Free The Hope of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson Page A

stay
up-especially because the longer he stayed awake, the longer it
would be before she'd be able to go out and investigate the
commotion herself.
    "It's nothing," Matisse said, looking back at the children.
Though some of them had begun to bed down in their brightly-colored
sheets, many had perked up, and were watching Matisse deal with the
two trouble-makers.
    "Doesn't look like 'nothing' to me," Teor said.
    "Well," Matisse said, sighing. "They're writing Aons. If you're
that interested, I suppose that we could make an exception and let
you stay up. . .assuming you want to practice writing Aons. I'm
sure we could fit in another school lesson tonight."
    Teor and Tiil both paled. Drawing Aons was what one did in
school-something that Spirit had forced them to begin attending
again. Matisse smiled slyly to herself as the two boys backed
away.
    "Oh, come now," she said. "Go get your quills and paper. We
could draw Aon Ashe a hundred or so times."
    The boys got the hint and slipped back to their respective beds.
On the other side of the room, several of the other workers were
moving among the children, making certain that they were sleeping.
Matisse did likewise.
    "Matisse," a voice said. "I can't sleep."
    Matisse turned toward where a young girl was sitting up in her
bedroll. "How do you know, Riika?" Matisse said, smiling slightly.
"We just put you to bed-you haven't tried to sleep yet."
    "I know I won't be able to," the little girl said pertly. "Mai
always tells me a story before I sleep. If he doesn't, I can't
sleep."
    Matisse sighed. Riika rarely slept well-especially on nights
when she asked for her Seon. It had, of course, gone mad when Riika
had been taken by the Shaod.
    "Lay down, dear," Matisse said soothingly. "See if sleep
comes."
    "It won't," Riika said, but she did lay down.
    Matisse made the rest of her rounds, then walked to the front of
the room. She glanced over the huddled forms-many of which were
still shuffling and moving-and acknowledged that she felt their
same apprehensiveness. Something was wrong with this night. Lord
Spirit had disappeared, and while Galladon told them not to worry,
Matisse found it a foreboding sign.
    "What
are
they doing out there?" Idotris whispered
quietly from beside her.
    Matisse glanced outside, where many the adults were standing
around Galladon, drawing the Aons in the night.
    "Aons don't work," Idotris said. The teenage boy was, perhaps,
two years older than Matisse-not that such things really mattered
in Elantris, where everyone's skin was the same blotchy grey, their
hair limp or simply gone. The Shaod tended to make ages difficult
to determine.
    "That's no reason not to practice Aons," Matisse said. "There's
a power to them. You can see it."
    Indeed, there was a power behind the Aons. Matisse had always
been able to feel it-raging behind them lines of light drawn in the
air.
    Idotris snorted. "Useless," he said, folding his arms.
    Matisse smiled. She wasn't certain if Idotris was
always
so grumpy, or if he just tended to be that way when
he worked at the Roost. He didn't seem to like the fact that he, as
a young teenager, had been regulated to child-care instead of being
allowed to join Dashe's soldiers.
    "Stay here," she said, wandering out of the Roost toward the
open courtyard where the adults were standing.
    Idotris just grunted in his usual way, sitting down to make
certain none of the children snuck out of the sleeping room,
nodding to a few other teenage boys who had finished seeing to
their charges.
    Matisse wandered through the open streets of New Elantris. The
night was crisp, but the cold didn't bother Matisse. That was one
of the advantages of being an Elantrian.
    She seemed to be one of the few that could see things that way.
The others didn't look at being an Elantrian as an 'advantage,' no
matter what Lord Spirit said. To Matisse, however, his words made
sense. But, perhaps that had to do with her situation. On the
outside, she'd been a beggar-she'd spent her