Daughter of Azeroth

58 | CAN CONJURE BUTTERFLIES

Vanessa hadn't lied, Idira would never have found the place. They left the bustling streets of shoppers, went past the vast campus of the Academy, through an enormous park encircling a brilliant blue lake, and down into a maze of residential avenues crammed with elaborate apartments sporting long, narrow, wrought iron balconies, high windows, and opened double doors offering tantalising glimpses of the opulence within.

At the end of a narrow lane nestled a tiny garden, filled with flowering bushes and a little circular path which led to a small burbling fountain in the middle. Behind it, a solid wall of stone loomed over it, several stories high.

Idira glanced at her niece, annoyed. Her feet hurt and the feeling of fullness the ale had given her had long since worn off, leaving her hungry and irritable. There was nothing here. It was a dead end. She waited for her niece to realise her error and turn back. Instead, Vanessa continued to move forward, straight towards the wall and a cluster of bushes, their branches slim and light, sweeping down to the ground, filled with luxuriant, wide leaves. Vanessa pushed aside the curtain of weeping branches and to Idira's utter astonishment she discovered a small, neat staircase leading down to a wrought iron gate.

Vanessa caught her astonished look. 'Told you they made it difficult,' she muttered. 'Though it wasn't always like this. When the city was still up in Northrend, they had a sign-posted office just outside the Academy's gates. They only moved the office once Dalaran moved here and they became overwhelmed with 'undesirable' applicants.'

'But when this place is so hard to find how can anyone like me ever apply?' Idira asked, thinking of the complaints the woman had made on the gryphon landing, behaving as though the unwanted applicants were still getting in to the Kirin Tor.

Vanessa smiled. 'I was lucky, coming across their little map. I started out solo, but now I have four others working for me. They hang out in the city waiting for opportunities to arise.' She chuckled, smug. 'And these days there are plenty. Business is booming.' She swept her hand towards the steps. 'Shall we?'

Idira went down the steps and pushed on the latch of the iron gate, half expecting it to be locked. It wasn't. The gate swung open, silent and smooth. They emerged into brilliant sunshine, onto a little stone courtyard lined with benches surrounded by a low wall no higher than Idira's knees. She went to the edge and looked down, curious. The sky fell away beneath her, the gulf of space separating her from the world below—obscured under a veil of scudding clouds—giving her brutal dose of vertigo. She staggered back from the edge into the middle of the courtyard, her legs turning to jelly.

'Yeah, the first time's a shock,' Vanessa said as she went to the little border wall and lifted her foot up onto it, leaning down to look at the empty expanse, her easy confidence terrifying Idira. She glanced back, sweeping her arm out into the air. 'No wind here, bet you didn't notice that. It should be blowing like storm at sea at this height. But no, nice and calm. Good old Dalaran magic.' Vanessa reached into her tunic, pulled out her tobacco pouch and began to roll a cigarette on her leather-clad thigh. She jerked her head to the side. 'The door's just there behind you. Since there's no one out here waiting, it looks like you're next.'

Idira turned. The door stood set back into the wall, plain, discreet, and unassuming. It looked like nothing more than a door to a storeroom. She went to it and pushed it open, hoping she wasn't interrupting anything. Inside, the stone-walled space was clean, though dimly lit. The arches of its low roof reminded Idira of the crypts she had seen in her illustrated fairytale books, but as her gaze swept over the room, she realised there were no dead here, nor had there ever been. It was just an empty space, converted into a temporary office. At the far end of the room, separated by thick, luxurious rugs, a dark-haired woman sat at an ornate desk, writing in a notebook. She looked up as Idira entered, her welcoming smile immediately fading from her lips.