Chapter Twenty-Six–The Girls’ School, continued

Tam only just fit into the mop closet, as it also housed a rolling bucket and an assortment of brooms and mops, but he folded in among them amenably. “I’ve got a window, at least.” He gestured with his head at the little book-sized square high on the wall behind him. “Be real careful,” he reminded Jon. “If you’re caught, don’t panic. Say you’re on an errand.”

“Right. Oh. Here.” Jon pressed the leaf bundle of Corta into Tam’s hand. “You keep this safe.”

“Why do you even still have that?  Never mind. Go along and hurry.”

They shut Tam in and Kalani opened the next door, revealing a large office full of drawers, cabinets, a desk, and tables covered in curios, inkwells, and files of papers.

“Oh,” said Jon. “I didn’t know there would be so much.”

“It would be easier if he was tidier,” Kalani agreed. “Read what you can, and try to put everything back into place. Read fast. I’ll cover everything in Levour and Trade Common.”

Jon examined the main desk first. He imagined that if someone in a story had something to hide, it might be in a secret drawer, so he looked first at the drawers.

It was Kalani, though, who found the first important clue, in a ledger book. “There’s a recurring line item here that doesn’t fit,” she said. “Birds.”

“Birds?” asked Jon. “The pirates were poaching birds.”

“Yesterday, delivery of 9 songbirds. 270 chips.”

“Isn’t that what they use in Maribelle? That’s rather a lot for birds.”

“It’s cheap for people though,” Kalani snorted. “These are the girls missing from music lessons.”

“Oh,” said Jon, dismayed, and began shuffling through drawers with a more careful eye for references to birds.

He was rewarded at last by discovering a drawer with a false bottom, which he was able to lift carefully out. In it there was a pipe and some tins of leaves and powder, but there was also a pistol, several kinds of money, three roughly sketched maps and a small ledger.

“I found something,” he told Kalani.

Her eyes brightened, seeing the maps. “That one is a cove on the east side of this island.”

“This one looks like a city,” Jon said. “With a building marked, and how to get there from the port.”

“There are no cities that size anywhere in these islands,” Kalani said. “That could be in Maribelle.”

Jon flipped to the third map, and they both whispered over it at once. “Tuwa.”

A light frantic rapping came through the mop closet wall. Kalani ran to the door and peered out, before jumping back. “No! To the window, quick!”

Jon ran to the window, papers in hand, and opened it. Below was a frightening drop down through some thorn trees, to a bit of ground two stories below, and a cliff below that. Jon clambered out onto the thin window ledge. The little square of Tam’s window was just to his left. He edged over and tapped on it. It opened at once, a creaking turn that just lifted the bottom edge. Jon stuffed the papers in. “Can you find me anywhere, Tam?” he asked breathlessly.

“Course I will,” Tam whispered.

Kalani was half out the window now, and looking down in dismay. “We can’t get down here,” she gasped.

“I didn’t think so,” Jon said quietly. “Tam, I think they’ll take us to Tuwa. I’m staying with Kalani so you can find us.”

The office door slammed open. Kalani turned to face it, and Jon crept back in too, to see a red-faced administrator; several tall, grim, pale people in staff clothes; and the girl Inna, who stood very stiff and would not look at Kalani.

“I didn’t want to believe that you were a thief, Kalani,” the administrator said.

“I never wanted it to be true of you either,” Kalani said. “Expel me.”

“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.”

“Have I been discovered as a stage actress, then? Accepted to a foreign school I never applied to? Chosen to go be a governess for some nice family abroad? Is it a sadder lie, like factory work?”

“Kalani,” the administrator sighed. “Sharp wits and a sharp tongue will not serve you where you’re going.”

“Tell me the truth then. Who are you selling us to, and where have they taken the others?”

‘I’m not listening to this nonsense,” the administrator said. “You are clearly a troublemaker. Fronseau, take her to the wagons.”

They seized Kalani and took her away toward the door.

“What about the little boy?” another man asked.

Jon stared up, shoeless and ragged.

“I see an unclaimed delinquent thief’s accomplice, present without leave on restricted grounds,” the Administrator said. “Let’s not have him cause a fuss. Bring him too.”

Jon squeezed his eyes shut as they grabbed him, hoping he was doing the right thing not pitching himself out the window instead. Tam can find me.