I frowned. “Such as?”
Jin paused. “You were talking to Roland earlier. Did he touch you?”
“What?”
An image flashed in my mind of him grabbing me by the arm, then apologizing for bumping me.
Jin continued speaking, but my mind put it together at the same time. “Leg-Marked attuned use their spells by touch.”
“…And he’s a Diviner. He could be watching us right now.”
I scanned my body with my attunement active, but I couldn’t see any foreign magical auras.
That meant very little, though. I’d only studied a little bit about divination. Enough to know about tracking spells…but not enough to know about whether or not the target of an active divination spell would have a visible aura on them.
And, like Roland, I had so many magical items at this point that discerning any individual magical effect was tricky at best.
“What do we do about it if he is?”
Jin drew in a sharp breath. “If he is, he’s already outmaneuvered us significantly. He knows we’re aware of Spiders in the group, and he also knows about my attunement now. And as a Diviner, he’s one of few types of attuned that can counter me directly.”
That made sense. “Do you know how to break a divination spell that’s already in effect?”
Jin shrugged. “Distance, maybe, but we’re not going to get out of range. Time, of course.” He snapped his fingers. “Shadow magic. Shadow can nullify most magic in general, especially detection.”
“Kyra, then?”
“She’d be a possible solution,” Jin agreed. “But we don’t even know if we’re being watched. Asking her for help would mean letting her in on this, at least to some degree.”
“Fair. Perhaps for the moment, we should just proceed as if we’re being observed. Kyra is another suspect herself, and I’d rather not let her in on anything just because Roland might be watching. Besides, even if he is observing us, that doesn’t automatically mean he’s a Spider. Gathering information is a normal Diviner task.”
“I concur. But it also means we should draw this conversation to a close. I will investigate things further.”
I nodded. “So will I.”
We had an awkward pause for a moment after that.
Jin lifted up a remaining bit of sandwich. “I’m going to continue eating now.”
“Right. Bye.”
I turned and fled.
Well, I considered, that could have gone worse.
That was when the wagon closest to me exploded.
Chapter XVI – And Then Everything Was On Fire
I did what was obviously the smart thing and ran toward the explosion.
Some others reacted similarly, showing a similar lack of self-preservation instinct.
Others drew weapons.
Marissa ran after the fleeing horses.
Oh, right! Horses.
They ran right past me, obviously terrified from the sudden burst of sound and fire.
I was a little surprised they were free to run at all — they must have been detached from the carriage while they were being fed. This was unfortunate timing.
Unfortunate or, more likely, well-planned by a traitor who needed as many distractions as possible.
Sera was only a few feet away from the carriage, holding her head. The sound of the detonation must have hit her hard at that range.
Patrick stepped in front of her, glanced around, then pointed his hand at the flames. “Extinguish.”
The flames flickered, but didn’t subside.
“Was anyone in there?” Someone asked. I couldn’t tell who.
I rushed over to Sera, who was slowly rising to her feet. “You okay?”
She pointed at her head, then frowned. “Mm,” was all she managed to say.
“Can’t hear me?”
She stared for a moment, then half-nodded uncertainly.
“Resh. Patrick, can you take care of the fire?”
“Trying, but it’s not working. This was a powerful spell, and I’m specialized in lightning, not fire.”
I nodded to him. Then I pointed to Sera, raised my hands up, and made a throwing gesture.
“Wha?” Sera mumbled. “Oh!” She shook her head. “I think…maybe…” She coughed, then took a breath, and began to chant. “Goddess watching from up high, send us snow from the sky!”
I’d expected her Permafrost Cascade spell, but what she conjured was just a bit different. Globes of snow appeared above the carriage and descended, weakening the flames.
The other two Elementalists approached, joining Patrick’s efforts and finally managing to extinguish the flames.
We quickly cleared away the wreckage of the top of the vehicle and confirmed that, fortunately, no one had been inside at the time of the blast.
“What the resh was that?” Kyra asked.
“Explosion,” Patrick explained.
“I caught that, genius. I mean, how’d that happen?”
Rupert picked up a rod from the center of the cabin. It was etched with runes and split in half. “This,” he said, “Looks like an enchanted item.”
All eyes turned to me.
“I was over there, talking to Jin.” I pointed at the spot where Jin had been. He was gone, of course.
“I’m no expert,” Rupert Kent said, “But I do think this is the type of item that could be set in advance and set to detonate at a specific time. Which does seem like the kind of thing you would do, Cadence. No offense.”
“And how would you know about enchanting?” Patrick asked.
Rupert puffed up his chest. “Unlike some of the people here, I actually study quite broadly.”
I waved a hand. “Let me see that and at least confirm if what Rupert is saying is correct.”
“Be my guest.” Rupert tossed me the broken rod. I glanced it over, examining the runes.
He was right. It had a time delayed activation function. The amount of time the item would take before detonating would be based on the amount of mana invested at the time it was used.
“He’s correct about the runes. But I didn’t make this.”
“Right,” Rupert said. “The only Enchanter here didn’t make the magic item. Seems likely.”
“Virtually everyone here is wearing magical items. Anyone could have bought something like this ahead of time. It wouldn’t be expensive.”
“Except they checked us for dangerous weapons on the way in,” Vyers pointed out. “And explosive devices would certainly fall into that category.”
Unless someone was allowed to carry one as a part of being a member of Spider Division, I considered. But explaining that might be unwise.
“Someone could have smuggled it in,” Roland offered. I raised an eyebrow, surprised at his help. “They only did a physical check, not a magical one, as far as I could tell. A Shadow could have gotten through that.”
Some of our eyes shifted to Kyra.
“What? Wasn’t me.” She shrugged. That was apparently going to be the extent of her defense.
“Even if I wanted to make something like that, I couldn’t. That was fire magic. I don’t have fire magic.”
“No, but your buddy there does,” Vyers pointed to Patrick. “And he was the first person to jump to your defense, too. Thinkin’ you could be working together.”
I put my hands up. “And what motivation would I have to do any of this?”
“There are Spiders here,” Jin said, appearing next to Vyers and giving the latter quite a shock. “They have been instructed to sabotage our mission. Our second-year friends can confirm.”