Ayan had stopped in the middle of her explanation on lock-picking, but as she had said, Tilli was a quick study. After a few days practice on her own door and Miriam's she'd gotten the feel of it. Of course, it was still several weeks before she and Miriam could find a time to break into Antony's room. They found ways to discreetly follow him. When they studied in the common, they picked the table closest to the boys' hall, to track when he came and went. Miriam spent one afternoon talking to Tisheet about the Victoria desk schedule to find out when Antony worked it, and Tilli even went to Eclipse with Sam and Cadolina, to learn his routines with his grilfriend.
Finally, they picked an Autun morning when they knew Antony was going out with Jo and their own friends wouldn't want them for anything. Ayan and Key were working on their sewing projects, and Mat had disappeared, probably to the infirmary, where he'd been spending a lot of his spare time. They watched Antony walk out with Jo, and then Tilli picked the lock.
Opening the door was easy, but once inside, she didn't know what, exactly, she was looking for. A diary that explained his evil plan? A poster that said he hated freshmen? The part of the puzzle that frustrated her the most was the sheer lack of reasoning. As confident as she was that Anthony had tried to sabotage Mat, but she couldn't fathom his motive. She found nothing of use.
The next day, Tilli and Miriam reverted to plan B. In their weeks of watching the Antony, they had learned that Jo was roommates with Tilli's friend from art class, Neely. That meant Neely was her ticket into Providence House, where Antony spent a lot of his time with Jo. She hated using Neely this way, but decided it had to be done.
"Um... Neely?" Tilli purposely caught the older girl after class. "Are you submitting anything to the art show Mr. Tearshik told us about?"
She caught sight of an amazing charcoal portrait just before Neely closed her sketchbook. "I was. Actually, it's something I could use your advice on."
This caught Tilli off guard. "My advice? Why?"
Neely had a laugh like a bell. "Because you're so good with landscapes. I'll try and bring it tomorrow, so you can see what I'm talking about."
"Well, if you're not doing anything, I could just come to Providence after dinner." Tilli tried to sound as casual as possible.
Neely's face broke out into a wide smile. "Sure. Say, six-thirty? I'll see you then."
When Tilli arrived in Providence House, she came to a dead stop just inside. She felt as if she had stepped into one of Ida Pfieffer's travel journals--perhaps a drawing of some foreign king's palace. Each piece of furniture looked like a piece of artwork in and of itself, and scattered around the room were strange contraptions that even Simon Farrow would have been fascinated by.
"Hey Tilli!" She vaguely heard Neely's voice, and then laughter. Tilli turned toward the sound, trying and failing to look like anything other than a startled freshman.
Neely strolled over to her. "First time in Providence? Everyone acts like that when they see it."
"It's amazing," Tilli breathed, "Why don't the other houses look like this?"
"All the houses get a budget," Neely explained as she led Tilli over to a table where she had a watercolor pad. "The students get to decide what to spend it on. Westwood buys kitchen supplies, Hawthorne funds art projects, and we..."
"Collect amazing artifacts?"
"Actually, a lot of the projects here were made by Providence House students. If someone has a project they want to work on, they can petition the house council for funds. There are usually a couple of prototypes hanging around the common."
"Do you have a prototype somewhere?"
That bell-laugh again. "Oh, I'm no inventor. Just an artist." She opened the pad to a painting of the Singing Sea in Northern Nefrale. "What do you think?"
"It's even better than your charcoal work."
"Thanks. What did you bring?" Neely nodded to Tilli's art roll.
She had drawn several locations around Faraday, trying to document for Applestar--the lightning ball pitch, the campus from the balcony, even the garden by the cafeteria.
Neely gave Tilli a small smile. "Still not drawing people?"
"I'm no good at it. They always come out mis-proportioned." Neely didn't argue with her the way Mr. Tearshik did. Instead, she suggested Tilli color the pictures to better represent the times that these spaces were solitary.
She was working on the sunrise over the lightning ball pitch when a familiar face pulled out a chair next to them and took a seat at the table. Jo put her head in her hand and sighed.
"Don't tell me," Neely said, "you've had problems with Antony again. What did he do this time?"
"You know Anthony, he's..."
"mysogynistic?"
"...old-fashioned." Jo gave Neely a slow look that reminded Tilli of her sister. Neely returned it.
"He suggested I stop my morning exercises."
Tilli almost asked if these were the same exercises Miriam did in the morning, but she bit her tongue. The point of this scouting mission was to stay invisible, like a piece of the furniture, Miriam had suggested.
"Wasn't he hounding you about traveling around Alaj last week?"
"Yeah, he said he worries about me traveling to dangerous places."
"Then you think he'd want you to be able to defend yourself."
"Then he wouldn't get to rescue the damsel in distress." Jo said.
Tilli stayed silent as the girls continued their conversation until Antony himself showed up. Jo put on a smile for him, and pecked him on the cheek.
"Are these your drawings, Neely?" he asked, peering at the sunrise over the lightning ball pitch. "You're really great, you know. I feel almost like I'm there." Despite herself, Tilli swelled with pride.
"Actually, that's Tilli's." Neely closed her watercolor pad and quickly packed up her things. "But you're right. She's very good. Excuse me, I have some other work I need to finish." She gave Jo one last long stare, and left. Tilli took it as her cue to return to Victoria House.
