The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,131

wood, and set the top down. “It took me a while to get the hang of this,” he said, the words the first Elantran he’d spoken in An’Tellarus’s hearing.

The top itself began to spin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Elluvian and An’Tellarus knew how to watch its progress. They knew what to look for. They understood the significance of the toy itself.

Whoever had allowed Severn to play with it in a childhood that was mostly beyond the reach of his mortal memories had clearly not chosen to explain its purpose.

“Who taught you how to use it?”

“I did.” He replied in Barrani this time, the language in which the question had been asked.

The top continued to spin; what was remarkable to Elluvian was the length it traveled while spinning. It would slow and topple eventually. How eventually offered information to those who sought to test. This was not the only test, however. It was merely the earliest and the simplest.

Elluvian said nothing. Imperial Mages had their own tests, their own ways of ascertaining possible magical potential, but those tests had been designed for mortals. As if those tests could not be used by anyone—just as this “toy.” The potential it registered was not dependent on race, although Leontines were an exception; in the experience of academics and arcanists, the race almost defied magic, and its future use.

Severn, as a member of the Halls of Law, would be exposed to the tests, formal and procedural, invented by Imperial Mages. The information gained by An’Tellarus would soon be gained by those who came to the Halls of Law to teach.

“Do you recognize the other objects on the table?” An’Tellarus’s voice was soft, almost gentle.

Severn left the top spinning and returned to the table. “No. If I have touched these, or objects similar, I do not remember doing so.”

An’Tellarus nodded. She gestured again, and this time an ordinary quill replaced the objects on the table. “And this?”

Severn frowned. “It’s a quill.”

“It is perhaps a quill you might once have used. You were taught to read and speak our language—and you speak it well. I am uncertain if you were likewise called upon to write it.”

An expression flickered across the boy’s face. “It’s difficult to learn to read and speak without also learning to write—or so I was told.”

An’Tellarus laughed, the sound low and warm. “Many times, from the look on your face. I also believe it to be true.”

“Most of the people I met in the fiefs could speak without learning either.”

“They could speak Barrani?”

“The important words.”

An’Tellarus did not ask what important meant; nor did Elluvian.

Severn lifted the quill and frowned. There was no paper, and no ink, to accompany it.

“Ah, I forget myself.”

Severn looked up, quill in hand. His skeptical look caused her to laugh again, as if Severn was in truth a child—and moreover a precocious child that she held in affection.

“Yes,” she said, although he had not spoken. “I forget very little. Ink and paper are there.”

Severn nodded, although neither appeared. His brows drew together, the neutrality of his expression lost to focused concentration. So, too, An’Tellarus. Elluvian was not happy. Even so, he waited in silence. He could not see what was hidden, and after a few seconds had passed, he looked.

She had lied. Severn could clearly see the ink and paper, but they were illusory; they did not exist.

Severn, quill in hand, began to write. He had no ink, no safe surface on which to do so; his quill skittered across the gleaming tabletop as An’Tellarus leaned forward, elbows lodged against her knees. It was a singularly graceless pose.

Across the surface of the pristine table, words began to appear; they followed the movement of quill. The quill made no sound; no one did, except Severn, who had not apparently forgotten how to breathe.

* * *

Elluvian recovered first. “The letter forms are shaky,” he said, in a tone that implied poorly formed letters were just short of criminal.

Severn stopped as he examined the product of his effort. He nodded, focusing on the shapes of the very Barrani words he’d been writing.

An’Tellarus looked up, her eyes indigo, her lips a thin line. Elluvian gestured, the movement economical but necessary. “Whatever you desired to ascertain,” he said, his voice even, his anger now firmly under control, “you have ascertained. Unless you have information that pertains to our investigation, we do not have the luxury of time.”

Her glare lost the intensity that implied death was an immediate concern. Severn, however, had set the quill aside. He stood; he