from the lock, jumped, jumped again off the wall and in such manner attained a remarkable height. Again her legs spanned the corridor.
Two sentries stepped chuckling into the intersection thirty feet away. For a moment they glanced down the long empty hallway where David Thacker’s door was one of many.
To them, the corridor was empty. They stopped for a moment, sharing some coarse anecdote before shuffling on their way.
Sena dropped from her split position, hidden by perspective against the darkness of the ceiling. Once again, she began to work the lock.
Pin two crossed the sheer line first. She flicked it with the pick and heard it rattle. Yes. It had set correctly. Pin three went next but different than before. She increased torque and scrubbed. Four, five and one set and the plug turned.
That is, it turned one-hundred-eighty degrees and stopped. In an amateur mistake, she had forgotten to place the flat of her pick in the bottom of the keyway. Pin three had a spacer. It had dropped out. She traded the snake for the hooked rake in her mouth. Carefully she fished the spacer from the lock, catching it in her palm.
David’s key was not likely to work when he came back. He would know someone had been in his room. Sena bit her lip in frustration. Oh well, there was nothing for it now but to go on. She turned the wrench, spun the plug, hit three-sixty and the bolt popped back.
The door opened.
Papers littered the room beyond. Segments of a novel, bits of poetry and pages from a play scattered across a desk, a bed and the floor.
A writer, Sena mused. A coiled radiator on one wall could have offered heat from the boilers if the season had been later, but the metal pipes were cold. A wardrobe, a desk and a bed did a good job of limiting walking room.
Sena stepped carefully, making sure she disturbed nothing.
David had been gone nearly ten minutes now. She checked her pocket watch under its own green glow. Unfortunately she didn’t really know what to look for.
Caliph had told her what he had seen and how he suspected his old friend from Desdae had let the creatures in from the sewers.
A key then, thought Sena. That’s where I’ll start.
She went through the pockets of every garment in the room. Empty.
There was, however, a locked coffer in the bottom of the wardrobe squatting beside several pairs of shoes. It was padlocked which was good since she had three different skeleton keys that fit most warded locks made in the north. She got it on her first try and flipped the lid.
Inside were several disturbing things.
One was a letter.
Mr. Thacker,
A writer with vices seems such a stereotypical tragedy. I couldn’t help but notice your name in the Herald as one of several artists come to stay at Isca Castle. Nor could I help noticing your name on the ledger of a truly unsavory bordello in Ghoul Court just the other evening. One should generally use an alias whenever blackmail could be an issue.
I propose we meet, unless your qaam-dihet habits are something you wouldn’t mind your longtime friend Caliph Howl finding out about.
Yours truly,
Peter Lark
The note had been crumpled as if its owner meant to throw it away and then changed his mind, smoothed it out and tucked it in the box.
Beside the note was a little brown pouch, a bloody scalpel and a stained sponge. As Sena had supposed, when she checked the pouch several lumps of deep crimson material rolled into her palm. They were vaguely cohesive like brown sugar.
A small effigy carved from polished black stone rested beside the paraphernalia. Shaped like a stylized ink spatter, it gleamed, bulbous at the center with exaggerated pseudopodia radiating out. Rather two-dimensional and disk-like, a single grotesque eye had been graven on its bulging middle.
Sena’s skin went cold. It was the icon of the Wllin Droul. Ten to one odds David Thacker also bore the Mark. Sena had no wish to touch the horrible little carving.
Several other items demanded scrutiny. A key (likely capable of opening the garden sewer grates from what Sena knew of keys), four rows of gold gryphs stacked in columns ten coins high apiece (which she was tempted instinctively to take but left alone), and finally another letter: this one from Chancellor Eaton dated in the spring of this year.
What it said was both gracious and embarrassing. Sena felt herself flush. Apparently David Thacker had graduated without