Some flicker of power rose up inside him, and Devin felt the door give way. Within, there were stairs, these ones made of marble edged with pale ash, circling around an open center to the tower, so that it seemed all too possible for Devin to plunge to his death if he put a foot wrong. Looking down as he rose, he could see lines strung across from one point on the stairs to another, forming a kind of net. Except that it wasnt a net, because Devin had seen the mystical symbols Master Grey had used in the forge. This was one of those, only much larger.

He kept climbing until he reached the top of the tower. There, the stairs gave way to a broad room, with another set of stairs leading up from it. This room was filled with accoutrements that seemed to point to Master Greys profession: brass instruments and glass vials set on tables, books arranged on shelves, held in place by goblets or alchemists tools, or, in one case, a skull set with jewels.

A table stood to one side, covered in charts and papers as if Master Grey had been trying to work something out. There were maps, of the Northern Kingdom, the Southern Kingdom, and another landmass that could only be Sarrass. There were marks on some of the maps: intersecting lines that seemed to indicate an attempt to narrow something down. A pendulum with a golden chain sat atop one of the maps.

All of it suggested that Master Grey was working on something Devin didnt understand, but that was hardly a revelation. He needed information instead, needed to know what was going on. Devin started to search the books on the wall, hoping that there might be some clue hidden there.

Most were indecipherable. They held diagrams that made no sense, or notes in languages Devin had never even seen, let alone knowing how to read them. There were other notes, written in a hand that had to be Master Greys, but they talked about experiments or the qualities of substances, the value of powdered pearl set against a bezoar, the usefulness of gold in outlining runes…

Devin headed up the next set of stairs, finding a room that was almost bare in comparison to the one below. There was a bed in there, carved from slats of wood that seemed so old they were almost fossilized. The rest of it was blank, with white daubed walls that would have been plain, except that someone had inscribed mark after mark in red, purple, and gold.

There was a trunk there, again with no lock, as with the door. Just as with the door though, something rose up in Devin as he touched it, and the slats of the box seemed to move in response, sliding back like the petals of a flower unfolding.