Lord Natayl raised his eyebrows. “Describe it.”
“His power. It’s all around me, it’s in my mind!” Panic seized her fully and she shouted, “Make it stop! Get him away from me!”
“Calm yourself, girl.”
“Help me!” she begged.
“There is nothing I can do. You have bonded.”
Tabitha bit down on her lip to keep from screaming as a raging itch started at the back of her neck and raced over her skull and down her spine. She was shaking so badly she could barely stand. She felt smothered, helplessly smothered, held down, held down to the ground and covered and buried—
“Calm yourself!” Lord Natayl thundered, and his magic poured over her like sand. All his magi were standing at their tables or in the doorways of the other rooms, staring at her. “I swear I will corrode you right now if you don’t stop this!”
The strangeness of the word corrode somehow cut through her panic just enough. The fraction of her attention that it took for her to wonder what he meant gave her enough pause to breathe again. She held onto the word, even as the Telgard boy’s magic draped over her like a man’s cloak over a child. Corrode. Did it mean—
Then, suddenly, the cloak pulled away. Tabitha gasped as it was drawn back from her like draperies drawn back from a window. It was not wrapped around her now, not so close to her mind, not clogging her breath. It was not gone, but now there was distance.
Lord Natayl was frowning at her. “What happened?”
She shook her head, searching for words. He would not want to hear that she had no idea what had happened. “It … it lifted. He is still … here, but not so near.”
Lord Natayl started to speak, stopped, and seemed distracted for a moment, in that way she had learned to recognize as him using telepathy. Finally he shook his head in annoyance and strode back toward the inner room where they had been before. The magus in that doorway barely ducked out of his way in time.
Stop ignoring me! Tabitha went after him and caught the door before it could close. Rage born of weeks of constant anxiety was boiling over, drowning fear, drowning courtesy. “Tell me what he did to me!” she demanded, coming right up to the table behind which Lord Natayl was seating himself. “Why can I still feel his magic? Yours always goes away completely!”
“You have bonded,” Lord Natayl repeated unhelpfully, not looking at her.
“What does that mean?”
That provoked a short, sarcastic laugh. “You have not been listening.”
“You never used that word!”
“Are you sure?”
“Is it telepathy?”
“It includes telepathy. A spontaneous bond can form between two magic-users. It is not dangerous.”
“But I don’t want him in my mind!”
“Is he in your mind? What do you sense from him? Anything?”
She paused. She had not considered the idea that the Telgard boy’s mind might be open to her. But she did not want to think about that. Reaching out toward that heavy, warm cloak might make it pull tight around her again.
“I thought not,” Lord Natayl muttered. He moved a stack of paper from one part of the table to another.
“But why would he do that? You said it is rude to force telepathy.”
“I doubt he did it on purpose. Lord Contare told me that the boy is unusually powerful. He can already wield earth magic.”
“Then he should not have touched me. Magic-users don’t touch each other. He should have known …” She trailed off and stared at the old man, a terrible suspicion growing into a horrified certainty. “You did it. You gave him my hand. You put it right into his. Why?”
Lord Natayl cursed under his breath and finally looked up at her with his usual mix of impatience and sarcasm. “Your exalted rank, both here and in our homeland, demand formality beyond that of magi custom.”
“Then why did you not do the same when you introduced me to Lord Contare?”
“Lord Contare never touches anyone.”
“Apparently for good reason!”
“Why are you upset about this?”
For a moment she could not speak, could not answer such a ridiculous question. “I don’t even know him,” she finally managed to say. “He is too close to me now. He has no right to be that close to my mind!”
“Get to know him,” Lord Natayl said, “and you might feel differently.”
Again, she could not find words to answer this absurdity. As she stared at him, another terrible thought came to her. “You wanted this. You can’t get inside my mind, so you wanted him to do it!” Her secrets were not safe. Her secrets would never be safe! Every man she met wanted to use her! It was just like Pamela had said. They think they can do anything. We are just things to them!
“Calm yourself,” the sorcerer growled once more.
“How do I break it?”
“Break what?”
“The bond! I want to break it, or untie it, or whatever word you use for it!”
Lord Natayl shook his head. “It is impossible to break a bond once it is this strong.”
Dread swept aside Tabitha’s rage, and she felt icy needles pricking her skin. “You mean this is permanent?”
“Nothing is permanent.”
“Then tell me how to get rid of it!”
“I meant that all things die.” He snorted. “Even sorcerers.”
“You must know how!”
“You want to know how?” He pointed toward the door. “The largest library in the world is a step away from here. If any sorcerer in the past has found a way to break a fully-formed spontaneous bond, you will find it in there.”
“But you are supposed to be my teacher! How am I supposed to learn anything when …” She stopped. Suddenly she was not brave enough to say the rest out loud. When you make me feel so stupid.
Lord Natayl’s eyes burned, and he made an angry noise in his throat. “You are a useless, brainless little girl, and you have always had your father to give you everything,” he growled. “Now I tell you to work for something, and you whine.”
Tabitha held his gaze for as long as she could. Her magic, a horrible itching pain gripping her skin from the top of her head to the base of her spine, faced his magic, a roiling sandstorm on the horizon that threatened to bury her. Between them hung the magic of the Telgard sorcerer, warm, soft, and stifling. Power grew as she stood there, looming higher, cutting deeper, all closing on her, swallowing her entire mind. Swallowing her self.
She turned and fled. The white faces of the magi flashed past her as she ran through the outer room to the door, and the briefest shout followed her down the corridor to the stairs. She ran down them as fast as she could, raced along the lower corridor, and found a door. Heat and light swept over her as she emerged, and she stood blinded in the sun, gasping and shaking.
Even when she could see again and her breathing had slowed, she did not move. There was no one in the courtyard, and it felt so good to be alone.
Except she was not alone. Not inside. She could still sense him.
The potted trees and bushes filled the humid air with soft, leafy scents. The tall green hedge muffled the sounds of the city. Tabitha focused on one of the flowering bushes and noted its five-pointed, saw-edged leaves, as well as its straight, unblemished white petals. Nothing like it lived in the Betaul Marches.
This is a nightmare. I want to go home.
She could not just stand here. Without her hat to protect her skin, it might burn.
How dare he do this to me! Natayl had deliberately placed her hand directly into the Telgard sorcerer’s. He had meant this to happen!
She would not go back to get her hat. She would not go back to the townhouse. Where could she go where Natayl would not follow?
The answer came instantly. The Academy. She should go to the women’s dormitory at the Academy. Clearly Natayl had no intention of introducing her to any magi women, so she would find them and introduce herself. Even in Thendalia a lady could intro
duce herself to other ladies, so certainly a sorceress could introduce herself to magi women.
But where was the Academy? She had never navigated the streets of this city, or any city, by herself.
Not by myself. I will never be by myself again!
She should not panic. She would not panic. The Academy could not be far from here. Natayl had said that the library was a step away, and the Academy magi would doubtless have to use the library all the time, so the Academy had to be close to the library.
Why could she still feel his warmth? It pressed on her. And that scent, so subtle and mild. She wished she knew what it was.
It’s not real. It’s his magic. I can smell it and feel it. Why?
A sudden clatter from beyond the hedge startled her. Voices were lifted in annoyance, and instinctively she moved away from them. It was not the same way that Natayl had led her in, and she soon came to the wall of a building covered with ivy. A paved path led her along the wall, which changed its height and shape as she walked. Metal sticks poked up from its roof, but there were no windows at all. When she first heard people approaching from the other direction, she felt a stab of unreasonable fear, but the two grey-clad magi, a man and a woman with dark skin, simply nodded to her in greeting before continuing their conversation.
It’s all right. I can do this.
The paved path eventually widened into a courtyard not much bigger than the one near the Hall, and other buildings rose around her. These buildings had windows, and on their roofs she saw more of the metal sticks. Several people were walking about. Were any of these Academy buildings? Was the Academy one building or several? The astronomy college in Betaul Town was a single tower, while the university in Tiaulon sprawled over several blocks. She slowed her steps, pretending to be out for a stroll.
There. A long wooden sign sat near to the ground next to a short flight of steps. Mazespaak used the same alphabet as Thendalian and some of the same words as Telgardian, so she felt fairly sure she was translating correctly. Medical was the first word, and the second might be something like hall or annex. It was obviously not a hospital since it was not on cloister grounds, so it had to be a place of learning. At least, it should be a place of learning, if she had found the Academy.
A tall woman with red hair and an orange dress was coming down the stairs. She was carrying a leather satchel over her shoulder, and the dark-skinned maga Tabitha had seen before had been carrying one too. They were a lot larger than the reticules for coins that lower-class women carried in Thendalia, so maybe magi carried books and pencils, like scribes did, as well as coins. Tabitha had never carried anything with her, not even coins. She was so out of place here.
On an impulse, Tabitha lifted her hand. The woman stopped, smiled, and asked her something in Mazespaak. Tabitha knew that the woman probably did not speak Thendalian, but she tried anyway. “Please, where is the women’s dormitory?”
The woman made a helpless gesture, as if embarrassed not to know what Tabitha had said. She said something in yet another language. Tabitha shook her head in apology, but then repeated her request in Telgardian, as well as she could manage. The woman brightened.
“Yes! You’re new, Maga? You got lost?”
“Yes.” It was odd to be mistaken for a simple maga.
“You aren’t far. It’s straight down the street.” Her Telgardian was not polished, but her accent had a pretty lilt. “See all the trees, and see the house with red flags? That’s where the boys stay. Then there’s the house where the visitors stay. Then there’s a little hill. You see then the gardens in front of the house where the girls stay.”
Tabitha smiled. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” The woman, still smiling, gave a formal magi nod, and once Tabitha nodded back, she continued on her way. Tabitha started walking, thinking that that was exactly why she was going to visit magi women. It felt good to have been treated like a real person again.
The trees and gardens along the way kept her in the shade, and she did not feel the sun on the back of her head again until the street began to go downhill. She could see a beautiful mansion at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by a wall that was in turn surrounded by shrubs and small trees. As she drew closer, she saw girls walking through an unguarded gate in the wall. The house had two floors of stained-glass windows, two large attic cupolas with odd platforms behind them, and a broad portico. From this vantage she could see gardens between the wall and the house, and that there seemed to be interior courtyards as well. The wall was not high and the gate was ornamental. It seemed odd to her that a women’s dormitory would not be better protected, since even cloisters typically employed burly holy brothers to keep the holy sisters from harm. But magi women apparently did not worry about such things.
She felt sweat-soaked and unkempt by the time she reached the edge of the greenery. For a moment she stopped, unsure if she wanted to present herself like this. What would they think of her, arriving unannounced, in such a state? She was Thendalia’s new sorceress! She should be cool and composed, without a hair out of place. What was she doing here? What had made her think this was a good idea? She should return to the townhouse and …
No. She remembered now what had made her think this was a good idea. Natayl would not follow her here. Even he would not break propriety that far, since he would probably have to answer to the elder sorceresses if he did. And Sorceress Josselin, at least, had a fierce reputation.
Natayl would not follow her here. And she would not let that boy affect her.
Tabitha patted her hair, smoothed her skirts, and went up to the gate. Two girls were passing through from the other side, and they nodded to her in the magi way as one of them held the gate from closing. Tabitha nodded her thanks and went up to the portico. Reaching its shade was a relief, and she breathed in the thick, humid scents of the flowers in the garden. The door was oak, strapped in steel, but it opened easily with a push.
A ceiling-fan spun above her head in the dim foyer, and a clock ticked on the wall. The marble tiles on the floor felt cool even through the soles of her shoes. She blinked, and when her eyes finally adjusted, she saw a table at her left with an open ledger and a quill, and a young woman sitting behind it, looking up at Tabitha and smiling while her finger kept her place in the ledger. She seemed only slightly older than Tabitha, with dark hair in a bun and Telgard-blue eyes the same shade as Marjorie’s. The same shade as the Telgard boy’s, she realized. The maga’s linen dress was sand-colored, with draping sleeves and that too-bold, collarbone-revealing neckline, and she wore a magi badge on her shoulder. She asked a polite question in Mazespaak.
Tabitha walked up to the table as elegantly as she had walked up to the royal dais in Tiaulon. She could do nothing about how she looked, but she could control how she moved, stood, gestured, and spoke. She would not be flustered, and she would not stammer through broken Mazespaak phrases. “Good afternoon, Maga,” she said in Thendalian.
“Good afternoon, my lady,” the young woman answered in the same language, with a noticeable but not terrible accent. “How may I assist you?”
My lady? Does she already know who I am? Maybe she had simply guessed that Tabitha was of the nobility because of the quality, style, and modesty of her dress. “Please tell the headmistress that Lady Tabitha de Betaul is here to see her.”
The maga’s eyes popped wide, and she lost her breath. Then she scrambled to get up from her chair and drop a deep curtsey. “Lady Sorceress! Oh, my lady, I am so sorry, we were not expecting you today!”
Tabitha felt a surge of immense, even unreasonable, gratification. This was more like how she had expected to be welcomed to Maze Island. She gave the maga a kindly smile. “Forgive me. I was out for a walk in the city and did not realize how warm the afternoon would become. May I beg the headmistress’s hospitality?”
“Of course, Lady Sorceress, certainly! You must be so thirsty! We made some peach nectar this morning. I will bring you some. But first, of course, I will ta
ke you to Maga Judita, the headmistress.” As she scooted around the table, her hip caught the edge of the ledger and sent it sliding to the floor. The maga gasped and dove after it, and when she got it up on the table again, she leafed through it to find the correct page. “I am sorry, Lady Sorceress.”
“Not at all.” Tabitha had to suppress the urge to laugh, something she had not had to suppress over the last four weeks.
“When we did not hear back from Lord Natayl, we were not sure if we should cancel the reception or not,” the maga babbled as she dipped the quill and made a quick mark on the ledger. “It’s on Sunsday. But of course you will talk about that with Maga Judita.”
“Of course,” Tabitha agreed. Natayl had not told her about a reception at the Academy. Why would he? He clearly hated parties, and noise, and people, and her.
“I am so sorry for being so clumsy, my lady. Please, follow me. It’s right this way.” The maga recovered herself and dipped a more graceful curtsey. She led Tabitha to a broad doorway that led into a marble-tiled corridor lit by one of those floating globes. Only a few steps later, though, the maga turned to her, clasping her hands together in front of her chest like Pamela did when she was happy. “Please allow me to say, my lady, that it’s such an incredible honor to meet you. All of us here have been looking forward to it. It’s … it’s so exciting.”
Tabitha smiled indulgently and inclined her head. Sweat was pooling at the small of her back, and her head and feet ached, but she felt much better than she had at the Hall. “I have been looking forward to meeting all of you.” It sounded so formal and polite, but she meant every single word.
Tabitha led her group of magi ladies down the long, curving corridor of the Hall toward the meeting room that she had reserved for them for the afternoon. The floating globes near the corridor’s ceiling gave light that was as subdued as the overcast day outside, but brighter, warmer lamplight spilled from the room as she opened the tall door.
The table was very long and surfaced in marble. Tabitha took the seat at its head as the thirteen magi found chairs on either side. They all set down their satchels, most of them still looking around the large room with awe. Enormous maps of each of the three continents were painted on three of the walls, from the purpleheart floors all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. Properly, the eastern wall, where they had entered, showed only blue ocean.
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