“No,” he said, looking away.
“I’m not saying that some of the things I’ve done aren’t dark.” She shook her head, turning away from him and staring at the bookshelf. “The gods know there’ve been times I’ve used magic in ways we were taught not to at the Academy, but I’ve also used magic in ways I feel we needed to learn at the Academy.” She breathed out slowly. “Does that make sense?”
“It does.”
“And now, I’m concerned about my friend. I’m concerned that someone—or several someones—are trying to make it look like her or someone like her has been attacking.”
“Wait. There’s somebody else like her?”
“No, but there are enchantments that are designed to look like her magic.”
“Why didn’t you just start with that?”
“Because I didn’t know how,” she said.
“You start by telling me that there’s somebody else in the city, something else with that kind of power, and then we go from there. You don’t talk around it,” Char said.
“You were asking about my connection to Eva; I was explaining it to you.”
He chuckled. “And now there’s another strange magical person running around the city . . . and doing what?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure if it’s a person or just enchantments—or if Eva is even a person.” She trailed off as she said it.
He frowned at her. “What would she be, then?”
“According to one of the sources I have, she might be a magical creature. Some of the stories say the Ashara are shapeshifters that can take on human form. Or they work for some creature and are empowered by them. Either way, it’s concerning.”
“Not human, but they can take human form? Jayna, there isn’t anything like that.”
“Just like there isn’t anything like her injury. Or her magic.” Jayna shrugged. “I can’t say I have all the answers, but I can tell you the Academy doesn’t have all the answers either—and the Society certainly doesn’t have them.”
“I see,” Char said.
“I’m worried for her.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“When I first came across the other one like her, I found him standing over a sorcerer.”
Char’s eyes widened. “Jayna—”
“Before you go too much into that, you should know he was a dark sorcerer. I could feel the magic he was drawing on, and I saw one of the markers for the Order of Norej on him.”
And the Society might have had an opportunity to see that if the body hadn’t burned.
“They’re all gone,” he said.
“Not all,” she said. “I have a hard time thinking that we would have removed all of them from the city, even if we tried. The Order is still here. The Celebrants of Asymorn are still out there. And . . .”
She didn’t want to push it too hard, but she suspected there were other dark sorcerers still in the city too. They had to be—still active and still posing a danger to them.
“And what?”
““According to one of the sources I have, Eva might belong to the Ashara. They might be magical creatures. I don’t know if this other Ashara mimic is after sorcerers or dark sorcerers.”
He frowned. “I’ve heard that name before. I know why.” He cocked his head to the side and rubbed at one of his temples for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”
He stepped out of the library, closing the door behind him.
While he was gone, Jayna began to sort through books, reaching for the one with the inventory of the enchantments and slipping it into her pocket. Maybe that would be useful in the future. She didn’t find anything else. Most of these really were about Nelar, trade routes, and other things that were more political in nature; they weren’t the sort of books she’d expected the Sorcerers’ Society to have: ones tied to lessons and power. None of these were spellbooks.
But what she was looking for was a different kind of knowledge—it was an understanding—and perhaps finding out about history and politics would help her understand the founding of the Society. Maybe this would lead her to the answers she was looking for.
She had worked about halfway down one of the shelves when she turned to the door. Char had been gone for a long time.
He wouldn’t have left her here that long.
And the linking spell didn’t reveal anything.
That wasn’t surprising, but what had happened?
He would have known she wouldn’t have wanted to stay here, not by herself, not within the Society, and certainly not when there was a potential for a greater danger.
Something had happened to him.
16
Jayna stood in the doorway, hesitating. She wanted to go after Char, but she didn’t dare venture too deep into the outpost or she might risk running into one of the other sorcerers. The sorcery behind her continued to glow, putting off enough light to see out into the hallway, though shadows lay beyond its illumination.
Her mind raced.
The linking spell between them wasn’t as strong as it normally was. She knew he was here somewhere, but couldn’t track him with that old spell.
She could use sorcery. Within the Society outpost, she wouldn’t have any reason not to, and she could attempt a tracking spell to try to find Char, but she wasn’t sure if using that kind of spell would even work here.
That left the Toral ring.
Drawing upon that kind of power had its disadvantages; she ran the risk of somebody within the outpost recognizing her use of the Toral power, and that was dangerous.
She had to go find Char.
She looked out into the hallway and saw no one there. She listened for a moment, tipping her head to the side, and didn’t hear anything either.
“Char?” She kept her voice pitched low, little more than a hiss, carrying it on just a bit of power that she sent down the hallway.
There was no response.
Where would he have gone?
She tiptoed across the hall, heading down the healing section and looking into each of the rooms. Since most of the doors were open, she could see that each room was very similar. It looked like a hospital ward, cots resting along each wall, tables with stacks of different medicinals, and a cabinet that she couldn’t see inside. Each room was a mirror of the others. The outpost was fairly boring that way, but then again, it was designed to help with healing, to help the people of Nelar, and that was the reason Char had come here in the first place. He had wanted boring. He had wanted to learn and study and practice healing, and he had wanted to be around the power of Master Agnew, to learn what he could teach.
And now Jayna had brought him into something else, something more dangerous, something that forced him into risks he didn’t want to take.
It was selfish of her.
A scraping sound caught her attention and she spun.
Jayna had reached the door at the end of the hall where Char had brought her and the others one time—the room that was meant to contain dark magic.
The sound came from the other end, closer to the library.
Could that be Char?
She hurried back along the hall, and when she reached the other end of it, she found the door to the library still open. With the light inside, Jayna would’ve expected to see shadows moving, something to suggest Char’s presence, but there was nothing.