A Dreadful Thing

9: THE ARBITRATOR

NINE: THE ARBITRATOR

Orla

Master Porter led the pair of teenage girls across the commons to the rear of the Jupiter Forum, removing a ring of keys from her jacket pocket.

"We'll go through the staff entrance here," she said, crossing beneath an arch of yew hedges, heading for a seemingly blank wall. "Students aren't allowed this way normally, but it will save us some time today."

Rather than passing the key through a keyhole, she pressed the key to one of the bricks, and the wall dissolved inward, melting like a snowflake caught in a warm hand. Master Porter and Vera paid the phenomenon little mind, but Orla gawked. She was mildly concerned the wall would suddenly materialize and she'd run into it as she crossed the entrance.

Inside, the corridor was quiet but infiltrated by the subtle noises of crinkling paper, conversation, snapping fires, and clinking dishware. Orla peeked into a room as they passed it, finding a staff lounge with a few instructors inside, drinking tea or coffee or getting prepared for their classes. Some looked up at the intrusion, though most didn't pay her any mind.

"This way, Miss Tiernan."

Master Porter and Vera had gotten ahead, and Orla lurched forward to follow.

When Orla had first seen the building the evening prior, she hadn't realized how large it was, how the passages wended through the space, crossed by balconies or bridges overhead. What was stranger, however, was the whispering. It caroused and echoed, almost playful, and breathed against Orla's ear. She rubbed it, then looked to Vera and Master Porter to see if they heard it too, but neither did.

That...doesn't bode well.

Master Porter brought them to a door on the second floor, and she knocked twice.

"Enter."

The voice that spoke was reedy and strange, sending shivers through Orla and Vera. Master Porter simply opened the door and let them inside, bringing them into a large office filled from floor to ceiling with thousands upon thousands of wooden filing cabinets. A swirling nebula of tiny brass keys formed above their heads, each key like a star swathed in a curious, murky fog. A woman wearing a white blindfold was seated behind a circular desk. The most striking detail of her countenance was the four pairs of spider legs emerging from her back.

Orla didn't gasp, but it was a near thing.

"Good morning, Madam Arbitrator," Master Porter called, and the woman tipped her head in acknowledgment. If not for the spindly legs, she would have appeared normal—her Asian features young and pretty, delicate black hair tied in intricate braids along her scalp. She had to be blind, but she didn't seem to have difficulty pinpointing their location in the room. One of her spidery limbs lifted and tapped a key, sending it off to its cabinet.

Watching the cabinet open on its own as an appendage carefully slotted a new document inside reminded Orla of something Master Porter had said at Mr. Byrne's house. She'd mention how some Seraphium needed to remain in their communes because their Talents were too obvious to have in normal places. The Madam Arbitrator must have been one of those Seraphium.

"You have brought me another," she said in that raspy, reedy voice as the trio approached the desk. Orla held herself very still as one of those eerie legs moved over her head and gently patted her hair. A clicking laugh left the Arbitrator. "Braver than most."

"Indeed," Master Porter said. "Orla here is in need of her schedule."

"A first-year?"

"No. She's a second-year."