The Villain Who Seeks Joy-Chapter 96: The Dead Zone

The curfew bell rang at ten. It was a single, flat note that signaled the locking of the dorms.

The Ministry guards didn’t trust locks. They chained the handles of the main doors from the outside. I heard the rattle of iron through the wood of the West Dorm entrance.

"They’re sealing us in," Gareth whispered. We were in my room, sitting in the dark.

"They’re trying to," I said. "But they don’t know the building."

I went to the window. The courtyard was swept by searchlights mounted on the watchtowers. The beams cut through the falling snow, stark white cones of light. Patrols marched in pairs, their boots crunching on the gravel.

"The Inquisitor?" I asked.

Lyra was by the door, listening to the hallway. "He’s in the East Wing. My runner says he’s checking the aura residue in the library."

"Then the tower is clear," I said.

I opened my wardrobe. I didn’t take a sword. I didn’t take a wand. I took a coil of the copper wire, wrapped in cloth to stop it from clinking. I took a pair of heavy wool socks and pulled them over my boots.

"Silence," I said. "Rubber squeaks on wet stone. Wool grips and stays quiet."

"You’re climbing the faculty tower in socks?" Cael asked.

"I’m climbing in silence," I corrected.

"If you fall," Cael said, "you die. No Anchor Step."

"Then I won’t fall."

I opened the window. We were on the second floor. The drop to the alley behind the dorm was twenty feet.

"Distraction?" I asked.

"Scheduled for five minutes," Lyra said. "Kitchen vent. Smoke bomb. It’s crude, but it will pull the eyes."

I waited.

Four minutes. Three.

WHUMP.

A dull thud echoed from the refectory side of the quad. Thick, black smoke billowed from the roof vent.

"Fire!" a guard shouted.

The searchlights swung toward the kitchen. The patrol in the alley broke into a run.

"Go," Cael said.

I slipped out the window. I hung by my fingertips, then dropped. I landed in a crouch, the wool socks dampening the impact to a soft thud.

I stayed low. I hugged the shadow of the wall, moving fast.

The faculty tower was a hundred yards away across the open garden. The searchlights were distracted, but the Inquisitor was the real threat. Magic leaves a wake. Physical movement leaves nothing but footprints.

I reached the base of the tower. The stone was rough-hewn granite. Good for friction, bad for skin.

I looked up. Liora’s window was on the third floor. Dark.

I started to climb.

Without the Anchor Step, gravity was a different beast. It was heavier. Greedier. Every hold had to be tested. Every pull was a negotiation with my own weight.

My fingers were numb within seconds. The cold stone sucked the heat straight out of the blood. I focused on the mechanics.

Reach. Test. Grip. Pull.

Reach. Test. Grip. Pull.

My breath was a white plume in the dark. I held it in, releasing it slowly to avoid making a cloud that a guard might see.

Second floor. My forearms burned. A cramp flared in my calf. I locked my knee and hung by one arm, shaking the leg out.

Don’t think about the fall. Think about the next inch.

Third floor. The ledge.

I reached up. My fingers found the sill. I pulled.

I peered over the edge.

Liora was sitting in a chair facing the door. She wasn’t asleep. She was reading by the light of a single, shielded candle.

I tapped on the glass. Three times. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She didn’t jump. She turned her head slowly. She saw a face in the window three stories up.

She stood and walked over. She undid the latch and opened the pane.

"You’re insane," she whispered.

"I’m motivated," I said. I pulled myself over the sill and rolled onto the rug. The room was warm. My hands started to sting as the blood rushed back.

"The Inquisitor is in the library," I said, staying low. "I have ten minutes before the patrols reset."

"Blackwood is looking for the Charter," she said immediately. "The original deed of independence. If he finds it, he can annul it based on the ’safety violation’ clause."

"Where is it?"

"The Headmaster’s vault. But Pierce has the key, and Pierce is in a cell in the basement."

"We can pick a lock," I said.

"Not this lock," she said. "It’s blood-warded. Pierce’s blood. Or his heir’s."

"He doesn’t have an heir," I said. "He’s a bachelor."

"He has a spiritual heir," Liora said. she looked at me. "The Charter recognizes the holder of the Brass Token as a Lineage Bearer. If the token was given freely."

I touched the place in my coat where the token was sewn. "It was."

"Then you are the key," she said. "But the vault is in the Admin block. Right under Blackwood’s office."

"Does he know where the vault is?"

"He knows it exists. He doesn’t know the location. He’s tearing the archives apart looking for the map."

"We need to get there first," I said.

"Not tonight," she said. "The Inquisitor—Merek—is setting a net. He’s placed vibration sensors in the hallways. If you walk on the floorboards in the Admin block, he’ll know."

"Vibration sensors?" I asked. "Magical?"

"Alchemical. Mercury switches. Very sensitive."

"I can bypass a switch," I said.

"Armand," she said, crouching down to my level. "Merek isn’t just a sensor. He’s a Reader. He can taste intent. If you use magic—even a drop—he will find you. You have to be completely dormant. Can you do that? With the leash?"

"The leash is quiet," I said. "The constructs are in stasis."

"Keep them there. If you wake the Moth, Merek will scream."

Steps sounded in the hallway outside her door. Heavy boots.

"Check," a voice said.

Liora stood up. She smoothed her skirt. She looked at me and pointed to the wardrobe.

I slid inside. It smelled of lavender and starch.

The door opened.

"Evening check," a guard grunted. "Everything secure, Saintess?"

"Quite secure," Liora said coldly. "Though the draft from this window is terrible."

She walked to the window and closed the latch loudly.

"Stay away from the glass," the guard said. "Blackwood’s orders."

"Get out."

The door closed. The lock clicked.

I stepped out of the wardrobe.

"Go," she whispered. "Get the Charter. But do it when the noise is high. Noon meal. The vibration sensors won’t distinguish footprints from the general hum of the building."

"Noon tomorrow," I said.

"And Armand?"

"Yes?"

"Don’t die," she said. "It would look bad on my record."

"Understood."

I went back to the window. The descent was faster, but harder. My grip was fading. I wrapped the copper wire around a gargoyle on the roof gutter and rappelled the last twenty feet, pulling the wire free with a flick of the wrist at the bottom.

I hit the garden. The smoke from the kitchen was clearing. The searchlights were sweeping back to their standard pattern.

I sprinted for the dorm alley. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

I was halfway across the open lawn when I felt it.

A pressure. Not a sound. A feeling like static electricity brushing against the back of my neck.

The Inquisitor.

He wasn’t in the library anymore. He was outside.

I dove into a snowdrift behind a hedge. I buried my face in the cold powder. I slowed my heart. Four in. Two hold. Three out.

Nothing. I am a rock. I am a tree. I am boring.

Steps crunched on the gravel path, ten feet away.

A man in a long leather coat stopped. He held a silver rod in his hand. The tip of the rod glowed with a faint, sickly green light.

He sniffed the air.

"Disturbance," he murmured. His voice was like dry leaves.

He turned toward the hedge. The green light pulsed.

He was sensing the heat of my body. Not magic. Just life.

I grabbed a handful of snow and packed it against my neck, masking the pulse point. I didn’t breathe.

The Inquisitor took a step closer. The rod pointed straight at my hiding spot.

Then, a noise.

SCREECH.

An owl launched from the tower roof, diving for a mouse in the garden. It flapped heavily, breaking the silence.

The Inquisitor looked up. The rod flickered.

"Life sign," he muttered. "Animal."

He lowered the rod. He turned and walked away, his coat flapping in the wind.

I waited until he was gone. Then I waited five minutes more.

I crawled to the dorm wall. Cael dropped a rope from the window. I climbed up.

I tumbled into the room. Lyra and Gareth were waiting.

"You’re blue," Lyra said, touching my face.

"Cold," I chattered. "Inquisitor... outside."

"Did he see you?"

"He smelled me," I said. "But he thought I was an owl."

I sat on the bed, shivering uncontrollably as the adrenaline crashed.

"The Charter," I said through rattling teeth. "Admin vault. Noon tomorrow. We have to walk through the front door."

"With the guards?" Gareth asked.

"With the noise," I said. "We need a diversion. A loud one."

Cael grinned. "I can do loud."

"No magic," I warned. "Physical loud."

"I know," Cael said. "I’m thinking... structural failure."

I looked at my hands. They were raw, bleeding again through the bandages.

"Boring," I whispered.

"Get warm," Lyra ordered, throwing a blanket over me. "Tomorrow we steal the school."

I closed my eyes. The image of the Inquisitor’s green rod burned in the dark. He was good.

But he was looking for a wizard.

He wasn’t looking for a thief.