Kane placed a hand on her shoulder in an effort to ground her. “Enough. Clearly, it would be better to work together. Perhaps we have been making such little progress because each person here has some piece of this damned puzzle but refuses to share.” He aimed an accusing stare at both of them. “The witchstone will wait for tomorrow, tonight we’re here until we get this sorted.”
Kane had clear priorities. Access to the fort and the library above all. Her side project would have to wait.
Erinna sworeif Afton brought in more scrolls, she would be in Kane’s lap by the end of it. The small guardroom could barely hold two people comfortably, but with three bodies hunched over the table full of papers and books, it was bordering on suffocating.
“I’ve managed to get past a few of these.” Afton pointed to a few scribbles in his book as if Erinna could understand his spellwork. She couldn’t but nodded all the same.
He moved his hand to a clearly self-made map of the building. “And I’ve been able to disarm a few of the inner traps in the process. But there is the entire front room and a few halls to the side that are unknown. I don’t know what we would be walking into.”
It was a piss poor map, but the rudimentary rectangles were enough for Erinna to understand. The mage had been disarming old traps one day at a time. Still, entire swaths of the fort remained a mystery. They would be walking in blind.
Erinna raised a brow, summoning patience. “Wouldn’t it be better to focus on opening the doors and then disarming them once we areinside? That would be faster, right?” She spoke slowly. Deliberate. To her, it seemed Afton’s caution was entirely unnecessary. It was costing them time. He should be purely focused on the doors, not splitting his attention between unlocking those wards and disarming traps he couldn’t even see. Her hands clenched to fists in her lap.
Patience.
Kane let out a snort and eyed the mage with a smug smile.
Afton glared and jabbed at the paper. “Do you see how many spaces haven’t been cleared? We could get the door open, sure, but then I could take one step in there and get my head blown clean off.”
Erinna patted Kane’s shoulder. “Use him. Let him scout and you disarm.”
“Excuse me?” Kane turned to Erinna, his shoulder brushing against hers, but Erinna kept her gaze firmly planted on Afton.
“He’s capable, durable, and has great vision in the dark,” she explained.
Afton tapped his finger on his chin in thought.
Kane brushed her hand off his shoulder. “You have uncanny vision as well.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “If that will make this any faster, I accept. We’re running out of time before Haru is named Chancellor and the library is completely attuned to her. The academy will soon be at our doorstep. I’m willing to risk some arcanum traps if it means we can get what we need.”
Afton narrowed his eyes. “You sound like Kane. That’s how you get yourself killed.”
Erinna groaned and ran her hand through her hair. “We are dead regardless, if this takes too long. Surely there is something more we can be doing.”
“The protections are complex pieces of spell work and require time and care to disarm.” Something flickered in Afton’s eyes. “The builders used sigils combined with arcanum webs to protect the place. It was a practice most thought lost to time because they are quite cumbersome to create, but…” He pushed himself to one of the stacks beside Erinna. Kane reached out to grab her chair and pull her closer to avoid falling scrolls in Afton’s search.
They could have been sitting in the same seat at that point. Erinna resisted the temptation to slump against him. She was growing used to his presence, was starting to enjoy the warmth of his body as it thawed the creeping cold in hers.
Kane pulled the coded paper from one of the piles and placed it in front of her. She had been spending far too much time with him if she already understood his silent command.
She turned her attention back to Afton. “This doesn’t explain why we can’t do it on the go? Doesn’t it make sense to be inside where the traps are to disarm them?”
She could feel Kane’s shoulders shake in concealed laughter. “Is this funny to you?”
Her retort only served to widen his grin. “No, no, it’s just nice to have someone else yelling at him. Gives me a break.”
“You two are insufferable,” Afton growled and took the book back to his side of the overcrowded table. “If anyone else but me went in, they wouldn’t be able to see the spellwebs. Even I would find it difficult to see them before an explosion or trap door was triggered. That entire fort was designed like a lock, and Iprix wasthe key. We are just trying to pick it. It is safer, albeit slower, to do it all from the outside.”
Erinna watched a glow reach his eyes and the haze of power waft around him. That’s right, Afton was a strong enchanter. This was exactly what he was trained to do. He could see the threads of arcanum, pull and manipulate their properties.
“Fine. We’ll do it your way for now, but if any academy vessel gets spotted, we’ll be taking our approach.” She pointed between her and Kane.
Afton soured but complied. “Fine.”
Silence settled again as they went to their respective duties. Erinna took the page her father coded and started her work.
She wondered how they were ever going to figure it out when a slow, terrifying realization dawned on her. Did Kenneth Yarrow expect everything to go this way? That his daughter would be reading a message for a pirate and preparing to raid the Chancellor’s library.
