a ghost.”
The cell was only the latest in a long line of failures as night turned to morning. “Well,” she said, “Eli’s not a Spiritualist. Maybe he used something else.”
“Enslavement, you mean?” The moss wiggled with displeasure. “Impossible, mistress. Enslavements happen when the wizard’s will completely dominates the spirit’s until it has no choice but to obey. It’s not a subtle thing. Why, even a momentary enslavement just to open the door would spook every spirit within earshot. They’d be moaning about it forever. But this room is so relaxed even I’m feeling sleepy. If you hadn’t told me otherwise, I would have guessed these idiots hadn’t so much as smelled a wizard in a hundred years.”
“Why do you say that?” Miranda sat down on her heels. “If he didn’t do anything flashy or dangerous, like enslavement, I doubt these rocks would notice a wizard standing right on top of them. Most spirits won’t even wake up enough to talk to a wizard unless we stand around making a racket for a few hours. Remember how long it took me to get your attention, Alliana?”
Alliana ruffled her green fuzz. “Spirits might not always respond, but we always notice a wizard. You’re very distracting.”
“You mean we’re loud and obnoxious,” Miranda said. “But then why did no one notice Eli?”
“Sometimes, spirits choose not to notice,” the moss said wistfully. “There are some wizards it’s better not to look at.”
“What do you mean?” Miranda leaned closer to the moss’s fluffy green surface. “Is Eli one of those?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alliana said with a huff. “I’ve never seen him.”
“Then what—”
“It’s no use asking any more questions, mistress,” the moss said. “I can’t say it any clearer. It really is too bad you humans are spirit blind. It’s so hard to explain things like this when you can’t see what I’m talking about.”
Miranda blew the hair out of her face with an exasperated huff. Spirits were eternally complaining about the human inability to the see the spirit world, as if humans chose to be blind out of sheer stubbornness. As always, she tried to remind herself that it was very hard on spirits. All humans had the innate ability to control the spirits around them, though only born wizards could actually hear the spirits’ voices, and thus actually use their power. But this power came with a price, for, wizard or not, no human could see as the spirits saw. It was as if the whole race lacked a vital sense, and this lack was a source of endless frustration for both sides. It wasn’t that Miranda didn’t appreciate the difficulty. She did, really. For Alliana to explain how a wizard was distracting would be like Miranda trying to describe the color red to a blind person. Even so, it was impossibly frustrating when, every time she got a little closer to finally understanding, the spirit would pull the whole “Well, you can’t see, so I can’t explain” cop-out. Her spirits might serve her willingly, but sometimes she got the feeling she didn’t really understand them at all.
“Let’s move on,” she said. “Go ahead and wake up the door. You said Eli spent all his time beside it. If he’s as powerful as Master Banage seems to think he is, the wood should have noticed something.”
The wood was not cooperative. First, it took thirty minutes of Alliana’s poking to wake it up. Then, as soon as the wood recognized the moss as a wizard-bound spirit, it shut itself down in protest. Even after some direct threats from Miranda herself, the most she could get out of it was that Eli had been a nice and helpful human, with a strong implication that she was not. After that, the door buried itself in a sound sleep and nothing Alliana did could wake it.
Miranda threw herself down on the cell’s narrow bench with a frustrated sigh and began to tug her socks back on. She still didn’t know how Eli had escaped, but at least the door had mentioned him. Her attempts in the throne room had been a disaster. The officials had trailed her every step, muttering suspiciously, while the spirits remained sleepy, distant, and decidedly unhelpful. Ten hours wasted, altogether, and nothing but frustration and an attack on her personality to show for it. It was enough to make her spit.
She called Alliana and the circle of bright green moss began to shrink, returning to the moss agate ring that lay on the floor. When