Page 29 of Prince of Flowers
There were sets of these paintings stationed around the school, one portrait never found without the other two, like a triptych. Each featured the face of one of the Wispwood’s three headmasters, a constant reminder of the forces governing and guiding the academy.
Campus gossip suggested that the portraits were actually remote scrying mirrors that allowed the headmasters to peer out of them at will. Telepathically-controlled security cameras, in a way, giving the three complete coverage of the academy grounds.
“I don’t know these faces,” Sylvain said, looking to me for an explanation.
“That’s Headmaster Cornelius,” I said, pointing at the first portrait of a smiling older gentleman.
His white beard like a wisp of cloud, the half-moon glasses, the floppy, weathered conical hat, Cornelius was very much a wizard in the classic sense. Cornelius Butterworth was an old man indeed, but wise, and a wisecracker, a ridiculous man with a ridiculous name. Always a twinkle in his eye, even in his portraits, the closest to warmth we’d ever find among the three headmasters.
“And that’s Headmaster Belladonna Praxis.”
A stern woman stared out of the second portrait, her gray hair styled into an intricate bouffant. With her reedy neck and the sharp, angular collar of her dress, Headmaster Belladonna resembled a silver rose, beautiful and prickly. While Cornelius Butterworth evoked warmth from his name alone, Headmaster Belladonna was cold as ice.
But none could be colder — almost literally — than Headmaster Shivers. In the third portrait was a figure in a cowled robe, the gap where the face should be filled with darkness and mist. Peeking out of the sleeves were embroidered gloves, and past the bottom hem of the robes, a pair of silken boots.
“Oh, I don’t know about that one,” Sylvain said, shuddering. “Gives me the chills.”
Possibly the most appropriate reaction to Headmaster Shivers, really. It was so rare to encounter them out in the halls, practically gliding more than walking, a cloud of mist given vaguely human form. The air seemed colder when they were around. Headmaster Shivers hardly spoke, but when they did it sounded like a whisper from another room, a cold draft blowing in through a crack in a window.
“Not much I can tell you about Headmaster Shivers, I’m afraid.” And I was afraid, really, even just from looking at the headmaster’s portrait. Where were the eyes? If the rumor about the portraits was true, how were we being watched?
“Come on,” I said, trying not to shudder as I pulled my eyes away from the final portrait. “We’re almost there.”
We continued down the corridor, the walls at last opening up into a grand room. The statuettes of mythical creatures and the stone reliefs seemed too ornate to have been carved by human hand. On each of the room’s four walls were enormous stained glass windows. Sunlight poured in, scattering colorful patterns and images across the floor.
Sylvain gasped at the sight, gravitating toward the center of the room as if magnetically drawn. He turned in a circle, gaping at each of the four windows.
“And this is how we’ll get there,” I told him, smiling, somehow prouder than ever to be a student of the Wispwood. “Welcome to the Spire of Radiance.”
12
Sylvain scratchedthe back of his head, glancing at the passage back to the staircase, up at the windows, and back again. Confusion looked good on him, too. He wore every expression well, in fact. Infuriating. Still, standing beneath the many scattered colors of glass, painted by sunlight, anyone who stepped into the Spire of Radiance became a wondrous sight, their skin transformed into a brilliant mosaic.
“But we didn’t even walk very far,” he said, lips loose as he stared up at the high ceiling, at all the colored glass.
“We didn’t. You’re right.”
“Then how is it so bright here?” He brought his hand up, shielding his eyes. “As if we’re so high up. As if your sun is right outside, shining through the glass. But how?”
If only I could give him a straight answer. Physics and reality didn’t really behave as they should at the Wispwood, which wasn’t all that unusual for magical places. So I shrugged, and gave him the most honest response I could.
“Magic.”
Sylvain frowned. “You must know how unsatisfying an answer that is.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. You want the long answer? Fine. Those who built this place made it so that different parts of the world would overlap, here, right where we’re standing. There are ways to magically travel spread all throughout the castle, these windows among them. Oriels, they’re called. Very convenient, and considerate, since our students come from all over the world.”
That was the gist of it. We could travel to most corners of the globe from within the Wispwood itself, whether it was through a portal guarded by sentinel trees, or by other means. Maybe it was a painting that led into the forgotten storage room of a museum in Italy, a slab of stone that offered passage to an underground burial cavern in the Philippines.
“And these,” I said, pointing at each of the four main windows, “are the oriels. Portals to the four elemental challenge grounds. Luminal space, it’s called, where the magic makes the light bend, merging all those layers through these windows. It makes the impossible happen.”
He nodded along, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, deep in thought, processing.
“You didn’t understand a word of what I said, did you?”
Sylvain pushed his chest out, picking between defiance and being proud to be a dum-dum. I could see the coin toss in his head. Dum-dum it was, then.
“You’re obviously used to traveling by magical means, Sylvain. How did you get here from the Verdance?”
