Chapter Eighteen Part I

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Tesa quickened her pace and Glenna followed. She ducked out of the courtyard and into the hallway of the building adjacent to the student quarters, the hallway they'd originally been in before they explored the student quarters. Tesa didn't dare look back. Maybe the look had only been a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Mao hadn't intended to follow her. She tried to keep her pace fast without looking as though she were running from something.

A trickle of students began to flow from doors and stairways along the hall. Then it became a river. Once again, Tesa and Glenna became mired in the rush of students making their way to and from classes, but this time, Tesa welcomed it. She took Glenna's hand and dove into the crowd happily.

Now she could risk a glance back, and she smiled to see Mr. Mao in the door from the courtyard peering about the crowd. She turned away before he had a chance to catch her gaze again, and then she angled her path toward the outer doors of the hallway, opposite the courtyard.

They broke through the edge of the crowd and spilled out the door and down three short steps onto a marble walkway. Ahead of them lay more statues, more grass, trees, more gardens. Tesa rolled her eyes.

"How big is this compound? How much space do they have?" It was as if the mages of Yennar Lei knew how the people of the city of Areth—royals, dragon riders, and mages alike—had to conserve space because of their city being perched atop a mountain, and Yennar Lei was flaunting their wide open land.

Once, Tesa would have defended Areth's position on the mountain as defensive, since it was meant to be difficult for anyone but dragons to get into. But while that kind of defense might work against openly hostile armies, obviously it didn't save the city from slow infiltration and being taken from within.

"I think I see a wall at the end of the path," Glenna said. "Just a tiny bit, poking up there." She pointed.

Tesa didn't see it, but she knew they had to go somewhere, or Mr. Mao would find them now that they stood apart from the crowd of students filling the hall. The path through the garden disappeared into what seemed like a miniature forest, so Tesa decided to disappear there, too.

Together, they walked down the path into the trees and sculpted brush. The path meandered in and out of trees and elaborate flower beds. In places it split and wound off to other parts of the garden, or joined up with another path. Statues of dragons posed majestically amid flower arrangements.

Students walked sedately through the garden as well, or lounged beneath a tree reading a book, or chatted with friends. Tesa tried to act like she was just out for a stroll, like these students, but she still kept her eyes peeled for evidence of passage to the world outside the temple.

"I wonder where carts come in to the temple," Glenna said. "I haven't seen any roads wide enough."

"They must come in somewhere," Tesa said.

Glenna's question was answered as they wound through the garden paths and came to a section where the trees were less dense. Across the open lawn, they spotted wagons, walkers, and carts filing down a wide road. Another road hugged the other edge of the garden, too. On that one, the traffic went the other way, away from the temple. The roads were far enough away that the sounds of the carts rattling just barely reached them. The trees must have dampened the sounds before.

"Well, that must be the way out," said Tesa, and she increased her pace. She left the path and crossed the lawn toward the road. Glenna jogged to catch up.

They joined the others on the road and Tesa spared a glance back toward the garden forest. She wasn't sure, but she thought a figure emerging from the dense cover of the trees looked like Mr. Mao. Tesa sidled between two carts to cross to the far side of the road, so they would be blocked from his view.

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