“The shield is missing,” Karigan said. It would have been a small, plain black shield representing the Order of the Black Shields, the Weapons.
“One of my predecessors decided he could not take a chance of the symbol being recognized,” the professor said, “so he carved it off. Alas, he did not save the piece. Not that I know of, at any rate.”
“So they made more than one.”
The professor nodded, seeming to know who “they” were. “I was quite astonished to see yours. I had assumed there’d been others, but I believed them destroyed or lost.”
Karigan returned the cane to the professor, wondering where and how his “predecessor” had found it, but before she could ask him, he set it back on its shelf and moved down the aisle for several strides, stopping when he came upon a work table situated between two shelving units. She hurried to catch up, and there she saw her uniform laid out on a length of linen with utmost care, no matter it was ragged and dirty and blood-splattered by her travails in Blackveil. Her winged horse brooch gleamed golden in the phosphorene glow and she reached out to caress it. It felt as it always had—oily smooth and cool. There were her muddy boots, too, and belt, and the white feather of the winter owl, and of course her own bonewood cane.
Her mother’s moonstone sat nested in crumpled purple velvet. She picked it up, but it still emitted only a feeble dying light.
“Is that really . . . ?” the professor began in awe. “Not just a legend?”
“If you are thinking it’s an Eletian moonstone, you’d be correct.” Karigan replaced it, hesitant to hold it too long as if her touch would use up its remaining magic. When the light winked out, the professor’s expression fell.
“So many things we have lost with the empire,” he murmured. “So many wonders.”
The professor had even kept the broken Eletian arrow shafts that had been used to splint Karigan’s broken wrist, and beside them, she was pleased to see, the mirror shards that had been removed from her flesh, still hazed with her blood. They were laid out on the velvet.
“I would like my belongings back,” she said.
“I have deemed it safer to keep these objects well out of sight,” the professor said. “I’m sorry, but I cannot permit them inside my home. I would not wish them to be found either by accident or by prying eyes.”
“What about this building? How safe is it?”
“It is watched, and if it’s breached, it’s quite easy to destroy the evidence, though the loss of these objects that are so priceless to me would be extreme, to say the least.”
Karigan’s eyebrows scrunched together, his reference to destruction not reassuring her. “I breached the building.”
The professor smiled enigmatically. “If that’s the way you’d like to think of it.”
Karigan scowled. So they had been expecting her. “I’d at least like my walking cane back—to support my bad leg.” She would take it even if he said no. Her hand twitched as she resisted the urge to just grab it.
“Bad leg, indeed. It’s done magnificently with all the stairs you used to get here. No, my dear, I understand completely the desire to have a weapon close to hand, but I can’t take the chance of anyone seeing that symbol on it, no matter how subtle.”
Karigan was about to argue, but the professor’s raised hand forestalled her. “I shall lend you mine. People have seen me use it now and again and won’t think twice at my niece’s having it, especially with her very delicate leg.”
“What about you? You won’t be able to use it.”
“Oh, I have several walking canes to choose from, my dear, and all of them quite as lethal, if not more so, than your own.” He winked and brushed past her, heading back down the aisle, presumably to retrieve his bonewood cane for her.
She turned to follow with one last glance at her belongings. Her reflection fell fractured and distorted on the mirror shards. One eye, part of her mouth, and the tip of her nose. The reflections rippled and changed, and instead of revealing parts of her own visage, she saw, like a kaleidoscope scene, a tiny image of Captain Mapstone walking in a rough stone corridor in each fragment, all featuring a different angle, a different distance. Karigan almost called out to the captain, who glanced over her shoulder.
“What’s this?” Professor Josston exclaimed, and Karigan started, darting her gaze at him down the aisle. He knelt, peering intently at the floor. “Tsk, tsk,” he said. “Mouse droppings. I shall need Cade to set more traps.”
Karigan exhaled a breath she had not known she was holding. A glance revealed the images of Captain Mapstone were gone, and the shards were back to reflecting her own face. Without hesitation she grabbed the largest mirror shard, which fit in the palm of her hand, and concealed it in her shawl.
The looking mask may have been shattered into hundreds of pieces, but even in this future where magic failed, something of its power remained.
In the present: Captain Mapstone
The flickering lamps along the rough stone walls of the corridor barely pushed back the dark that perpetually suffused this part of the castle. It was always noticeably cooler in these lower regions, as well. Laren Mapstone shivered, but not from the cold. These corridors she walked, on her way to the records room in the administrative wing, were among the oldest in the castle, and she often sensed she was not alone; the lateness of the hour only contributed to the feeling. She glanced over her shoulder as if someone’s gaze touched her. It was not the first time the sensation had come over her, and of course no one was there. She hastened her step.