The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (24 page)

Ariana stood, all eagerness and determination. “Thank you.”

They collected their things and made their way back toward the city along the flat glass path.

Ariana cautiously pushed open the Strattons’ front door. It groaned like a giant beast in the silent room. She waited for someone to appear from the hall or one of the rooms, but no one did. After a minute, she took a step inside—then stopped.

Something was different.

The smell.

It was so faint, anyone else would miss it. A salty, tangy scent. Like sweat—or blood.

“Hello?” She hoped no one would appear, but she was poised to run at the slightest sign of movement within. The last thing she wanted was to meet the Strattons without Asrea there to vouch for her.

When she was certain no one was there but herself, Ariana stepped all the way inside. She closed the door tight behind her, then made her way to the room on the left. The light from outside cast a gold glow through the window, giving Ariana enough to see that the only furniture in this room was a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand. Nothing adorned the walls. No rug kept any part of the stone floor from view. She went for the dresser first, sliding the top drawer open as stealthily as she could.

Three precise rows of perfectly folded shirts. No book. No documents. She stuck a hand under the piles, feeling around for anything but the wooden bottom of the drawer. No luck.

The next drawer was the same. Only an array of dark pants folded identically and lined in darkest to lightest order. She got a sick feeling that these were Harold’s drawers, and part of her wanted to pull every piece of clothing out, crumple it up, and stuff it haphazardly back in. But she shut the drawer and checked the last one instead.

The rain was back.

She’d heard the wind increase while she searched the dresser, though it hadn’t registered until now. It was a steady drum and a heavy wind. But it wasn't real. It couldn't be. She shook off her concern and moved to the nightstand.

There was only one drawer, and it was empty except for a stubby pencil in dire need of sharpening. She dropped to her knees and peered underneath the bed. Again, nothing. The rain sounded almost like voices from under there. When she stood, however, she heard only rain. Like before, the droplets seemed to pound madly on the roof while the wind whined and whimpered.

Not willing to leave anything unturned, Ariana lifted the pillows and patted them down. Both were flimsy and worn, and neither of them yielded anything. She carefully peeled back the covers and shook her head. Of course there was nothing. But as she straightened the edge of the comforter and tucked it over the mattress, her fingers came in contact with paper.

She worked her hand into the gap between the bed and the wall, and pulled out five thick sheets of aging parchment. Hunter’s documents. Short notations in thick, unsharpened pencil lined the margins of the page with the illustration of a vial.

Tears of excitement snuck to the back of her eyes and a giggle wiggled its way out of her chest. It wasn’t the book, but it was a start. 

Elated, she folded the pages and slipped them in the gap between her boot and her calf for safe keeping. Then she practically skipped to the front room, her excitement drowning out the rain, intent on searching the bedroom she’d peeked in last time. Perhaps they’d been poring over her things that night before they left. Maybe her book would be lying forgotten beneath the covers of the other bed.

Catching sight of the armoire, she ground to a halt.

It emitted
a strange, blue-white glow that poured from the cracks in the middle block of little drawers, framing each one individually. At least, that’s how it first appeared. But after a moment, she noticed only the outer rows and columns in the square block of drawers glowed on all sides. A small square in the middle was dark except for a bright line that split the center.

Doors
! Her breath caught.

The armoire hid something that glowed like a working portal book. She didn’t pause to consider how it had been fixed. She shot forward, knowing that inside that armoire was her ticket home. It had been calling to her. Subconsciously, she must've known it was there. Why else would her brain be filled with the sounds of home?

She grabbed hold of the knobs on the middlemost drawers and pulled. The concealed doors sprang open. A wave of light and sound crashed over her, revealing the source of the rain and the glow.

It was not a book.

Balanced on a solitary shelf was the hilt of a broken dagger, a fingernail’s length of the blade still attached, the snapping point ragged and encrusted with blood.

Her
disappointment lasted only a breath. Enthralled by the illuminant colors swirling on the surface of the handle, she drew closer, and was struck with an overwhelming urge to touch it. With a shaky hand, she reached for it. The temperature around the dagger dropped steadily the closer her fingertips came to brushing against the smooth surface.

Something crystalline shattered. A high pitched tinkling beat a quick rhythm against a solid surface and the broken dagger stopped glowing.

Ariana jerked her hand back and stared, unsure what she’d done.

Without the glow, the hilt was unremarkable. Except that it stood on the delicate rounded point of the pommel, the would-be blade pointed straight up without anything to secure it. Despite the poor distribution of weight, the dagger balanced. A dusting of fine grain sand blanketed the area below it.

Beneath thin cascades of flat, silver cords, the grey-white surface of the handle was dull, the hint of a once-glossy sheen reflecting from random patches near the silver edges. The handle met the crossguard in a glob of silver that might have once depicted an image, but was too worn down to make out.

The wind and rain eased to a thin hum, as though the storm fell silent inside the dagger. It was soothing. If she touched it now, she was certain the sound would envelop her, and she would slip into a dream where she stood.

It would be a good dream. About home.

She could almost smell the wet grass, the cool Autumn rain splashing against the cobbled streets of Eastridge, the flour from the bakery drifting in the chill wind.

Her hand gravitated toward the hilt again. The smells were intoxicating. All she had to do was close her fingers around the handle and it would whisk her away to Ionia.

“It’s in your head, girl.”

Ariana yelped and whirled around, her trance broken. The sound dispersed like smoke on the wind.

Harold stared coldly at her from the hallway. A bruise bloomed on his jaw.

George, eyes as wide as the swelling cut across his forehead would allow, stood beside him. “Get back from it."

A third face appeared from the gloom of the hall, lit by firefly light seeping through a door she hadn’t noticed.

His dark, deadly eyes met hers.

Ariana froze.

“
Bintaro
,” she whispered, fear and anger icing over her veins.

“Grab her,” the boy ordered.

Chapter 19

Ariana paced in her cell. A new one, since she'd broken the lock on the first one. “This is so unfair!”

Her hoarse voice echoed through the empty hall. She’d been yelling non-stop for hours, and she wouldn’t quit until her vocal cords gave out.

On her next pass, she kicked the leg of the flimsy metal bed frame. Its rusty squeal was hardly satisfactory. “I wasn’t after that gorsed thing, I swear it!”

A soft, apologetic voice issued from the darkness. “They know that.”

Ariana planted a foot and spun around. “Asrea?”

Her silver-grey eyes cut through the darkness around her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, pulling a jangling set of keys from the deep pockets of her dark red skirt. “I should've stayed with you.”

Her anger lost its footing. “It’s not
your
fault.”

Asrea thrust a key into the lock and turned it. “I’m the one who helped you escape to begin with.” She swung the door open. “So, it is.”

Ariana smiled through a frown. “If helping me escape was the problem, why are you doing it again?”

“George. He came looking for me. He was really angry. But I told him everything you told me, and with my mother’s help, I convinced him to let you out.”

Ariana eyed her, unmoving. “Really. That’s it? I’m free?” It was too easy.

Asrea pinched her lips together. “Yes. But… you’re restricted to certain areas and… I’m not to let you out of my sight.”

Ariana nodded.
That
she’d expected. She sighed, then shrugged. “Whatever gets me back in the spare bed at your house again tonight instead of on this awful thing.” She kicked the leg of the bed again.

Asrea seemed relieved. “I agree,” she said, taking Ariana’s hand and guiding her down the hall.

“What about the Fyr— the boy?” He was a confessed killer. She had heard him say the words. The Strattons had no reason for taking orders from him. Their actions in the house was foreboding.

“What boy?” Asrea asked.

Ariana gripped her hand tight and dragged her to a stop. “There was a boy with them. Didn’t you see him?” She hadn’t meant to sound so panicked.

Asrea frowned. “No. I only saw George.”

So he was with Harold. If he was still in Bolengard, then he ought to be in the prison. But they’d stuck her on the second floor. There was no way they could've gone to the higher levels without passing by her.

“Ariana?”

She shook her focus back into place. “Yeah.”

“This boy…?”

How could she tell her the Strattons might very well have brought a murderer—most definitely a Fyrennian—into Bolengard? She couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she knew what the Strattons were doing with him. She had Hunter’s documents tucked safely in her boot. She would read through them and piece together what they were doing to prove that they were jeopardizing the safety of this city. She’d have to work fast—and secretly.

“Must've been an errand boy or something,” she said, waving off the image of Bintaro's murderous eyes with guilt roiling in her stomach.

“Oh.” Asrea stood still for a moment longer, lost in thought. Then she gave Ariana’s hand a squeeze and fell into step again. “Come. You’ve had too much exposure to the Strattons. It’s time you met some normal people.”

Ariana snorted. “You have those here?”

Asrea’s laugh filled the stairwell. “A few.” She regarded Ariana with such warmth. It was a sudden, painful reminder of Tehya—one that remained with her for the rest of the walk to Asrea’s.

They reached the archway that rose from the low stone wall surrounding her neighborhood square, and crossed into the courtyard. Asrea’s square was one of several in the area with a spark willow in its center. The light painted each house front in a soft golden tone, regardless of its actual color. It enhanced their already attractive facades. These houses were equal in style and craftsmanship to those in the nicer neighborhood in Eastridge, near the water. The ones with space between each house, and no additional levels built on later. The only difference was that the houses in Eastridge were pieced together with stone and wood, while the houses in most of Bolengard appeared to be carved from stone. But unless she looked closely, it was impossible to tell.

They followed the walkway that bordered the tiny communal yard to the back left corner of the square, where Asrea’s taupe, two-story house sat waiting.

Asrea hopped the step and opened the door, waving Ariana ahead of her. She stepped inside, where a hallway and a set of stairs faced her like a fork in the road. To the left of the hall was a spacious sitting room, made cozy by dark floors, walls, and furniture. A few of Jace and Oren's toys lay sprawled on the floor. To the right of the stairs was an office with a wall full of immaculately organized books and a desk flooded with boxes and papers.

The sound of laughter tunneled down the hallway.

“I guess they started already,” Asrea noted.

“They?”

“My mother is having a dinner party,” she explained.

Ariana chuckled. "Well that's incredibly... normal."

"That's what you would think," Asrea said, grinning.

They moved down the hall as voices filtered toward them. Ariana did her best to ignore the images of Asrea and her family, framed in a gallery along the wall, caught in moments of happiness in various places in Bolengard. When she had seen them the night before, jealousy and self-pity had invaded her heart. There were no pictures on the walls back home. None in the drawers or tucked between the pages of books. Her mother refused to have them.
For our safety, Ariana,
she had said.
For the same reason I disguise the house and myself. I cannot be recognized or I don't have a job anymore.

"The War of Fire?" someone said, pulling Ariana from her thoughts.

"Most of my audience lived through it." That sounded like Madame Dae.

"The Ruins of Grodaan, then?" a man suggested.

"In Corday?" A woman's voice.

"You were there as a girl, weren't you Oriel?" A different man.

"I was," answered a deep-voiced woman.

"That gives us a new perspective," said the first man. "Would it hold up alone?"

The voices fell silent as the girls entered a well-lit kitchen where an oversized, rectangular table dominated the space. It was surrounded by an eclectic group of five adults, all, apparently, deep in thought.

Maiza sat at the head of the table, looking the part of storyteller in her many shawls.

To her left was an oaken-skinned man in a black shirt. There was an air about him that told her he held a position of great influence, but he looked utterly relaxed, one shiny black boot propped on the crossbar of the chair to his left. Which was occupied by a woman with striking, seashell-pink skin. She looked to be in her early twenties. Her blonde hair, barely darker than her skin, was pulled back in an intricate woven bun and her shirt, while buttoned to her throat, still retained a certain elegance and stylishness. Her gaze was trained on the ceiling, her eyes unfocused.

Then she looked at them and her honey eyes sparkled.

“Hallo, Asrea,” she said.

The others broke their thoughtful poses and looked over as well.

“Hallo, Solaine.” Asrea dipped her head.

"And Ariana," Maiza exclaimed warmly. "Well met."

"And you," Ariana replied.

The man with the shiny boots gave her a surprisingly friendly smile. “Hallo, Ariana. I’m Master Crowe.” Crowe. The name suited him. Except that he had wide, smoky green eyes—not beady black ones.

The broad-shouldered woman to Maiza’s right stood, pressing back the billowy stomach of her shapeless orange dress with her hand. She nodded, her brown-grey hair dripping in luxurious curls over prominent cheek bones. Despite her large stature, which seemed to shrink the room, her movements and features were feminine—demure, even. She reminded Ariana of Madame Tenner from the Dusty Shelf. Only… bigger. “I’m Madame Oriel LeMeureau.”

A small, balding man beside her laughed—a honking goose laugh—and slapped his knee.

Madame LeMeureau tucked her chin and eyed him crossly.

He wasn’t really that small, but next to Madame LeMeureau it didn’t matter. He clucked at her. “My, a bit formal for a friend of our dear Asrea, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose,” Madame LeMeureau retorted. “But not for a distinguished guest, such that she is.”

Ariana scrunched her face in confusion. “Me?”

Maiza stood. “Oriel,” she said, a playful warning in her voice. “Don’t scare the poor girl.” She turned to Ariana. “The fact that an Ionian is here in Bolengard has a few of us
overly
excited,” she explained. “Please, join us. Both of you.”

Asrea went for the chair opposite her mother, so Ariana seated herself beside her, two chairs down from the honker.

“Where’s Master Hallowell?” Asrea asked.

“He’s finishing a project for Master VanDaren,” her mother replied. “He estimated his arrival precisely at dinner.”

Asrea chuckled.

“Now, where were we?” she asked the group.

The honker leaned over to Ariana. “I’m Milton Frumple, by the way,” he whispered.

“Nice to meet you,” she whispered back.

He winked. “Nowhere, as usual,” he said loudly, turning back to the group.

It was quiet for a moment, but not awkwardly so. In fact it was the most comfortable silence Ariana had experienced since she'd entered the city. Which was saying something, since the lulls in her conversations with Asrea last night, their soft voices carrying across the darkened room, were as comfortable as those she shared with Tehya.

"What about the Onyx Vial?" Solaine suggested after a moment, her eyes falling on Ariana.

Maiza turned to Master Crowe. “Is it possible to have the information gathered by your department?”

Ariana noticed a navy coat with shiny silver buttons, similar to Master VanDaren's, draped over the back of his chair. Clearly, he was an important Shadow official. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment. “I believe, considering your intended purpose for that information, it is within your access rights.”

Maiza brightened. “Wonderful. How soon can we expect to have it?”

Master Crowe tapped his temple. “It’s all in here.”

Maiza eyed Asrea. “Will my daughter or her guest breach the rights?”

A knot formed in Ariana's stomach.

Master Crowe’s face took on a conspiratorial gleam. He leaned in and spoke softly in Maiza’s ear. Ariana caught only fragments. “…evidence … Dragon … remains … time … threat … with it … your daughter … regarding … no … witness … She … our side.”

Anticipation rattled through the room, skittering over Ariana’s flesh and lodging itself in her chest.

Maiza nodded. “I understand.” She turned to Ariana, her mouth set in a grim line.

Ariana’s heart sank. So she wasn’t trusted to be part of the conversation after all. Sure, she had other things to deal with at the moment, but she would've liked to be included—to be a Shadow in more than just name
—
especially in a conversation with influential members regarding such a legendary mystery as the Onyx Vial.

"You must promise me that what you hear in this conversation remains with you."

Ariana gaped. "You mean I'm included?"

Maiza smiled. "Why, yes, of course,
Keemeone
."

She was suddenly light-headed, and honored. So this is what it felt like to be included.

"Asrea, my love, would you be so kind as to retrieve my documents on this from the office?" The warmth in Maiza's voice stung. It had been too long since Ariana had heard that tone from her own mother.

"The ones you showed me a few days ago?" Asrea asked.

Maiza nodded and turned to Master Crowe. "
Ramse. While my daughter searches, let us discuss what we know, by truth and speculation.”

"The Onyx Vial was hidden by a member of the Fyrennian family more than two hundred years ago," Solaine said.

“Truth,” said Madame LeMeureau. “An exile, I believe.”

“That last bit’s speculation," Frumple countered.

“If not an exile, then who—with the name Fyrenn—would relinquish the Onyx Vial?” LeMeureau replied.

“Gunnar Fyrenn,” Frumple retorted.

“Only
after
he’d used it,” LeMeureau fired back.

Master Crowe cleared his throat. “Perhaps Solaine's suggestion, and Milton and Oriel’s addition, should remain within speculation."

Milton
humfphed.

“On that note,” Crowe plowed on. “A confirmed truth: Contrary to popular theory, the Onyx Vial was
not
used in the Great Unraveling.”

“Its
contents
were,” Maiza added.

“That’s a truth?” Ariana wondered aloud.

Maiza cocked a brow and smiled conspiratorially. 

“Truth.” Solaine continued. “It’s fatal to the touch.”