The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (23 page)

What? No. They didn’t know what they were saying. How could he learn the truth about his parents if he didn't get into Ruekridge?

Please give your student the tome attached. Until such time that we can locate Master Philpps (see page as marked) for an apprenticeship…

An apprenticeship? For
what
? He didn’t want to learn a trade. He wanted to survive.

…your student will remain in Academy enrollment.

Great. This day was turning out just great. He had a pile of worthless maybe-clues to a past that didn’t exist, and now this. They’d dangle the possibility of Ruekridge, then they’d snatch it away the moment they found this Master Philpps.

“What’s it say?” Dilyn asked.

“Read it if you want.” He flicked the page toward the center of the table. He stared at his empty drinks, then slipped from his chair. “I need another drink,” he grumbled, and stalked off into the crowd in search of Madame Tenner.

Chapter 18

Ariana and Asrea lay in a glittering field of black glass shards, shaded from the firefly sun by a willow thick with ember branches and gold-fleck leaves.

The glass was smooth just beneath the tree—the result, Asrea confided, of a season of work removing the shards and replacing them on their sides like pavers. A path of the same making meandered covertly through the field and curled into the deepest shadows of the cavern wall looming fifty strides away. It was a secret, Asrea had said. Ariana was the first person she'd ever showed.

“I have a surprise for you,” Asrea said, rolling onto her side and propping herself on her elbow.

Ariana raised a brow. “What kind?”

“Something to lift your spirits.”

Unless it was her portal books or a re-enrollment letter from Ruekridge, Ariana doubted Asrea had anything that would do the job. She yawned, too aware of the fitful, worry-laden sleep this mess had caused her. She felt so… stranded.

The sound of rain hadn’t helped matters. It had reached her in the middle of the night, the normally calming sound now an eerie, taunting entity that prodded her with spindly fingers and whispered life into her fears.

She sat up, turned her thoughts to the moment at hand—where there was a semblance of peace and security.

“I know you’re disappointed about the portal book,” Asrea said. “But you aren’t completely cut off from home.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can still send a letter to your family. Let them know you’re alive.”

Ariana shook her head. “You said last night you don’t have far-reaching Postal quills in Bolengard. And we didn’t find
mine
.”

Asrea smiled widely, the shimmering red-gold light from the tree reflected like stars in her bright, grey eyes. “True. But we aren't in Ionia. Postal quills aren't the only way.” She pulled a small, chain-mesh bag from the satchel of food she’d brought for them.

Corners of the object inside the bag created little pyramids in the surface of the mesh. The spaces between the chains were too small to see what it was, but it wasn’t a postal quill.

“My mother isn’t getting on well with the Heledian Council -– that man she was speaking with yesterday, Master Whelin? He’s one of them.” She untied a knotted cord at the top of the mesh bag. “They overwork my father, and when he’s topside, they overwork us in his stead.”

Ariana felt again the guilt of bemoaning a life so much better than Asrea’s, when the girl, despite her circumstances, radiated such genuine positivity. If Ariana could see through Asrea’s eyes for just one day, what would it be like? Would she have been able to her mother’s decision with grace, instead of running away?

“So it wasn’t much to convince my mother to let me borrow…” Asrea pulled the cord with a flourish, “these.”

With a metallic twinkling
whoosh
the mesh slumped like heavy drapery, pooling on the ground around a square cage the size of a shoebox. A clump of something shiny wriggled inside.

“I've got to return them by dark, though,” she said as she freed the latch on the top of the cage and swung the side open.

Three finger-length winged dragons sauntered onto the smooth glass ground between them. One was red and gold with black wings, another was coral and rusty orange with silver wings, and the third was tan and white, its wings a violent shade of red. Each one had tiny scales and perfect, minuscule claws.

Ariana gasped. They were real, pocket-sized dragons. She leaned in so far to peer at them that her breath fluttered their gossamer wings.

“Ever seen a dragonfly before?” Asrea asked, laughter in her voice.

Ariana nodded. “In a book once. They’re not native to Ionia.”

“Not the right climate,” Asrea said.

The black winged dragonfly lifted off the ground and hovered over the other two. It pounced at the one with red wings, which had seen the attack coming and whirled out of the way. The black-winged dragon smashed into the ground instead. Its skull made a plinking noise when it connected with the glass. It stood quickly and shook its head, then flattened its wings to its back and chased after the other, catching one of the red wings in its mouth and pulling it down on its side.

“But… how are they going to help me send a letter anywhere?”

They wrestled around, shooting matchstick blasts of flame at one another or grabbing hold of their tails with their teeth.

“These are Council-trained messengers, believe it or not. They’re used for communications between my Shadows and yours.”

Ariana was surprised.The creatures sniffed out the ways between worlds, and were small and agile enough to wriggle into otherwise inaccessible places. But, “How is that possible? They’d need portal—Oh.”
Of course
. “King Fyrenn.”

“Yes," Asrea said. "They often get intercepted though.”

Ariana thought of what must happen to the ones were caught. She shuddered, feeling sadness descend on her.

The silver-winged dragonfly slunk, unnoticed by the other two, to Ariana’s hand. She eyed it, keeping as still as she could while it clambered onto her fingers. It hunched and spread its wings, then let out a mouse-squeak roar.

Ariana chuckled and lifted her hand. The dragonfly rode upward, his head cocked to the side, watching her with wide, curious, opalescent eyes. “So I should be careful what I write, then?” she asked, holding the tiny creature up to her face. It snuffled at her skin like a puppy, then stretched out his tiny neck, his nose almost reaching hers. He sneezed. Two black rings of smoke the scent of campfire rose from his nostrils.

Asrea’s laugh rang into the open field, the echo refracting like light off a million little prisms. The dragonflies on the ground shot into the air. The one on Ariana’s hand scrambled in panic, then darted down her arm and into her sleeve. Asrea clapped her hand over her mouth, cutting the laugh short, as the other dragonflies hovered, their wings beating furiously, gravity dragging them back to the ground. Ariana lifted her arm.

Her dragonfly’s tail hung out the end of her elbow-length sleeve. She could feel his little claws digging into her skin like blunt-tipped pins. Then he scurried around inside her sleeve, tickling her arm, and poked his head out to check for danger. His eyes were as wide as a Klink—which was a lot for such a tiny creature. But he decided there was nothing to fear and climbed back onto her fingers.

“You have wings, you know,” Ariana told him.

Asrea snickered, then asked, “You want to write your letter now?”

She did. She
really
did. Except, there was no way writing her mother a letter would help her get home. All it would do was give the woman a chance to berate her in a reply before she did it again in person.

But it wasn’t right to let her mother suffer in the uncertainty of her only child’s whereabouts. For all she knew, Ariana might be dead. No matter what she’d done, she didn’t deserve that worry. “Okay."

Asrea dug in her satchel again. “I’ll have to read it—to check that it complies with the Code.”

“The what?”

“Cautionary Delivery Code.”

Ariana shrugged. “I don’t mind.” Maybe if she was cryptic enough, her mother wouldn’t reply angry.

Asrea handed Ariana a pen and a sheet of paper the texture of cloth. Ariana rolled onto her stomach, careful not to squash the dragonflies, and laid the paper flat. Her dragonfly waddled off her finger and over to the top left corner of the page, where it curled up, laid its head on its front legs, and lazily eyed her pen.

The letter needed to be short, vague. But she feared that as soon as she started writing, the words would funnel from her brain to the pen without checking with her first.

Mme. Emory: Rockwood Clearing, Eastridge Township, Ladria, Ionia:

I’m safe. But too far for you to come looking for me, so please don’t try.
I didn’t run away.

She blacked that last sentence out. Her mother could think that if she wanted.

I went to our owl-eyed friend and did what you forbade me to. I don’t regret it.

A knot formed in her throat.

I’m seeing first-hand what a difference I could make in the worlds. The lives I could change—they’re worth risking my own.

Her hand was shaking. Lawks. She hadn’t realized how angry she still was.

I love you.

Despite everything.

I’ll contact you again if I can.

She stopped there, afraid to let herself write more.  She set the pen down and slid over, not wanting to pick up the page and disturb the dragonfly. “Alright, it’s yours,” she said.

Asrea scooted in. The red and black-winged dragonflies took to the air and landed on her shoulder. Ariana watched her read, and her heart dropped. What would the girl with the perfect family think of the mother and daughter who couldn't even get along in a letter?

Asrea’s face shifted through several emotions, and landed on something like watered-down disconcertion. “Looks like it passes the Code,” Asrea said. Her eyes didn’t meet Ariana’s as she patted the head of the silver-winged dragonfly with her fingertip. “Up you get, little one,” she told it. “You have work to do.”

The dragonfly stood and stretched, his spine as straight as an arrow, his tail as long and rigid as a pick. Then he relaxed, turned his head to Ariana, and loosed another squeaky roar—as ferocious as a mewing kitten.

“He’s ready,” Asrea said, slipping the letter out from under him and rolling it into a tight tube with the address showing. She closed her eyes and palmed the letter. Then she set it in front of the dragonfly. The tube didn’t unfurl.

“What’d you do there?” Ariana asked. “Seal it?”

Asrea nodded.

The dragonfly looped his tail around the letter and lifted off the ground. They followed his flight until he disappeared beyond the willow’s branches, then Asrea plucked the other two from her shoulders and placed them back in their cage. “You and your mother don’t get along?” she asked, casually.

Ariana sighed. “Not these days, no.”

“Why?”

Ariana hesitated. After what Asrea had said when they were talking about Ariana's father, she couldn't help feel a little embarrassed to admit it.
“Because I want to be Master of Words.”

Asrea's eyes widened. But she didn't speak immediately. She was thoughtful as she pulled the drawstring on the chain mesh and cinched the dragonfly cage back into the bag. “She forbade you to have the one that brought you here, I'm guessing?”

“Any of them, really. But, yes. She hates that I study them. It scares her that I want to be involved with something so dangerous.”

Asrea tilted her head back. “It certainly isn't the safest line of work.” She dropped her chin and looked Ariana in the eye. “But she hasn’t
really
taken anything away from you. Just her approval.” She meant it to be encouraging, it seemed.

Ariana shook her head. “She took away the only thing that matters. She pulled me out of Ruekridge. So I won't have the opportunity to learn anything more about writing portal books than what I’ve already taught myself.”

Asrea shrugged. "You can learn a lot for yourself if you just find the right resources and people to help you.”

"Maybe. In some cases." She thought of Maiza and Asrea's skills. "Like yours. But in my case, I need access to the school library. All my resources are kept there. And my mother definitely isn't 'the right people.'"

She wanted to go home, but really, there was nothing there for her but an overbearing mother. Part of her wondered if losing the portal book was a good thing. And then she thought about what it would mean for her—for the Shadows of both worlds—if she fixed it on her own. How could her mother deny her Ruekridge if both the Ionian and the Heledian Councils bore witness to her abilities? She couldn’t. They’d talk her down.

“Asrea. I need to go back to the Strattons’ house.”
              “Why? We searched it.”

“We looked in the bag. But maybe they moved the book to somewhere else.”

Asrea didn’t meet Ariana’s gaze. She rubbed the surface of the black glass tile beside her as if she saw a smudge in it. “There was nowhere else to hide it.”

Ariana studied Asrea closely. “You don’t want me to go back. Why?”

“No, I—it’s nothing to do with you.”

“Then why? You know how important this is to me.”

Asrea sighed, and a real frown marred her face. “It’s just… I felt ill there last time. I don’t know what it is because I’ve never had that sensation before. But I just… It didn't feel right when I was in the house. Like my insides were shrinking or… disappearing.”

“Really?” Rather than deter her, this news only intensified her desire to return. Something was in that house and it was affecting them both. Was it what the Strattons thought she and Bintaro were after? Her intuition said yes. “You can stay outside if you like. But I’ve got to go back in. I won’t be settled until I’ve checked again and I know for sure that it’s there or not.”

Asrea chewed her bottom lip, apparently quite upset. But Ariana didn’t let herself fall into empathy. She waited Asrea out and didn’t give. Finally, Asrea’s expression fluttered back to its natural state and she drew in a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll walk with you there, then I’ll go return these two.” She patted the bag. “That should be enough time for you to search. Once I’m finished, I’ll come back for you. Just don't ask me to go in.”