Page 22 of The Fifth Heir

“The wards retaliate.”

“How severely?”

“That depends on the force applied.”

Rafe straightened. “Now I want to try.”

“No,” Leander and Malcolm said together.

A brief smile returned to Rafe’s face. “That almost sounded rehearsed.”

Leander did not look at him. Malcolm’s expression suggested he had already begun regretting the Prism’s taste in Storm heirs.

Sebastian crouched before the western lock. He had been studying it since we arrived, careful not to touch the runes after Malcolm warned him twice. Dark hair fell across his forehead as he leaned closer.

“The wards aren’t protecting the rooms from us,” he said. “They are protecting something inside the rooms from an incomplete group.”

“There is nothing inside except furnishings and ceremonial records,” Malcolm replied.

“Then why do the locks recognize all four heirs and still refuse them?”

Malcolm offered no answer.

The headmaster stood in the center of the rotunda with both hands clasped behind his back. He had spoken very little since our arrival, allowing Malcolm to test each door while he watched the results.

“What did the previous heirs do?” Torren asked.

“Their torcs assigned the quarters,” Leander said. “The doors opened as soon as they approached.”

“Separately?”

“Yes.”

Torren looked at the four sealed entrances. “Maybe separating us is the problem.”

Leander’s expression remained controlled, but tension sharpened his voice. “Four heirs have occupied these quarters every century since the tower was built.”

“Four heirs were selected every century,” Sebastian said.

Malcolm rose from the eastern lock. “And four were selected today.”

Silence settled over the rotunda.

All of them looked at me.

I tightened my grip on the satchel strap. “I’m not stopping the doors.”

“We know,” Torren said.

It was the first thing any of them had said directly to me.

His voice was deeper than I expected, firm without being unkind. He did not sound as though he were comforting me or dismissing the possibility that my presence mattered. He was simply stating what the four failed locks had already demonstrated.

For reasons I could not explain, the certainty in his tone loosened something in my chest.

I swallowed. “I could leave the tower. Perhaps they’ll open if I’m farther away.”

The headmaster looked at me. “Try.”