“You’re sure they’re not keeping the Core Analytica somewhere more secure?” Gyre asked.
“Not unless they’ve moved it in the last couple of days,” Kit said, and yawned. “Elariel’s constructs confirmed they took it there. And I don’t see any reason why they would move it; they don’t know what it is.”
“We don’t know what it is.”
“I mean they don’t know it’s important. They cleared out the storehouse to keep all the crap they pulled out of Raskos’ stash before they can drag it back to Order headquarters and … burn it, or whatever they do with ‘unsanctioned arcana.’” Kit snorted. “Such a waste of good scavenging.”
“If you’re wrong, this is all going to be worse than useless,” Gyre said. “We won’t get an easy shot at them again.”
“Unless you have a way to get past a locked steel door without anyone noticing, we’ll have to take the risk.” Kit sat up straighter and dusted off her coat. “But it’ll be there.” She eyed him sidelong. “Starting to worry now that we’re in the same boat?”
Gyre snorted, but she had a point. Though he wouldn’t actually die without regular infusions of dhaka energy, as Kit would, using his new eye and the advantages it offered depended on a steady supply of energy bottles. Elariel had told him that his own body’s energy would refill them, but only very slowly, like trying to fill a canteen with condensation from the side of a glass. Only a master of dhaka could provide the energy in bulk.
“Worrying about getting cut to pieces by a dozen Legionaries is quite enough for me, thanks,” Gyre said.
“Pfeh,” Kit said. “Maybe we’ll have to hide in another closet.”
“Given the way your breath smells at the moment, I’d take being cut to pieces.”
Kit puffed into her cupped hands, sniffed, and wrinkled her nose. “Point.”
They were nearing the point where the servants’ drive curved away from the main drive, the former curling around the back of the palace, the latter heading off through the gardens to the elegant front entrance. Gyre whistled to the team and tugged on the reins, and they veered to the right, leaving the line of cabs and expensive carriages. Their borrowed wagon rattled over the gravel, eventually pulling into a broad oval space where several other wagons were already parked. Gyre put his at the end of the line, as far as possible from the doors.
A woman in a butler’s uniform trudged over to them, clearly irritated at being made to walk so far. Gyre handed her the papers, and she squinted at them, then sighed.
“You’re early,” she said. “It says ten o’ clock here, doesn’t it? We won’t have staff free to unload you for a couple of hours.”
“Sorry ’bout that,” Gyre said. “Best I could do. We’ll wait. Figured I’d find somewhere quiet and have a bit of a nap, eh?”
The butler gave him the look of someone who was working herself to the bone while other people slacked off.
“Just be here at ten,” she said. “We’ll need the space, so you’ll have to shift as soon as you’re unloaded.”
“As you say, sir.” Gyre touched his cap. “Sorry to be trouble.”
The butler turned and stalked back to the kitchen door. Kit glanced curiously at Gyre.
“Is that why you insisted we come early?” she said. “So there wouldn’t be people around?”
“We can’t have them searching the wagon,” Gyre said, looking back at the crates of fruit. “Why, do you object?”
“No,” Kit said. “I just thought you were a little bit harder than that.”
She hopped down off the box. Gyre stared after her, then shook his head.
Harder? He got down as well and grabbed his satchel. Maybe. The palace servants work for the Order, just as much as the Auxies do, I suppose. Still, he had to admit that the idea of slaughtering a bunch of unarmed cooks and porters stuck in his throat. Kit, he guessed, would have no such inhibitions.
He hurried a little bit to catch up to her as she strode confidently toward the back corner of the gravel lot, where there was a small gate in a line of shrubbery. It wasn’t locked, just latched, and it let onto a more utilitarian section of the palace gardens, neat lines of herbs and other kitchen plants hidden by the shrubs from visitors. It smelled like a spice shop, and Gyre stifled a sneeze.
“The storehouse is—there.” Kit scanned and pointed. Gyre could make out a peaked roof, past several more hedges. She kept turning and pointed farther back, at a bend in the outer wall. “And that’s our escape route.”
“Looks like the back gardens are empty for the evening,” Gyre said. “But let’s try not to startle anyone yet.”
Kit, who’d been about to doff her concealing brown coat, pulled it back on grumpily. Gyre led the way to another gate, which let into an adjoining garden. They passed through flower beds and a row of eye-watering compost heaps, eventually emerging into a dirt lane that led back toward the kitchen doors. On the other side of it was the storehouse, a solid brick building with a slate roof. The entrance was around the corner. Under normal circumstances, Gyre imagined the place was used for gardening supplies and probably wasn’t even locked. Now that it had been pressed into service to store dangerous unsanctioned arcana, there would certainly be guards.
“Okay.” Gyre untied the satchel and set it between them. “No blasters unless you have to. Hopefully in the commotion nobody will notice us.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Kit’s face lit up with glee as she shrugged out of her coat. Her weapons were in the satchel, and she rapidly equipped herself with saber, blaster pistol, and an alarming number of knives.
Gyre retrieved his own sword, the hilt tingling under his fingers, and the pack with spare energy bottles. Another small pack full of alchemicals hung beside it, along with a small folding crossbow. Last but not least was the arcana trigger Sarah had given him. It was a square of unmetal about the size of a sheet of paper, half an inch thick and rounded at the edges. On the face were a dozen depressions, three of which were filled by hexagonal crystals.
What this bit of Chosen arcana had been originally, Gyre had no idea, but Sarah’s tweaks had transformed it into a weapon. A metal grille, crude compared to the smooth perfection of Chosen work, had been fitted over the three crystals to keep anyone from touching them accidentally. Sarah had showed him how to unlatch it and press the trigger with his thumb.
“You’re sure it’ll work?” he’d asked her.
“Of course not.” She’d rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t exactly test it, can I? I know that when you press the crystal, the trigger part makes a spark big enough to light a fuse. Other than that, we just have to hope.”
Now Gyre stared at the thing for a moment, then tucked it into his belt. It’ll work. Sarah knows what she’s doing.
“Ready?” Kit said, bouncing eagerly on the balls of her feet. The prospect of action seemed to have restored her darkened spirits.
Gyre picked up the crossbow, slotted a bolt, and cocked it with an effort. “Ready.”
Kit skipped ahead, pausing at the corner of the hedge. Gyre followed more cautiously, and she straightened up and whispered to him.