Shadows Return

saw the entrance to yet another walled courtyard, where a large central fountain tinkled and splashed in a broad white basin.
    His guards hurried him across to the cottage and knocked at the door. Ahmol let them in.
    There were no windows; instead, skylights let in the morning sun, illuminating a large workshop that reminded Alec at once of Thero’s rooms at the Orëska House. It even smelled just as bad as they sometimes did when the wizard made fire chips: a mix of hot copper, sulfur, and shit that made his eyes smart.
    The center of the room was dominated by a cylindrical brick furnace, which the Orëska wizards called an athanor. It was about four feet tall, with small windows near the top, through which the flames showed like a pair of flickering yellow eyes. A big-bellied glass retort sealed with a clay plug sat atop it. Inside, something that looked like dull green mud bubbled and roiled.
    At the left end of the room, furthest from the door, stood a miniature pavilion painted with rings of symbols he’d never seen before. The right-hand wall was dominated by a brick forge. An array of iron tongs and tools hung from hooks next to it, and baskets full of rough stones and thin rods of different metals were lined up underneath these. Small ingots of gold and silver lay in neat stacks on a shelf. Several small anvils took up a bench in the corner. A much larger one stood between the forge and the athanor.
    The remaining walls were lined with bookcases, workbenches, tall cabinets, and polished chests with small, carefully labeled drawers. One table held a collection of glass vessels on iron stands. Some of these were very like ones he’d seen Nysander and Thero use. A large glass distillation vessel was currently bubbling on a tripod over a brazier, half-full of a thick blue liquid. A long snout arched from the top of the vessel, guiding drops of condensed steam into a white crucible.
    The largest apparatus was comprised of a pear-shaped clay vessel sitting on a heavy wrought-iron tripod. A crazy array of thin, curly copper tubes stuck up from the lid like a madwoman’s hair. Some kind of distillery, he supposed.
    Overhead, hundreds of colorful cloth bags and strings of desiccated animals hung from the ceiling beams. There were frogs, rats, birds, lizards, squirrels, rabbits, and even a few fingerling dragons among the latter, he saw with a shudder of revulsion. Assorted skins and bones took up table space near an inner door, which, like the little tent, was covered with strange symbols.
    Alec rubbed his smarting eyes. There were other, more familiar instruments scattered about: a set of brass sextants, a large brass astrolabe, chisels, saws.
    One of his guards pulled him over to the large anvil and secured the end of his chain to a heavy ring on its base. Giving it a good shake to show Alec how strong the lock was, they left him there and went out, leaving the door to the garden slightly ajar.
    When Alec was certain they were gone, he went back to his appraisal of the room. Those metal rods could probably be used as weapons, and where there was an anvil, there must be hammers. If he could just smash off the lock before anyone came back—
    The chain was about only an arm span long, though, and try as he might, there was nothing within reach. The anvil was far too heavy to drag. Still listening intently, he got down on his hands and knees, looking for something, anything that he could use on the lock.
    The floor was made of wide, bare planks, and he ran his fingers along each crevice as far as he could reach, hoping to find a loose nail. He’d nearly given up hope when one fingertip snagged on something sharp. He picked frantically at it, peeling a fingernail back in the process, but at last pried out a thin metal needle file as long as his hand.
    Thank the Lightbearer!
He crouched by the lock at the anvil and inspected the keyhole. It was large enough. This could work!
    He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath to steady his nerves, then set to work. He examined the padlock closely, looking for any sign of wards or traps. Among those he’d been made to practice on, some had holes where spring-primed needles could jab out, coated with some nasty poison. He saw no signs of those, though, and set about probing delicately into the works with the sharp tip of the file.
    The lock was large and heavy, but of a simple design—probably no more than three tumblers to shift. The file was a crude