60

Alvis leads you back to the archives. Inside, he warmly greets the bored-looking young man seated at the front desk and comes away with a stone key tucked in his hand.

"Zaman's design," he says, holding it up to you. "Bound to the stone keyhole on the door to the room where they keep the Book of Prophecy. Only way to open it—the lock can't be picked. Whole room's warded, too, more than the rest of the campus. Like I said, they're careful with the Book."

You make your way toward the stairwell that led you down to Mardas's basement, Alvis pausing to chat with several mages along the way. Somehow he always manages to steer his conversations around the topic of the prophecy, even though it must be the first thing on everyone's mind.

Next

Unsurprisingly, it's a much longer way up to the level where the Book of Prophecy is kept than it was down to the basement. You're at one of the highest stories when Alvis pauses on a landing and gestures to the door, though there are still a few flights of stairs left ascending to the very top. Beyond the first door is nothing but an empty lobby leading to another one, which has a noticeable stone keyhole.

"They don't guard the room itself?" you ask Alvis.

Alvis hesitates. "They should," he says, gesturing toward a small desk you almost missed on one side of the room. "But everything's been a mess since we got the news from Archa about the moon. I'm not surprised no one wanted to sit up here in the quietest room in the Academy with no way to find out what's going on."

You can't tell how confident Alvis is about that, but he shrugs and walks over to the second door before you can ask further. He beckons you over as he slides the key into the stone lock and the door swings open.

Standing in front of a book-laden pedestal, on the other side of the door that can only be opened with the key Alvis is holding, is a woman you've never seen before.

The woman slowly raises her head from the Book of Prophecy, dark hair brushing past her shoulders and falling fully to her waist. She's dressed in simple woolen traveling clothes—noticeably, not in mages' robes. She stares at you for so long you almost start to wonder if you're the one doing something wrong, or, as she looks even longer, if she knows you somehow. There's something almost like recognition in her eyes, but you're sure her face is completely unfamiliar.

"Oh," she says. "It's you."

That would be a point in favor of her having met you before, if not for the fact that you're one of the most famous people in the country.