I RETURNED TO Devi’s door with no excuse left to offer.
Had she scattered secrets like breadcrumbs, certain I would follow? Or was I simply too tired to care?
Before I could decide, she opened the door and stepped aside. The air smelled of cinnamon. It always smelled of cinnamon here, and somewhere along the way I had stopped noticing. “Kvothe,” she said, letting my name stretch off her tongue. “Back so soon? People will start to talk if you keep this up.”
“Let them,” I said as I stepped inside.
“And?” she asked. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“There’s more than you’re telling me,” I blurted. “You know more and you’ve been holding back.”
Devi tilted her head, her smile cutting sharper. “That’s a bold accusation. And here I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t play games like this.”
“Oh, Kvothe, they absolutely do,” she said, leading me farther inside. “But my friendship doesn’t come cheap. You want to know what Lorren is keeping locked away? Get me into the Archives. Then we’ll talk.”
“No,” I said. “Not a chance.”
Devi arched a skeptical brow. “So sudden, so certain. Why not, sweet boy? Surely there’s room enough for two clever, hungry minds in your hallowed stacks.”
“There are places you don’t belong, Devi. Some doors wouldn’t close so cleanly after you passed through them.”
Her expression didn’t falter, but something behind her eyes went flat. “I expected better of you, Kvothe. I really did. I thought you’d understand a simple bargain between civilized people.”
“We’re not even having this conversation,” I snapped, already pacing. “I won’t risk it.”
“You owe me,” she said. “The reagents. You asked for my help. I gave it.”
We argued. I don’t remember everything I said, but I remember the heat of it. I tried to use reason. Devi cut through it with precision. She was a professional. I was out of my depth.
Looking back, I can see how neatly she’d backed me into this corner. But at the time, all I could see was the door I needed opened.
“Fine,” I said. “But on my terms.”
Her lips twitched into a smile. “How startlingly reasonable of you. And what, pray tell, are your terms?”
“No action until we’ve settled on a solid plan. One we both agree on.”
“Fair enough,” Devi said. “Lucky for you, I’ve already given this some thought. We just need to borrow the keys.”
She pulled a small vial from her pocket, no larger than her thumb. The liquid inside was deep red, catching the lamplight.
“This,” she said, holding it aloft, “is a little marvel I’ve been tinkering with. Tasteless, odorless, and precise. A few drops in Lorren’s wine, and he’ll sleep deep and dreamless. More importantly, he’ll remember nothing when he wakes.”
“Borrowing keys and drugging one of the Masters are two very different things.”
Her smile had teeth in it. “You know, Lorren keeps the keys to the Four-Plate Door under his robe with little else. Curious place to tuck something so important, don’t you think?”
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Nothing, darling. Just facts.”
“I still don’t like this.”
“I’d be worried if you did,” Devi said, sliding the vial across the desk toward me. “But unless you’ve got a better plan?”
I wanted to argue. Everything in me itched to push back. But I didn’t have another plan, and I was desperate enough to take the risk.
“There’s one more condition. I insist on testing it first. On me.”
Devi’s laughter filled the room. But when I didn’t smile, it faded almost as quickly as it began. “You have my assurances. It works.”
“That’s not good enough. I need to know exactly what to expect.”
She hesitated, her hand curling tight at her side. “I’ll need to decant a new batch. Adjust the proportions for your weight and constitution. It’ll take about three days before I have everything ready.” She pulled the vial back, dropping it into her pocket. And a few hours later she sent me back out into the night.
Three days felt like three years.
The first day was unbearable. I kept hearing Vashet’s voice, sharp and patient. “Is the Lethani served by risking others for your own gain?”
The second day, I joined Mola, Wil, and Sim for an afternoon game of Corners at Anker’s.
On the first hand, Sim pushed his partner marker aside. “I’ll take it alone.” He took the first few tricks easily, but then hesitated. I saw the moment he realized his mistake before losing the rest to Wil.
“Thought I had it all planned out,” Sim said sheepishly while gathering the cards.
He spent the rest of the game trying more desperate measures to dig his way out of that hole.
On the walk back, his words kept returning to me. But by the time I reached my room, I’d already pushed the thought away.
The third day, I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Rather than return to my room, I went to the Apple Court at the edge of the Underthing’s grate. The air that rose from below was cool and familiar, carrying the peculiar mineral scent of deep stone and stale water. I sat at the entrance for a long while, my lute across my lap, playing nothing in particular.
Auri emerged from the shadows, graceful as moonlight. She settled nearby without a word, her pale hair tumbling around her shoulders as she turned toward my music.
The notes became thin and uncertain then. They stumbled and caught, unable to find their shape. Still, Auri listened. She always did.
“You’re tangled,” she said as the last note faded. Her voice was certain, as if she could see the knots in my thinking.
I ran my fingers lightly over the strings, pretending to tune them. “Just restless.”
“No. Not restless.” She stood, quick and quiet as a bird. For a moment she balanced on the balls of her feet. Then she ducked back into the shadows below, her movements soundless.
I stayed where I was for a long time, staring at the entrance to the Underthing. Just being near her reminded me how much she trusted me.
I had to be better than this. For her, if nothing else.
But that night, crossing the river toward Imre, I buried her needs beneath my own desire.
Devi answered her door quickly, her sharp smile already in place. But she looked different than usual. Tired, her hair slightly less composed. She’d been waiting.
“Come inside,” she said.
Her room had been rearranged. The usual clutter was pushed aside, leaving a cleared space around a narrow cot, a wool blanket folded at its foot. Beside it, a small table held a cup of water and a single red vial, smaller than the one she’d shown me before.
“The measured dose,” she said, following my gaze. “Calculated just for you. I’ve accounted for everything.”
“Everything?” I asked.
Her jaw tightened slightly. “Everything I could account for. Alchemy isn’t arithmetic, Kvothe. There’s always a margin.”
“How wide a margin?”
“Narrow enough.” She picked up the vial and held it to the light. “You’ll sleep. You’ll wake. You won’t remember a thing. That’s the point. If it works on you, it will work on Lorren.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Well. Then you’ll know.” She pressed the vial into my hand, her fingers warm against mine. “Drink it. Lie down. I’ll be here when you wake.”
I looked at the cot. The vial in my hand. Devi’s face, confident but not quite. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.
I drank.
The liquid was cool, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then warmth spread from my stomach outward, like the first flush of good wine. My limbs grew heavy. The lamplight blurred golden at the edges.
I made it to the cot before my legs stopped cooperating. The wool blanket was rough against my cheek. Devi’s face swam above me, soft and indistinct.
The world folded shut.
My mind burned.
That’s the only way I can describe it now, though at the time I had no words for what was happening. Thoughts raced through my head faster than I could grasp them, each fragmenting into a dozen more before I could make sense of it. Memories flashed past. My parents’ fire burning blue. Cinder’s smile. Denna’s face in moonlight. Each pulled a thread I couldn’t hold.
I tried to slow down, to grab hold of something solid, but there was nothing to grip. Just endless churning momentum, a wheel spinning free of its axle.
I reached for my Alar. The iron certainty I’d trained for years. It was there, but wrong. Slippery.
Panic rose, but even the panic felt distant, another thought in the endless cascade.
Time stretched and compressed. I lived years in moments, moments in years. And somewhere in that burning darkness, I became aware that something was wrong. Not wrong like a nightmare. Wrong like a cracked instrument, still playing, but every note off.
And then, finally, the darkness began to thin.
I woke gasping.
The light was too bright, too sharp, and I flinched from it. My body felt hollow, like someone had scooped out everything that mattered and left only the shell. My hands were trembling.
Devi sat beside the cot, pale with deep shadows beneath her eyes. She’d been watching me, I realized. The whole time.
“How long?” My voice came out cracked, barely recognizable.
“Seven hours.” She pressed her palm against her forehead. “Tattered fates. The formula predicted two, maybe three at most.”
I tried to sit up. The room tilted dangerously, and I had to grip the edge of the cot to keep from falling. My thoughts felt wrong. Slow and slippery.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was hoping you could tell me.” Devi leaned forward, her eyes searching my face.
I tried to remember, but the details slipped away. Fragments remained. The burning, the racing thoughts, the feeling of something cracked. But they wouldn’t cohere into anything I could describe.
“It didn’t work,” I said finally.
“It worked.” Devi’s jaw tightened. “You slept. You’re awake now.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I held up my hand, watched it tremble. “Something’s wrong. I don’t feel right.” I searched for a better word but couldn’t find one.
“You’re disoriented. That’s normal.”
“No.” I tried a simple binding. A child’s exercise, linking my body heat to the warmth of the blanket. The connection formed, held for a moment, then slipped.
Devi saw my face change. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” The lie came automatically. “Just disoriented, like you said.”
She studied me for a long moment, and I could see her weighing whether to press. Finally she sat back, her expression unreadable.
“The formula needs adjustment,” she said. “The duration was wrong, and whatever you experienced in there.” She shook her head. “No. You’re right. This isn’t going to work.”
Part of me felt relieved. But a larger part was focused on the wrongness inside my own head, the sense that something had broken loose. “If only we could dig through stone. That room is right underneath Mains.”
The words were out before I could stop them.
“Wait. What did you say?”
“The Archives. The floors. They rotate,” I said, still half-lost in my own thoughts. “Each sub-level spirals off the one above. Sub-two extends beneath Mains, not straight down. The room behind the Four-Plate Door is under the old courtyard with the apple tree.”
“You’re certain?” she asked.
“I triangulated it from six different positions. The math is solid.”
She went to her desk and began searching through drawers.
“We don’t need the door at all,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She turned, holding a glass jar. The liquid inside was clear with a faint oily shimmer. Vapor rose from the sealed stopper.
“We make our own door.” And the concern in her eyes gave way to hunger. “I was working on this before I got expelled. An acid compound. Slow, patient, silent. It eats stone the way time eats everything else.” Her expression flickered. “I never got to finish the experiment. The Masters found my notes before I could try it. But I’ve refined the formula since then.”
“You wanted to dig through the floor of a University building?”
“I wanted to dig through the ceiling of a hidden room that the University pretends doesn’t exist.” She stepped in close enough that I could feel her breath. “Think about it, Kvothe. Generations of curious minds have accomplished nothing. But no one has tried going around it.”
I should have said no. Everything in me knew this was madness. But the door had haunted me for so long. The secrets it might hide, the answers it kept. My parents’ killers. The truth about the Chandrian. Everything I’d been chasing since I was eleven years old.
I thought of Auri’s trusting face. Of Sim and Wil, worried for me. Of Herma, taking a chance on me when I had nowhere else to go.
I thought of the door with my book locked behind it.
“Alright,” I said.
Devi looked triumphant. But I barely noticed. I was too busy trying not to think about the tremor in my hands, and the way my Alar had slipped.