The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall by Janice Hardy Page B

Quenji, rubbing his hands together. “Thieves hide stuff.”
    We opened every drawer, looked behind every book, looked in every book, but found nothing else in the library. I went to the next room, running my hand over everything again, but no quivers and no pynvium.
    “Bedroom next,” Danello said, pushing open the door. The room had been searched already, long before we got here. Drawers were empty, chairs were knocked over, nothing left on the tables. Even the bedding was gone.
    My stomach clenched when I walked in, but not from any glyphed pynvium. This had been Zertanik’s bedroom. I’d killed the man who used to sleep here.
    “Let’s get this over with.” I moved quickly, checking the places that might hold hidden compartments like Quenji said. I stepped into the closet, which was as big as my old room over at Millie’s Boardinghouse.
    My stomach quivered. “Check the floor. My toes are tingling.”
    Danello felt around the edge near the baseboards. A knot in the wood had a hole in the center, and he stuck his finger into it. One section of the floor pulled up.
    “Another hiding place,” he said.
    Two bags and one long box sat in a compartment about six inches deep and two feet square. The box was locked.
    Danello picked up a bag. It clinked. He looked inside and sighed. “Only jewels,” he said.
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Quenji grabbed the bag from his hand and poured gems into his palm. “Look at all this! We could live like aristocrats with these.”
    Shame we hadn’t found those back when we were living here. That one bag alone would have been enough to get every last one of us out of Geveg and someplace safe. I sighed. I’d been a fool not to search the town house before. To avoid rooms I really hadn’t wanted to go into. If I had, maybe we’d have escaped in time and Tali wouldn’t have … been changed.
    “Nya?” Danello rubbed my shoulder. “You okay?”
    “I’m fine. Quenji, unlock the box, then stand back again, just in case.”
    Quenji worked on the lock until it snicked, then joined Danello in the hall. I reached for the long box. Lifted the lid.
    Whoomp.
    I winced, the blown sand prickle stinging this time. Zertanik created strong enchantments, stronger than anything Papa had ever made. Zertanik might have been a thief and a traitor, but he was a talented enchanter for sure.
    “What’s inside?”
    “Glyphed pynvium. Long strips of it, about two inches wide, maybe a quarter inch thick. They look a little like rulers.” A single column of glyphs ran down the center.
    “Are they weapons?” Danello called.
    “I don’t know. We’d have to trigger them to find out, and they might only have one flash.” I pulled over the box from the bookshelf, my stomach doing flips. I took a deep breath and opened it.
    Whoomp.
    Same sting, same sharp pain. If I were a thief, I’d run the second I touched one of these things.
    “It’s clear,” I said, reaching inside the box. Something the size and shape of a battlefield brick was wrapped in cloth. I unwrapped it as the boys gathered around.
    “That looks expensive,” Quenji said.
    A cylinder of ocean-blue pynvium sat in my hands, glyphs carved deep into four vertical strips of silvery-blue metal.
    Kragstun.
    “What is that for?” Danello whispered. Something about that cylinder made me want to be cautious, too. And run as fast as I could out the door and hide. I held the cloth carefully, not letting the cylinder touch my skin.
    “I don’t know.” But I was sure it had something to do with the Duke and his weapons.
    Zertanik had been working with the Duke to help create his pain-cycling device, and maybe more than just that. The Duke’s pynvium weapons had flashed several times—and they’d flashed hard. Had Zertanik made those? Had he made the pynvium armor? The lining?
    I guess Vinnot hadn’t been the only one doing experiments.
    I put the cylinder back in the box, feeling better the moment the lid closed.