“Now calm yourself and get inside,” he said, though she suspected the request was as much for his own sake as for hers. “You’ll be safe here. And well fed. The inner circle of the Vortex is served by a grandmaster chef from the Hospitallers Guild, a journeyman, and three apprentices.” He eyed her up and down, and flashed a brief smile. “I’d bet a lad like you could eat a whole chicken in a single sitting, plus have room for veg, bread, and pie. Or rather, I think it’s a stuffed rib roast tonight. Come on.”
She wasn’t hungry until he opened up the nearest door and ushered her into a warm foyer not too dissimilar to what she’d seen in the larger houses attached to farms and workshops. The rich scents of roasting beef, herbed vegetables, fresh-baked bread, and more made her mouth water and made it difficult to struggle out of her pack, her coat, gloves, and knit hat.
A youth came at a call from the Guild Master; he took the bundle of her things and staggered upstairs. When she opened her mouth to protest, Alonnen cut her off with a lift of his free hand and a quick explanation.
“It’s Guild policy to check over all belongings for magical traces, in case something’s been slipped in by the priests or one of their agents that could help them track this place. That, and it’s also a policy that everything gets cleaned. There are spells that recycle the air to keep it fresh, but every little bit helps when trying to keep the air from being manky or stuffy. Among other reasons—just consider it a free laundry service. All your things will be accounted for, so don’t worry.”
She wanted to worry, but he took her hand and guided her up the steps in the young lad’s wake. That took them away from the delicious smells of the ground floor. But where the lad detoured at the third landing, they kept going up.
When they reached the top, Alonnen led Rexei into a wood-paneled room. While he tossed his hat and scarf onto pegs by the door, she looked around. There were three mirrors on the wall with the door along with shelves and cupboards, a woodstove on the other wall flanked by bookshelves, a desk with a vast window to her left, and an even larger set of windows on the right—floor to ceiling windows broken into four giant panes by what she realized were two sliding panels in the middle that could be retracted along grooves.
The windows overlooked a broad stone balcony with a view of the night-lit fishbowl. The crystals in the ceiling were radiating a dim sort of light, but her Messenger-trained mind said she could not possibly be seeing what was just outside the window.
It was impossible, flat-out impossible, for what she saw to have fit into the space. Tugging her hand free, she slowly approached the balcony and the vast window that covered it, trying to make sense of what was out there. Vortex was the right name for it, for it reminded her very much of the swirling funnel formed when one pulled the plug out of the bottom of a large basin of water. But this wasn’t water she was seeing.
This was pure magic, and instead of draining down to a point at the base—a bright point of light just a little bit lower than the balcony itself—the Vortex seemed to be spewing upward, infusing the waters of the reservoir almost all the way up to the surface. Except it was also constrained in the whole fishbowl warding sphere at the same time, yet she hadn’t seen any sign of this from outside the building.
“Illusion,” Alonnen stated. She jumped, not having heard him approach close enough to speak into her ear. He shrugged and nodded at the view. “That’s what the reservoir truly looks like, that funnel right there. Everything outside this room, it’s all cloaked in illusion after illusion. Grandmaster-level magery, and we’re damn lucky to have it. The old records say that the previous Guild Master of the Mages Guild had traveled to Aiar to petition for a new God. But we don’t know what happened after that. His replacement, she was the one who quickly caged the shattered Portal that had been on the island and wove all the protective illusions on top of all the previous wardings that had been here.
“Unfortunately, she suffered a stroke before she could do more than start to teach her surviving apprentices how to maintain it all properly, though they managed as best they could. The confusion in the aether around the Heias Dam is the result of generations of imperfectly made repairs from before and after the Shattering. My predecessors then figured out how to capitalize on that effect. It’s helped us to weed out would-be spies. But then you’ve already been through that interrogation process, so you know that.”
Blushing, Rexei cleared her throat. “I . . . am surprised you’re showing this to me. Explaining it.”
He clapped her on the back. “That’s because you, young man, are now on the front line of a war to help save our entire world. From a demonic, Netherhell-based invasion, no less. And for that much, you have the Guild’s undying gratitude. More than that, lad? You’re about to have the undying gratitude of some of the most powerful mages in the whole world. This way—oh, you’ll probably want to disguise your face and hair as a precaution. I do, and I’m not the only one who does. If you like, I’ve got a spare scarf and hat on the rack.
“They’re very trustworthy, but I have no clue whether the priests can spy on scrying mirrors or not, even if this connection goes straight through the Fountainways,” he said, confusing her with the unfamiliar word. “It’s also been a sort of tradition for all the Guardians of the Vortex to hide their identities over the centuries. Even if Mekha’s gone now, I see no reason to stop just yet.” Nudging her back over to the door, he redonned his cap and scarf, settled his glasses back on the midpoint of his beaky nose, and offered her a floppy felted cap and a soft lamb’s-wool scarf to wrap around her throat and chin.
She took both, but after only a few seconds of wearing it, she had to unwind the scarf. He might only be wearing a woven wool shirt and matching waistcoat, but her knitted tunic lay over two layers of linen and her breast and waist bindings. In fact, she was now uncomfortably warm, for the iron stove across the broad room was keeping the Guild Master’s study quite cozy.
“Something wrong?” he asked as she tried to discreetly flap her sweater to cool down a little.
“I’m too hot now,” she admitted, grimacing. “The temple doesn’t get a lot of heat outside the priests’ rooms. I’m not dressed for this.”
“Looks like you have a shirt on underneath,” Alonnen observed, peering at her clothes. “Strip off the knit and make yourself comfortable. Nobody’s going to care what you’re wearing so long as you’re reasonably decent. Most of the people we’ll be talking to don’t wear sweaters or other layers to keep warm—in fact, some are downright undressed compared to us, but that’s okay; it’s just the way they dress in their homeland.”
Not quite comfortable, Rexei unbuckled her belt, set it and her pouch on the side table, then pulled the wool tunic over her head. She had tucked her medallions back under her sweater on the walk to her tenement with his brother, but not underneath her undertunics. Not when they had been exposed to the chill winter air. They were still cold but not shockingly so. She had to redon the cap, but this time when she tried the scarf, it wasn’t so cloying. Nodding, she looked at him.
“Good—try those blue-tinted lenses, if you want to hide your eyes,” he added, nodding at a set of spectacles on the narrow, table-like side cupboard not far from the pegs on the wall. “Mind the curvature, as it might make you a bit dizzy. I’m mildly farsighted; I need ’em to look at things close-up.”