Sonder turned away from Grimalkin's home.
Lacuna followed, keeping pace at her side as they wound down the uneven street. Neither spoke until the tower was out of sight.
At last, Lacuna let out a long breath. "Two weeks," he muttered. "That's too long. And the stay ends in three days."
"I cannot wait two weeks," Sonder said. Her voice was flat, but the set of her jaw was sharp. "Grimalkin is the reason I came. If I am pushed back outside, everything is wasted."
Lacuna kicked at a loose stone, sending it skittering ahead. "Then you need another path." He scratched at his jaw, thinking. "If you, or I, were someone important, Grimalkin's guards wouldn't dare turn us away. Someone with rank could get through. Like someone from one of the great houses."
Sonder turned to him, brow furrowed. "Great houses?"
"I suppose you don't know much about the Thole - the red elves?" His tone carried a trace of pride, as though knowing such, in itself, made him wiser. "Gloam is the seat of one of their great houses. Old families, old bloodlines. All their power is here - politics, wealth, influence - it runs through Nesh, the house that rules from this city."
Nesh. It meant little to her.
"And the other houses?" she asked.
"There are a few," Lacuna said, warming to his own explanation. "Some greater, some lesser. Nesh is the one you might have a chance with. They value knowledge, history, and things most other houses don't bother with. They gather relics, books, and fragments of the old world. And magic."
"They take in sorcerers?"
"One like you? They must. If you walk into their halls and prove you're worth their notice, you might wear their crest. And if you wear their crest, Grimalkin's guards won't make you wait two weeks. They'll bow."
Sonder stopped walking. "Then that is where I'll go."
Lacuna laughed under his breath. "That's the spirit. And while you're bending their ears with your wizardry, maybe I'll see if another house has room for a clever tongue of a charming rogue, like mine."
Sonder glanced once more in the direction of Grimalkin's unreachable tower. She would find her way there soon.
They wound their way through the city, asking for directions until they reached their destination.
The building towered above its quarter, vast and spiraled, its surface layered like the hardened growth of some ancient shell.
The ridges curled outward and upward, wrapping around the structure in broad, sweeping coils. Between those ridges, narrow windows glimmered like dark eyes, peering out in all directions.
At its base, a broad archway served as a door.
Lacuna gave a whistle of awe.