I silently snorted—I had now, it seemed, reached the point of having imaginary conversations with her over imaginary entertainments.
There were doors in each corner on this floor. The two that were above the entrance were large and ornate; the others were smaller. Which way to go? The aristocrat, or the servant? I went through the nearest door because it was the nearest.
“At last!” said Loiosh. “After all our searching, we have found the treasure—”
“Shut up.”
A mop, a bucket, two brooms, a dustpan, and a shelf full of jars of liquids and powders of various colors, as well as a few piles of rags. And the oddest place you could come up with to put a closet like that. It made no sense, which meant that, like everything else, I just couldn’t see it. I was annoyed.
I closed the closet and headed for the other servants’ door. I guess I expected it to be pretty much the same, but this one opened to a long, narrow corridor, doors on the left every twenty feet or so. I walked past them. They were probably servants’ quarters, and while I didn’t have any problem sneaking around Zhayin’s manor and poking my nose into private places, for some reason walking into a servant’s room seemed a little excessive.
The door at the far end was locked. I studied the lock, removed my set of picks, and spent a lot longer than Kiera would have getting it. To the left, I doubt Kiera gets the same sense of satisfaction I do from hearing that “click.” I put my stuff away, opened the door, and stepped through.
3. The Phantom of the Dance
It was a neat, tidy little study—a bookshelf with books, a desk with papers, a pedestal for larger books, and a tall, slanting table with clips around the edges. On the desk was a fist-size clear ball of a sort I’d seen in Morrolan’s study, and against the corner was a short, black, polished stick topped with a smaller version of the clear ball. Another corner held several cylinders, about three feet in length and perhaps half a foot in diameter. In addition to books, the shelves held several tablets of paper, some of them very large. And yeah, you guessed it: a mirror. A small one, wedged into a corner of the floor, pointing out and up. It was slightly convex, which may have meant something, I don’t know.
“Boss? What if you broke the mirror?”
“I know. I’ve been thinking about it.”
“And?”
“Not yet.”
This was the first place I’d found that made it look like someone lived here—with the exception, of course, of the room Zhayin was occupying. I went in and, without touching anything, looked stuff over. There was a blue ceramic jar on the desk, containing more pencils than I’d ever seen in one place, and a truly lovely quill holder, inkstand, and sand jar all done in turquoise set with mother-of-pearl. There was also a matched pair of fountain pens, which proved that Zhayin embraced modern technology.
I glanced over the books. There were a few on sorcery and several on necromancy, but most of them had titles like, Strength Considerations for the More Common Steel Alloys with Updated Formulae for Stress Calculations and Observations of the Effect of Water Pressure on Various Granite Structures Considered over Time. None of them looked like they’d be a lot of fun to read. Loiosh waited patiently, Rocza remaining on the floor in the doorway to give me warning if anyone should approach.
I might have learned more if I’d wanted to open the drawers of the desk, or take the books down from the shelf, but sorcerers have the nasty habit of setting traps on such things—traps I couldn’t detect while the amulet I wore was keeping me blind to sorcery.
The last thing I did was check for secret doors or movable walls or whatever, just because the room seemed like an odd size and in an odd place compared to the rest of what I’d seen. I didn’t find anything, and I decided that was enough. Rocza resumed her place on my shoulder as I closed the door and, with some effort, locked it behind me. It’s funny how often they’re harder to close than they were to open. And there’s no thrill in succeeding, either.
I went back, all the way around the balcony, and flung open the first set of big double doors like I had every right to.
Sure, there’s no reason a place like this shouldn’t have a big dining room. In fact, if I’d thought about it, I’d have assumed it did have a big dining room. Only not here—not on the second floor, leading off a balcony like this. And where was the pantry? The hallway with the sitting rooms ought to be right below me, and it didn’t seem like it could work. I looked behind me, and the balcony was still there. Ahead of me was a long table—maybe twenty seats on a side. And doors opposite. And really, was it possible to have a dining room any farther from the kitchen? How do you get food there without it getting cold? Or were there magic doors or something that led from one to the other?
It was big enough that I had to spend some time making sure it was empty, then I had to fight the temptation to sit down at the head of the table, just to see what it felt like.
Did I mention there was a pair of mirrors built into the walls? No, but you probably guessed it, didn’t you?
“It’s a big empty room, Boss.”
“Yeah.”
“With a table. And some chairs.”
“Yeah.”
“Bet we can learn all kinds of things.”
“Shut up.”
I got closer. The table was empty except for half a dozen candle holders, none of which had lit candles. This made me wonder where the light was coming from, and it was only then I noticed several windows high on the wall to my right. It was still daylight outside. I tried to figure out how long I’d been there to see if that made sense, but gave up. It took me a while studying them to see that they were covered with glass—even there, way up where no one could reach them. Whoever built this place had too much money.
It hit me that I should have grabbed some paper from the study while I was there and tried to make a diagram—maybe I’d have seen something, like, I don’t know, the hallways formed the sorcery rune that means “This is stupid.”
“There are doors at the other end, Boss.”
“So I see. Probably open onto mid-air, and I’ll fall into the ocean-sea.”
“But you’re going through them anyway, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Unless something jumps out of the walls and eats me between here and there. Which isn’t all that unlikely.”
“You’ll probably just go mad before you get there.”
“This is the place for it, isn’t it?”
“Unless you already are mad. I hope not, because—”
“Then you are too?”
“Yeah,” he said. I kept my eye out for anything interesting, but it was just a big room with a long table. Not much you can do with that. I mean, if there’s nothing there—