Witches, beasts, and all manner of wicked beings massed in their thousands in the basin that was to be Tiran, and great was our fear. But Lord Leon went before his mages and spake thusly: Do not fear the forces of darkness, for God who promised us this land is with us, and His Will is Light. When you go against the tribes of the enemy, hold your staff before you as a torch and watch the unclean fall to the Light of Truth.
—The Tirasid, Trials, Verse 109 (56 of Tiran)
Just a Joke
unt Winny wouldn’t let her niece go at the door. Every time ScionaA tried to start down the stairs, those work-worn hands would drag her back to smooth her skirts, straighten the white robe on her shoulders, make sure her hair twists in front were just so.
“Auntie,” Sciona laughed. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“You’re still my little girl.”
“You keep fussing with my hair. You know I chopped it off specifically so that no fussing would be required.” Well, that and the fact that it made her fit in better with the University’s mostly male research mages, but that wasn’t the kind of thing Aunt Winny wanted to hear.
“I just want you to look nice for your first day in case you meet a man.”
“They’re all men, Auntie, and I don’t plan to spend that much time socializing with them.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Aunt Winny batted Sciona on the shoulder.
“You’re too old to be dragging your feet with these things!” Never mind that she had been saying this since Sciona was about seventeen. “I want little grandnieces and nephews. All that talent you have. You must pass it on.” As if Sciona had cultivated her talent so some man could put his name on it and his sons could reap the benefits she hadn’t enjoyed.
“You know, on a highmage’s pay, I will have enough to buy my own apartment and get out of your hair, husband or none.”
“You talk!” Aunt Winny smacked Sciona’s shoulder again. “My precious niece live all alone, a spinster? I won’t have it!” Sciona was only half joking. Bringham had paid her enough to move out several times over by now; she just knew that the thought of her living on her own would drive her aunt up the wall with worry. Winny didn’t think Sciona would take care of herself—which Sciona had to concede was a fair point, considering how often she forgot to eat or wash her hair. “Your excuse has always been that you can’t find a man as smart as you. Now’s your chance.”
In the name of getting out the damn door, Sciona relented and lied. “For
you, Auntie, I’ll see what I can do.”
“That’s my girl!”
Unfortunately, even beyond the door of the apartment, Aunt Winny wasn’t finished slowing Sciona down.
“Miss Freynan, look at you!” the elderly neighbors exclaimed from their balcony as she reached the bottom of the apartment steps. “Making history!
Congratulations!”
Alba’s boss at Kenning’s Clock and Radio Repair waved enthusiastically from behind the counter as Sciona passed the shop window.
“Your auntie must be so proud!” said a Kwen woman pushing a cart of flowers and sweets.
Sciona had never cultivated relationships with any of these people; on a good day, she barely remembered their names. Aunt Winny was the one who went out of her way to attend every wedding and naming ceremony, to hand-deliver holiday gifts all down the block, to lend an ear wherever there was a neighbor in distress. These people loved Aunt Winny, so they were happy for Sciona—and every Blighted one of them had to stop and tell her so.
“Sciona!” The baker’s son jogged after her. “I told you, I knew you could do it! Congratulations!”
“Oh. Thank you”—Alba had reminded Sciona of his name just last week, damn it—“Ansel.”
“My parents made you these.” The young man shoved a covered basket of pastries into her arms. “Be sure to save some of the lemon ones for your aunt.”
“Thank you,” Sciona muttered again awkwardly, then fully recalled last week’s train ride and said, “Didn’t you already give us scones?”
Ansel lit up. “Oh, you did get to them! You looked so busy. I wondered if I was just being a bother.”
“No!” Sciona said, even as she tried to shuffle on away from the bakery.
“No bother. They were good.”
“Well, these are muffins. Better than the scones, in my humble opinion.
Fluffier. But nutritious,” he added hastily. “Good study food—or so my mum tells me.” He laughed. “I was never one for the books myself. Not like
you, Highmage.”
“Right. Well, I—”
“You have to get to your train. I’ll let you go.”
The moment Sciona was free of the baker’s son, a little girl accosted her.
“Miss Freynan!” she called as though Sciona was supposed to recognize her. Was she the cobbler’s daughter? Did the cobbler have a daughter? Or was Sciona thinking of the butcher who had owned the shop next door before he died of fever? What had his name been? Idin?
“Will you sign my spellbooks?”
“What—sign them?” Sciona laughed, caught off guard.
“Yes, please?” The little girl looked up at her, all bright green eyes and goofy loose teeth. When she slung her bag to the ground and began unloading its contents, Sciona picked up one of the books and cheated by cracking the front cover. “This book is the property of:” was printed on the front endpaper with “Nora Idin” in careful juvenile cursive on the line beneath. Not the cobbler’s daughter, then. This child had no father. The hard steel engine at Sciona’s core softened slightly.
“Tell you what, Nora: if you let me borrow one of these, I’ll get an actual archmage to sign it.”
Big green eyes got impossibly bigger. “Really?”
“Really. Let’s see what you have here…” Sciona leaned in to survey the stack in the girl’s arms. “Danworth’s Beginner’s Pocket Guide to Magical Terminology? Great. Decent starting reference, if a little condescending. A Beginner’s Guide to Leonic Sourcing, and—ugh!” Sciona grimaced down at Kelwitt’s Foundational Mapping. “All right, what you want to do with this one is throw it away and get a real book on mapping. One by Halaros or— no, I guess Halaros is a touch dense for a kid, and his coordinates system is mmm”—Sciona pursed her lips on what she realized would be an inappropriate word to use around a child and settled on an arguably more devastating one—“mediocre. Get yourself a nice Paeden. Then give Kelwitt
to your mother for kindling.”
“But it’s on the school syllabus.”
“Be that as it may, if you really want to learn magic, you’ll have to supplement aggressively.” Sciona scrawled what it later occurred to her was a probably illegible collection of titles on a notepaper and tore it free for the girl. “Here’s a list.”
By the time Sciona had shaken off the last well-wisher, she was almost late for the train and didn’t get a seat. Holding the handrail in the crook of her left elbow, she braced the pastry basket on her hip, arranged her notebook on top of the cloth cover, and spent the ride scribbling notes for the day. When the train pulled to a stop at the University, she was still hunched over the basket, squeezing items into the margins as she thought of one more thing…and one more…and one more.
The stares in the train car and out on the platform were more furtive this time, accompanied by whispers behind hands. Over the past two weeks, news had spread through Tiran that a woman had been admitted to the High Magistry. Sciona suspected that everyone and their mother had an opinion on the matter, but trying to wrap her head around that much attention sent her into a dizzying mental malfunction. So, instead of meeting any of the stares, she fixed her eyes mechanically ahead and hurried on to the refuge of the Magicentre.
The gazes of the Founding Mages felt heavier now than they ever had.
Don’t let us down, they seemed to say as she passed beneath them. You’ve
got your one-in-a-million chance, little girl. Don’t squander it.
With classes back in session, the Magicentre adjoining Leon’s Hall swirled with purple, green, and brown robes. A few research and teaching mages stopped to congratulate Sciona, but there were fewer well-wishers here than in Aunt Winny’s domain; most just gawked rather rudely as she made her way up the stairs to the second floor, where the teaching mages had their offices, to the third floor, where the mid-level research mages worked, and up to the fourth floor, where only highmages and their staff were allowed.
A security gate barred the final stairway—a beautiful work of classic conduit design—and Sciona’s breath fluttered as the lock flared with Reserve energy. The robust iron locking mechanism anchored a pre-written scanning spell like the one Sciona had used to assess the chemical composition of the sludge she had siphoned during her exam. Only this spell disregarded flesh, blood, and fabric in search of a highly specific input: steel in the distinct and complex shape of a highmage’s crest. As the scanning spell registered the material and shape of the clasp on Sciona’s robe, the conduit’s action spell went into effect, releasing the lock and opening the gates for her.
Not all highmages worked on the fourth floor of the Magicentre. Most of the University’s elite alchemists and conduit designers had offices in the science halls with their vast storerooms of raw material. But the large and sparse laboratories on the upper floors of the Magicentre worked best for sourcing experimentation. Thus, this was where Sciona had been assigned, along with the High Magistry’s few other mapping specialists.
The fourth-floor lobby was a grand hall unto itself. Spacious, lavish— and utterly quiet. The polished crescent of a secretary’s desk stood empty, and Sciona paused before it, unsure which way to go.
A janitor was on his knees behind the great desk, scrubbing what looked to Sciona like a pristine floor. Normally, she didn’t notice the cleaning staff —they so thoroughly blended in to the walls in their gray jumpsuits—but the squeak of this one’s rag on the tile was the only sound in the wide chamber.
She peered around for a real person, but the chair behind the secretary’s desk was vacant, as was the rest of the lobby.
“Hello?” she called tentatively.
No one responded, but the cleaning man looked up at Sciona from beneath his workman’s cap—gray eyes like stone. So, like most workmen, he was a Kwen from out in the Blightlands. Chances were, he wouldn’t even speak fluent Tiranish, although maybe it was still worth asking.
“I don’t suppose you can understand me?”
“Well enough, ma’am,” the Kwen said with only a faint accent.
Oh, thank Feryn. “I’m looking for the secretary.”
“He’s usually not in until later.”
“Then I guess I’m looking for my laboratory. I’m not sure if you’d know where it is?”
“You’re one of the new highmages, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Then your laboratory is that way.” The janitor nodded down the hallway to Sciona’s left. “You’ll want to take a right, then another right,
then a left.”
“All right, thanks.”
Sciona made it a few steps into the hallway he had indicated before pausing in confusion. The corridor appeared to branch multiple times ahead, providing three opportunities to turn right. There wasn’t any signage save the ornate plaques on each laboratory door, indicating which highmage each space belonged to. Sciona supposed this wasn’t like the lower floors, where students often came to meet with their professors. The only people ever allowed on this floor knew exactly where they were going. She could wander the halls until she found her name, but that was assuming a plaque had already been installed for her.
“Ma’am?” The janitor spoke up again, and she turned back in surprise, having almost forgotten he was there. “If you want, I can show you.”
“Please,” she said in relief.
Straightening up, the man slung the cleaning rag over the side of his bucket and took the lead down the hall. If he was impatient with her for
having interrupted his task, he didn’t show it. Then again, Kwen were notoriously difficult to read. She kept a few paces behind him, not sure she liked the idea of walking too close to a man born of the Blightlands, where it was rumored that people wore only animal skins and sometimes ate human flesh. Aunt Winny was always kind to the Kwen women who sold their wares from street carts in her neighborhood, but she’d have had a fit if she knew Sciona was letting a Kwen man walk with her alone down a deserted interior corridor.
Fortunately, past another security gate, they came upon more acceptable company—Sciona’s fellow mages in their white robes. She noted Jerrin Mordra right away—a disappointment but not at all a surprise. The only other mage she had met in person was Cleon Renthorn, the sardonic mapping specialist who had preceded her in Bringham’s labs. Beside him stood two older highmages in white robes and a younger man in a brown assistant’s coat with a broad white stripe down each side. The five seemed to have been chatting but broke off when Sciona turned the corner.
“Ah! You must be the legendary Miss Freynan,” said the oldest of the mages, a dark-haired man with an amicable smile. “A pleasure! I’m Yurith Tanrel.” He reached out and shook Sciona’s hand before turning to indicate the taller man to his right. “This is Cleon Renthorn, son of Archmage Alrith Renthorn.”
“Yes.” Sciona nodded to Renthorn the Younger, and neither of them
moved in for a handshake. “We’ve met.”
“You have?” Tanrel said.
“In Archmage Bringham’s laboratories,” she said.
Cleon Renthorn would have fallen right out of Sciona’s head, as everyone did, except that she remembered her burgeoning annoyance at how fondly Bringham had spoken of him—followed by full-blown irritation when she saw the beautiful spellwork he had done for their mutual mentor.
The two of them had overlapped by only a few months in Bringham’s labs before Renthorn had tested into the High Magistry, but Sciona had spent years learning from the work he had left behind, striving to improve it. Now
they were both here, researching mapping for the same barrier expansion, in competition again.
“I know firsthand how good your work was, even before you became a highmage,” she said politely. “It’s an honor to meet you again here.”
“Indeed.” Cleon Renthorn’s smile somehow took up his entire face without occupying his eyes. He had aged since they last crossed paths, the stresses of High Magistry work sharpening his already pointed features, but those mapper’s eyes had lost none of their unsettling shine. “And on the biggest project the Magistry has attempted since the Age of Founders!
Garden of Bounty, you’d think they’d have tried to upgrade the selection of mappers rather than…well…” Something tightened at the corners of his smile. “I suppose you’ll have improved since your days struggling to fill my shoes.”
“I think you’ll find I have, Highmage, and I wouldn’t say I ever struggled.”
“Um…” Tanrel seemed eager to defuse the tension between the former labmates. “Then, I believe the only one of us you wouldn’t have met is Fari —”
“Highmage Farion Halaros.” Sciona’s smile was genuine as her attention turned to the last mage. His brown hair was lighter than it appeared in the portraits at the back of his books—graying at the sides—but she recognized him by his custom dark-rimmed spectacles. “I’ve read all your work on Kaedor applications.”
“I should hope so,” Highmage Halaros returned coolly, “if you’re going to keep up here.”
“Right.” Sciona pretended she wasn’t stung. “Of course.”
“Halaros is just joking around with you, Freynan,” Tanrel said kindly.
“And yes, he is always this obnoxious.”
“So…” Sciona looked between the highmages, wishing she’d chosen boots with a bit more of a heel; they were so damn tall. “Are all three of you putting forth mapping proposals for the barrier expansion?”
“Not quite,” Highmage Tanrel said. “Halaros will be busy monitoring the Reserve and helping Archmage Gamwen with his backlog of projects,
but I’ll be working on my own sourcing plan—in theory, anyway.”
“In theory?” she repeated.
“Well, realistically, after the archmages assess our presentations, you, Mordra, and I will end up assisting Renthorn with whatever plan he comes up with. I mean, you’ve seen his spellwebs from earlier in his career.”
Tanrel laughed. “I don’t need to tell you how good he is.”
“No,” Sciona agreed as any warmth she had mustered for Tanrel evaporated. Cleon Renthorn was good. But good enough to tell Sciona what to do with her research? That remained to be seen.
“We were just introducing young Mordra here to his assistant,”
Renthorn said with a nod to the man in the white-and-brown coat.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Sciona said, happy to turn her attention to someone other than her new colleagues.
“Yes,” the assistant returned with an awkward smile. “Only, I think we’ve met before, Miss Freynan. We had a class together here…and a few at Danworth before that.”
“Oh…” If only he had been interesting enough for her to remember his
name. “Of course, um…”
“Evnan.”
“Right. Evnan. Sorry. I’m terrible with names.”
“Speaking of assistants, did we ever find one for Miss Freynan?”
Highmage Tanrel turned to Renthorn, who shook his head.
“We’re short of qualified assistants since Archmage Gamwen borrowed half of them indefinitely. She could always take Tommy.”
Tanrel stifled a snort of laughter. “Renthorn, that’s mean.”
“Well, what’s meaner?” Renthorn asked. “That or making a proper research mage work under her?”
Renthorn’s meaning hit like a slap in the face. The vast majority of research mages were male; it would embarrass them to take direction from
a woman, regardless of her talent.
“Hey, Blighter.”
Sciona winced at the word, which had always seemed an awful thing to call the people from beyond the barrier. Even if they had brought Blight on
themselves, it was a shade too cruel for her taste.
“Sir?” said a quiet voice, and that was the first Sciona realized that the janitor had stayed there at her shoulder.
“The lady mage has a new job for you.”
“Renthorn—” Tanrel started, but Renthorn made a shushing motion as his smile widened.
“You’re being promoted to mage’s assistant.”
“I…” Sciona was fairly sure her face had gone entirely red. Bringham had told her not to let the other highmages ruffle her. But what was she supposed to do? Just play along?
“If you want an assistant, he’s what we’ve got.” Renthorn smirked.
“Sorry.”
Sciona might lack social skills, but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew when she was being insulted. She also knew that if she reacted with affront—like any man would react—the other mages would treat her as hysterical and too soft for the job. She could go to Archmage Bringham, she supposed, but no.
No. She was a highmage now, damn it. She could hold her own among her peers without anyone stepping in to save her.
“What’s the matter, Miss Freynan?”
“Nothing.” If Renthorn wanted to upset her, he’d have to do better than this. “Tommy, was it?” She turned calmly to the janitor. “You were going to show me to my laboratory anyway. Let’s go.”
The cleaning man just stood there, rigid as the wrought iron gates at his back—and Sciona suddenly had the sense that he was as uncomfortable as she was. The sooner this stupid joke ran its course, the better for both of them. But for the moment, her only option was to play along.
“Now, please,” she said shortly.
“Yes, ma’am.” The man—Tommy—crossed past the snickering mages to a door nearest the end of the hall, and Sciona hurried after him. Maybe it was weak of her, but she was relieved not to be the only one walking that gauntlet of disdainful green eyes—even if her only company was the help.
“Welcome to the High Magistry, Miss Freynan!” Renthorn taunted as she followed the Kwen into her new laboratory. “Let us know if there’s
anything else you need!”
Sciona couldn’t close the door fast enough.
The laboratory was a thing out of her schoolgirl daydreams. A wide granite floor for testing high-energy spells, multiple desks and worktables, and enough shelf space for a whole library. Between the stained wood bookcases, floor-to-ceiling windows faced east, bathing the space in late morning light…but with her heart beating in her throat, Sciona couldn’t appreciate it.
Hand still clenched hard on the doorknob, she let out a slow breath and was ashamed to realize how close she was to crying. It had only been a few stupid jabs. God knew she had suffered worse in the schoolyard as a child; Renthorn at least hadn’t pulled her hair or slapped her books into the mud.
What hurt was that the High Magistry was supposed to be a place of pure intellect. If there was anywhere in the world where her sex shouldn’t matter, her class shouldn’t matter, it should have been here. But that had been a stupid assumption, hadn’t it? Bringham had warned her this would happen.
Some naïve part of her just hadn’t been able to accept it.
At the sound of a throat clearing, she turned to Tommy, almost surprised to find him still in the room. But of course he was still here. She was standing like a fool in front of the door, blocking his only way out.
“Pardon, ma’am, but if you mages are done with your…whatever that was, may I get back to my job?”
“Of course.” Sciona felt bad that the poor cleaning man had been pulled into this—and as the instrument of the joke, no less. She may have been the one Renthorn was insulting, but Tommy was the insult. She wanted to assume that the cruelty of the gesture had gone over his simple Kwen head, but she could see on his face that it hadn’t. She wasn’t always good at reading people, but she knew shame when she saw it.
“Ma’am?” His sullen expression shifted slightly, softening. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” And now Sciona was embarrassed twice over that she was making the janitor of all people worry about her. Was the hurt really that
visible on her face? “Yes, I’m fine. You may go.” She released the doorknob and stood back. “Sorry for keeping you.”
The Kwen eyed her for a moment in inscrutable contemplation, then moved toward the door. But as he reached for the handle, Sciona was struck with a terrible image of the other mages mocking him as he walked down the hall, perhaps even coming back to mock her.
“Actually…” She put a hand on the door just as his fingers touched the knob. “Wait.”
He stopped, apprehensive. “Something more you need, ma’am?”
“Yes. I mean—no. Not really. Just…” She stopped there, awkwardly, with her arm barring his way. “Wait a minute, please.”
“Why, ma’am?” the janitor asked. “Going to hold me here indefinitely, pretending their joke didn’t bother you?”
“Excuse me!” Sciona should have asked where he got the nerve to speak to her that way. What came out of her mouth instead was, “Who says I’m letting it bother me?”
A copper eyebrow lifted in wordless—scathing—skepticism.
“I just meant…” What had she meant? God, they were standing kind of close, weren’t they?
He smelled of soap and herbs, which was a bit odd, considering his people’s reputation for never washing. She supposed he did spend all day cleaning. Not the most skilled work, but how skilled was the work of a mage’s assistant? Sciona had interned as one when she was fifteen, and it had consisted mostly of following instructions to the letter. Maybe… “Maybe you could stay.”
The Kwen tensed, plainly nervous, though Sciona couldn’t imagine why. “Ma’am?” he said very quietly. “Would that be appropriate?”
“It’s never inappropriate to do as a highmage says. Renthorn told you to stay and assist me with my research, so I think that’s what you should do.”
Tommy’s winter eyes flicked upward to study Sciona, his hand still resting on the doorknob, his brow knit in confusion…No…Not confusion.
Anger. He held it smoothly under that opaque Kwen countenance, but it was there.
“Your colleagues had their laugh. You proved you can take it. What more do you prove by continuing to mock me?”
“I’m not mocking,” Sciona protested, though she immediately realized that she hadn’t given Tommy any reason to believe otherwise. Kwen didn’t even attend the University—only trade schools. It did seem rather like a joke to invite one into a highmage’s laboratory. But if Sciona had overly respected convention, she wouldn’t be here. “I was being serious.”
He didn’t seem convinced.
“Serving as a highmage’s assistant isn’t that hard,” she continued. “I would know. I’ve assisted a lot of mages in a lot of labs. It’s mostly following directions. You’re a Kwen, right? You know how to do that?”
The slightest tightening in his jaw. “Yes, ma’am. I can follow
directions.”
“Then you’re hired.”
The anger had left Tommy’s expression; now he was just looking at her like she’d lost her mind. “I’m not qualified.”
Well, neither is Jerrin Mordra, Sciona was tempted to point out, and get a load of him strutting his white robes around this floor.
“You speak Tiranish well,” she said. “Can you read it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then that’s all the qualification you need.” Maybe not to assist just any mage, but Sciona was not just any mage. She had always done heavier lifting than her peers—quite literally when it had come to the exam. Why should this be any different?
“The other highmages’ assistants are all accomplished graduates of the University,” Tommy said. “Isn’t that the level of qualification I need?”
“Only if you’re assisting a mage who wants half his work done for him.”
“When I say I can read Tiranish, I mean only very slowly,” the Kwen said. “I learned from a supervisor at a previous job because he wanted me to handle inventory, but I’ve never attended a day of school. I doubt I’ll meet your standards.”
“You’ll be fine.” Sciona’s confidence may have been misplaced, but she was increasingly taken with this idea of turning a joke at her expense to her advantage. That would show Renthorn that he couldn’t upset her. Better than that, it would show all these highmages that she didn’t need any special accommodations to succeed.
“If you say so, ma’am, then I’m at your disposal,” Tommy said.
“Only…I do already have a job in this building.”
“Oh.” Sciona hadn’t thought of that. She chewed her lip for a moment before an utterly delightful thought occurred to her. “Well, I think that’s
Renthorn’s problem now.”
Tommy tilted his head in question.
“He has charge of this floor. That means staffing, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. That is, the office manager usually handles staffing, but Highmage Renthorn the Third has the final say.”
“Well, everyone heard him promote you to my assistant, so congratulations.” She held out her hand. “I look forward to working with you.”
Tommy’s gray eyes flicked to her hand and rested there for a moment before he accepted the handshake. And Feryn, Sciona had thought she knew rough hands! Aunt Winny’s had always been weathered from laundry, and Alba had calloused fingertips from her work repairing small machinery.
Gripping Tommy’s hand was like gripping warm stone.
“Right.” Sciona realized that she had held on a moment longer than was strictly appropriate. “Um…” Pulling her hand from his, she turned to the boxes she’d had transferred from her old office in Trethellyn Hall. Most of the books in Sciona’s personal collection were available in the Magicentre library just next door to these mapping laboratories, but the library copies wouldn’t have Sciona’s years of notes in the margins. “These boxes are all I brought with me. I need the contents shelved in alphabetical order.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kneeling, Tommy opened a box, pulled out a book, and ran his thumb down the spine. After considering the lettering for a moment, he glanced back up at Sciona, and she was embarrassed to realize that she
had been staring, wondering if he was telling the truth about being able to read.
It was too late to pretend she hadn’t been watching him, so she crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Problem?”
“Just a question, ma’am.”
“Yes?”
“Alphabetical by title or author?”
“Author, please. Oh, but before you get to that, here.” Sciona set the pastry basket from Ansel on the nearest table. “Have a muffin. Or four.”
“You don’t think your colleagues might like some?”
“I’m sure they would. That’s why they’re all for you.”
Not keen to interact with the other highmages any further, Sciona waited as long as she could without a lavatory break. It was only when she finally stepped out of her office and wondered where the restroom was that she realized there wasn’t one. Not for her. Only men had ever worked on this floor. Maybe she should have been annoyed, but it was almost a relief to descend to the third floor, where she didn’t risk running into a new colleague around each corner.
On her way back, she avoided the main stairs to her laboratory and cut through the library instead. The University’s grand library was the only chamber in the Magicentre that exceeded Leon’s Hall in size—a decadent layer cake of mezzanines, each floor requiring a different level of clearance.
Having worked as a research mage for years, Sciona knew the lower ninety percent of the library better than her own apartment complex. Now she got to walk up the stairs she had eyed with longing for all those years to the final level. The security gates registered the highmage’s clasp on her chest and unlocked, letting her in among the stacks.
This part of the library contained the original handwritten tomes by archmages and highmages who had lived before the printing press flooded the city with copies. At first, the aisles of shelves appeared deserted. But to Sciona’s surprise and total dismay, she turned a corner to find Highmage Renthorn at one of the tables, nonchalantly leafing through a crusty text that
looked like it dated back to the Age of Founders. He glanced up at the sound of her boots on the wood floor, and his face split into an awful smile.
“Miss Freynan. How’s your first day going?”
“Well, thank you,” Sciona said, screwing her own smile in place.
“So well that you had to mysteriously run off and sneak back in secret?”
“I…” It would have been indecent to tell him the truth; while it was normal for male mages to make the occasional vulgar joke, a lady couldn’t get away with the same. “There was something I needed from the second floor,” she said and shifted the subject. “Don’t you have important work to attend to, Highmage Renthorn?”
“Only busywork at this stage,” he said. “That’s why I have my assistants taking care of it while I do a little background reading.”
“You have multiple assistants?”
“Four.” He smirked. “All research mages.”
Of course. A legacy highmage didn’t have to be any good if his assistants had the skill to do the bulk of his work for him. But that wasn’t what bothered Sciona. What truly got under her skin was the knowledge that Cleon Renthorn didn’t need four assistants. He was talented enough to pull through any project on his own; he just felt entitled to the work of others.
“I suppose your father’s made sure you have all the best,” she said icily.
“He knows I’m valuable. My time is valuable.” Renthorn the Younger was still wearing that grin that teetered on the edge of mockery. “Speaking of which, how is your assistant working out, Miss Freynan?”
“Wonderfully. Thank you for asking.”
“Really?” Renthorn leaned forward, putting his elbows on the ancient text before him, straining the hand-bound spine. For some reason, that was
the last straw.
“Highmage,” Sciona snapped.
“Yes?”
“I meant—it’s not Miss Freynan. It’s Highmage Freynan.”
Renthorn’s smile soured slightly. “You know, arrogance never made a woman more attractive.”
“When I care how attractive you find me, I’ll let you know.”
“Of course, you’re right. Clearly, you’ve already manipulated the man
you need to.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come on, Freynan. We all know how you persuaded Archmage Bringham to sneak you into the High Magistry. I suppose a woman of your class would be used to using her looks—such as they are—to cut corners.”
Sciona was speechless for a moment in affront, which quickly turned to disgust. “You know, I’m eight years younger than you.” And only four years behind you into the High Magistry, she didn’t add but hoped it registered anyway. “Archmage Bringham is old enough to be my father!”
“Apparently, that doesn’t matter to some women.”
“You think that’s how I got into the High Magistry?”
A derisive scoff revealed the ugliness that had been lurking just under Renthorn’s smooth air since Sciona had arrived. “Please! I overlapped with you in Bringham’s labs, remember?”
“Barely,” Sciona said. “Not long enough to see even one of my projects come to—”
“Long enough to see how taken he was with you.”
“He saw my talent,” she protested, “just like he saw yours. He’s always prided himself on his eye for future highmages. There was Highmage Halaros, then you. Why am I any different?”
“I didn’t think I needed to state the obvious.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, Tanrel thinks the Council let you in for political reasons, that they wanted to impress Nerys and her pet interest groups by trotting out a woman in white robes. Halaros thinks Archmage Bringham is just a dramatic showman who wanted credit for making history. I think his wants aren’t half so complicated.” Renthorn’s eyes flicked significantly over Sciona’s skirt and bodice. “Though I do feel he could have done a little better than you.”
For a moment, Sciona’s vision blanked. White-hot rage had started in her chest and nearly boiled over into a scream, but she froze it, made herself
ice-cold.
“Well.” Her voice had gone flat. “That leaves us with Faene’s first rule
of magic, then.”
Renthorn frowned. “Pardon?”
“Nothing is so until it’s tested thrice over.” Sciona might not cling to Faene the First’s edicts, but Tirasian-raised mages like Renthorn did. “It seems like you gentlemen have had fun making your theories about me, but they’re just theories until we put them to the test.”
“Put them to the test?” Renthorn sneered. “Should I promise you one of my assistants if you take off your dress and give me—”
“You assume I don’t have the skill to be here. That’s the basis of all your theories, right? Well, you and I are both putting forth sourcing plans for the barrier expansion in eleven weeks. We’ll see whose work the archmages end up using and who turns out to be the pointless political hire.”
Renthorn’s sneer deepened. “All right, sweetheart, no need to get defensive.”
“I wasn’t,” Sciona said, fairly sure her tone had been calm. After all, you’d be the reigning expert on getting what you want in the absence of merit, she wanted to say but bit back the bile, knowing that she would end up snarling—and knowing it wasn’t true. Renthorn did know what he was doing—in argument and in magic—and if she let him make her angry, he’d have won.
Renthorn seemed to claim her sullen silence as a victory anyway and pushed his chair back. “It was just a joke, Freynan. You’re not going to survive here if you’re too sensitive to take a joke.” He slipped around the reading table to stand before Sciona a step too close—so she had to look up to meet his eyes. “And you’re certainly not going to survive playing against me.”
Before Sciona could respond, he turned and strode from the library, leaving her glowering at his white-robed back. She would do more than take his stupid joke, she decided; she would grip it tight and fashion it into greatness he couldn’t fathom.
She swept back into her office like a storm front, dour and crackling
with energy.
“Tommy!” she snapped.
The Kwen looked up from where he was nearly done shelving her books. “Ma’am?”
“Leave the rest of the boxes. We have work to do.”
