Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (17 page)

"Got to go faster!"
said the boy. "Shelves running out of space."

Madori glanced at the shelves to
see a pile of plates tilt. She rushed forward and caught three plates
just as they fell. Wincing, she ran with them to the aqueduct, then
back again. When she hurried to the water with yet another pile of
plates, she slipped in a puddle, wobbled for a second, thought she
could steady the structure . . . then saw one plate fall toward the
ground.

The Eseerian girl leaped forward
and caught it before it could shatter.

"Be more careful!" the
girl whispered, face pale and eyes wide. "He'll know. By the
great god Amaran, he'll know. He is a demon."

Heart lashing, Madori kept
working. Her eyes stung, and soap bubbles filled the air, and she
kept moving faster and faster, and she knew she couldn't keep up.
They were only several dish washers, and the mountain of plates kept
growing.

She forced herself to sing as
she scrubbed, her voice low, her lips tight, her eyes burning. She
sang "Darkness Falls," the song from her trials, a song of
home—a song to remember a better place, a place of peace, of love.
It was a song her mother used to sing her—a mother Madori had always
fought with, a mother Madori could not wait to hug and kiss again.

I'm
so sorry, Mother. I'm so sorry I always yelled at you for making me
wash dishes at home.
She laughed through her tears.
What
I wouldn't give to be washing dishes at home now!

She turned back toward the
shelves, intending to grab another batch, when she saw two pretty
blue eyes staring from the dining hall beyond.

"Lari," she hissed.

Past the stacks of plates,
Madori couldn't see more than her enemy's eyes, but those eyes were
smiling.

With a clatter, mountains of
plates—a hundred or more—tilted on the shelves. Madori glimpsed
Lari's hands shoving them forward, and she heard a cold laugh, before
the plates all came crashing down.

Madori winced and leaped back,
knowing that Atratus would know, that he'd lash her in a fury.

She waited for the crash of a
hundred breaking plates but heard no sound. She realized she had
closed her eyes, and she peeked . . . and gasped.

The plates were hovering in
midair.

"Leave this place, Lari
Serin!" rose a voice from behind Madori. "Leave or these
plates will drive into your face."

With the plates hovering off the
shelf, Madori now had a full view of Lari, who stood with her friends
in the dining hall. The girl sneered but spun on her heel and marched
off.

Madori too spun around—toward
the back of the kitchen. Jitomi stood at the doorway, holding his
hands forward, sweat on his brow. He managed to give Madori a tight
smile.

"I think," he said, "I
finally figure out levitation."

If she weren't worried about the
plates crashing down, she'd have leaped toward the Elorian boy and
kissed him.

Two more students stepped into
the room—Tam and Neekeya—both grinning.

"We came to help!"
said Neekeya. She looked around at all the dishes and winced. "I
wish I had my magical dish scrubber here. My parents had one back at
home. It would wash all the dishes itself, floating in the air; you
just had to very lightly hold the handle to guide it."

Tam rolled his eyes and stepped
around the Daenorian girl. "Well, we don't have magical
scrubbers, but we have a bunch of hands and about a million dishes to
wash." He reached toward the floating ones which Jitomi still
kept magically suspended. "Now let's help the little billy
goat."

Madori had expected to spend at
least half a turn here, nearly going mad, but with her quartet's
help, they were able to finish scrubbing everything within a couple
hours. When their work was finally done, Madori didn't even want to
return to her chamber; she wanted to plop down right here in the
kitchens and sleep for turns on end. After staying up studying last
half-turn, she was wearier than she'd ever been. Her friends had to
practically drag her out of the kitchens, across the cloister, and
toward the first years' dormitory.

The arcade—a colonnade on one
side, a wall of doors on the other—was empty. The bedroom doors were
all closed. Madori shuffled her feet, barely able to keep her eyes
open, walking among her quartet. When they reached their door, she
yawned and stepped inside, ready to collapse.

Instead she froze and stared.

At her side, Neekeya yelped and
dropped the books she held.

"What—" the swamp
girl muttered. "What happened—?"

"Lari happened,"
Madori said.

Their books all lay torn on the
floor, the pages scattered like autumn leaves. Their mementos from
home—figurines, dolls, paintings—lay smashed. Somebody had drawn a
large Radian symbol upon the wall in blood, and more blood stained
Madori's bed; the coppery smell invaded her nostrils. The smell of
rotten meat wafted too, and Madori nearly gagged.

A note lay upon her pillow.
Moving carefully between the broken books and figurines, she
approached her bed and lifted the note. Upon it appeared in neat
handwriting the words: "Radian rises. Mongrels will be butchered
like pigs."

Neekeya came to stand beside
her. She grimaced and covered her mouth. "It stinks." She
doubled over as if about to gag, then gasped and scampered backwards.
Eyes wide, she yelped and pointed under the bed.

Madori lowered her gaze. When
she knelt, she saw it too. She reached under the bed and pulled it
out: a severed pig's head.

Tam made a queasy sound and
turned green, and even Jitomi looked ill.

Madori placed down the head,
turned around, and walked outside into the hallway.

"Madori, where are you
going?" Tam said, hurrying after her. "The bells have rung.
We're not allowed outside our chambers."

She kept walking, not turning to
look back. "Stay behind. Stay safe and lock the door."

Neekeya raced up beside her,
eyes wide. "You're not going to confront Lari, are you? Because
if you are, I'm going with you. I'll fight at your side."

"No." Madori shook her
head. "I will not fight Lari. That's what she wants. That's what
she's waiting for—to lure us into a battle, maybe a trap. I'm going
straight to Headmistress Egeria and putting an end to this." She
turned around to face her friends; the hallway was empty around them,
all the other students asleep in their chambers. "Go back. Clean
up. Do not go outside into the hall; it's dangerous."

She left them there, heading
between two columns into the courtyard.

Clouds hid the never-sinking sun
of Timandra, and a drizzle fell. Madori's two strands of long, black
hair stuck to her cheeks, while the cropped hair on her back and
sides caught the raindrops like cobwebs catching dew. She made her
way under the elm tree, across the grass, and toward the southeastern
tower—the home of the headmistress. She found herself facing a brick
archway, its keystone engraved with two scrolls, the sigil of Teel
University. When she tried the towering oak doors, she found them
unlocked; they slid open on oiled hinges.

I
will find the headmistress, and I will tell her everything,
Madori thought, stepping inside. She felt too hollow for emotion; no
fear or rage filled her, unless these emotions lurked too deep for
her to feel. She
was hurt too badly, she had suffered too much; all she felt now was
detached determination.
I
will talk about my famous parents if I must, or I will talk about my
friendship with King Camlin and Queen Linee. Lari isn't the only
student here with lofty connections.
She walked down a hall, her clothes dripping, and tightened her lips.
I will end this.

She
rounded a corner, intending to stomp up the tower staircase, and
found herself face-to-face with Professor Atratus.

Madori froze.

At once she raised her hands,
sucking in breath, prepared to defend herself. Her heart leaped into
a gallop.

He stared at her, looming like a
vulture over prey, a foot taller than her. His eyes blazed and his
nostrils flared, the hairs inside twitching. He bared his teeth.

"What," he spoke in a
strained voice, "are you doing outside of your chamber after
hours, mongrel?"

She refused to back down. She
was half his size, a third his age, and as lowly as a worm compared
to his power, but she faced him sternly.

"Move aside, Professor
Atratus," she said. "I'm here to speak to the
headmistress."

He raised his fist; it trembled,
his knuckles white with strain. "Students are not to roam the
university after hours. I thought that my punishments might have set
on your the right path, but I see that you mongrels are truly rabid
beasts."

His hand lashed out and struck
her cheek. Before she could leap back, he slapped her again, a blow
to the second cheek, rattling her jaw. She stood still, too shocked
to react. She wanted to attack him. She wanted to cry, to scream, to
run, to shout for the headmistress, but she could only stand frozen,
and she cursed herself for her paralysis.

Atratus spat out spittle as he
spoke, shaking with rage. "Since you obviously hate your chamber
so much, you will sleep this half-turn outside in the rain." He
grabbed her wrist and began tugging her down the hall. They burst
outside into the cloister, the rain pattering against them. "You
will remain standing outside until next turn, and if I ever catch you
wandering again, I will show you no more mercy."

She tried to free herself from
his grasp, but he was too strong. He dragged her across the cloister,
down a gallery, past the library and dining hall, and finally toward
a craggy wall. They stepped through an archway, emerging into a grove
of elms and birches outside the university grounds. It was a cold,
wet place in the shadows of the mountains, overrun with brush, a
place forbidden to students. Atratus finally stopped walking behind a
twisting oak with a trunk like a face. There he released her wrist.

She tried to run, to barrel past
him. She knew that if she could only reach the headmistress, she'd
have a sympathetic ear. But her legs would not budge. When she looked
down, she found her feet sunken in the mud down to her ankles. Smoky
tendrils wrapped around her legs, keeping her pinned in place.

"Atratus!" she began
to scream when more smoke invaded her mouth, muffling her words.

"Spend a few hours outside
the university," he said. "And think very carefully if you
want to return. If I were you, when the spell is broken, I would
wander deep into the forest, and I would live like the feral beast
that you are. I cannot officially banish you, mongrel, not yet. But
know this." He pointed a shaky finger at her. "If you do
return, you will suffer. I will make you suffer greatly."

He glared at her and lightning
flashed, sparking against his hunched form and hooked nose, gleaming
in his eyes like white fire. He spat and turned to leave. He vanished
back into the university, leaving her outside in the rain.

She could not move. She could
not scream. She could only breathe through her nostrils, and
lightning crashed again, hitting a nearby tree. Throughout the storm,
she could hear the sounds of her friends calling for her, but she
knew they wouldn't find her, not out there.

It was hours before the spell
broke, freeing her legs and releasing the smoke in her mouth. She
fell to her knees in the mud and took a ragged breath. She tilted
over, lay on her back, and gazed up at the sky. The last clouds were
dispersing, and a single beam of light fell upon her. A rainbow
glimmered for just a few heartbeats before fading away.

Tears streamed down Madori's
cheeks.

What
do I do? Do I flee Teel? Do I try to make my way home?

She raised her head and looked
at the university walls. The bells were ringing; a new turn of
classes was beginning.

"I can't return," she
whispered to herself, trembling in the mud, weary and weak and so
afraid. "Lari would attack me, or Atratus would, and . . ."
She covered her eyes. "I can't do this, Father. I can't, Mother.
I'm not strong like you two are."

She closed her eyes.

She couldn't do this.

A faint hint of a caress, like a
falling feather, tingled her hand.

Madori opened her eyes, and
there she saw it, resting on her hand—a duskmoth.

She had seen duskmoths back home
at Fairwool-by-Night; they were denizens of the borderlands, of the
twilit strip that separated day from night. The animal was shaped
like Mythimna, this world they called Moth, one wing white and the
other black. A creature like the one tattooed onto her wrist. A
creature like her, torn between day and night.

"What are you doing here?"
she whispered. "So far from home . . ."

It twitched its feathery
antennae. Perhaps, she thought, it was asking her the same question.
Or perhaps it had come to comfort her, to remind her she wasn't
alone. It seemed to meet her eyes, and she gently caressed its downy
body.

It took flight, rising in
spirals, and she watched as it ascended into the blue sky, and tears
streamed down her cheeks. Lying in the mud, she reached up to it.

"Goodbye, friend. Be brave
up there."

Trembling, her cheeks wet, she
forced herself to take a deep breath.

Another.

Again.

Her
father's words filled her, as warm and comforting as mulled wine:
To
survive, you only have to breathe the next breath.

"But
how can I?" she whispered. "How can I even breathe when
their magic can suffocate me?"

She saw her parents again in her
mind. Her father's face was humble and kind, his eyes warm—one eye
green, the other black, eyes torn between day and night like she was.
She saw her mother too. Koyee's face was paler and sterner, but her
eyes were just as loving, large Elorian eyes like Madori herself had.
In her mind, they both embraced her, enveloping her with love.