…and now they had an audience. Cael was just about to agree with Eri –
Wait.
Erik?!
“Where have you been?” He asked the curator, snappishly, the blade of the naginata drooping towards the carpet. This was too much, the idea that this should happen, the first time he had the guts and the motivation to try something like this on his own. “Security’s been tearing half the city apart looking for you!”
“Obviously,” Vespasian said, drawing himself up proudly, his amber eyes gleaming as brightly as his rapier’s blade, “Not the right half.”
“Obviously.” Cael growled, his icy glare coming back to rest on the spy. He swung the naginata so the shaft pointed vaguely towards the women (and Erik, who looked positively hellish) on the steps. “Don’t you do anything without them? It’s like a bleedin’ parade every time I see you!”
The young spy opened his mouth to protest, but Erik spoke first, dull eyes focused on the crystalline shards of glass scattered all over the smooth, polished floor. “What, exactly,” he paused to cough, piteously, and Cael had to fight to keep from rolling his eyes. Oh, grow up. You’re probably being manipulated, if I know even one thing about this family. “Are you gents trying to do, get arrested?”
Vespasian sighed in familiar exasperation. “We’re actually trying to avoid that.” Cael took Vespasian’s moment of distraction to scan the room again. There was an alcove off in the corner that he hadn’t been able to see from his previous spot, half-hidden by a tapestry. He felt a sudden flicker of curiosity, glancing at Vespasian, who was actually lecturing Erik, animatedly, explaining things in clinical detail without actually giving anything away. His eyes were then drawn to Ludivine, who simply stared back at him, almost challengingly. He held one finger across his lips, tiptoeing towards the alcove.
There was only one item there, a small glass case with absolutely nothing in it. There was, however, a small pile of parchments, old and yellowing, stacked on top of the case. Cael glanced out of the alcove, winced at the still-yelling Vespasian (though right now, given the spy’s hesitancy to attack, he didn’t doubt the spy was doing this on purpose), and ducked back in, digging through the parchments.
It was a pile of Salvic maps, of all the varied continents, some of specific towns and cities and mountain paths. Most of them looked at least twenty years out of date, the sigils and lines fading and worn. One, however, stood out; it was imprinted on leather cured as smooth as silk and bleached as white as paper. It had a note clipped to the corner: I think we should return this one to avoid international incident; it does not look as if it was meant to come with the others. –E. C. Cael flipped it over carefully – and his jaw dropped.
There, etched in the specific dark blue ink of the Church, was a careful map of the portal’s network, something he’d tried to recreate for months just to get it out of his head in the prison. Now he knew what Areesha had meant. This was it; he’d seen it, and that was that.
He tugged the note off, dropped it on the pile of parchments, and hurried out of the alcove, rolling the map up as he did. Erik looked over at him pitifully, eyes dark rimmed, the sweat practically dripping from the ends of his hair.
Gods. They really planned this one.
“Spy?”
“Yes, Inkmage?” The answer came in three-part harmony.
“Not you,” Cael glared at the sisters on the stairs before he looked back at Vespasian, “him.” Both girls looked slightly affronted. He tried to ignore them, not quite sure what to say. “I..I don’t think we were after the same thing after all.” He waved the rolled-up map at him, shuffling his feet. Vespasian rubbed a hand over his eyes.
“You think? I don’t have a map on my list, and-”
The sound of quite a number of boots crunching on cobblestones and leaves echoed down the stairs. Erik just sat on his step, his shoulders slumped and his glassy eyes staring into thin air. The rest of those in the vault looked from one to the other in something that, if it wasn’t pure panic, might have been its second cousin.
"Shut the door!" Vespasian and Cael hissed at the same moment. Ludivine rolled her eyes, but disappeared from view. There was a shout from above, a crashing clang of armor, and then the louder crash of the heavy grill slamming closed. Ludvine soon reappeared, blood on her knuckles and a satisfied smile on her pretty face.
Cael shuddered, but managed to turn to Erik.
"There better be a back door or something we can use to get out of here."
Out of Character:
Cael would like to keep the map as a spoil: it has no magic properties, it is simply a very up-to-date map of Salvar's portal network on kidskin.
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