“Cyric’s,” Jubilee said. “Do you want to guess where they ought to be on the board?”
“You’re determined to teach me this game,” Saeldian grumbled. “Faith of Selûne, is it? And we need three pieces on the board in a certain place, and then we move them to finish the game?”
“That’s what those footmen set, I’m sure.”
“Right. Since you called the game Faith of Selûne, white wins, even if Shar and her Mother Superior are on this side of the board ready to catch Lathander—”
“Cyric’s knight-errant is in its original place,” Kell interrupted. “Selûne is at Cyric’s priest’s six; her priest is at Shar’s six. It’s black’s move.” Two sets of disapproving stares. But Kell didn’t care. “How long until the guards come back? Teach lanceboard later. Who can jump from here to Cyric’s knight’s eight? Since we’re on the wrong side of the board.”
Saeldian pointed at the diagram. “That one off to the side. Where Selûne would sit once she was taken off the board.”
“Do you want to—”
Saeldian had already stepped out onto the floor. Kell held his breath, but nothing. They leapt over the pressure-plated square with a little jeté, then hopped to Selûne’s place on the board.
Nothing happened. But the footmen had jumped together…
Beside him, Lorzok said, “Knight.”
Two puffs of silvery mist settled gently to the ground as Lorzok and Jubilee took their places.
Saeldian waved from their place on the board, and Lorzok waved back. “Black to move? Black knight-errant takes Selûne.”
They both leapt—Saeldian to the space where the captured queen would rest; Lorzok landing neatly in the space Saeldian surrendered.
Jubilee smiled at Lorzok in thanks. “Selûne’s priest to Cyric’s seven. Checkmate.”
She stepped onto the plate, and the air went a bit slack. The music wafted more clearly into the loft. And further into the gallery, twenty tiny lights flared against the walls and went dark.
“That’s the key trap handled,” Jubilee said. “What do you think they’ve done to the display?”
Saeldian carefully hopped over a square that probably had a pressurized plate. “This is a labyrinth, isn’t it? But does it take avoiding the plates or stepping on them?”
Jubilee took out a folded scrap of paper and a costly pencil that had been used down to a stub and sketched it. She frowned at it.“Pressure plates surrounding each of the pedestals. But a thief who didn’t know that activating the lanceboard trap was the key would avoid the pressure plates…if they had managed to case the gallery well enough to know where they were…”
This was taking too long. “We’re down five minutes by now. Avoid the plates,” Kell said. “It’s obvious.”
“Six minutes,” Saeldian said. “But what if—”
Kell had already moved, ignoring the rich gold-leaf frames resting on deep brown walls to step on a walnut square that hadn’t been marked on Jubilee’s sketch, just as Lorzok put his hands up to cover his peripheral vision and mutter a word, then gasp, “Don’t!”
Just as something under Kell’s feet clicked. In the recesses between the fancy chair rail and the carved oak panels, small blue lights glowed and then dimmed as if they had all blinked simultaneously. Saeldian stage-whispered, “Get down!”
Kell pushed away his annoyance at being ordered around by Saeldian and accepted the wisdom of their command.
He curled to keep himself from touching another pressure-activated plate. Above him, the blue lights blinked again and then dimmed.
“I believe I may have acted unwisely,” Kell said.
Jubilee snorted. Saeldian cut their finger across their lips.Shut it,that annoyed gesture said. They turned to Lorzok. “What do you see?”
“Divination spells. A dozen on each wall, exactly across from each other. And near the ceiling—”
“Transmutation spells,” Saeldian said. “Don’t move, Kell.”
“Not planning on it.”
“Good boy.”
