Everyone was silent. “I was wondering,” I finally said, tentatively, “whether what happened to the Well might be important.”
“What do you mean?” Samudra said.
“Well, I’ve only just learned the Well exists, so I don’t know much about it. But it was corrupted by human action, right? What if the invaders did something like that to the Fountain, and it warped the wards, or something?”
Amarion’s eyes narrowed like he was thinking hard. “I don’t know,” he said.
“It seems unlikely,” Samudra said. “The Well is still there, and to my knowledge is still warded—powerfully so, to prevent any more tragedies.”
“Perhaps not,” Claude said. “It was not possible to ward it completely against physical intrusion, as that would draw mundane attention to it. But it is true those wards have a very strange shape, to my knowledge.”
“Does the shape of a ward make a difference?” I asked.
“It can,” Samudra admitted. “I have made it a point to stay informed about how the wards on the Sanctuary work, and the stone magi tell me the Sanctuary’s node distorts its wards in peculiar ways. The example they gave was of a stone disc broken in half, not smoothly, but with jagged edges. Both must be aligned perfectly to make a whole. The wards are made jagged by the node, and the stone magi build matching wards that mesh into a single magical structure.”
“I get it,” I said. “So if the node behaved differently—warped the wards in a different way—would that weaken the wards? Because they no longer, um, mesh?”
Samudra’s face had grown thoughtful as I spoke. “I cannot answer that, as I am not a stone magus,” he said, “but it is a theory worth pursuing. I shall contact the Devarakonda Node when we are finished here and ask Mr. Chowdhury to send a stone magus. However, I cannot imagine a condition that would alter a node enough to change the way it affects the world.”
“Nor can I,” Claude said, “but nodes grow and shrink over time, so there is nothing inherently impossible about them changing in other ways.”
“I agree that it is worth considering,” Samudra said.
His approval warmed my heart, and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t a lap dog, eager for praise from my master. Especially since Samudra wasn’t my master. “Can I ask something about the Well?” I said. “You said it was still there, and I was told it could still grant wishes, but that they were cursed wishes. Why would anyone even make a wish, if they knew it was cursed?”
Amarion grimaced. “Some people are hard of learning,” he said. “They believe their request is so pure it won’t be tainted. Others think they’ve learned the secret way of asking that will grant them success. And some simply do not know the danger. Those are outsiders, usually, ordinary non-Wardens who toss a penny into the Well and make an idle wish. Because they pay little, the Well gives them little, and that’s true for its curse as well.”
“The Well has been corrupt for over fifty years,” Claude said, “but the Wardens have not given up on reclaiming it. It would be a great boon to magery were they to succeed.”
“I heard only the Middle Eastern magi are allowed to go there,” I said.
Samudra nodded. “This is mostly true. The conflict in the Middle East makes it hazardous in places for foreign magi, particularly those of American and European descent. But there are those who go anyway, without official sanction, naturally.” His pinched, disapproving expression told me those were likely hot-blooded young men with no common sense. I wondered if Malcolm had ever gone to the Middle East, either as a Navy SEAL or as a magus. He had plenty of common sense.
“So the invaders couldn’t attack it without being noticed,” I said.
Samudra began to speak, then subsided, his pinched expression becoming thoughtful.
“It would do them no good,” Claude said, then fell silent as well. Amarion had an inward-turned expression, like he was thinking hard.
“What is it?” I said finally, feeling impatient.
Claude shrugged. “Possibly nothing. It is just…we assume the invaders have not attacked it because it is poison to them as well as to us, but that is a guess only. Perhaps we should not depend on guesses.”
“I’ll tell Khalil al-Hussein at the Najmeh Node of this possibility,” Amarion said. “The Well is heavily warded, but I don’t know how often they check the wards.”
“But this leaves us with the other possibility,” Claude said, “that the invaders struck at the Fountain in a non-magical way. I did not ask how Diane died, obviously, but if it was other than simply being drained of her magic…”
Silence fell over the four of us. I didn’t want to think about Diane’s death at all. Invaders usually killed by draining someone’s magic, and it was an agonizing death, but there were a lot of ways to die that were equally awful, and if Diane… I shuddered and said, “I suppose we ought to tell someone about this possibility. I doubt anyone would think of telling us if Diane died a different way. Just…just killing her wouldn’t do it, because Mr. Briggs was murdered and it didn’t hurt the oracle—oh, I can’t believe I just said that.”
“Michelle Suzuhara at the Hampton Node spearheads this investigation,” Samudra said. “I do not know her.”
“Lucia does,” I said. “And she should probably be told, too. I know the Board of Neutralities goes to her first when they need someone to, um, put pressure on the magi.”
“Very well. Then you will discuss this with Ms. Pontarelli,” Samudra said. “And each of us will discuss with our stone magi the possibility of the wards being distorted and therefore weakened.”
“I—oh, Xerxes!” I exclaimed as a furry body leaped onto the table in front of the laptop. “Sorry, everyone.” I grabbed my Persian cat around his fluffy midsection and unceremoniously dropped him on the floor. “He knows he’s not allowed on the table, but he thinks if there’s no dishes…anyway.”
“Of course,” Samudra said, and to my surprise he was smiling the smile of a fellow cat guardian. “He is large.”
“Eighteen pounds of bird-chasing fur.” Xerxes rubbed against my leg as if he knew I was talking about him. My pajama legs were always covered with white hairs.
“As I said, I’ll warn Khalil,” Amarion said as if Xerxes hadn’t interrupted us. “And suggest he speak to Lucia as well. Her information may help them.”
“Then I believe that is all,” Samudra said. “I will text the rest of you if I learn anything.” It always surprised me to get texts from Samudra, because I never thought of Nepal as particularly rich in technology—but that was probably my ignorance showing. All I knew about Nepal was high mountains and Sherpas.
We all added our agreement, and I reached to disconnect from the call when Claude said, “Helena. A moment.”
I lowered my hand. “Yes?”
“What does the oracle say on this matter? Has it spoken to you?”
I felt like an idiot. I should have led with this. “I’m sorry, I should have said. It told me, before we learned of the destruction at Berryton, that two Neutralities were gone and only four remained. I didn’t understand that, because at the time I didn’t know about the Well. Then it called the four remaining ones ‘guardians.’ I asked Lucia, and she said that was an appropriate description of the named Neutralities, but she didn’t say why.”