“Well, I’m done, so…”
“Done!” Sciona exclaimed. “You lay papers that fast?”
“Nope. I’m that fast up and down the ladders.”
Sciona could have hugged her. “You’re amazing! Absolutely wonderful. Now, let’s get out of here.”
“Did someone see you?” Carra asked, taking the bucket from Sciona and placing it among the others on the cart.
“Yes. Well—I’m not sure if they saw saw me, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
Nodding, Carra took hold of the cart and pushed it toward the exit.
Sciona was dizzy with fear as they left the Siphoning Hall.
“Slow down,” Carra kept reminding her as they returned the cart to its closet on the first floor, took the bucket of barrier expansion spells, then made their way to the front doors. “Walking isn’t suspicious. Scurrying is suspicious.”
“Am I scurrying?” Sciona asked and found that her breath was still coming far too fast, even though it had been several minutes since her sprint away from Orynhel’s office.
“Yes. Here.” Carra handed Sciona the bucket of spells, which was just heavy enough that Sciona had to slow to keep it from knocking into her throbbing knees. “That’s better.”
Sciona didn’t breathe as they crossed the vast lobby to the front doors—right where anyone could see them. Someone must notice something off; someone was about to shout ‘Halt! What’s in the bucket?’ But again, astoundingly, not a soul in the building noticed them beneath their janitor’s caps. Not even the security guards chatting about their Feryn’s Feast plans on the front steps.
It wasn’t until Sciona and Carra were a block from the Main Magistry that Sciona rediscovered the ability to breathe normally. And it wasn’t until they had walked a few blocks more from the well-lit walkways of the campus into the darker residential area beyond that Sciona could finally speak.
“Thank you for doing this with me, Carra.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know that. I’m just glad I didn’t have to go alone. Whatever your reason for coming along, I’m thankful.”
“Well…” Carra removed her cap and unpinned her hair to let it unfurl like flames around her shoulders. “I didn’t get to grow up with my mom. If I had, I’d like to think this is the kind of thing we’d have done together.”
Sciona let out another snort of laughter—something Carra seemed uniquely good at eliciting from her. “That’s your idea of a nice day out with your mother? Plotting the destruction of a government?”
“Why? You have a more fun idea?”
“I guess I always imagined that I’d go to the bakery with my mother if I could see her for a day. Maybe dress shopping? Something a mom might find fun.” Although Sciona herself had never been terribly excited by dresses or baked goods.
“Well, I think insurgency is fun. So, thanks for tonight. It was—Gods, are you crying again?” Carra said in horror. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sciona laughed as she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of Thomil’s jumpsuit. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“You’re so weird.”
Sciona scrubbed her hands over her face and sniffed. “I know.”
Snow was falling beyond the barrier, casting a deep mist over Tiran that made the lights from the streetlamps fuzz. Thomil had agreed to stick to the shadows between those lights well outside the campus and act inconspicuous. But as the hours stretched beyond bearing, he started pacing. The hunter’s patience, which had once kept him still for hours in wait for prey, seemed to have deserted him completely. Waiting to see if he would have a kill to bring back to Maeva was not the same as waiting to see if Carra and Sciona would come back out of the heart of evil. And he could not be still.
It was only when two figures turned the corner that Thomil froze in place. Then he recognized the red of Carra’s hair, and he was falling forward, running. Caught in the surge of pure relief, he wrapped Carra in a hug. And not just Carra. It took a moment—soft brown hair against his cheek, a breath of ink stains and Tiranish tea—before Thomil realized that he had one arm wrapped around Sciona. The little mage had stiffened in surprise but hadn’t pushed him away.
“Sorry.” Thomil released his boss as Carra looked up at him in incredulity and deep, scathing judgment. “I didn’t mean to. I was just…”
“Stupid?” Carra offered.
“Worried.”
“It’s alright.” Sciona looked flustered but not displeased. Pale cheeks touched with pink in the streetlights, she smoothed her fidgety hands over the front of the janitor’s uniform where her skirts should have been. Realizing belatedly that there were no skirts, she awkwardly hesitated and then shoved her hands into the pockets of the jumpsuit like that had been her intention from the start.
“How did it go?” Thomil asked.
“Fine, obviously,” Carra said. “You really think we’d have left without getting the job done?”
“And no one saw you?”
“They saw but they didn’t notice,” Sciona confirmed, “just like you predicted.”
“Thank Mearras!” Thomil hadn’t realized the toll the wait had taken until he heard its release shaking his voice. And he was touching Sciona again, a hand on her slight shoulder, squeezing to assure himself that she was real. For now, at least, she was here.
Again, Sciona didn’t pull away. She just looked down at the hand, then up at Thomil with an oddly shy, utterly captivating smile.
“Okay.” Carra broke the moment. “I’m going to walk ahead if you two are being weird.”
“Carra—”
“Bye,” she cut her uncle off and sped into the dark toward the train station.
“Sorry about that.” Thomil withdrew his hand from Sciona’s shoulder and clutched it into a fist before clearing his throat. “After you, Highmage.”
He nodded for Sciona to go ahead, expecting her to hurry to catch up with Carra, to break the awkward tension he had created. She didn’t. Instead, she strode ahead without urgency, setting their pace at a casual stroll as Thomil fell into step beside her.
Instead of getting on the train at the university stop where someone might recognize Thomil or Sciona, the three had agreed that they would walk to the next train stop to catch a train back to the widow’s house. There, they would do a last round of strategizing before Sciona left them for the last time.
The fog had thickened, and Thomil let himself breathe in the knowledge that the work was over. Not the trouble but all the work that would set it in motion. For this moment, he, his niece, and Sciona were safe. The mist seemed to blot out the rest of the world, leaving only the swaying flame of Carra’s hair ahead.
“You should be very proud of yourself,” Sciona said, and Thomil turned to her, uncomprehending.
“About what?”
Sciona nodded to Carra. “You’ve raised an exceptional girl.”
“Oh…” No one had ever told Thomil that. It was always, ‘You let your daughter speak like that?’ From other Kwen, the tone was as fearful as it was judgmental. From the rare city guard who terrifyingly chose to comment on Carra’s conduct, it was an implicit warning. ‘She’s going to get herself in trouble.’