Phony Potions

Chapter 33

The tower emerged from the ground as we ascended the hill. The weather worn panels of dark red wood at the top were formed in a cone. The rounded tower walls were made of identical squared bricks, white in the moonlight with dark holes punched regularly within them for windows. Except not all of the planned spaces were dark. In the third from the top, orange flickered like a pupil of an eye with an unfocused gaze.

"It isn't supposed to be occupied," Winsor hissed.

"It isn't? Why did we come out here?"

"We're making sure there's no other being haunting... The rumors in town...?" He attempted to scowl at me over his shoulder before bringing his attention back to the tower. "These pre-Arcanacracy towers were a sign of the way things used to be, when sorcerers were predators rather than protectors." Winsor's body tightened beneath my arms. "They're only preserved in the name of knowledge, history. To use them for habitation is considered subversive."

As more of the tower came into view, I thought it hadn't been preserved particularly well. The grass grew high around here, the seeds at the top tickling the bottoms of my dangling feet when we strayed too close to the edge of the road. Entire chunks of the tower had fallen off, and if it wasn't so unmoving against the night air, I would fear the tower crumbling. Stones were missing from the middle floors; vegetation grew out of the man-sized holes like hair, vines breaking up the white brick with their deep green tendrils.

There were other signs of battle damage, unplanned ledges and gaps that were built up with birds' nests. Sculptures jutted out from support points, howling faces and twisting animals. They were frozen mid-writhe as if they were in pain, nothing like the pretty sculptures on Bernard's columns. Why would someone intentionally make a sculpture scary? I must not be appreciating it properly. Maybe it's because so many of them were missing limbs or noses, worn down by time or attack or both.

Crickets thrummed more openly than in Blythe. The sound of wind creaking through the trees was punctuated by the skittering of small creatures in the grass. When Flatchert's hooves stopped pounding against the road, it felt too quiet. Winsor stopped breathing, perhaps to listen. I tried to listen too. In the far distance, I heard the soft chuckling Kobeetles. They were feeding somewhere, on something. The wind changed and the sound faded. Not close. We were safe from them, but my skin crawled all the same. I determined that I would watch my step; the tempting irony of me injuring my foot like Mallow had done now that I was shoeless made the threat seem more real.

I dropped my arms down to climb off the saddle, but my elbow bumped against something hard tied to Winsor's hip. A weapon?

"Careful," Winsor whined at me. I dismounted and patted Flatchert before moving around to the front to grab the reins. Winsor got off slower than me. When he settled himself in the grass, he muttered something and the spell of disguise fell away.

I glanced around the piles of fallen stone and tall swaying grasses before spotting a half-bent tree a few yards away. It wasn't manicured neatly like the trees behind the Divinis's manor had been. The trunk was thick with molted, uneven bark. Its wormlike roots wound in and out of the ground, curling in loose knots. The trunk grew sturdily straight, as if it had been tended to and watched at one point, but about ten feet high it took a violent bend, the canopy of heavy green leaves unbalanced in their weight. The darkness was so thick, it would be hard to see anything right at its base. A great hiding place for Flatchert. I wound the lax part of the reins around the trunk until there was enough for her to lower her head to the ground to graze, tethering her there.

"Do you think she'll be safe here?"

"Depends on whether the rumors are true," Winsor said to me as he surveyed the ruins, running his pale hand across a chunk of fallen sculpture. It was as white as the marble. "If it's really spectral other beings, then they should have little cause to disturb your horse." Winsor's robe swished in the breeze. "However, if the rumors are incorrect, then most likely the disturbance is bandits, brigands, or other sorts of low lives. Your horse is in incredible peril unattended like this, yes."