Noxia Shade's Arc

Chapter 3 of 15

The inner door slid open on a room that should not have been empty. A single desk sat at the center, lit by the low blue wash of the dome. No chair held a watcher. No voice gave a greeting. Noxia stepped in with the cloth and the notebook still in her hands. Her eyes went to the desk first. A narrow slot was cut into its surface, sized for what she carried. The slot's edge glowed faintly, already warm. Something had moved through it before she crossed the threshold. The gate had been triggered without her. She set the notebook on the desk and crouched low. Under the lip, a flat disk clung to the wood. Its sensor membrane pulsed soft orange, steady as a heartbeat. A listener. Left running. Someone had fed a false notebook into the slot, then planted ears to catch whatever she said next. Noxia did not speak. She pressed her thumb over the glowing ring until the light died under her skin. Then she slid her own notebook into the slot and let it lock. The slot accepted it with a low click. Two notebooks now sat in the spymaster's hands, and only one of them was hers. She straightened with the stained cloth still in her grip. The gate had closed behind her, and the next room would not ask which notebook was true. It would ask her to prove it. Then she saw it on the far corner of the desk. A flower stood in a low dish, petals flickering like small flames. Its shadow swayed against the wall though no air moved. A calling card. Left for her, or for anyone who came next. Noxia lifted the dish and turned it in the blue light. A single thorn had been snapped clean at the stem. She set the flower beside her notebook and laid the stained cloth between them. Three pieces of proof, only one of them honest. She pulled off her boot and set it on the floor beside the desk. Whoever came to read the room next would breathe what she chose to leave. The listener was dark. The flower was hers now. She walked to the far wall and waited for the next door to open. The wall did not open. A folded square of paper slid out from a seam near her knee. She picked it up. The crease was stiff, the edges damp. Crimson bled through in wide blots, fresh enough to smell. No words. Only the stain, shaped like a hand pressed flat. She turned it over once. A single line had been scratched into the back corner. Name the one who sent the cloth, or wear it out. Noxia folded the paper around the stained scrap and tucked both inside her coat. The spymaster had not asked for her notebook anymore. He had asked for a name she did not have. The third gate was no longer about what she carried. It was about who she would give up to keep walking.