Book 2 - Chapter 15

“I have a surprise for you.” Mara beamed at them the following morning.

“Oh?” Noah asked as they stopped outside the academy doors. “What is it?”

“Well, it’s more for Ciri, to be honest.” She turned to look at the third member of their trio. “I’m assuming you haven’t seen the waypoint yet?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

Ciri’s shoulders slumped. “A wild Fae conduit inspecting a waypoint would draw far too much attention. I would prefer to remain anonymous.”

“I thought you might feel that way.” She nodded. “What if I told you we could have the waypoint to ourselves for the next hour, as long as we leave right now?”

Ciri looked up at Noah with pleading eyes. “I would like to go.”

“Like it’s even a question.” He chuckled, then looked at Mara. “Let’s go.”

“Great!” Mara’s smile widened as she turned and marched toward the castle.

Noah fell into step beside her. “So how much did this private tour cost you?”

“Oh, nothing.” She brushed him off.

Her response only increased his curiosity. “How did you get it, then?”

“I asked the right person,” Mara said evasively.

Noah raised an eyebrow. “You’re avoiding the question. Mara, for someone who’s talked about taking a leap of faith, that’s—”

“It’s nothing nefarious, I promise,” she interjected, blushing. “It’s…look, it’s embarrassing.”

“Did you ask some secret boyfriend you’ve never mentioned?” he teased.

“No, no, nothing like that.” She shook her head, took a deep breath, then answered. “You need to promise not to tell anyone, though.”

“I promise not to share your secret with anyone,” Ciri offered.

Noah shrugged. “Who are we gonna tell anyway? You’re the only person we know other than Ciri’s father.”

Mara’s shoulders slumped. “Okay. I happen to be friends with the royal archaeologist—Oswin Drale.” She turned to Noah. “And before you ask, he’s old enough to be my grandfather, is happily married, has four children and sixteen grandchildren. So no—there are no romantic feelings between him and me.”

“Okay, okay,” Noah replied, holding up his hands in surrender as they entered the massive entry hall of the castle.

By Noah’s estimate, the hall had to be at least two hundred meters long and fifty meters wide, with ceilings that rose at least forty meters overhead. The structure was made of the same grey stone as the rest of the ancient Fae buildings in the city, but the floors were covered in rich red and blue carpets that softened the sound of their footsteps. Tables, chairs, and wooden doors were spaced at regular intervals, and ornate tapestries alternated with detailed paintings along the walls, no doubt depicting the history of Therondale. Above their heads hung magical chandeliers, and dozens of armed guards patrolled amidst the various nobles milling about.

“One of his responsibilities as the royal archaeologist is the discovery and maintenance of ancient Fae relics,” Mara continued, completely unfazed by the scene around them. “That includes the waypoint. Now, he can’t maintain it in the sense that he’ll make it functional again, but every so often they close it to the public to clean the stones and the plaques in the next room beyond. The cleaners just left, but they’re not opening it for another hour. So I asked him to leave the key for me.”

Mara finished as she reached a guard checkpoint. The men and women eyed the trio suspiciously but allowed them to pass when Mara produced a set of letters from within her student’s robes. Once they’d moved into the spiraling staircase beyond and started to descend, Noah picked up the conversation where they’d left off.

“I don’t get what’s embarrassing about that.”

She opened the door at the bottom of the stairs before replying. “Normally the royal archaeologist is…well, it’s seen as sort of a ceremonial position. We haven’t found a new, unclaimed Fae ruin for several decades—the lords snap them up if they’re in their territories—and without help from the Fae we struggle to discover anything new from the sites we are familiar with. They’re seen as useless by a lot of the nobility, and being friends with them is seen as socially uncouth.”

“I think that’s dumb, then,” Noah said instantly. “You should be friends with people based on how much you like and trust them, not what they can do for you.”

“I agree with Noah’s sentiment,” Ciri added.

“Thank you. I’m glad you think so.” Mara nodded.

“How did you become friends with him, then?” Noah asked as Mara skillfully navigated the maze of corridors underneath the castle.

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“I collect Fae trinkets.”

“Trinkets?” Ciri repeated, suddenly listening very intently.

“Little things. Nothing with magical power, of course, but…small things that the ancient Fae used. Children’s toys, hand tools, things I can’t even begin to guess the use of. My father happened to bring me one when I was a child, and I was so fascinated by it that I begged him to bring me more. He reluctantly introduced me to Oswin, who was more than happy to share some of the things they found at dig sites that everyone else called junk.”

“Could you describe one of the items for me?” Ciri asked as Mara paused outside a door marked ‘Service Entrance’.

“A few years ago I received a small brass orrery,” she said as she started to examine a small table placed next to the door. “The craftsmanship is incredible. It has a detailed model of Tenebrae and its moon, and shows its path around the sun. It fits in the palm of my hand,” she finished, grinning as she pulled a cleverly hidden key from a compartment underneath the table.

Ciri nodded knowingly. “There should be an inscription of a date on the bottom.”

Mara furrowed her brow and looked at Ciri. “I…yes, there is an inscription on the bottom. But it’s too faded to make out. What makes you say it’s a date?”

“What you are describing is a thyrælorvæn. It is a record of the positions of celestial bodies for a specific date in the past. It was typically made to record the birth of a politically significant figure, or the coronation of a new Fae queen.” She paused. “There should be a marking somewhere along Tenebrae’s solar orbit. That is the position on the date inscribed.”

“You know, with a little math I might be able to figure out the time of year of the date at the bottom. Maybe even a specific month. Then we could probably guess what it was supposed to represent,” Noah offered.

Mara’s eyes went wide. “Would…you be willing to come to my family’s summer house outside Braemont? I have a room full of these things I’d love for you to see.”

Ciri smiled. “I would like that.”

“Maybe when our business here is done,” Noah added.

“Right.” Mara gave the two of them a bright, almost conspiratorial smile before sliding the key into the lock and turning it. The mechanism clicked, and she pushed the door open.

To his surprise—and mild disappointment—Noah found himself underwhelmed when he stepped into the room after Mara. It looked exactly as Ciri had described: a stone archway in the center of a circular chamber. The arch resembled marble and stood nearly three meters tall. Above its flat top rose a black‑painted dome, and the surrounding walls were plain grey.

“Fascinating,” Ciri breathed. She crouched as she entered, running her fingers along grooves in the floor he hadn’t noticed.

“Huh.” Noah frowned at them. “Are those like the runes in the tower?”

“No,” Ciri and Mara said at the same time, then exchanged a look.

He glanced between them. “Is… someone going to tell me what they are?”

“They carry raw magical power to the waypoint,” Mara explained, pointing at the archway. “They’re connected to the same central system that powers the whole city.”

“Ah.” Noah nodded, circling the room as if a different angle might reveal something new. “And Ciri told me this waypoint doesn’t work, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Because nobody has the spells to maintain it?”

“Well, the summer and winter Fae do,” Mara admitted. “But they won’t share that knowledge with us.”

“And I’m guessing the knowledge to build a new one is gone?”

“Yes,” Ciri said, already pulling out her notebook and sketching.

The gears in Noah’s mind began to turn. “Where are the controls?”

“The… controls?” Mara echoed cautiously.

“Yeah. You said the power flows through the grooves in the floor to the waypoint, right?”

“Yes.”

He scanned the room again. “So where’s the access point? Under the floor? There’s got to be a hatch or a room with buttons or switches or… something.”

“There’s nothing under the floor,” Mara said, shaking her head.

“The maintenance is done magically,” Ciri added. “There are no physical controls. Everything is handled through spells.”

Noah grimaced. “That’s a terrible design choice. It’s just another spell that needs to be cast—one to turn it off, then more to maintain it. They could’ve just installed a switch on the wall and connected it to the power source.”

“I’m sorry. Turn it off?” Mara asked, baffled.

He blinked. “Uh… yeah? You said they need to maintain it regularly so it works properly.”

“…yes?” Mara said, still lost.

“Rule number one of maintenance: always turn the thing you’re working on off first. Especially if it’s complicated. You don’t want to be elbow‑deep in a maintenance cycle and have this thing suddenly activate. You’ll turn someone inside out when you try to teleport them here.”

Mara stared at him. “That’s never been theorized before.”

“Never?” Noah asked, incredulous. “How do you know it’s broken, then? How do you know it’s not just turned off?”

Silence fell. Then Ciri began scribbling furiously.

“If that… well… I… um… wow,” Mara murmured, dazed.

“It’s just a theory,” Noah said with a shrug. “I’m no expert in ancient Fae tech. I’m barely a scribe.”

“You also understand Fae magic better than any human I’ve ever met,” Mara said. “And while your thought processes are… unorthodox, they’re useful. This could open an entirely new avenue of research—one nobody has considered!” She brightened. “Maybe some of the old texts in the library could corroborate this?”

“I would be willing to assist in that research,” Ciri said without looking up.

“You… would?” Mara asked hopefully.

“Really?” Noah echoed, skeptical.

“Yes,” Ciri confirmed. “I only ask that I be allowed to study the device unhindered if we manage to reactivate it.”

“I can promise that,” Mara said at once. “It’s a small price to pay.”

Noah looked between them. “Mara, I don’t mean to be rude, but… could you give Ciri and me a moment?”

Her shoulders dipped, but she nodded. “Of course. I’ll wait outside.”

Once she was gone, Noah turned to Ciri. “Are you sure about this? You didn’t want to give Mara Fae magic. Reactivating this could have a much bigger impact.”

“I am aware of the political and martial risks,” Ciri said, meeting his eyes. “But I believe they are minimal. And the chance to study a functioning waypoint—a true testament to ancient Fae mastery—is invaluable.”

He raised an eyebrow. “How did you decide the risk is minimal?”

“If you are correct and the device is merely ‘turned off,’ reactivating it would not be enough to use it. One would still need the correct spells to enable teleportation between waypoints. That knowledge is tightly restricted to the summer and winter empires.”

“Clever,” Noah said, impressed. “Like leading someone to a locked door but not giving them the key.”

“Precisely.” She paused. “Given her actions today…”

“We should tell Mara about the limitation,” Noah finished. “I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.”

“Agreed,” Ciri said. “And if we do acquire a teleportation spell compatible with this waypoint, we should bring her with us. As a scholar, she would benefit from the experience.”

He chuckled as he moved to open the door. “You like her.”

“She continues to prove she can be more than an ally of convenience,” Ciri replied. “We should enact your experiment soon, to determine whether she can be truly trusted.”