Up close the Academy was even more daunting than it had been when I’d first seen it from beyond the city walls. The tower itself was surrounded by a cobbled courtyard, lit by brass oil lanterns mounted on poles around the perimeter that allowed groups of students to sit on benches and read or talk or perhaps just stare up at the majesty of their school.
‘Is it always this busy at night?’ I asked. It was dark enough outside that we could probably reach the Academy without being noticed, but even from the shadows where we huddled I could see, through the massive open double doors, light and activity inside.
‘The Academy never closes,’ Seneira replied, the anxiety on her face increasing with each step, as though her desire to find her brother had to push against the fear that someone might discover that she had the shadowblack. Even with her blindfold on, there would be questions if one of her fellow students recognised her.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ Rosie told her, pointedly ignoring the warning glance Ferius shot her. ‘Your presence only makes it more difficult for us to enter the medical facility unseen.’
‘Really?’ Seneira asked. ‘And how long do you think you’ll be wandering around the tower trying to find it without me? Even if you can, why would my father or his guards trust a group of strangers just because they claim to know his daughter?’
A look passed across Rosie’s features, just for a second, but it was enough for me to be pretty sure I’d just found one of the secrets that the Argosi had been keeping from us. I was about to say something when I caught the slightest flutter of Ferius’s hand and saw that she was looking at me, signalling me to keep quiet for now. ‘We need a distraction is all,’ she said.
I knelt down to face Reichis, who’d made his fur go entirely black and was now almost invisible in the shadows except for his eyes. ‘Well, partner?’
He looked back at me, twitching his whiskers. I could tell he was debating with himself whether to extort something from me in exchange, but I guess he remembered that I was currently broke on account of him having all my coins already. ‘How big a distraction do you want?’
‘Big enough that we can get inside that tower without anyone noticing us, but not so big you get the whole town chasing after us with torches.’
He gave me one of his creepy grins. ‘Effective but discreet. Got it.’
‘What’s he sayin’?’ Ferius asked.
I stood back up. ‘That we should probably all make peace with our respective gods right about now.’
Reichis gave himself a shake, and his fur changed colour, going from pitch black to a kind of blazing red with silvery stripes. He took off at a run, growling his head off as he did and racing up one of the lamp posts before leaping off and gliding into the courtyard towards the head of one of the students innocently walking by. ‘Beware the blood-red squirrel cat!’ he declared, grabbing onto the young man’s neck, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that no one but me could understand him. ‘I crave human flesh tonight, and I will drain the blood of every skinbag I catch!’
The poor guy began screaming his head off, trying to grab at Reichis but having no luck as the squirrel cat kept shifting position. One particularly daring group of students came over to help, even as almost everyone else fled from the screeching animal. Reichis hopped from one would-be saviour to another, delivering a quick bite to an ear or nose before leaving them shouting in panic as he dropped to the cobblestones and raced into the tower.
So much for discreet, I thought, as the rest of us followed him inside.
We entered a massive open level with a thirty-foot ceiling and tiny shops arranged all around the inner wall. A pair of wide stone staircases spiralled up on either side of the tower, intersecting at mezzanines on each level. Rising through the centre was what appeared to be some kind of floating chamber attached to a complex system of weights and pulleys. Two attendants stood by, wearing gloves designed to help them work the cranks that would make the chamber go up and down the tower. They, like everyone else, were fixated on Reichis, who was now racing up the ropes, still screaming various threats that would have sounded ominous were anyone but me able to understand them.
‘The medical wing is underground,’ Seneira said, leading us down one side of the stairs.
I hesitated, looking back to make sure Reichis was okay. For the most part, people had stopped panicking and were now letting out appreciative oohs and aahs as the squirrel cat performed various acrobatic tricks, using the furry flaps that ran from his front paws to his back legs to glide down from the ceiling before skittering back up the ropes to repeat his performance. The little monster was loving all the attention.
‘The squirrel cat’s got it handled,’ Ferius said, pushing me into motion.
Two floors below ground we came to a set of doors adorned with a stylised tree painted in red.
‘That’s the sign for healing in these parts,’ Ferius explained.
It wasn’t all that dissimilar to the first form of the Jan’Tep glyph for blood magic, except that our spells are used for torment as often as for healing.
Inside we found a network of hallways and rooms populated by men and women in white clothing. They each had the red tree symbol on the breast, but with varying quantities of branches. ‘The number of branches indicates their rank within the profession,’ Seneira explained, staying behind Ferius and Rosie to keep from being noticed. She quickly and confidently guided us down a series of corridors that became progressively less crowded. ‘This wing is where the private rooms are,’ she explained. ‘They’re usually only used for visiting dignitaries who don’t want their illnesses to become public knowledge in their own countries.’
At the far end of a narrow hall, a man sat on a chair outside one of the rooms, a heavy mace resting across his lap. ‘Looks like we need another distraction,’ I said, reaching for a pinch of the powders at my side. I figured if I fired a blast the guard would have to leave his post to see what had happened. If we were lucky we could sneak by him and get down the hall and into the room before he returned.
Seneira stayed my hand. ‘No more hiding. No more games.’ Before any of us could stop her, she stepped out from behind Ferius and walked right up to the guard. ‘Hello, Haight,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see my brother now.’