We set off.I was exhilarated, nervous and determined—a heady concoction that only faltered a little as we passed more andmore locked doors.Every one of them marked another possible prisoner, another mage like us locked away and awaiting Saint knew what.
If we try to save them all, none of us will escape, Tane reminded me, giving voice to my own pragmatic side.
Samuel would probably try, I remarked, the thought of him compounding my guilt.Furthermore, if our roles were reversed, would he leave without a cure for me in hand?
How fortunate he is not here.
Maren took the lead, guiding us past a spattering of unconscious guards and through a concealed side door.
Two flights of stairs and a circular passage later, Olsa murmured, “There is someone up ahead.A ghisting?”
Maren nodded tightly.“I know, but I must fetch something from that room, including more talismans.Hurry.”
Illya made a discontented noise, but Maren was already pushing open one side of a huge set of double doors.
I slowed as we passed inside, gaping at the enormous space.It was hexagonal like the other chambers, but larger and, I sensed, more central.The hub of the wheel.
Raised platforms stood here and there at various heights.Starlight filtered through hundreds of glass panes in the domed ceiling, illuminating our path as we circled the room.It glinted on metal instruments, perched atop the platforms—great spyglasses like the one I had glimpsed at the Oruse.Captured light glinted in the myriad glass scales of a great globe formed of thousands of pieces in an artful cage of wire.
“This is a Dark Observatory,” Maren explained, already halfway across the room.I trailed behind, hobbling as he descended on a desk and fumbled a key into a lock.“Where the Ess Noti look into the Other.Those spyglasses are made with ghisten wood, though only the central one has a living ghisting.He is old and slow, but cruel.We must be wary of him.”
Olsa and I looked to the spyglass in question.It was enormous, wood braced with brass and silver and perched on a tall tripod.Its body was longer than I was tall, and another small platform stood under one end, for an observer to peer through its narrow sight.
Maren clattered a drawer open and began to grab stacks of sealed documents and loose papers and shoved them into his satchel.Illya, meanwhile, patrolled the periphery of the observatory, passing through patches of milky starlight and murky shadows.
“These are records, calculations and predictions.”Maren nudged the drawer closed and opened another.
“And why are we risking our lives for that?”Olsa said.
“Because otherwise the Mereish will become the singular power upon the Winter Sea.”Maren pulled the entire drawer out, popped a false bottom, and drew out a collection of talismans, one of which he handed to Illya before he pocketed the rest.
“You do not want that?”Olsa asked.“Your people’s supremacy?”
Maren gave a short huff of a laugh.“I left for good reason.Knowledge should not be used to subjugate, so I must share it.Let us go?”
We fell into step again.
“How is a Dark Observatory possible?”I asked, eyeing the great looking glasses again.“Can they truly look into the Other?”
“They can, by way of Sooth’s blood and ghisten magic,” Maren explained lowly.“Adamus Faucher was considered mad for many years, working in seclusion with remote monasteries, disrespected by the broader world.It only made him more determined.When he took control of the Ess Noti and their resources, he changed Mere overnight.”
Maren’s voice died in a thin breath.I cast a hasty look over my shoulder as ghisten light swelled, and there, between the great looking glasses, a ghisting materialized.
He watched us with sea-glass eyes in a broad, serpentine face.His body was coiled and scaled and three times taller than Illya, byfar the largest manifestation of a ghisting I had ever seen.He sat heaped in the center of the chamber, spectral blue in the filtered light of the stars.
Brother, Tane greeted.
Trespassers, the serpent hissed.Its angular head tilted to one side, matte eyes following our path.You should not be here.
“Go.”Olsa prodded Maren.“Now.”
Maren didn’t question her.He preceded us into an alcove and reached for the handle of a door.We hastened after him, crowding in.
A frustrated clatter echoed around the chamber.Maren fumbled with his cache of keys, then dropped them entirely.He crouched, fumbling to locate them in the shadows and glancing fearfully at the serpent ghisting.
Trespassers.
Tane nudged me, taking partial control of my limbs and prompting me to turn.
