Mint Green

Later that night, as the clock passed eleven, I slowly snuck into the boys' dormitory.

Far from the ‘high security’ that Mary mentioned, a stray sneeze could have found its way into the lobby. Their shadow traps were five-year-old tech, the bodyguard was half asleep, and the magic sensors? Glorified smoke detectors.

I passed by the lobby—nearly empty—with only a few students getting some late-night studying in.

“What a waste of time,” I muttered. Studying had always felt stupid to me. I never studied magic. I used magic.

Surely it wasn’t different for any other subject.

“Mark, you say something?” A stray voice caught me off guard. That almost got me to jump out of the shadow. Calm down, Ruby!

“Nope?”

Gods! I snuck further back into the shadow of a random bookshelf. No point in sneaking in here if I was going to blow both my covers.

Hi there! Here's a Prisma sneaking into your dorms! Isn’t she so kind as to announce herself in broad daylight?

As the two boys shrugged their shoulders, I shuffled toward the stairs. Better not to give myself another chance to say something dumb. 

Unfortunately, I loved to talk.

No one’s here, good. The second I made it up to Isaac’s floor, I hopped out of the shadows. Technically, there wasn't an issue with registered guests hanging out in the dorms before ten. But Isaac wasn’t exactly around to register me, so worst case I’d just have to play dumb and say I lost track of time.

At least this way, Mary couldn’t say I used too much illegal magic.

The halls were dead silent as I peeked my head around the corner. “Where are you at, Arthur?”

From what scraps I could gather, every Thursday at half-past eleven, Arthur went to perform some church ritual for his father, and it didn’t sound like the kind of thing he’d miss, not even with Isaac’s disappearance.

“Where’s your pride, Arthur?” I glanced at the hallway clock.

A quarter past eleven.

“Any second now…” It was a fifteen-minute walk there. “I risked my ass sneaking in here; you better not flake.”

And luckily, fate was on my side today. I heard the creaking of his bedroom door as Arthur walked out, dressed in a set of stuffy robes. His eyes dropped as he stumbled through the hall, yawning half a dozen times along the way.

I slipped into his shadow, jumping over to the far wall. Bingo.

My finger slipped into the door gap. From a glance, the actual room’s security was several times more complex than whatever they had in the lobby, and all of it activated whenever the doomroom closed. None of that mattered if I stopped the door before they could activate.

“Hey, Arthur, fancy seeing you out this late.”

Gods! I froze as some random voice came from behind. I'm screwed…

There wasn’t space to sneak under the door, nor a shadow to sneak into the room with.

What to do, what to do… My mind started to race. I had maybe fifteen seconds before Arthur noticed his door hadn’t closed. If that happened, this was all over.

There was only one idea that popped into my head.

It’s gotta work one day… Purple smoke began to rise from the shadow. Arthur couldn’t see that his door was still open, so I’d just have to ensure he saw a closed one. Please, please, please!

For once, the purple began to flow exactly how I imagined it. It coated the door in a thin sheen of purple—enough to mask the shifting wood behind it, but not too much as to catch someone's eye. The door frame began to move. It was ragged, ridged, but slowly the illusion of a closing door was materializing.

Until it didn’t.

The mist exploded, my illusion disappeared, and I was left there with an open door and the two boys standing at the edge of the hallway.

“You have to be kidding—” I leaped out of the shadow and physically shoved the door open, slamming it shut as I entered the room. Not even purple can beat good old-fashioned sneaking around!

Well, it was debatable how sneaky slamming a door was.

I pressed my ear against the door, heart beating like a drum. Objectively speaking, that was the dumbest move I could have made. Jumping up from my illegal magic? And then slamming the door shut? What was I thinking?

But their two voices carried on, fading as they left a few minutes later.

“Thank the gods…” I slumped against the door before smacking my cheeks. “Not the time, Ruby, you got a dorm room to search!”

Though, glancing around, there was a lot more to search than I’d initially assumed.

The room’s setup was an exact copy of the one Val and I shared, with two bunk beds and wooden desks underneath.

“Gods, whose desk is that?” After quickly cracking open the window for later, I walked toward the more crowded of the two. No, crowded was a massive understatement. Giant dusty library books covered every square inch of the desk, with random papers stacked in between.

I picked up an extra set of Church robes discarded on the chair. “That answers my question…” But what the hell could Arthur be doing with all these books?

I read some of the titles at random: Advanced fourth dimensional magical theory, the history of Prismas, the eighteenth creed on the religious implication of Prismas, magic and lineage—a guide on how colors are passed genetically through generations, Prismas and Varies: a comparison…

Every other book junked on here was similar. “What’s Arthur need with these? It’s almost like…” I flipped through a random stack of papers. “Bingo!”

I pulled out a thin receipt, with the school library’s insignia printed near the top. “Isaac Vertana’s checkout log? Could be interesting.” One by one, I compared every title to the mountainous stacks on his desk. Every single one matched.

“I guess Arthur wasn’t lying about the research…” But that just brought along more questions with it. Researching what, exactly?

I quietly pushed his chair back and sat down, where Arthur had left a bit of space for a cramped notebook. And judging by the wet ink, he’d been writing in here just a few minutes ago.

I still can’t tell exactly what Isaac was researching, but with every book I read, the picture seems to become a bit clearer. Every book Isaac checked out seems to be related to either magical genetics, Prismas, or ancient Church doctrine. My current theory relates to the Prisma underground. Rumors state that the insurgents are going to come out with a statement counteracting Church doctrine sometime in the next month. Isaac must have overheard this, sought out to…”

“Ok, that's enough rambling for now,” I pushed Arthur’s chair back. A Prisma underground? Gods, Arthur, are you going insane? Like Vertana would allow something like that to actually exist.

The rest of his stuff didn’t produce anything interesting either, just random homework assignments and extra clothes.

“Halfway done,” I twisted around. Truthfully, half the reason I hadn’t bothered to check out Isaac’s desk was simply because of how empty it felt.

Unlike Arthur’s messy desk, Isaac’s was pristine, with a disconnected orange-powered lamp and absolutely nothing else. His bed was made to boot. Either Arthur had cleaned the place up for whatever reason, or Isaac kept the place sparse.

“First drawer…” I gently grabbed the first handle. “Pens, papers, an extra seal…” I shoved it back closed. “That’s boring.” At least with Arthur, he was nice enough to put all the interesting stuff on top of his desk.

I checked the second and third drawers, eventually going through the entire thing. Absolutely nothing of interest. His desk was a bust, the bookshelf was exclusively filled with the most boring textbooks of all time, the dresser had nothing but clothes. Not to mention the well-made bed that was just as much of a miss as the rest.

“Well, dang,” I collapsed in his chair. “Not one cool thing? Seriously?” Did he just not live here half the time? It was like everything here was just the bare necessities. I even had a few cool things scattered around my room.

At this point I was just kinda disappointed. Research hints aside, I couldn’t believe that Isaac was this boring.

I leaned back as a shiny glimmer came from somewhere under the desk. “Well, what now?” There weren’t any leads I had after this, and waiting to hear Val and Mary’s reports would take forever.

“Wait, why is there a glimmer…” The desk was solid oak. There weren’t any parts that should be glimmering. “What are you hiding, Isaac?”

I nearly leaped under the desk. Honestly, there was such a high chance that this was absolutely nothing, but considering how close I was to getting caught, there was no way I was leaving this stupid room without getting anything new.

My hand felt around the cool desk. “That's… Wait, cold?” I lit a small orange flame on my finger. “What kind of wood is cold?”

Well, that’s not wood… I brought my finger closer to the right side of the desk. A thin rectangular gap, barely thicker than the size of my fingernail, had been cut nearly five inches across.

And something metallic was right behind.

“I’ve never met a prince who is not hiding at least one thing. What’s your secret, Isaac?”

There were a few different locks that could look like this. “But Isaac’s a Varie, and Varies love shadow traps.

Or maybe that was just my bias speaking. Shadows were cool! What kinda person who could dip into shadows whenever wouldn’t use it a ton?

Either way, I watched as my shadow stretched into the crack, followed by a near-silent click.

Perfect! The wood swung outward like a drawbridge. A gap roughly the size of my fist appeared in the wood, with a very peculiar box inside.

“Well, what are you doing here?” I brought my flame a bit closer. “This is sick! I need to see this a bit better, time to—Ow!”

The desk jostled around as I banged my head against the top.

“Gods, did they have to make wood hurt that much?” I rubbed my head, getting out from underneath the desk. “I’m making sure Isaac pays me back for this one…”

But my attention quickly went back to the box. Black and white squares covered the entire thing in a checkerboard pattern. Two locks—one black, the other white—were the only markings on the thing.

I recognized it, of course. Any noble would. “But why the hell was a monochrome lock there of all places?

The mechanics behind the thing were pretty straightforward. Men could use black magic, while women could use white. A monochrome lock required both to open.

“Unfortunately for you, Isaac, they didn’t think of Prismas while designing these. And I love lockpicking.”

That didn’t mean that two random people could just open the box with a bit of luck. Both color locks still needed a code internally, and for the average magician, just getting half the code would take them a month.

Luckily, I was far from average.

“And there we go!” Thirty seconds later, the box slowly creaked open.

Only to reveal a shabby metal key.

“Seriously… all that for a key?” Where were the secret research documents, or the royal decree that got Isaac sent away on his mission? “What a boring—”

“Did you have a good mass, Arthur?”

I leaped back into the desk’s shadow. Arthur’s not supposed to be back for an hour!

“Excellent! I gave the second sermon today, but the people were…”

Time to go. I shoved the key in my pocket and the box back in its little hiding place. Better not to give Arthur any hints I was here.

My shadow sneaked up the wall through the cracked window. Another weakness of this place, they didn’t bother to put any spells on the windows. What amateurish work.

The fact that we were seven stories in the air wouldn’t stop anyone committed enough.

Whatever, I can make fun of them later. As Arthur opened the door, I quickly leaped from the windowsill. Silent jets of water exploded toward the ground.

I hit the bushes with a soft thud. “And Val thought I couldn’t do it.” The key rattled in my pocket as I silently pushed my way back to the main road. “Let’s see if either of those two heard anything interesting…” I rested the key gently on my palm. “Like what you could potentially unlock.”