The Wards Don't Lie, and Neither Do We novel · Chapter 2 of 32
Chapter 2: Cold Is Blue
First night in the Boundary Gallery: Harry finds his own light sags when he looks at her hand, promises not to mention the gold, and her light goes gold at "There is nothing to mention."
The Boundary Gallery was a stone corridor cut into the cliff, with a window at one end and a table at the other.
Harry got there a quarter of an hour before the watch and found every lamp already lit.
A brass cradle stood in the middle of the table, two bent forks of metal made to hold wands crossed.
Past the window, the seven standing stones showed black on the hill, with thin lines of light running between them.
Those lines were the wards.
They looked smaller from here than they had in the hall.
He had been told they held only while someone sat at the cradle.
"You're late," Draconia Malfia said behind him.
He turned.
She was sitting at the far end of the table with her hands folded on the wood.
He had walked straight past her.
"It's a quarter to ten," Harry said.
"Then you're early, and I'm earlier. Sit down, Peverell. You're standing in the draught."
He sat, because the Warden had told them both at the door how it worked.
Hands on the wands until two in the morning.
Say what you like to each other, the Warden had said. The wards don't mind talking.
They set the wands in the cradle, her pale ash over his dark bent one.
The lines on the hill ran silver from stone to stone.
Harry had decided in the hall that he would not mention the gold.
Sixty people had watched her light go the wrong colour, and he had been the one to say so out loud.
It had been true, and it had been unkind, and he wanted to be done with it.
So he looked at the window and said nothing, and for most of an hour neither of them spoke.
She kept her eyes on the sea.
Her hand lay on the ash wand, narrow and pale, with the nails cut short and one fingertip stained blue.
He wondered what she had been writing that left ink on it.
Over the nearest stone, the line of light sagged.
It went thin and low, and the gap showed dark on the hill.
Harry looked down at the table, and the line came back.
He looked at her hand again and the line sagged again.
Twice was enough to be sure.
The light followed him, not the weather, and not her.
"Are you testing something?" Draconia asked.
She had not turned her head.
"The lamp," Harry said. "It's smoking."
"It isn't."
"Then it's something else."
"Then it's the draught." She moved her eyes from the sea to his face and held them there. "Do try not to stare at the lanterns, Peverell. They've failed enough for one day."
It was a good line, and he gave it its due by saying nothing.
The silver on the hill stayed steady behind her, and it annoyed him how well she did it.
Another hour went.
The cold came up through the stone floor, and he was sorry he had not brought a second jumper.
"You didn't want this," he said at last. "The watch."
"Every Malfia learns to want nothing from this college," said Draconia. "It saves everyone's time."
She said it flat and dry.
The line over the nearest stone turned gold.
It went the colour of candle flame, from the hill to the window, and lit the glass between them.
She saw it, and Harry saw her see it.
"I won't mention it," he said.
"There is nothing to mention," said Draconia.
The gold climbed the hill as she said it, stone after stone, until all seven were lit.
Harry looked at the table.
He kept his hand still on the wand and his eyes on the grain of the wood.
He did not say what colour it was.
The light stayed gold for a long time.
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