Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “But I’ve been around magi before and haven’t felt anything like that.”

  “Holy rituals tend to have more focused magic,” Contare said. “Especially here, among us.”

  “The Circle?” Darc asked.

  Contare nodded, but a disturbing thought had occurred to Graegor. Some sorcerers could delve near-magi.

  It added yet another facet to his duty to protect the prince. He didn’t think Ferogin would be stupid enough to attempt that kind of attack—even if he had the talent to delve near-magi, and if he somehow learned that Darc was here, and if he somehow learned that Darc might be near-magi, and if Darc in fact was. Graegor didn’t think any sorcerer would attempt any kind of attack at all, but he didn’t know. He could only trust Koren, Contare, and Josselin for sure. And Tabitha, of course.

  The day was already getting warm, and back at the townhouse, Graegor and Darc separated at the top of the staircase, each to his own room to change into clothes more suitable for the games at the Colosseum. As Graegor shed his formal layers, he laid them out neatly on his bed, since he was probably going to wear some of the pieces tonight.

  He really wished Tabitha hadn’t made the assumption that Darc and Koren were coming to dinner with them. It did mean that he could personally keep his promise of protecting Darc for a longer stretch of time, and it meant that he didn’t have to explain to Koren that the invitation didn’t include dinner, which, he had to admit, would have been strange. But how was he going to send Darc and Koren discreetly away after dinner? Maybe he could suggest to Darc ahead of time that they take a walk down the canal. They could look at the other ships moored there …

  No. It was rude. He knew it was rude to tell his friends to go away so that he could take Tabitha to bed. Then again, it would give them a convenient excuse to go and find a place of their own … that would sure make him feel a lot less boorish about the whole thing …

  But he didn’t think it likely. He was almost certain that Koren was a virgin, and he was certain that it would take something as extraordinary as true love at first sight to prompt her to sleep with someone she’d just met.

  He suddenly hoped that Darc would understand that. If he had come to Maze Island at Solstice for the specific purpose of sleeping with a sorceress …

  This might be a problem. If Darc lost his mind and tried to insist, Koren would instantly change from protector to threat, and the entire situation would be Graegor’s fault.

  Leaving his shoes, he started to cross the corridor to the guest suite, but stopped before even opening the door. What was he thinking? He was overreacting. Darc was not the sort to force himself on a girl. Of course nothing like that would happen. Darc would never be in danger from Koren because he’d never try anything that stupid. It would be fine.

  And it wasn’t Graegor’s job to make sure Darc found a girl to bed. Whatever Darc had in mind in that respect was up to him. There was no need to have that conversation. There was also no need to let Darc know exactly how special Graegor’s night with Tabitha was supposed to be. He’d much rather let Darc think—let all his friends think—that he’d crossed this bridge months ago.

  The truth was embarrassing.

  When he knocked on Darc’s door, Darc answered wearing much the same sort of plain outfit as he was—a short-sleeved linen shirt with trousers. “It’s all arranged,” Graegor told him, as Darc sat on the bed to lace up his boots. “Koren will be coming with us instead of Rose, if that’s still all right with you.”

  Darc’s face broke into a wide grin. “Oh, yes, that’s still all right with me. Nothing at all against Maga Rose, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “So Tabitha agreed?”

  “For your sake.”

  Darc’s face twitched a little. “I’m flattered, I think. You said this was a choral review at one of the theaters?”

  “Right. After that we’re having a late dinner on board Contare’s ship.” He’d have to tell Zach to set the table for four instead of two. “It’s moored along the canal. There will probably be a lot of other parties on the other ships nearby.”

  “And after that?”

  Graegor shrugged and said vaguely, “We’ll see where the night takes us.”

  Darc nodded and finished tying the laces, but didn’t stand up yet. “She seems … reserved.”

  “Koren?”

  “Your letters did say that she didn’t talk much, but I couldn’t get more than a word at a time out of her.”

  “We were at a basilica service.”

  “Afterward, though, with all the priests and nobles.” He thought about it for a moment. “But I didn’t see her talking much to them, either. To anyone, really.”

  “She pays attention, though. She listens.” While Darc considered that, Graegor added an observation that Contare had once made. “That’s rather different from most people, who are always thinking about what they want to say next.”

  “Great,” Darc grumbled. “She’ll notice every mistake I make. Any advice?”

  “Don’t worry. She likes you.”

  “She does?” The prince seemed genuinely startled, which was ludicrous.

  “She wouldn’t have agreed to come if she didn’t.”

  “All right. Good. She’s really cute.” A thought obviously came to him. “I should have asked this before. She doesn’t have a beau or favored suitor, does she?”

  “No. I’d have told you.”

  “So no Khenroxan magus overcome by jealous enthusiasm is going to walk up and knock my teeth loose?”

  “Well, a lot of them want to be a favored suitor, so you might get glares.”

  “So, there’s no one from her past? No former …” He trailed off meaningfully.

  Graegor pretended not to understand what it was that Darc was really asking. “Ferogin has pestered her before, but not since I snapped his femur in half.”

  Darc squeezed his hand against his own leg in sympathy. “Shit.” He stood up. “I got a limp just thinking about it.”

  The walk to the Colosseum was long, but the route allowed them to see some of the other landmarks on Darc’s list, like the Foundry Bridge and the Porcelain Tower. Yesterday, after escorting the girls back to their dormitory, they’d covered the entire Academy campus, as well as the Hall and the Avenue of Obelisks, with Patrick, Marcus, and Logan tagging along. Today at the Colosseum, the day’s hurling matches were already in progress, and Marcus and Patrick had already arrived at Contare’s box seats. Some of Contare’s magi were there too, and servants with trays brought in a continuous stream of drinks and snacks. Darc had never seen a hurling match before, and he was an enthusiastic spectator, quickly grasping the rules and strategy. The tournament ended with their team—chosen for their green and purple tabards—losing the final game by a single goal, which was terribly disappointing for a few moments. Then the field crews started dismantling the posts so that the wind-ball tournament could start, and Graegor, Darc, Marcus, and Patrick decided to go to the races next. They crossed the Saints Bridge to the city’s north quarter to reach the Hippodrome.

  Darc was surprised when they lined up at one of the regular entrances into the stands instead of heading for the tunnel to the box seats. “There’s only one box in the Hippodrome,” Graegor explained as they filed in, “and people really notice who’s there.”

  “And then try to guess what it means if you’re there or not there, or if you leave before it’s over.” Darc nodded understandingly as he edged past a group of old men taking up space on the concourse.

  “Right. Today it seems better to blend in.” And Jeff had told him that Ferogin and his cronies were already in the box seats.

  “The beards help,” Patrick commented from in front of them. “All three of you look exactly like every other Telgard in the city.”

  Marcus scratched his dark beard and glanced at Darc’s blonde one. “Right.”

  “Your friend Jeff doesn’t have one,” Darc pointed out.

  “Much l
ike myself, Jeffrei feels no need to proclaim his faction,” Patrick stated, with a grand wave of his hand that nearly smacked a passer-by.

  Marcus snorted. “Much like yourself, Jeffrei has a beard that comes in patchy.”

  Darc’s eyebrows had gone up at the word faction. “Ferogin and the Adelard magi don’t wear beards?” he guessed in an undertone to Graegor.

  “No.” He remembered what Darc had said yesterday, that the rogue magi may try to exploit the enmity between him and Ferogin. It was stupid to make it easy for the rogues to identify who was who. But it wasn’t as if he had told any of the Telgard magi to grow beards; they’d just done it after he had, much like the Thendal girls wore jewelry and dress styles like Tabitha’s. It stood to reason that if he shaved his beard off, most of his magi would do the same.

  He wouldn’t, though, as long as Tabitha preferred him this way.

  They joined Logan and Jeff about halfway up the Hippodrome’s lower section, and Graegor made careful shifts to ensure that Jeff and Darc weren’t sitting next to each other. Jeff hadn’t come with them sightseeing yesterday because he and Rose had been required to attend a ceremony honoring high-achieving students, so there hadn’t been any further awkwardness between Graegor’s two best friends. But it made no sense to put pressure on the crack, especially since Graegor didn’t know exactly what it was about Darc that irritated Jeff. Logan, at least, had seemed to relax yesterday after seeing that Darc and Selena weren’t flirting.

  Logan seemed jittery today, though. He kept tapping his foot, and his eyes frequently lost focus. Graegor asked him where Selena was, and Logan knew exactly what she was doing—helping her aunt and uncle get their house ready for their Solstice party that evening. Graegor got the distinct impression that Logan’s plans for the night were very similar to his own. The difference was that Logan and Selena had only been a couple for two months instead of nearly nine.

  He watched the races and tried not to think about it.

  Even though they weren’t in the box seats, some students and other magi recognized Graegor and stopped to greet him and his friends. When it seemed appropriate to do so, Graegor introduced Darc, and although many of the magi were curious about a friend of Graegor’s from back home, they were also accustomed to pretending to be casual about associating with sorcerers, so they didn’t linger or pry. Fortunately none of them were from Lakeland and couldn’t cast doubt on Darc’s supposed origins. It seemed the story was holding.

  Down on the sands, winner after winner crossed the finish line—riders on horseback, riders in chariots, runners on foot, runners alongside dogs, and dogs by themselves—as the afternoon went by. Darc emptied another tin mug of water down his throat, his fourth or fifth between as many tin mugs of ale, and then leaned in to mutter, “I’m sweating buckets. Will I have time for a bath before we go to the service?”

  “If we leave soon.” Graegor was using his gen to keep himself comfortably cool, but he intended to have a bath himself, even though he’d taken one yesterday morning.

  “Let’s wait to see if that freakish dog is in the next heat. I want to watch that thing run again.” Darc had never seen a Riemanan Tufted Hound before.

  A little while later, Graegor felt like a Riemanan Tufted Hound as he looked in the mirror. His hair, still damp, would not lie flat, instead poking straight up at his temples. He’d gotten a haircut about a week ago, and it had seemed fine until now. Scowling, he tried to think of how to use magic to fix it, and eventually sent to Karl, “Do you have scissors?”

  Karl appeared in Graegor’s doorway a moment later, searching through a leather case as he slowly walked in. Contare had taken Josselin to the beach house to spend the Solstice and didn’t need Karl’s valet services, so Graegor had requested those services, as he had in the past for particularly important events. Karl found the scissors, but frowned when he looked at Graegor. “What needs cutting?”

  “These!” Graegor pointed to the tufts. “They look ridiculous.”

  Karl sighed. “Close your eyes.” He snipped two or three times on each side, pushed Graegor’s hair around a bit, and sent, “There.”

  It did look better. Graegor took the scissors and trimmed two hairs from the edge of his beard. Then he undid the top button of his dark red vest, then buttoned it again, then unbuttoned it again. He took King Breon’s medallion out from under his linen shirt, then tucked it back inside, then pulled it out again. Tabitha had given him the sapphire cufflinks he wore, and he worried that they weren’t secure enough. The Torchanes signet ring was snug and would not slip off. But he still wasn’t sure if he should put on the knee-high boots or keep the shorter ones.

  He looked at Karl, who was standing there watching him, not actively smiling but obviously amused. Graegor pulled the curtain back over the mirror and walked away from it. “All right, I’m ready.”

  “Are you quite sure?” Karl grinned and ducked at Graegor’s glare, then called, “Your Highness? All set?”

  “Yes, I think that worked.” Darc entered the room while adjusting his collar. Most of his clothes were his own—parts of his formal signalman’s uniform in neutral shades—but the blue vest was Graegor’s, slightly altered in the shoulders. “Can you see that last stitch?”

  “No,” Karl decided, inspecting from a few angles. “Looks good.”

  It really wasn’t fair how good it looked. How could Tabitha not compare them?

  Stop it. Stop it stop it stop it.

  The three of them went to the Godsday service at the chapel inside the structure that housed the Suspended Clocks. The ticking fell silent when the Clocks tolled eighteen, and the chapel choir began their first song on the same note as the alto bells. The Clocks’ sudden movement at the end of the service made the whole congregation jump, even the regulars, and as the bells tolled eighteen again, the Adelard priest invited everyone up to the first balcony to see parts of the clockworks. Graegor got permission for them to go up to the second and third balconies too, but the priest was looking so nervous by then that Graegor didn’t ask to ascend any higher. He pointed out to Darc what was mechanical and what was magical, and Karl talked about some similarities between the Clocks and Lord Pascin’s newest construction, the Eclipsing Engine, which was still being built. Darc asked to see it, but it was on the other side of the city, and they had a choral review to attend.

  They returned to the townhouse, and Karl headed down the street to a party while Stan brought the carriage. Darc admired the two chestnut geldings, Comet and Billy, and Graegor directed Stan to go to Lady Josselin’s townhouse first. When Stan halted the carriage a couple of neighborhoods northwest of Contare’s, Darc adjusted his collar a final time before unlatching the door and hopping out. He was up the short flight of stone steps to the porch before Graegor even emerged, which made Graegor smile. As he waited, jumbled scents of fruit and flowers wafted from Josselin’s front garden, warmed by the low sun, and he took the opportunity to pull in another long breath.

  It was fine. Tabitha loved him. She’d said so. He’d felt it. Choral review. Dinner. Don’t think further.

  Koren came out of the house with Darc, her hand resting on his arm. The steps were too narrow for two, and he had to go ahead of her and hold up his arm, but they didn’t seem to mind—they were murmuring to each other the whole way. Her full-length dress was a soft shade of blue, with sleeves to the elbow and a scoop neck that displayed the delicate gold torc lying against her collarbone. His eyes couldn’t help sliding down the rest of her before returning to her face, but fortunately she was looking at Darc and didn’t seem to have noticed. Another twisted gold band held her red hair back and up, and the style made her look older. Her gen was at the edge of his mind, deep green, but he could not precisely sense any of her emotions. “My lord,” she nodded at him, pretending to be very formal.

  “My lady,” he grinned, holding the carriage door.

  Darc took her hand to assist her inside, and before he climbed up after her, he gave Graegor a wid
e-eyed, raised-eyebrow grin that said Isn’t she gorgeous? as clearly as if he had sent it. Graegor returned the grin, but only because it was the nice thing to do, not because he necessarily agreed. She was pretty, but she wasn’t Tabitha.

  Only Tabitha was Tabitha. When he stepped into the foyer of Natayl’s townhouse, she was just descending the staircase, and at the sight of her, the silver threads that tied his heart to hers flared bright and hot. Her bodice was tight from waist to neck, pale grey overlaid with stiff white embroidery that spread a pattern of a rising swan over her stomach, breasts, and shoulders. The long sleeves were entirely white lace, and her sweeping skirts were shades of purple. The bangle bracelets on her right wrist were silver, one with diamonds and one without, and she wore one of the pearl bracelets he’d given her, the purple one, on her left wrist. A silver chain around her throat had a small opal pendant that nestled in the notch of her collarbone, and her golden hair was styled up, with precise ringlets dangling at her ears.

  “What do you think?” she asked him as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “You’re amazing.”

  Her sweet pink lips curved up. “Thank you.”

  Eventually, the servant who had opened the door for him shifted and coughed. Tabitha turned and blinked at the servant with cool disdain, while Graegor wondered how long he had been standing there staring at the perfection of her face. He could look at her all day and all night and never see enough.

  Darc had gotten out of the carriage, and when Graegor and Tabitha emerged from the front gate, he sank into a bow. “Lady Sorceress.”

  “Your Highness,” she murmured with a nod. “You will be pleased to know that Lord Natayl still has no idea at all that you are here. He left for the manor house right after the Solstice service this morning.”

  “That is fortunate,” Darc said gravely, and stood aside so that Graegor could help Tabitha into the carriage. He climbed in and sat down next to her, to find that she and Koren were greeting each other with the same short, polite words they used when they saw each other at Circle sessions or formal occasions. That was fine. It wasn’t that he wanted this to feel like a meeting at the Hall, but it was so much better than the cold venom he sometimes heard Tabitha use with women she didn’t like.