Alice Wanderlynn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Alice knelt beside Killian at the fountain. The moss on the rim was cold under her knee. Water slid down the stone bowl and pooled around the geodes, each one lit from inside like a lamp under glass. Above every geode, a rune. On the tower behind them, dozens more. She could match one shape at a time, walk to the door, and check. Then walk back. Then forget which stone she had just cleared. "I need to write these down," she said. Killian patted his coat. "No paper. No charcoal." "Then we bring some." "Town's half a day. And the fountain doesn't stay quiet forever. Touch a rune wrong and the water hums. Hum long enough and the door hears." Alice looked at the ground. Dirt, moss, roots. She tried scratching a rune into the dirt with her thumb. The line filled in as soon as she lifted her hand. She tried a stick. The mark held for a breath and crumbled. She drew her sword. She scraped the flat of the blade along a bare patch of stone at the fountain's base. A pale line stayed. She scraped again, harder, and cut a rune into the stone. It held. "Slow," Killian said. "Faster than forgetting." She worked around the fountain's rim, matching each rune above a geode to a rune on the tower door. Purple geode, three slants. Orange geode, a broken cross. Green, two hooks. She cut each shape into the fountain's base, then a small mark beside it to note the geode color. Her wrist ached. The sword's edge dulled. A fox came out of the brush and sat at the tree line. Red coat, small black mark on its shoulder. It watched her work and did not move. Killian glanced at it once and kept still. "Is that a problem," Alice said. "Not yet." She kept cutting. By the time she reached the last geode, a cluster of purple crystals bright as a lamp, she had eighteen runes carved into the stone in a neat row. She stood and walked to the tower door. She read the runes there against her row. She could name every one. "I can read it," she said. Killian came to stand beside her. He traced the door with his eyes. "Then which stones do we press." Alice matched shapes one by one, ticking them on her fingers. Six stones. She named them by row and column. Killian nodded at each. He agreed on five. On the sixth, he stopped. "That one's wrong," he said. "Look again." She looked. He was right. She had read a hook as a slant. She swallowed. She had her key now. She also had proof she could still misread it. The fox stood, turned, and slipped back into the trees.