Aldrin's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Aldrin dropped from the college wall and ran until his lungs burned. He stopped in an empty lane and pulled the folded page from his robe. The seal still held. The name still stared up at him. Warwick. He read it three times. A name was not proof. If the watch caught him, they would take the page and burn it. Then he would have nothing. Cedric caught up, out of breath. "You can't carry it," he said. "They'll search you." "Then what?" "I copy the mark. I bind the words to a stone." Cedric knelt and drew a small carved stone from his pack. Purple light gathered on his fingers. "A binding holds a thing in place. If they take the paper, the stone still speaks the truth." Aldrin held the page flat. Cedric pressed his hand over it and the stone. The runes on the stone drank the ink's shape. But the light bent wrong. It turned from purple to a sick green, then red. Black threads curled up from the surface. "Stop," Aldrin said. "I can't." Cedric's arms shook. "The name fights back. It's warded." The stone cracked. A voice came through it, dry and pleased. "Someone speaks my name." Aldrin knew the voice. He had heard it at a table years ago, warm then, kind then. Warwick the Wretched. The man who first placed the hidden book in his master's hands. The stone showed a face in its dark center. Eyes glowing white from too much dark magic. Red magic bled off black robes. "You found me, boy," Warwick said. "Ivan chased me for months. He is old and slow. You are young and loud." The face smiled. "I marked that page myself. Speak my name aloud and it whispers back to me. Now I know your friend. Now I know his magic." Cedric ripped his hand away. The stone went dark. The paper in Aldrin's grip crumbled to gray ash and blew apart. The name was gone. Aldrin stared at his empty hand. His one thread had turned to dust. "He heard us," Cedric said. He wiped sweat from his face. His voice stayed flat, but his hand trembled. "He knows my signature now. He can find me the way he found your master." Aldrin closed his fist around the cracked stone. It was cold and wrong, but it was still a thing. "The paper's gone," he said. "But he told us something. He hides in a tower. A warded one. I saw the stones behind his face." Cedric looked at him. "You want to walk into his home." "I want proof I can't lose," Aldrin said. "The page could burn. A place can't hide once I stand in it." He pushed the dead stone into his robe. Now the killer knew them both. And now Aldrin had somewhere to go.