“Elya Street.” To Keth he said, “I have to veil you again.”
Unlike the first time Dema shielded them, on their approach to the Forum, neither Keth nor Tris protested. As they had walked there, magically hidden inside a circle of arurimi, they had pushed through a crowd of people ripe for murder if they got their hands on the Ghost. Now Tris and Keth huddled inside the guards as the arurimi walked them out through the mob. There were cries of “When will you find the kakosoi?” and “How long does it take to find a killer?” There were other cries, suggestions of what should be done to the murderer when he was caught, bloody and fiery plans.
“I admire their imagination,” Tris murmured to Keth as the crowd jostled the arurimi and the arurimi jostled her and Keth.
He looked down at her, startled: though they were invisible to everyone else, they could see each other perfectly well. How could she joke at a time like this? “Th-they might think I did it,” he reminded her, fright making him stammer. “Hard to admire their i-magination wuh-when they wuh-want to do that to m-me.”
“Oh — sorry,” replied Tris casually. “But are you the killer? This Ghost?”
Keth started to shout a denial, then remembered he was supposed to be invisible. “No,” he whispered fiercely. “Do I look like a killer to you?”
“Just for curiosity’s sake, how long have you been student and teacher?” Dema asked. The circle of arurimi broke free of the crowd and marched toward Elya Street, dodging pleasure-seekers on their way to Khapik.
Keth and Tris looked at one another and shrugged. “Two hours?” asked Keth.
“Something like that,” Tris replied.
Once inside the Elya Street arurimat, they were taken to a room where magic could be worked and kept from spreading to other parts of the building. There Dema positioned Keth inside a holding ring set into the floor and called on its protections so the northerner couldn’t escape. Once they were set and Tris was tucked into a chair in the corner, Nomasdina produced vials of powdered sage, coltsfoot and orris, and blew a pinch of each at Keth’s face. The powders hung, sparkling with the magic that made them more powerful. Nomasdina then used a carnelian to sketch the signs for truth and eloquence in the air between them, watching the silvery paths the symbols made as they floated in the air.
“Lie to me,” he told Keth. “Tell me something — ”
He never finished his suggestion. Keth took a deep breath to speak, and the room flashed with white fire, blinding Nomasdina, the arurim who was there to take notes, Tris and Keth himself.
Vision only returned slowly. The first thing Keth saw, when he could see, was that the circle he’d been standing in was a charred mark on the floor. Its barrier was gone, as if lightning had struck the thing and burned it out of the wood. Nomasdina’s powders were a small, black clump on the floor. Nomasdina himself was covered in soot. His carnelian, which he still held, was black and cracked.
“Deiina of all mercy, what was that?” whispered the arurim clerk.
Tris removed her spectacles to rub her eyes. Keth thought that without the spectacles she actually looked her age, not like some fierce old lady with unwrinkled skin. Nomasdina rounded on her.
“What did you do?” he growled. “I ought to put you in irons, and don’t think I can’t!”
“Excuse me, dhaskoi,” said the clerk. She was there because she too could see magic. “It didn’t come from her. It came from him, and he didn’t actually do anything. It just surged out of him, like — like lightning. Like he couldn’t help it.”
“Lightning is part of Keth’s magic,” Tris informed Dema. “He only found out about it recently. He hasn’t learned to control it yet. And if I may, a hint? Don’t threaten someone unless you’re certain you can carry out the threat.”
Nomasdina snorted and turned to Keth. “Well, if your power fights me, then there’s only one way to do this,” he said. He went to the door and pulled it open.
Keth’s knees buckled. He dropped to the floor. Nomasdina was going to call for torturers.
“Just one moment!”
Everyone turned to stare at Tris, who had risen from her chair. The door yanked out of Nomasdina’s hand and slammed shut, as if a high wind had blasted through the windowless room.