Page 23 of Strength of Desire

I considered my words for a moment before saying to Autumn, “You said you were with students during the attack?”

“Yes,” she said, with a confident nod. “Advanced Artifice. Room 207.”

No defensiveness there.

I looked over at Hans. “And you were…”

“I was in the faculty lounge,” he said quickly. His knuckles were white as he gripped the grimoire. “I told Isaac that already. Do you want to talk to any of the other faculty who were there? I’m sure I could ask them to—”

“No, no, not at all.” I held up my hands, trying to calm Hans down. “No, I’m just trying to figure out how long it took for word of the attack to spread. As soon as the moraghin were dead, I went to Isaac’s office to inform him. But it sounds like you guys knew about the attack before that.”

“Well, yeah.” Autumn wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what Hans explained to you, but as a wardkeeper, you’re looped into the matrix of the spell, and if it’s breached, you’re alerted. It’s like a little chime going off in your mind. Well, that’s what itwaslike. Now, with the changes to the spell, we’ll feel it physically if they fail.”

“I did explain that,” Hans said quickly. “It was right when I was telling him about—”

“It’s okay,” I said, holding my hands up again. “I’m sure you did. I’m just a little dense about this stuff.”

In fact, I’d gathered that they were immediately alerted to the wards’ failure back at the faculty meeting, but I was curious how they’d react if I pushed them on their whereabouts.

“So you guys got here pretty quickly,” I continued. “And then Teresa and Sheridan came later?”

“Yeah, but not much later,” Autumn said. “I think Teresa was finishing up a class as well, down on the first floor. And Sheridan said he was in his rooms.”

“He was the last to arrive,” Hans said emphatically. “For what it’s worth.”

Autumn gave him a look that clearly said, ‘So what?’

Hans shrank, hugging the grimoire to his chest. “I’m just saying, it took him longer to get here than the rest of us. We were already checking the spell to find where it had broken when he showed up. Teresa had just found the breach between the fifth and sixth grid coalescences. Remember? You and I were running the south perimeter circlet through the scrubbing manifestor when Teresa said, ‘Wait, what’s this?’ And then you turned to look at her, and I was still holding the threads when Sheridan came in and asked, ‘What the hell happened to the damn wards?’”

When he finished speaking, he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Autumn looked at him, equal parts baffled and amazed.

“If you say so,” she said. “To be honest, my memory of that day is a little fuzzy. There was a lot of panic in the air.”

“I wish mine were fuzzy,” Hans said glumly. “I keep having nightmares about the wards breaking again.”

I considered the two of them. Was Hans laying it on a little thick with his suspicion of Sheridan? Was Autumn a little too quick to dismiss his concerns? Would it be worth looking into why Sheridan took so long to arrive? And what about Teresa?

There was just no way to know. I’d have to investigate all of them. Dammit. I hadn’t narrowed anything down today at all.

“Well, I should be getting back.” I jutted a thumb over my shoulder vaguely. “I appreciate you showing this to me, though.” I clapped Hans on the arm, and he jumped. “It puts my mind at ease.”

“Happy to—happy to help,” he stammered.

I nodded at Autumn, then headed for the door. I was careful not to touch the spell as I circled the room, and was relieved to get out into the hallway.

Magic didn’t make me nervous, exactly, but the spells I was used to were battle spells, hexes and curses. They were sharp and strong, but short, flashing through the air, then disappearing. Nothing like that web of power holding up the green jewel—or held up by it. I still wasn’t clear on Hans’s explanation.

I closed the door, and the spell, firmly behind me, and went to get ready for my next class.

7

CORY

The bell had just tolled the start of lunch as I followed Cordelia Jefferson, the head of Hearth, back to Hearth Haven’s headquarters. We took a winding route through the grounds, following first one path, then the next. Finally, Cordelia stopped and spread her hands out.

“Home sweet home.” She smiled fondly.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what she was gesturing to. All I saw were trees and hummocks of snow-covered moss, and a low sandstone ridge rising up from the forest floor. It wasn’t until we followed the path to the end, right at the base of that rocky promontory, that I realized what I was looking at.

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