Millennial Mage novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Man at the Door

In a cell under the Hall, Hana counts the barrels in the vault above; the dismissed guard who saw the crystal planted unlocks her door and they go over the roofs, until a hunter appears on the dawn road.

The cell under the Hall smelled of wet stone and old straw.

I sat on the bench with my knees pulled up and counted the bars.

There were seven, and the fourth was loose.

Counting is what I do when I am afraid, and I had been counting my whole adult life.

I counted the stones in the ceiling arch, and the torches in the corridor, and the steps up to the guard post.

Every number I finished stayed with me.

I could feel the stairs behind my left shoulder.

I could feel the corridor torches, four of them, and the barrels somewhere above me that I had never seen.

That last part scared me most.

I had counted barrels while the clerk rolled them past the cell door an hour ago.

Ten, a squeak on each wheel, headed to a vault above.

I could feel all ten.

"Okay," I told the straw. "Okay. This is a thing I can do. Nobody told me what it is for."

Footsteps came down the stairs, slow and tired.

A man stopped at my bars.

It was the guard from the door, the one with the notched sword.

Up close he was about my age, lean and weathered, with gray at his temples and a scar through one eyebrow.

He had a ring of keys in his hand.

He looked at me with his head tilted.

"You counted eight," he said.

"There were eight."

"I counted eight too."

He turned the key in the lock.

"I'm Teo," he said.

"I was the hall guard until an hour ago.

I told the steward that the clerk had planted a stone on you.

He told me I was dismissed."

"I'm Hana. I'm a temp."

"I don't know what that is."

"It means I can be dismissed too, only cheaper."

The corner of his mouth moved.

He pulled the door open.

"Walk quietly, and don't ask me why I'm doing this until we're outside," he said.

"Why are you doing this?"

"You asked."

"You said outside."

"I did," Teo said. "You are not good at taking orders, are you?"

"I've had eleven years of practice at pretending to."

We went up the back stairs, and I touched the wall twice to keep the count.

At the top of the last flight, a lone guard sat asleep over a dice board.

Teo lifted the keys from his belt, and the sleeping man snored on.

The vault door stood open at the end of the passage, and ten barrels sat in neat rows.

"Charge salt," Teo whispered. "Spells burn it. One barrel to a big spell, a pinch to a small one."

"Ten barrels."

"How do you know?"

"I counted them in the hall."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Mages do not count," he said. "They burn it, and then they ask for more."

"Then who keeps the books?"

"The Dust-ranks," he said. "Badly. It is a punishment."

I thought of the roll with its hollow line.

I did not say anything.

We climbed a ladder to the roof.

The night was cold and the stars were wrong, too many and too near.

Teo went first across the slates.

I followed with my bag, which still held a legal pad, two blue pens and a stapler.

"What is that?" he asked, when I clinked.

"A stapler."

"Is it a weapon?"

"It is the most dangerous object in any office."

He laughed, a low surprised sound, and then he put a hand over his own mouth and we both froze to listen.

Nothing moved below.

He took my hand to help me down a drainpipe, and he did not let go at the bottom.

His palm was rough and warm.

"There's a stable behind the wall," he said. "I have a horse. She is stubborn, and so are you, I think."

"I am not stubborn. I am thorough."

"That's worse."

We rode double through the dark lanes of Marrow Cross on his mare, my arms around his coat.

I had not touched a man in two years.

I thought about that, and then I made myself stop.

By the time the sky went pale I was nodding against his shoulder.

He reined in on a ridge above the old road.

"Hana," he said quietly. "Wake up."

Down on the road, a man in gray stood beside a gray horse, and a pouch of white salt hung from his belt.

He raised his hand and the air around his fingers began to burn.

"That's a hunter," said Teo. "He's one of Vesk's."

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