Gods & Thieves

15. Echoes and Gearwheels

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Moody, I find my way to the cafeteria. Everything seems to be going fine so far today, yet I still don't like the aftertaste of it.

Everything I used to like is...not likable anymore: my dreams to change the world, my hatred for shamans--even pancakes. I walk past them as I inspect the food stalls, filling my plate with fried chicken and taking another piece of corn cake for dessert.

The world around me is the same, so it's me who doesn't like it all as I used to. What's wrong with me?

I glance around the crowded hall, looking for a place to sit, but my favorite spot in the corner is occupied by a couple of shamans who seem to be having a date. The only other option is Jaya and Yaling, who dine at the table in the outright center. I don't like attention, but it must be a good place to show my face--just as Loretto wanted.

For some reason, I thought the girls wouldn't be glad to see me after Valto was found dead in my room, but they smile as I approach, and clear some space for me, pushing their dishes aside.

We eat in silence, though.

Maybe they're too preoccupied with the thoughts of their studying, maybe they simply don't know what to say--I definitely don't--but at least, I guess, their smiles mean they don't believe me to be a murderer, and that's some comfort. Not everyone wants to get rid of me.

At last, when I finish my meal and begin to rise to my feet, Jaya suddenly speaks. "Sorry for prying, Elisey, but did your mentor, by chance, tell you any news? Ours tell us nothing, and I thought yours might. I'm worried."

I stop, empty plate in my hands. "What news?"

"You're not interested in rings, are you?"

"No," I blurt out with jittery swiftness. Cold alarm lurches through my spine. "Why would you think that?" Did someone overhear my conversation with Ian? Am I in trouble again?

"They say there was a ring in the Great Temple," Yaling explains, signing. "A silver ring." Trepidation sparks in her eyes at the word. "One of the librarians found it this morning. She didn't realize it was silver until she picked it--and ended up with a horrible scald. She's in the infirmary."

"Oh." The murder is old news, nobody cares about that or me anymore. Good, right? My alarm hushes. "No. My mentor and I, we don't talk much."

But silver...It is toxic to shamans, leaves them scalded and powerless--sometimes for years; silver hasn't been allowed in Cabracan for years, and finding it in the heart of the shaman empire now is as bad as discovering a poison camouflaged for a candy. Or a bomb. First, a murder, and now this--something is brewing.

"Just be careful, then. Don't touch anything silvery--or abandoned rings if you see any." Eyeing me for a moment, Jaya nods. "I'm not good at making friends, but I feel like you and I can be friends, Elisey, you know?"

Could another Cale's spy somehow get silver? Alchemically, perhaps. But why bring it here? Scare shamans in such an obvious manner and therefore warn them beforehand? "Y--you too." Lost in thoughts, I stumble over my own legs and the word as I skirt my chair to leave. Yaling gives a courteous laugh, but she says nothing. "Be careful, I mean."

Only as I walk across the cafeteria's gallery, away from our table and the thoughts of the ring, I fully realize what Jaya meant.

She called me her friend. Well, she merely suggested we could be, but it speaks volumes still, right? We barely know each other, yet she thinks I deserve to be her friend--not a single shaman in my life treated me that highly. And I'm lying to my friends, pretending to be one of them only to help Cale deprive all shamans of their power later. A wolf in sheep's clothing. I've never considered myself a villain, but somehow, now I think I know how it feels.