Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Now,” Natayl went on, “I have something to say about those pyrokinetic effects you’ve been researching.” He paused, as if waiting for her to deny it.

  Tabitha said nothing. Pamela wanted her wedding to be memorable for its incredible displays of magic, and of course Tabitha would indulge her. Besides being a subject of magical study that was not inherently dull, it served as a cover for her other research.

  “You surely have not attempted any of this magic yourself yet,” he stated.

  Tabitha shook her head. “No.” She had just been making lists of things to try once she was out of Natayl’s reach.

  “Well, don’t. Your control isn’t nearly steady enough for playing with fire. If your friend must have frivolous tricks at her wedding, your magi can do a few without using enough power to hurt anyone.”

  Of course he would think it was frivolous. He had no concept of how important weddings were. She found herself saying, “Magus Uchsin is pleased with my progress in pyrokinesis.”

  “You have not progressed enough.” He said it as if it was her fault, as if he was not the one holding her back with all this insistence on essays and books. “It takes more than a single focused thought to steer flames and sparks into coherent displays. You aren’t yet comfortable with dividing your attention so finely. Or are you?”

  Tabitha looked down and said nothing. She was not. And maybe he was right and it was her fault. Maybe she did not try as hard as she could, because of how her magic made her skin prickle with icy cold. She hated that it felt that way. Graegor’s magic was warm and soft. The touches of her magi’s minds were cool and smooth.

  Earth magic … it was heavy, maybe. Not long ago, Graegor had tried to help her reach for it, and she had thought that she had sensed something, dense and far away. But she was not certain.

  Natayl was waiting for her answer, so she murmured, “I understand, my lord.”

  “I have your word?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good. Now let’s speak of this little trip you’re taking.”

  Suddenly Tabitha wished they were still talking about pyrokinesis. The letters she had exchanged with the shovel-men over the past month loomed large in her mind, and something must have shown on her face, because Natayl made a noise of exasperation. “Yes, you can still go. But you need to be back here within one month.”

  He does not know. He does not know. “One month?” she repeated, wishing her protest sounded stronger. “But it takes time to get there. I will not have many days to spend with my family.” She had planned to be gone for at least two months, if not three.

  “Too bad. Your training is more important. To that end, I’m sending Maga Rollana with you, so that at least some of your studies can continue.”

  And to spy on me? “Maga Isabelle and Maga Clementa are accompanying me,” she said carefully. “They can help me practice, if—”

  “Don’t argue,” he snapped.

  She dropped her gaze to the floor. She would manage, somehow. Somehow, she would plan her way around Maga Rollana’s presence when the time for the meeting came.

  She could still feel Natayl glaring at her. Then she heard him mutter something, and she glanced toward the desk as he pushed aside a book to reveal an open ledger. He started running his finger down what looked like a list of dates, some of which had notes by them. She knew this was not his personal calendar, so what was it for?

  There were gaps in the notations, and it almost looked like incoming and outgoing dates for the packet ships. She and Clementa had learned the schedule by which those little vessels rotated through the archipelago by now. Isabelle thought that the heretics must have magi in their ranks because of how quickly they were able to answer Tabitha’s letters, but Clementa still believed the heretics had a hideout on Sunsday Island. That island was owned by the Pravelles, and when the shovel-men’s letter had suggested it as a meeting place, Clementa had become convinced that the Pravelles were trying to undermine the Jasinthe regency by secretly supporting the heretics. She and Isabelle had spent an entire evening talking about what it might mean and what might happen, while Tabitha had sat and worried.

  She was still worrying. After she had refused to meet on Sunsday Island, the heretics had readily agreed to the Searla Isles, writing that they would contact her again after she arrived there in Ebrul. The tone of that letter had been as polite as ever, but they had again ignored her hint that she needed to know what they expected from her father. It made Tabitha very anxious.

  She would never tell Clementa or Isabelle, but she had not yet convinced herself that she should be getting involved with the shovel-men at all. Natayl would be so angry if he knew.

  But he did not know, and she was committed now. She had given her word that she would meet with the heretics, and she had to keep her word. The meeting was going to happen. Listening to the shovel-men would do no harm, no harm at all.

  “Your friend,” Natayl said suddenly, not looking up. “The one who’s going with you.”

  “Clementa?”

  “Who’s her family?”

  “Doupaun.”

  Natayl grunted, and Tabitha realized that the notes beside the dates in the ledger were names. She picked out Clementa’s right before Natayl’s finger stopped at it. “Five years,” he murmured, tapping at the date. Was that when Clementa had arrived at the Academy?

  “What is that?” Tabitha finally worked up the nerve to ask.

  “Three of the rogue magi Pascin captured in Adelard used to attend the Academy,” Natayl answered, still in a murmur, as if mostly to himself. “They all started within a term or two of each other. We want to keep an eye on anyone else who started near that time.”

  “Did she?”

  “No.” Then he seemed to realize that she was actually there and had actually spoken, and he frowned up at her, as if she had been prying. Tabitha looked at the floor again. Her neck itched fiercely, but she kept herself from taking a step back from the desk. If this was about the students at the Academy, especially about the Thendal girls, then it did concern her, and he could not say otherwise. “Is—is there anything I should know? I mean about my friends. Is there any hint that any are involved with the rogue magi?”

  Natayl picked up the book he had been reading before. “Watch them all,” he growled.

  She did not understand. “All?”

  He eyed her over the top of the book. “Lasfe warned us that some of our magi wouldn’t like what they had to do during those lockdown days, and he was right.”

  Tabitha nodded. Natayl was talking about the confrontation a few weeks ago between Hamid and the Aedseli magi. Over twenty of them had ended up leaving Maze Island to protest the treatment of the ordinary residents during the lockdown. But more disturbing to Tabitha was what Graegor had told her about Arundel being sympathetic to these magi. Apparently, he thought that the Circle should talk to the rogues, and also that they should listen to the repeated requests from the city’s residents for a “voice”.

  He was so … foreign. Magi came and went, but Arundel could cause trouble for centuries.

  Natayl was still talking. “Josselin warned us that breaking open all the covert hideaways and stashes would only create more that we, possibly, wouldn’t know about. She was right. And Serafina warned us that rogues are coming out of our own Academy. She was right too.”

  Then why did you argue with them? she wanted to ask. But she could not rightly remember if Natayl actually had questioned those points while agitating for the lockdown.

  “So don’t assume,” Natayl went on, “that the Thendal students are your friends, not even that cousin of yours.” He emphasized the word cousin as if he doubted it. “She’s blood, but she’s bastard blood, and not a Betaul. Remember that.”

  Tabitha nodded. But she knew he did not like Isabelle, so she could not take that warning seriously. In fact, she suddenly doubted everything he had just said. He was taking caution too far, all the way into paranoia. Some of the
Thendal girls bore close watching, of course, but all of them? Did he really think that magi who had pledged to her would betray her?

  He does not know they pledged to you.

  Natayl had still not broken his hawkish gaze. Tabitha’s neck prickled, but she said, “Forgive me, my lord, but you are wrong about Isabelle. She may not be a Betaul, but she is loyal to me.”

  “I’ve seen too much in my years to be as foolishly sure about that as you are.” His eyes released her, dropping down to the pages of his book. “You’re excused.”

  Thank God. “My lord.” She curtseyed, turned, paced sedately out of the room, and shut the door behind her.

  He does not know about the heretics.

  She took deep breaths as the icy needles lifted from the back of her neck. He does not know. If Natayl had known, he would have confronted her, like he had with her research into fire magic. If he knew she was conspiring to meet with the shovel-men, he would not play games. He would send pain into her mind until it consumed her.

  But he had said nothing and done nothing. He did not know. She could relax, and get dressed to go to the theater with Graegor.

  Except she could not relax. Not really. Not ever.

  The Thendal girls all had their heads turned toward Sofie, who was explaining a magic-assisted blood transfusion as she demonstrated with cylinders, tubes, and water. She spoke Thendalian, as Tabitha always required at these meetings. Most of the medical and scientific words were Mazespaak, though, and the two languages sounded odd together, like a dog barking in time to a lute.

  From her place at the head of the room’s long table, Tabitha could see all seventeen magi, and she studied them more than she listened to Sofie. Maga Rollana would want her to pay attention to Sofie’s recitation of the major arteries, and Tabitha had taken a few notes. But such things were much less important than determining who among these girls might be sympathetic to the rogue magi.

  Natayl might be right about some of them. Not all. But some.

  Last summer, Tabitha had winnowed out four of the girls, and then three more, from her study sessions once they had shown themselves to be unsuitable. Then, after Natayl’s stunt at the Hippodrome, only the girls who had given Tabitha their pledges—Clementa, Isabelle, Attarine, and Velinda—had gathered here with her on Tearsdays. But after the rogue magi attack, she had reextended the invitation to all the Thendal girls at the Academy. Not a single maga had missed a single meeting over the winter, but she knew that she still needed to win true loyalty from most of them.

  Landrie, seated near the middle of the table today, was one. Tabitha watched as the blonde girl soundlessly tapped the tabletop with the edge of her thumb, obviously wishing to be elsewhere. Perhaps with a boy, since, according to Isabelle, Landrie seemed to pair with a new one every month. She seldom met Tabitha’s eyes, and she had been reluctant to consent to a telepathic bond. She was the niece of one of Natayl’s ministers, and she had known Natayl since she was a baby, so on the surface, she would seem to be naturally loyal to the Circle. But how could Tabitha be sure? How could she win Landrie’s loyalty for herself? She could not lose a single maga to the rogues. What would it take, in Landrie’s case? Or Sofie’s, or Renne’s, or any of the other unpledged Thendal girls?

  She was much less concerned about the Thendal boys. There were about fifty of them at the Academy, and their flirtations with her, from shy to bold, assured her that they all wanted to bed her—except, of course, those few who would rather bed each other, and not even they were wholly immune to her allure. If she remained diligent in smiling at every single Academy magus, every single time each one was in her presence, as if each one was particularly special to her, she would not need to worry about their devotion. They were all afraid of Graegor, of course, and of Tabitha herself, for that matter, but she knew that that only made her all the more desirable.

  Velinda’s magus, though, always seemed rather aloof. Logan was handsome, but in a very different way than Alain and Nicolas had been, darker of hair and rougher of feature. Tabitha thought he might be a friend of Graegor’s friend Jeffrei, with all the ill breeding that implied. He was certainly of commoner blood, at least, and Tabitha did not think that Velinda would keep him around for much longer. She complained about him too much.

  Sofie soon finished her demonstration, and Tabitha led the other girls in praising the maga’s talent and technique. As Sofie bowed her head in serene acknowledgement, Clementa made a notation on one of her papers and sent to Tabitha, “It’s time.”

  Tabitha did not know how Clementa always knew what time it was. It certainly was not the light, since the smokeless lamp near the ceiling of the windowless room never changed. But she had never asked, in case it was some sort of magic that everyone knew but no one had seen fit to teach her yet. “Yes,” she agreed, and broadened her sending to the entire group. “Ladies, thank you for meeting with me today. I always learn something new and exciting when I talk to you.”

  A chorus of sendings thanked her, some more polite than earnest. Tabitha let it pass. If she could not expect obedience yet, she certainly could not expect enthusiasm. “I look forward to seeing all of you three nights hence at the dormitory’s Spring Equinox party.” It was one of four parties she had committed to attending that day, but it was probably the most important. She did not want any of the girls to get the impression that she had better things to do than spend time with them, especially since they would not be seeing her for a month. “Also, I am certain that you all recall that this will be our last study session for a few weeks. I will soon be voyaging with Isabelle and Clementa to Cuan Searla to attend the wedding of my foster sister. We will have much to discuss upon my return.”

  “My lady?”

  It was Michelle, just barely not interrupting. She was twisting her fingers into a lock of her limp hair in an anxious gesture. Curious, Tabitha wordlessly acknowledged her.

  “My lady, while you are away, if something … if something happens to any of us, whom should we tell?”

  Tabitha could not blame Michelle for worrying, and she could sense concern from others too. Since the lockdown days, small incidents continued to suggest that some of the people of the city were upset with the Circle and its magi. They did not like all the fox-dens dismantled, or the hidden doors mortared shut into the city walls, or the gratings replaced on all the culverts, or the thaumat’argent supply re-inventoried. Natayl, and Contare too, were both certain that new, undiscovered “hideaways and stashes” were replacing the old, known ones. The city merchants were constantly asking for exemptions to the new laws, and the local nobles were constantly petitioning for special meetings with the Circle. But some of the other residents were less civilized. Besides the vandalism at Pascin’s eclipsing engine, more graffiti was appearing on the streets and the walls of buildings, particularly a symbol painted in white that resembled a hammer or maul. Then, last week, two rough-looking women had thrown spoiled food at Tabitha’s friends while they were walking back from the theater. Renne was the only one to have been struck, and she had not been particularly upset, since she had grown up in a bad neighborhood in Velleclef. But Michelle and Attarine had called to Tabitha immediately.

  “Lady Josselin, of course,” Tabitha told the entire group. Natayl’s indifference to last week’s indignity proved once again that no maga should ever pledge to him. She would certainly not send her ladies to him in her absence. “The welfare of all student magi is important to her. Some of you have connections to Khenroxan magi who can reach her quickly, correct?”

  “Lady Koren as well?” Sofie asked.

  “Of course. She will tell Lady Josselin.” Did Sofie have a telepathic connection with Koren? If so, how had that happened, and why?

  She could not pursue it now. She kept the connection to the group open for a moment or two longer, inviting further questions, but then rose from her seat with a smile and thanked them all. The girls thanked her in turn, stood, and packed up their satchels and pulled on their clo
aks, some wrapping scarves around their necks even though it was hardly cold outside.

  “I will stop by the service again,” Clementa sent. Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling to indicate Natayl’s office. “Unless you need me?”

  “No, go ahead.” Twice, Clementa had come into the office with Tabitha to help with her work, and both times, Natayl had grumbled about the place being “infested” with women. “Did a ship come in?”

  “Yes, the north circuit packet flag went up at the customs house.”

  “Then check for a message, but I don’t expect to hear anything before we leave.”

  Clementa sent wordless acknowledgement and followed the others out of the room. Isabelle lingered. “You have to work upstairs today?”

  “I don’t have to, but I should.” In Natayl’s office, a pointless stack of paper awaited her, piled a handspan thick atop a small writing desk. “He wants me to finish all those summaries before we sail.”

  “Before we escape.” Isabelle threw her heavy satchel over her shoulder. “Have fun.”

  “I will,” Tabitha sent back with equal sarcasm.

  But she did not want to go upstairs, so she stayed in her seat even after she could no longer hear Isabelle’s footsteps in the corridor. After a while, she picked up her quill and pulled over her few notes from Sofie’s demonstration. Arteries. Maga Rollana wanted her to learn the major arteries. She began to list the ones she remembered, and then she paused to wonder if the peroneal should be included.

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Tabitha flinched, and immediately berated herself, because it would not be Natayl. He would summon her, not trouble himself to actually walk to her.

  Borjhul. He had interrupted her meeting here last summer. Her power bristled around her, and even though she stopped breathing, she forced herself to keep writing. Graegor would never retreat from one of their own Circle, so neither would she. She would act completely unconcerned, completely confident, no matter how the Kroldon sorcerer’s stare unnerved her. She would keep writing, slowly and steadily. If he got too close to her, she would summon her shield and call to Graegor.