Chapter 110: Experiment

Mary had given me the Moon’s Door before we parted, and I had been turning the problem of it over in my head ever since.

The Door could carry me to them, but only if I knew when to use it. We had no clock down in the camp, and the palace did not offer much more. There was one enormous clock hanging in the great hall, its brass hands ticking above the crowd like a judge’s finger. But Mary, Sera, Arthur and Lee did not live here.

They could not read it. Time, for them, was the hunger in their stomachs.

Our original plan had been simple. We would meet at a crossroads south of the mountain, and I had assumed my group would pass through it every day. Mary had shaken her head the moment I proposed it.

"There will be days your team does not go south," she had said, in that soft, certain voice of hers. "Then we would wait for nothing."

She had been right. Today was proof. The hunting party’s road had led northwest, and we would have stood at that crossroads until the stars rotted.

’So the Door it is. But when? And how far?’

That was the real worry. Opening a Moon Door is not a small thing, and distance has a price. My spiritual power was low, thin as a candle in a draft. Theodore’s was another matter. He had an A rank talent, and I suspected his reserves ran twice as deep as mine, perhaps more.

An idea had been sitting at the back of my mind since the Rorozi died, patient and glittering. It involved my Spirit Temple, the inner dimension that lives inside every Awakened’s spirit, home to the Core and, for those who have climbed higher, to their summons. Mine was only a bronze core, which meant I could not store a summon in it yet. That privilege began at silver.

But a temple is a space. And I had a feeling that space could be used for more than one thing.

’Tonight. Once everyone is distracted.’

For now, there was meat to deal with.

We had butchered the Rorozi quickly, Charolette directing with the brisk economy of someone who had done it a hundred times.

The thick, golden-brown flesh went into a large iron pot that Camila had carried on her back all the way from the palace.

Because the meat was going to the captains whole, we did not touch the carcass for anything else. Whatever characteristics the beast had left behind would have to stay unclaimed.

’A shame,’ I thought. ’But Peter would not care.’

Once the pot was full, Hazel reached into her pocket and drew out something tiny. It was a pouch no larger than a coin, dark leather with a faint silver stitch around the edge. She pinched it between two fingers, held it over the pot, and whispered a word.

The pot vanished.

There was no flash, no sound. The whole pot, meat and all, folded smoothly into the little pouch like water into a sponge, and the pouch bulged slightly, then settled. Hazel tucked it away with a shy smile.

"This is a gift my father gave me," she said.

I stared at it for a long moment.

’A spatial gift?’

Camila tugged at my sleeve. She had been watching the exchange with bright, confused eyes, and now she tilted her head toward Hazel, then toward me.

"What did she say?"

Of course. She spoke no Minkz.

"She said it is a gift from her father," I told her, in English.

Camila’s face lit up. "Oh! That is so lucky. My father never gave me anything except a lecture about sitting up straight."

I translated that for Hazel, who laughed into her hand, and for the next stretch of the road I played interpreter between the two of them, passing jokes and complaints back and forth like a small, tireless bridge.

It was strangely pleasant. For half an hour, I forgot to be afraid of being discovered.

We reached the palace about thirty minutes later.

The gate guards took one look at us, nodded, and heaved the iron doors open, no questions asked.

Inside, one of the captains with the coiled dragon tattoo stood beside a long wooden table. Hazel produced her pouch, murmured the word again, and the pot reappeared on the table with a dull thump.

The captain lifted the lid and peered inside. He sniffed once, prodded the meat with a knuckle, and grunted.

Then he nodded, gave us a lazy wave of his hand, and gestured toward Bianca, who was perched on her usual table beneath the lightless chandelier. She was scribbling in her little book before his hand had finished moving.

That was it. No celebration, no applause.

We climbed the spiral stairs and returned to our room, where Charolette dropped onto her bed with a long sigh and stretched her arms over her head.

"I received an Awakened rank gift," she said.

Camila squealed. Hazel’s eyes went wide. Fifty coins, if the prices were true, which I had no reason to doubt. It was the first real money any of them had seen in weeks.

"Congratulations," I said weakly, as Peter would. Then a question that had been prodding my mind finally slipped out.

"Charolette, how do the captains know whether the meat is from a Beast level creature?"

She replied in a flat tone, without lifting her head from the pillow.

"Feral meat is thin and tastes terrible. Beast meat is thicker, richer, and heavier. And they can sense unorthodoxy, to a degree. If you tried to hand them a Feral and call it a Beast, they would know before the lid was off."

"That makes sense."

"It is not a hard system," she said. "That is why it works."

I nodded slowly, then let some of Peter’s innocence into my voice.

"Living here is not that bad, is it? The requirements are small. Hand in the meat, and you eat and sleep in peace."

Charolette turned her head on the pillow and looked at me.

A mocking smile curled the corner of her lips, slow and sharp.

"How would you know you will not die at your work?" she said softly. "Do you have any freedom? Can you walk out those gates and keep walking?"

I said nothing.

She studied me a moment longer, and the smile softened into something tired.

"But I will not say it is terrible. After all, we do get shelter and food. There are people out there who would trade a limb for what we have."

"I see," I murmured.

I did. And it left a strange taste in my mouth.

I stood and brushed the dust from my trousers.

"Excuse me. I need to use the bathroom."

Every room in the palace had one attached, ours included. I pushed the door open and found a narrow stone chamber, damp and cool.

A shallow basin sat in one corner for bathing, a small sink hung on the wall, and in the opposite corner there was a hole in the floor with a footrest on either side, the sort of arrangement I recognized instantly from a very different life.

’An Indian style toilet. In a vampire’s palace. The universe has a sense of humor.’

I turned back toward the room.

"Where does the water come from?"

"The bath water is purified," Charolette called. "But it only flows on the day you finish a special mission from the King. Do not expect it any other time. The sink water is not purified, so use as little as you can."

"And for... washing up?"

"If you must drain your business, you can use the sink water. But I warn you, you will stink afterward." She snorted. "That is why I recommend the bottle, put the water in mug... Well I don’t need to tell you everything, do I?"

Theodore pulled out a dented metal bottle and lobbed it across the room without looking. I caught it against my chest.

"Thank you, Rudy."

"Do not drop it."

"Yes, Rudy."

I stepped inside and drew the door shut behind me. The latch clicked.

I did not intend to use the toilet. I had only wanted a closed door, a stone floor, and ten minutes of privacy.

I set the bottle on the edge of the sink, sat cross legged on the cold floor, and exhaled a long, slow breath.

’Alright.’

I closed my eyes and turned my attention inward, past the thudding of my heart, past the thin cool thread of my spiritual power, toward the quiet space where my Spirit Temple waited.

’Time for the experiment.’