by M. J. Scott
Tok’s claws dug into Sophie’s shoulders and she thought the bird was going to ignore the command. But then he launched into the air, circling their heads with one last protesting caw before he swooped over the venable’s head and disappeared down the hall, heading back in the direction they had come from. Venable Simsa, it seemed, was not to be disobeyed. Even by a raven. Sophie filed that piece of information away and bobbed another curtsy before turning to hurry after Willem, who was once again in motion.
Willem hustled them along until they arrived at a pair of huge wooden doors, standing open at the end of one of the corridors. Judging by the noise issuing from within, this was the dining room. As they stepped across the threshold into a room startling in its sheer size, the dull roar of voices felt almost like a blow after the silence of the corridors.
One thousand students, Sophie reminded herself as she stared down the length of the room. It was nearly as large as the Salt Hall in the palace in Kingswell had been before it had been destroyed. But rather than a grand palatial structure like the Salt Hall, this was merely a very large room filled with rows of long tables. It was more simply decorated than any of the rooms she had seen in the Academe so far. The walls were white, the floor tiled in black and white.
That was about all she had time to take in. The shock of the sound hitting them didn’t last long. It took no more than a second or two for quiet to descend as the attention of those gathered along the lines of long tables focused on the trio standing in the doorway.
The absence was as startling as the wall of sound had been. In the depths of the silence, Sophie was abruptly aware of the hum of the ley line far beneath her feet, its subtle vibrations filling her mind like the purr of a large but very distant cat. Other than when she and Cameron had strengthened the wards in their room, she hadn’t yet paid much attention to the power of this place.
She was used to the sensation of ley lines now, of magic running beneath the earth. After all, the palace at Kingswell was built over several of them, as were most important buildings in Anglion. Obviously the Illvyan architects took advice from their wizards as well. The ley lines in Anglion had felt like rivers of power running beneath the ground. This one felt more like the sea they had crossed to reach Illvyan. Deep and full of hidden dangers. She couldn’t quite shake the sensation that it wanted her to dive into its depths. Or that she might be engulfed if she did.
The hum of conversation starting up again shook her out of her reverie and she blinked. Many heads were still turned toward them, and the sounds had the tone of whispered questions and speculation.
Not so different from a dinner at court.
And she knew how to handle a court. Keep your smile polite, your words careful, and your thoughts and emotions to yourself. She squared her shoulders, arranged her face in the polite, neutrally friendly expression she had perfected during her years as a lady in waiting, and gazed back at those staring at her. Quite a few of them looked away.
Willem had apparently spotted an empty table or people he knew, because he pointed at a spot somewhere off to the right and then began to move rapidly in that direction. She slanted a glance at Cameron, who merely smiled and offered his arm. Together they followed in Willem’s wake, passing between two of the rows of the long, solid tables.
With every table they passed, the whispers behind them grew louder. Sophie’s spine prickled, the sensation of all those eyes watching her tangible. Almost everyone in the room wore the loose black robes as Willem and Madame Simsa did, covering whatever clothes they wore underneath. She thought she caught a few glimpses of color at the throats of some but she couldn’t be sure. Passing through the sea of black was like moving through a frozen flock of ravens. If ravens could grow to be human-sized. Which didn’t make the experience any less unnerving.
Ahead, Willem had found a mostly empty table. The man and woman already seated looked as though they didn’t know whether to stay or go, expressions frozen in odd half smiles. Was it wrong to hope they would leave? She wanted to ask Willem if he knew why the maistre wanted to see them, but she wasn’t going to do that in front of an audience.
“Good morning,” Cameron said in Illvyan.
Or she thought that was what he said. Her Illvyan was not as fluent as his, but just then she didn’t think she could have spoken a word of it if she’d tried, nerves driving all memory of the language from her head. Still, she smiled at the two strangers as they returned Cameron’s greeting, then took the chair that Willem held out for her.
The woman sitting opposite her, who looked like she was Sophie’s age or perhaps a little younger, smiled tentatively back. Her golden hair—a shade rare in Anglion—was tied back in a precisely elegant arrangement of braids that made Sophie wish she’d had more time to bathe. She resisted the urge to tug at the wrinkled sleeve of her dress, wishing she had one of the all-enveloping black robes to cover the state of her clothes.
The man seated beside the golden-haired woman had bright blue eyes and dark hair. He rubbed his close-cropped beard with one hand, the other hovering near the edge of the table. For a moment, Sophie thought he might be about to stand and leave, but then his posture eased and he said, “I am Simeon. This is Magritte.”
Damn. They were going to stay. But at least he spoke Anglish. Which was a relief. Though that feeling dampened when she realized that his doing so meant word of who they were had spread. Apparently gossip traveled just as quickly in the Academe as in Kingswell.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Sophie. Sophie Mackenzie. This is my husband, Cameron.” She didn’t want to complicate things with titles.
Magritte’s brows drew together. “I thought your name was Scardale. That’s what—” She stopped speaking as Simeon nudged her with his elbow, the movement visible despite the cloaking folds of the robes.
Before she could begin to offer an explanation of titles versus personal names, Willem reappeared, a laden plate in each hand. The smell of warm bread, melted butter, and some sort of fried meat reached her nose and her stomach rumbled. She almost snatched the plate out of his hands as he offered it to her, only years of etiquette lessons preventing her from cramming the food into her mouth as fast as humanly possible. Instead she waited, hiding her impatience by reaching for the tea—she hoped it was tea—that Magritte had poured for her while Willem passed the second plate to Cameron and left to obtain his own meal.
She sipped the liquid. It was tea, though the same unfamiliar brew she’d had the night before. Tart yet faintly sweet.
Whatever it was, it was delicious and she drank gratefully, the heat and tang scalding away some of the foggy feeling from her head and easing the hunger pangs. She’d almost finished it by the time Willem returned, his plate piled higher than hers and Cameron’s put together. The last two mouthfuls occupied her while the boy slid into a chair and picked up his knife and fork. Sophie took that as a sign that there were no further ceremonies to be observed before the meal could begin, reached for her own silverware, and applied herself to her meal.
When she was halfway through the pile of toast, fried ham, and some sort of green vegetable that tasted like a spicier version of spinach, her hunger began to ease. No longer quite so distracted by the food, she realized the Illvyan pair were watching her and Cameron with expressions somewhere between curiosity and wariness. Well enough, then. Perhaps it would be wiser to talk to them if she couldn’t question Willem. She and Cameron needed knowledge. They may as well begin with the Academe itself, seeing as that was where they found themselves.
She put down her knife and fork reluctantly. She was still hungry, but perhaps it would be wiser to try and form some connection with others at the Academe than just continue to eat in silence.
“Are you students here?” she asked. With everyone they had met wearing the same dark robes, she had no idea how one might tell student from master other than age. Nor did she know how long Illvyan mages might train for before they were considered no longer students.
&nbs
p; Simeon’s brows lifted. “Can’t you tell?”
“Should I be able to?” She returned his stare. In Anglion, she could feel when someone was using earth magic nearby or had set a ward, and earth witches were marked by their reddened hair, of course, but she hadn’t been taught to know if someone had power merely by looking at them. “I mean, Willem, he is too young. But you and Magritte . . . I am not sure of your ages.”
Or abilities. Magritte and Simeon both looked close to her own age. So they may have manifested or may not yet be twenty-one. But if Magritte was old enough to have power, then surely her hair would not be that shade? Or no, Sophie realized with a sudden start. They did not confine women to just earth magic here. Water magic—demon magic—was supposed to cause your hair to darken. But blood magic and the Arts of Air didn’t mark their users in the same way as the other two forms. Nobody knew quite why. Magritte could very well have power. She should tread carefully.
Magritte said something under her breath in Illvyan that Sophie thought might have meant “barbarian,” but she wasn’t entirely certain. “You do not know how to look for a connection to a ley line?”
Cameron, who had emptied his plate, answered before Sophie could. “That isn’t something earth witches do in Anglion.”
Magritte raised her eyebrows. “Then how do they work together?”
“They do not need to,” Cameron replied. Sophie assumed he was trying to imply Anglion witches were strong enough not to need to work together. Not true. The temple devouts and priors did. But that training was limited to those dedicated to the goddess. She’d never thought why that might be before. Though, if Cameron had decided not to share the information, she would keep it to herself for now.
“How . . . interesting.” Magritte’s voice suggested “interesting” was more like “backward” or “ridiculous.” Sophie focused on her food and sipped more tea, trying not to react. She found it strange here. So the Illvyans would find her strange, too. That was only natural. And keeping the conversation polite was more likely to yield information.
“You didn’t tell us what you were studying, Magritte,” Cameron continued. Magritte smiled at him, Sophie noticed.
“She is not yet of age,” Willem said as he drained his tea. “So she does not know yet what she will be.”
This earned him a look from Magritte that would have turned his tea stone-cold if he had not yet finished with it. He ignored her and forked up the last of his food.
“Such an uncertain time,” Sophie said, trying to look sympathetic rather than indignant. If Magritte had not yet manifested, then she could no more see a connection to a ley line than Sophie herself could. “It is hard to be on one side of the door and never know if it will open. I was nervous before my Ais-Seann.”
“Unnecessarily,” Cameron added, putting his hand over hers. “My wife comes from a strong line of magic.”
Magritte looked down at her plate. Perhaps she was reconsidering the assumptions she had made about Sophie and Anglions.
That was probably a good thing. Cameron was somewhat overstating things. Yes, she was of the royal line, but Sophie was the strongest witch to come out of her particular branch of it in recent years. In decades, in truth. Another fact she thought she should keep to herself. Along with her place in the Anglion royal succession, which currently stood at sixth in line. Unless, of course, Queen Eloisa had struck her from the line of succession altogether.
Was that possible? Lineage was lineage, after all.
It was a moot point for now. Any claim to the throne she might have didn’t matter here. It wouldn’t matter anywhere if she never returned to Anglion.
What mattered was surviving the day and starting to make a plan for their future. She opened her mouth to ask Simeon what he was studying when Willem cut her off by announcing that they should go, the maistre was expecting them. She couldn’t help feeling frustrated that she couldn’t have time to learn more but rose anyway. Whatever Henri Matin wanted from them, it was probably more important than anything Magritte or Simeon could divulge.
Chapter 3
Sophie was beginning to regret having eaten so quickly by the time they entered Maistre Matin’s office. The food sat uneasily in her stomach as her nerves returned, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. Her fingers itched to try to rub the sensation away, but her time at court had taught her to hide discomforts and emotions at times when it was not proper to display them. So she kept her hands folded in front of her. Propriety may not have much relevance to the current situation, not when all the rules of protocol and behavior she knew were Anglish, but one of the steadfast rules of navigating court politics was to never give away any more information than you had to. A rule that seemed to apply equally well to situations in which you had no idea if you were safe or not.
Maistre Matin waited for both of them to enter before he closed the door and then gestured them toward the fireplace. The fire, burning steadily, cracked and sent a small spark flying through the space between them. Sophie watched its path toward the beautifully woven rug at their feet but it suddenly winked out of existence when it was a few inches from the floor. The sensation on the back of her neck intensified, turning to a definite chill, like a finger of ice sliding down her skin. Had Maistre Matin done something to stop the ember, or had it been his demon sanctii? Demons could walk unseen through a room. There could be fifty of them in the room with them for all she knew.
Hardly a reassuring thought.
With no way of knowing if she was being observed by demons, she looked around the room. She’d formed only a vague impression of the maistre’s study the night before, too intent on securing their safety to notice much else. In fact, the whole memory of standing there the previous evening speaking to Henri Matin felt more like a dream than reality. Then again, almost everything that had happened to her since they had run felt unreal.
Today, she set herself to paying closer attention. To taking in this new place they had to adapt to. The room was warm from the fire, other than the lingering chill on her neck. Carved wooden shelves lined the walls, stuffed to bursting with leather-bound books and papers. The curtains had been drawn back, the sunlight streaming in, revealing the colors of the furniture and carpets to be deep grays and dark blues.
In her memory they were black, the chairs and the curtains and the rug beneath her feet. But today the only black things in the room were the robes the maistre wore, and in the daylight, even those seemed to have the faintest sheen, an iridescent swirl she wasn’t entirely sure was there, just like Madame Simsa had had.
She curtsied to him as Cameron bowed. “Maistre Matin,” she said, speaking Illvyan. She needed the practice. The words came that time, unlike in the dining hall, but still unfamiliar and ungainly on her tongue. To her ear, her accent was passable. Which probably meant it was dire to a native speaker. “I bid you good morning.”
Henri’s pale eyes—so unlike the deep dark brown of his daughter’s—regarded her steadily, an uncomfortable gaze. It was difficult not to feel that he knew exactly what she was thinking. Perhaps he did. “Good morning, Lady Scardale,” he said. “I am happy to see you looking more refreshed this day.”
“Thank you,” she said. This was a game she was familiar with. The polite small talk of courts and, it seemed, academies of wizards. She schooled herself to stillness. Reached for that court-schooled poise she’d never been entirely sure she’d mastered.
“Was your room quite satisfactory?” Maistre Matin inquired.
“Yes, Maistre. Thank you.”
“And you slept well?”
“Yes.” The smile she directed at him was calm. “The room was very comfortable.”
He looked pleased. She had no idea why. He was master of the Academe but she doubted he had much involvement in choosing the furnishings of its guest rooms.
But perhaps he was only being polite. Still, this man was the father of Chloe de Montesse. Chloe, who had fled to Anglion and managed to thrive as a refugee
, in the very capital of a hostile land. She was smart and resourceful and—Sophie had no doubt—powerful, though she was careful not to use her powers in any way that would go badly for her in Anglion. And this man had raised her.
“You are most welcome. And now that we have satisfied the niceties of conversation, perhaps you would be seated and we can discuss more important topics at hand?”
Ah. Perhaps academies of wizards were not quite so polite after all. She smoothed her skirt carefully, watching Henri as he motioned her to a chair. Not what he seemed. She must remember that. Very little here could be as it seemed, and she was in a precarious position for all the maistre’s seeming affability.
Trying to look composed, she sent a thread of power down, seeking the security of the ley line. Deep and unknown as it was, it was still less daunting than facing one of the wizards she had been taught to fear all her life. The line was there, a slow pulse beneath her feet. But unlike in their chamber, here her connection to its power felt tenuous at best. As though there was a thick wall of glass between her and the power, blocking her access.
Wards.
Wards laid, most likely, by Henri Matin.
A man who had at least one demon sanctii at his beck and call.
One who may very well be in the room with them, watching unseen.
If the tales of her childhood were to be believed, a demon could kill a man in seconds.
The water magic—demon magic—had been banned in Anglion for a reason. And the destruction of part of the palace back in Kingswell was a reminder of why. Demon magic came with chaos and mayhem. The wizards supposedly had control of the demons, but now and then one might slip free of their restraints.
Free to kill at will.
Sowing disaster and death. Requiring more death to bring them back to heel.
That was supposedly what had happened centuries ago in Anglion. Casting out the water mages the first time was the way Eloisa’s family had come to power.