“There’s definitely some sort of magic involved,” I say, pointedly not looking at the space that is so very uninteresting. I give my party the rundown of the effects.

  Once I’ve finished, the two mages exchange glances.

  “An inverse enchantment or a hexical field?” Sorya asks, normal Moriaxan suddenly sounding like a foreign language.

  Tiria hums, her eyes glancing towards and then away from the space in question.

  “Either would have anchor points.”

  “Yes, but the anchor points of the first would be at the centre,” Sorya points out. “It would make breaking it harder.”

  “Not necessarily,” Tiria disagrees. “We could….” I tune out as they continue talking about completely unfamiliar theoretical magical concepts. The difference between an apprenticeship and my discovery by doing has never been more obvious.

  While they argue, everyone else is also doing their best to investigate the magical effect. Sulir is edging closer and inspecting something that only he can see in the process, and the beasts are sniffing and trying to step closer bit by bit. Only the two Warriors are staying out of it, warily keeping guard for anything that might approach.

  I decide to join, sidling almost absently towards the trees, not looking at where I’m going in hopes that that might allow me to avoid the effects.

  It does, for a time. I get closer than ever. Interestingly, I haven’t yet hit any sort of barrier – I was more than half-expecting that to happen. The problem is that as soon as I get past the first couple of trees, it becomes very difficult to look at anything other than the trees.

  What feels like a moment later, I blink, and find myself off to the side of my companions, no closer than they are. I curse.

  “It’s definitely an inverse enchantment,” I hear Tiria exclaim. “My Inspect Skills bounce straight off it.”

  That’s a point – I haven’t yet tried either Inspect Skill. I remedy that immediately.

  Interestingly, I get a result for both Inspect and Inspect Item. I wasn’t expecting the last since I wouldn’t have considered it as an item. Not that the result is much use.

  My normal Inspect is a little more useful – it seems that the field isn’t able to deflect all of it. Only the majority. I don’t find out any more about the field itself, but, with my eyes closed and paying attention solely to the information my Skill feeds back to me, I get a sense of the space within – and that there are beings there too.

  “Sorya, Tiria, I’ve found out some more information,” I tell them. “It seems like the space within is no bigger or smaller than the space we walked around–”

  “I told you I didn’t sense any spatial enchantment,” Tiria interrupts me triumphantly.

  “And I’m telling you that my readings made it very clear that there is spatial magic being performed in there.” Then she hesitates briefly. “Though, I will grant you, it could be the rift I’m picking up."

  “Exactly!”

  “If I could continue?” I ask mildly. The two mages immediately turn back to me, both looking apologetic.

  “Sorry, my lord,” they chorus, Tiria slightly more fearfully than Sorya who knows me better by now than to think that I’m actually offended.

  “Additionally, there are several presences at its very centre. With all the concealment, my Skill was unable to gain much more about them besides the fact that they’re there, but I’d say there are at around ten beings who are just standing around.”

  “Guarding the rift,” concludes Sulir, who’s been listening in. I nod at him. “That’s my conclusion.” I add the little information that Inspect Item gave me too. Interestingly, the two mages find the details more informative than I did, mostly because the Skill worked at all.

  “Forgive me, my lord, but you definitely used Inspect Item?” Sorya asks pointedly. I nod. She turns to Tiria. “It’s definitely an inverse enchantment, then. Hexical fields can’t be confined to a single item.”

  “It could be a group of items acting in unison and thereby treated as a single item,” counters Tiria. “It has been known to happen before.”

  “But it is still an item,” Sorya tacitly agrees. “Which makes it clear that there is human intervention here.” She meets my gaze, certainty in her expression.

  I nod back at her – the news is no surprise by this point. There have been too many suspicious indications. The question now is about who is involved, and how much they have contributed to the misfortune of Zlona.

  “Maybe this is linked to that person who comes every evening,” Tiria muses. I snap my head towards her.

  “What person?” And why is this the first I’m hearing of it?

  “The last couple of tendays my wards have registered a person coming every evening, just after dusk.”

  “Your tower is close by?” I ask in surprise. “Where is it?” I don’t see any sort of tower.

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  She waves vaguely off to the left.

  “It’s enchanted,” she tells me. “I can see it perfectly well, but others can’t.”

  More concealment enchantments, I bemoan. It seems like I’m going to need to find an effective way of detecting them or risk missing things right under my nose on the other continent.

  “I see. Do you know who it was that came by?”

  Tiria shakes her head.

  “No idea. They were wearing a big, grey cloak. No markings on it, and it covered their body and hid their face. They were reasonably tall, but they could have been wearing big boots for all I know.”

  “You didn’t ask them what they were doing there?” I ask incredulously. “Even when they came by night after night?”

  She shrugs again.

  “I only went up the first night. If they’re not coming to visit me, it’s not my business. I would have reported them but…” she trails off.

  “But?” I prompt.

  She colours.

  “But I broke my communication mirror,” she confesses, turning her eyes down to the ground. “And I hadn’t got around to replacing it.”

  I groan and draw my hand down my face. If this person is linked to the rift, and is the reason for it being so well concealed, it would have been useful to know about them a month ago!

  “You didn’t think that the hordes of beasts travelling intermittently past your tower were anything to be concerned about?” I question while wondering if I really want to know the answer.

  “I didn’t know about them. The wards don’t pick them up,” objects Tiria as if that’s a valid excuse. “In fact, if your battle hadn’t sent odd magical readings that some of my devices alerted me to, I wouldn’t have met you either.” Then she thinks about it for a moment. “Though I’d have probably come up if I felt five humans near my tower like this. And, in retrospect, that would have been a better way to meet.”

  “You think?” I ask, a little sarcastically, then sigh. Sorya was right – when it comes to anything except her research, Tiria seems to be more than a little scatterbrained. “Alright, when do they come – is it always the same time?”

  Tiria hesitates.

  “Not the same time exactly but…they always come shortly before moonrise.” I eye her – she didn’t know about the beasts travelling past her, but she knows about when the moon is rising? She seems to read the question in my expression. “Some of my experiments are moon-dependent,” she tells me a little defensively. “I need to know these things.”

  Well, fair enough, I suppose. I look up at the sky. There’s still a few hours until dusk. I’m not sure about until moonrise.

  “Just over three and a half candlemarks,” Tiria answers immediately when I put the question to her. I try to work out whether that means the moon will rise before or after dusk, but then give it up as a bad job. I really miss my watch – I hope Lady Renaye’s daughter might be able to help me create a version for this world.

  “And they always come past your tower?”

  Again, Tiria shrugs.

  “Unless they are coming at different times of the day as well, then yes. There has only been a single day that they have not come by.”

  I nod.

  “How likely do you think it is that you and Sorya will find a way to break this concealment field before dusk?”

  The two mages glance at each other, then turn back to me, their expressions not exactly promising.

  “Unlikely,” Sorya admits. “It’s a powerful ward and if it’s tied to an object in the centre, we’d have to overwhelm it. That’s possible, but it isn’t subtle, and it would leave both of us completely useless for any sort of battle until we had time to recover.”

  “And if it has…anchors around the edges instead?” I ask, hoping it’s not a stupid question. Since neither of them scoff or look at me like I’m a dunce, I have to guess it’s fine.

  “If it’s tied to anchors around the edges, we’d first need to find them all,” Sorya answers. “Given how we can’t even be certain they exist, I suspect that finding them would be significantly time consuming.”

  I nod slowly.

  “So, it seems like our best approach is to wait until this mysterious person comes along. We can subdue them then.”

  “Should we wait for them to open the concealment field first?” Sulir asks. “If we attack before then, they might flee, and we would be no further ahead than we are now.”

  “It’s a risk,” I admit. “But we don’t know how long or short a time it will take the person to open and close the field. If it’s only a short time, they might close it as soon as they realise they’re being attacked – with them inside.”

  Sulir considers my point and then nods his head slowly.

  “There are also the beasts that Lord Markus detected inside,” Tiria points out. “For all we know, they are being kept inside by the field just as we are kept outside.” She looks a little uneasy.

  “Another good point,” I agree. “Alright, it’s settled – Tiria, please take us to your tower."

  “Pardon?” she asks, blinking.

  “We need somewhere to wait and you owe us some stones anyway. We might as well achieve both aims at once.” I might feel awkward about essentially inviting myself – and all of my companions – into her home, but given that she has been sitting on some potentially game-changing information here, I’m not feeling too charitable.

  The mage looks around at all of us nervously, then seems to droop like a flower in desperate need of water.

  “Very well,” she sighs. “Come this way, please.”

  She leads us off to the left.

  Do you know where the tower is? I ask Kalanthia curiously.

  The earth knows where it is; therefore, so do I, she answers clearly.

  I can feel it in the shadows too, Lathani chirps, sending me an impression that feels like the negative of a photo – I can feel all the places where the light is not.

  That impression means that none of my companions jump when Tiria mutters some quiet words and a tower suddenly appears before us – a circular construction about three storeys tall. The Dragon team members are another question – Sulir flinches, and Nurisoth actually jumps back with a curse, lifting his axe in automatic defence.

  Tiria extends both arms out to the side and puts on a smile that’s patently false.

  “Be welcome to my abode. Make sure you are past the ward lines before I raise the concealment enchantment again or you will no longer be able to find it.”

  With that, she practically flounces inside, clearly not happy about having us in her space.

  One by one, my party members enter onto the grounds. I wait for all of them to go first. I notice Sorya is also lingering behind. When she catches my glance, she drifts closer. She’s looking troubled.

  “What’s wrong?” I prompt when she remains silent. Sorya flicks a nervous glance at the tower. My eyes narrowing, I raise a Seal around us. “No one should be able to hear us now, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “It is,” Sorya admits. “My lord…Mage Tiria…I think she might be more involved than she’s revealed.”

  I frown.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Her magical signature…it was all over the area. I didn’t notice until I separated from her for a bit but…it was almost as strong as when she was standing next to me. That doesn’t happen except when powerful magic is performed.”

  My mind turns over the new information. I want to reject it as being circumstantial – Tiria definitely comes as far too scatter-brained to be some mastermind behind a plot like this. But she does live nearby, and she’s made it clear that her research is her top priority. What if she thought that the rift could help her with that?

  But can she be that good an actor – to have a theoretical discussion with Sorya without revealing more in-depth knowledge than she should? Then again, we only met today and Sorya only knows her at a distance and by reputation. First impressions aren’t always accurate.

  “We’ll keep an eye on her,” I tell the mage firmly. “If she’s responsible for this, we’ll make sure she faces justice.”

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