like any hideaway that Wynn could’ve imagined. In fact, it looked too well prepared and furnished, aside from that disturbing duplicate window.
“H-how?” she stammered, turning around.
Osha entered with Shade, and Wynn saw that Chane had already dragged in the chest. He stood with sword still in hand as he faced the domin. Wynn wasn’t certain whether or not to call off Chane. Osha glanced about, but, unlike Wynn, he looked openly wary.
With a lift of one eyebrow, il’Sänke finally answered. “A mere glamour to hide this space.”
“What do you take me for?” Chane rasped as he eyed the duplicate window set directly inline with the door.
Wynn knew that Chane had learned his minor conjury the hard way—without any tutor or teaching and having to scavenge hard-won texts and knowledge delved alone in secret. Something here bothered him, and considering what she saw, she didn’t interfere with whatever he was after.
“This entire end of the upper floor has been hidden,” Chane went on, still holding up the tip of his shorter sword before the domin. “And yet the window in the passage’s end shows the same view outside. I touched that wall and window, and felt them.”
Ghassan acted as if the sword were not even there. “What would you have me say that you could possibly understand? It is beyond you. Accept that.”
These final two words put Wynn on edge. She wished she was the one asking questions and that Chane was behind her to warn her of lies with a squeeze upon her shoulder.
Then again, Ghassan hadn’t actually answered the question.
“Why did the mention of your name almost get us arrested?” Chane asked.
In the hesitation that followed, Wynn fixed only on the domin. “And why are city guards posted before the guild ... at all?”
Ghassan barely glanced at Wynn, wondering how much to say. Clearly Chane Andraso was the more immediate problem, though one that could be dealt with. Doing so might also undermine gaining answers—and cooperation—for his own needs. And he was still anxious over the revelation that Wynn had gained another orb.