PLATINUM 1.8: TROLL TALES

“There upon cold stone it grows. Moss can teach you all you need to know, if you have already learned how to listen.”

– as spoken by the Recaller of Illodin

Even before I knocked on the door I could hear the whoops and hollers of Jaid and Jaroan having fun, and I cooled down. There were no shrieks from inside as anyone who wished me ill was being shunted through furniture and pushed up against walls. I could relax.

I let loose a sigh, and with it went about fifty percent of my dark thoughts.

There was no discernible reason why Emrelet would be here, of all places. It still could’ve been a trap somehow. I’d slowed down once I got to the alley behind Hontor and Sons, considering my options. Reluctantly, I’d taken off my robe, and freshened up at the well before heading down Mud Lane. My mind had been a jumble as I’d almost-ran home, skipping along here and there when there was the opportunity. Why would Emrelet be at my apartment? How would she know to go there? By the time I’d reached Helbert’s Bend I’d been answerless and sweating.

Better to go in calm and collected, as Kastyr. The moment any of them saw me in disguise, they’d start to question, and if they heard me speak they’d know for sure. I could only hope that Emrelet kept up the pretence.

If she was really here.

“Do you want to know?” Zel asked in a gloating tone.

Please?

“Weeeeelllllll…”

Zel –

My passenger chuckled wickedly. “She is.”

Nervously, I knocked two-four-two; I left off the last knock, meaning I was cautious.

Xantaire answered, and eyed me in a… new way?

There was displeasure, suspicion, I recognised those… but not the twinge of fear.

Fear of me?

I smiled as softly as I could, wishing, pleading silently for her to see in the pain on my face just what her knowledge cost me. My eyes were suddenly a bit wet.

“I’m not stupid, you know, Kas,” she murmured. “It’s all anyone’s talking about. And then her, with thirty platinum crowns?”

My throat was dry. “The twins, if y-”

“They won’t find out from me, but they will find out,” she responded coolly.

I nodded, coughed a little, and drew a hand across my eyes.

“The m-money?”

“She has it.”

I was in the middle of loosing another incredible sigh when she said something that made me splutter:

“Seems you made a bit of an impression.”

She turned, walked inside, and I followed speechlessly.

Orstrum and Morsus were out, it seemed. Xastur was on the floor drawing on tiles with chalk, while Jaid and Jaroan sat on one bench, my cobbled-together fortify set spread on the other bench facing them –

My brain tried to parse that again –

While Jaid and Jaroan sat on one bench, on either side of a ridiculously-attractive arch-magister –

Emrelet stood up the moment she saw me. She was wearing the same white robe as last night that clung to the contours of her body, the ten-pointed Magisterium sigil prominent in the centre. “Kas,” she said warmly. “I – ahh –“

She seemed to realise she couldn’t move any closer to me, with the kids crowded so close to her that their knees were touching her own on either side, and splayed her fingers helplessly.

Jaid looked up at me and squealed. “Can we keep her, Kas? Even Jar can’t beat her, but I can, can’t I, tell him Em, it was me –“

Jaroan began to roar something equally-insulting, and I had to try to keep my voice gentle as I shouted them down, considering we had company. It really was the only way to deal with them, short of hiring an enchanter.

Hmm. Perhaps that would be an option, sometime soon…

Filing that away in a safe place in my mind, I stepped closer and offered Emrelet my hand this time; she took it, and used my assistance to step over Jaid’s legs, releasing her grip only once she’d fully-extricated herself from the limbs of my siblings.

“Do you think – could we? -” I pointed to my room.

I included Xantaire in my speculative gesture, to make it clear I wasn’t trying to suggest anything improper.

Once I had the twins ameliorated, rehearsing their plans to take me down in a game of fortify, I followed Xantaire and Emrelet into my room and shut the door behind me.

Emrelet looked from Xantaire to me, then back again, before opening her mouth, “Kas,” still sounding like there was a ‘z’ in there at the end somewhere, “you should know zat I said nothing. I –”

And Xantaire said, “I figured it out all on my own,” at the same time as I said, “It’s okay, I get it.”

There was some pretty horrific tension.

That left me only one option.

I grinned, and slipped my robe out of my satchel and over my head in a single motion, pulling my scarf into place and settling my hood so that nothing of my identity showed.

“Tell me it doesn’t suit me, Xan.”

I even gave them an over-the-top spin, which elicited a couple of brief laughs.

There was no way I’d planned for Emrelet to see my dropping bedroom like this but at least I’d kicked my dirty clothing out of sight before leaving this morning, and made up my covers. I sorted out the quilt on top of the twins’ bed and sat down on it, pointing to my considerably-neater bed for them to sit if they wished.

“It’s been a long day,” I murmured, half in apology, as I reluctantly removed the robe and scarf once more. “The only thing I can’t figure out is you two. Forgive me, m’lady –“

“You can dispense viz zat, for one thing,” Emrelet said, relenting and perching on the edge of my bed, facing me. “I am not highborn; you know zis? I come from a poor family. I have been in ze city six months, and I have only just secured my parents a house. Zose highborn; most of zem aren’t even friendly to my face.”

I frowned. “Ilitar, and Ciraya –“

“Zey are okay, I suppose, but zey aren’t Mundian – rich, yes, but zey are not highborn. Mostly ze… locals do not like me. Zere is ze voman who recruited me…”

She fell silent, looking aside as if in contemplation.

I could have lied to myself, told myself that I wasn’t at least partially pleased to hear she’d grown up without becoming acclimatised to the luxuries that went with wealth, the fineries she’d never get exposed to around my usual haunts – but what would be the point in that? It was nice to hear we had something in common, even if that something sucked.

The magister glanced up at Xantaire. “As for us two, as you chose to put it…” The little wicked, roguish expression she’d had on her face while planning to surprise me with a mud elemental was back, and I looked down with the proper measure of abashment. “Vell, Xa-Xantaire…” – Xantaire nodded encouragingly at her – “is really ze one you need to be thanking, Kas. She found me, after all.”

Now it was my turn to look at Xantaire with what must’ve been a certain amount of fear in my eyes – and she laughed throatily, taking a seat beside Emrelet.

“Hoooowwww…?”

“I just knew something would go wrong.” She spoke softly-enough that the twins wouldn’t hear in the next room, but the crowing triumph in her voice was unmistakeable all the same. “You left so early, I knew you weren’t going straight there, so I went to Hightown for midday, while the kids got the end bits of last night’s story they missed from my Pa. I couldn’t find you, but I reasoned it’d probably be near a bank, considering the sum, and I remembered you mentioned Blackbranch – and there she was.”

“But how did you –“

I suddenly realised I didn’t want to finish that question, didn’t want Xantaire to voice the answer right here in front of her…

But it was obviously going to happen.

“Well, I remembered how you spoke about her when you got in last night…”

Emrelet looked embarrassed, flushing somewhat, but as her eyes found an incredibly interesting patch of floorboard and fixed themselves to it I couldn’t help but notice the slight smile of pleasure lingering around her lips.

“… and hey, I mean, look at her…“

I did my best to completely avert my gaze and – oh, look, this patch of floorboard over here really was interesting…

“… and when I got talking to her I immediately realised she must be the one you were supposed to meet. Which brings me to my question,” her voice hardened perceptibly, “what in Chraunator’s name were you playing at? All morning!”

“I… It was… business.”

Emrelet was looking at me, once more cool and composed all of a sudden, and I met her gaze.

She seemed to read something in my expression. “Belexor? No…”

I just nodded. Xantaire looked between us in obvious confusion.

“Vhat did he do zis time?” She sounded exasperated. “I have been his leader for four weeks, and zis is ze third time he has been in trouble.”

“Belly, as his super-rich, super-evil friends call him, is a darkmage, I’m afraid,” I said.

She gasped: “No!” I could see the sting of it in the way her gaze wavered, and the infuriation making her tense her arms and clench her fists. “Are you certain?”

“I could’ve phrased that better,” I said apologetically. “But you had to hear it sooner or later, and better you know now and go in with your eyes open… I don’t know what they’ll tell you, exactly, but I ran into Nighteye, and he and Lightblind are tracking the recently-emancipated leaders of the Cannibal Six.” I paused, the events of the day whirling through my mind – what did she need to hear? In what order?

“I think,” Emrelet said slowly, “ve vont to hear zis in full.”

“I – erm – think it went wrong somewhere around the time I got turned – do not laugh, Xan – into a rat, and – I said not to laugh, Xan! Look, I went to the Giltergrove with the best of intentions – please stop laughing…”

Less than ten minutes later, my story was told. Xantaire was at least a pint lighter from crying in mirth – despite my mortal peril (which I re-emphasised to no avail) the notion of me being a rat, being chased by a cat, even a demonic one, was just too much for her; if I had mentioned the rat-wee I was forced to do in the Red Hart I think she would’ve died from dessication right there in front of us. Emrelet looked as though she was recovered from her initial dismay, her eyes narrowed in thought. Taking stock of the situation, steeling her resolve.

I’d left out the stuff about the Gathering of Champions, and the young diviner’s strange message; half to save time, half because I didn’t know whether I could or should share that stuff. Speaking the wrong thing to the right person could put both me and them in trouble, and that was the last thing we needed right now.

My shields were still flickering through the walls, visible to my sorcerous sight, penetrating any barriers… Even with them, it would terrify me to bear the brunt of Emrelet’s anger, should it be unleashed. It still staggered me how much pure power was contained within her. She was just sitting there, close enough for me to reach out and take her hand if I were brave enough – but she could turn the whole block into an inferno just with her mind. She could swallow the whole block into the ground, or flood it –

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to be in Belexor’s shoes today even if they were this year’s boots. Nighteye and the druids were onto him. The Magisterium chiefs were going to get a not-so-glowing report about what he’d been up to. His own band’s mighty leader now knew about his treachery, and she did not look happy. And the last I’d heard was Termiax and Rissala, asking where to find him, probably to pay him back for his stupidity in bringing me there…

It was only then that I realised.

They hadn’t been angry about me being there. Hadn’t wanted to punish Belexor…

Stupid. So stupid. How did I forget?

“Everloving son of drop,” I breathed.

“Kas?” Xantaire prompted, looking almost concerned.

“Belexor knows my name,” I mumbled.

“He couldn’t find you that easily –“ Xantaire began.

“No, but the Cannibal Six asked for his name moments before I stopped spying on them. Could it be that he’d do that – turn me in to my enemies like that? Because,” I licked my suddenly-dry lips, “I bet they could find me.”

They’d have a diviner on-call, or know where to find one.

“Surely he…” Emrelet’s voice died away.

“Exactly,” I said with a shudder.

“We have to prepare for the worst, Kastyr. If he tells them who you are, considering who you’ve taken down recently, it’s going to be better for you in –“

Zel, I want you out here.

“What? No – I came out in that Hilltown pub because you needed it; you said, you swore to me you would keep me hidden –“

I’m changing the deal. Step out of me.

And the moment I made the command clear, it was inescapable – she popped right out of my face, like a wooden cup used to trap air in the depths bobbing up to break the surface of the water.

Thankfully neither Xantaire or Emrelet screamed, but it looked like a close thing.

Zel fluttered around for a moment before settling down on the upraised hand I’d put in place for her convenience. Once she was standing steadily I put my elbow on my knee and kept the hand up so everyone could see her.

“I’m not happy about this, you know.” Her voice was raised, and more than a little squeaky – she might’ve been cross, but she sounded so cute.

“Emrelet, Xantaire, I’d like you to meet Zel – I can’t say her full name aloud – a faerie queen of Etherium.”

“Oh Kultemeren, she’s adorable!” Xantaire said delightedly, leaning closer and putting out her fingers as if to pat or stroke the fairy.

Zel growled, which was still cute, but a clear warning sign, and Xantaire quickly straightened up, looking a bit disappointed.

Emrelet, who had probably seen a fairy up close before, merely smiled once she’d gotten over the initial shock of Zel’s surprise face-exit. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kveen Zel,” the magister said in a formal but congenial tone.

“A pleasure,” Zel laced the word in spite and sarcasm, “to have my acquaintance made, archmage.”

“Zel’s saved my life a number of times already,” I explained, ignoring her foul attitude, “and there’s no one whose counsel I value more. You,” I directed my attention at the fey queen, “need to watch your tongue, little lady, and start getting used to being depended on more often. I need you, Zel. Tell them what you think about Belly knowing who I am. Let’s discuss it, together, reasonably.”

“I think he’s likely to tell them, which means leaving this place anyway, which means keeping your thirty pieces of platinum, finding somewhere new to stay – Twelve Hells, you could buy an apartment this size for thirty platinum, right?”

I shook my head. “I can’t run away.”

I explained the situation with Peltos for Emrelet’s benefit, the fact that we had technically defrauded him of a certain amount in rent, even if we could argue over the particulars. “Sure, we still just had the one apartment,” I said in summary, “but we all knew all along that we were breaking the rules. If everyone was allowed to put as many people as they wanted in an apartment, without paying more…” I let my voice drift off. I probably didn’t need to explain the economics to her. “If I run, if we all clear out of here now, he’d be within rights to seek a warrant for our arrest, which would mean fines on top of the rest, at least, if not him getting permission to send a crew after us, to ‘collect’…”

There was more I wasn’t saying, of course. It was my home, damn it. My parents’ home…

But Emrelet was nodding despite me only voicing half my reasons. “Zat much is clear to me. If you and zis landlord cannot come to private settlement zen he vould have ze right to take it further.”

“We have to stand our ground,” Xantaire agreed. “If you really are a champion – I,” she looked momentarily flustered – I could see in her eyes that she was being confronted with accepting the fact things were different now, having to take it, and move on with things – but she swallowed it down, “I don’t see why we can’t pay off Peltos tonight, then leave, use a bit of the money that’s left, and then when you can make more we –”

“What if I said I wanted to stay?” I asked suddenly.

“I hate it when your eyes glitter like that, Kas,” Xantaire said. “What’re you suggesting?”

I shrugged. “I just don’t think it’s right to let the bad guys run you out of your house, you know? You could say I find the idea offensive. I’m pretty confident in my ability to defend us against people like the Cannibal Six.”

Zelurra shook her head, her arms folded as she stood on my palm. “What if something over the tenth rank comes at you again? What if they get hold of a rank twenty-something demon and send it on its merry way? Demons like that don’t knock, Kas, don’t even get in range of your shields before lobbing fireballs. So what if you protect the apartment against something that destroys the entire neighbourhood around you? It has happened before, it can happen again, and you’d have only your sense of offence to blame. Do you want to park your cart safe inside a bubble and watch Mud Lane burn?”

I drew a breath, let it go. Drew another.

“Do you see,” I said quietly, “why I value her counsel?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

My mother used to say ‘when Sticktown’s finished’ sometimes, an old expression referring to the fact the place was always being rebuilt because of this-or-that disaster. A conflagration; a shocking loss of life… Sometimes it had a mundane cause, and other times it was a loose monster or a battle between champions and rebels… and in one of the Infernal Incursions before I was born, as many as one in six buildings in Sticktown had been lost in a single night, they said.

Five be damned if that was going to happen to Mud Lane, because of me.

“Her vords are vise…” Emrelet hedged, “but if I am here zeir plans vould come to naught.”

Zel turned to glare at the magister.

Emrelet raised her hands, fingers spread placatingly. “Vhat can I say? I vould like to see zem throw a fireball at ze building. Give me something to vork viz.”

“The pair of you,” the fairy squeaked, stamping her foot on the bulge where my thumb met my palm, “you’re incorrigible.”

I opened my mouth, but I didn’t quite know what to say – so Emrelet was staying? For how long?

I was glad when Xantaire cut in: “Can we just – get to sunset, and find out what happens from there?”

I nodded. “I feel better for discussing it, even if we haven’t made up our minds yet. I mean, Belexor might not have even told them anything.” I let the pause continue into a silence before murmuring, “Do you want to say bye, Zel?”

The faerie queen performed a perfect little curtsy at Emrelet and Xantaire, corners of her pale-blue dress in her hands, blonde pigtails bobbing.

“A pleasure,” she inflected her words with caustic barbs; “we simply must do this again.”

The moment I relented, even unconsciously, she slipped feet-first straight down into my palm and disappeared within me once more.

Thank you.

“I –”

And I’m sorry.

“You –”

You have every right to be mad. But you don’t need to hide. You’re part of the team, Zel. And I really did listen to your advice this time.

She settled into what I imagined to be a seething, brooding silence.

Xantaire’s eyes were wide, staring at my hand where the fairy had sank into my flesh like a stone into water, even as I returned my it to my leg.

“She is quite ze character,” Emrelet observed in an amused tone. “She is avake in zere? In you?”

I nodded. “She is trustworthy, though; bound to me, like you hear in the stories. I can put her to sleep, like putting out a candle – but it’s risky if we might be attacked any moment. She’s a real asset.”

The magister nodded, in what looked like a professional recognition of the truth of my words.

“You’re going to have to figure out what to tell the kids, Kas,” Xantaire said quietly. “You can’t go out there, fighting – after what happened to your parents…”

She glanced at Emrelet then back at me.

I caught Emrelet’s sudden questioning gaze before she could drop it back to her lap –

“They were killed,” I said simply. “A street-robbery gone wrong. I didn’t run the errand. They went in my stead, and they weren’t –“ weren’t fast enough to get out of there, weren’t streetwise-enough to see what they were getting into until it was too late “– they were killed,” I finished lamely. I had meant to tell the story straightforwardly, succinctly, but I found I still couldn’t quite put it into words I thought anyone else would understand.

“And my own son is in this building,” Xantaire went on in her unusually-low voice; “can you guarantee his safety, Kastyr? Can you, Emrelet? Will either of you dare offer me guarantees, if you carried out your notion to, what, ‘mount a defence’ here?”

She was throwing the fortify-related terminology she’d overheard back at me, I guessed.

“Don’t bother trying to tell her she’s wrong.”

“You’re right,” I said, “and you’ve got Zel on your side in here.” I tapped the side of my head. “Do you think I want my brother and sister in the middle of a battleground?” I looked at Emrelet. “I appreciate the gesture – you’ve got no idea how much it’s worth to me, to know you’re on my side – but it’s not like you’re going to want to stay here all the time, and I couldn’t ask you to, even if I want, wanted to –” I could feel my face beginning to go red “– a-a-and Xan’s right, there’s Xastur and Jaid and Jaroan to consider; it’s not just my home, my parents’ home,” I lowered my gaze to her hands, clasped together on her knees; “it’s everyone’s homes, everyone at risk…”

I stood up. “Are you on duty at some point today? I think once we’ve dealt with Peltos – if you’ll stick around that long – I should try to find out a more proactive way of dealing with Belexor’s possible betrayals. I could go with you?”

Emrelet nodded, smiling, as she stood. “I have ze evening shift again, nine till three. It vould be nice to have some company on ze trip over.”

Xantaire was on her way to open the door and she snorted, lips twisted in a mischievous smile; Emrelet very obviously rolled her eyes in response, making sure we both saw it.

My pulse was pounding in my ears as I followed them from the room, and not because I might’ve triggered something that made me the target of a hunt involving any number of darkmages across the city. Being assassinated, having Mud Lane blown up – that was as nothing compared to the very real-seeming possibility that Emrelet was still – inexplicably – interested in me. Even after seeing my dropstain of an apartment, after smelling the gods-damned street I lived in…? I should’ve known it for certain the moment I saw her here that she wasn’t highborn, or she’d have run away screaming long before now.

My pulse didn’t slow when, after Xantaire had stepped out of the doorway, Emrelet whirled and looked me right in the eyes.

“Vhat should I do viz ze coins?” she asked quietly.

I was the closest I’d ever been to her. The kids wouldn’t hear – Xantaire was putting up with their complaints about how long we’d been gone – so I was free to reply.

“Erm – I can take them, I suppose? If only to hand them over in a few hours.”

I took the pouch she produced from one of the folds of her robes, no larger than a child’s fist but jingling the way only immense wealth could. We were so close that her hand only had to move inches to place it in mine and while we were both looking down our faces were close, too, so close that at times I could feel her breath on my skin…

I didn’t count the money or look at it, not wanting to make it look like I was distrustful of her, even though it would really just be to indulge a childish temptation to revel in the riches while they were mine.

With a twinge of reluctance I pocketed the pouch in the right side of my blue trousers, then looked back up at her.

“You do not vish to make certain?” She sounded surprised.

“I am certain,” I said, then smiled. “What I wish is to see your skill at fortify. You don’t play that often?”

She grinned, and span about sharply, marching over to the benches.

“Jhaid? Jharoan?” She already knew their names. “Do you think I could beat your brother?”

So went the next few hours.

It took forty-five minutes for me to realise she was hustling me, and about two hours before I realised just how badly. I played my best game, and she still ripped me to pieces.

Fortify was, like all the best games, simple to play as a beginner but deep-enough in complexity to still satisfy a player on their hundredth battle. Each player (or side) had their Northern Hold and their Southern Hold; each of these bases could spawn different Minions, depending on your chosen Master figure; each of the soldiers could move different amounts depending on their direction of travel and destroy different enemy pieces, while each Master could use a range of unique special abilities to adjust the battlefield, diverting rivers, growing forests, felling mountains… even opening the ‘grave’ to ‘resurrect’ slain pieces…

Jaid and Jaroan sat on either end, a rapt audience for our deceitful turns; whenever we took breaks they would try to counsel us in half-giggled whispers, playing their own little game with us as their pawns. At first it had seemed Jaid was on Emrelet’s side, and Jaroan on mine, but at some point they switched and it became obvious that they were contesting each other on an entirely-different playing-field that was probably incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t one of the twins. Even Xastur, who was usually completely uninterested in fortify battles, seemed to perk up and visited the play-area a few times; he later popped up with a chalk-covered square of tile bearing a (four-year-old’s) artist’s impression of one of Emrelet’s manoeuvres, when her ogre blind-sided (and in Xastur’s considered opinion, ate) a unicorn I’d spent half the game getting into position. We graciously thanked him – as the loser I deigned to grimace accordingly while I spoke – and Emrelet accepted the tile as he seemed to be requesting, promising to take it home with her.

We prepared dinner as a group activity while we played. As much as everyone was happy eating out, most apartments had a small stove for boiling meals, along with a little stony hearth. Infernos were a regular occurrence all across the district but parents drilled their children on fire safety from the time they could toddle and the old folks known as ‘vigilers’ were on watch at all hours, ready to raise the alarm if someone’s flat started pouring smoke. Emrelet worked potatoes and I worked carrots, peeling and chopping, as Jaid and Jaroan disposed of the waste and provided water, playing their own little game of Kultemeren Says. Xantaire took care of the actual business of getting the stew going, keeping an eye on her son at the same time. She seemed subdued; surely she would still be processing everything that had happened, everything that had changed, but inside I was just praying that she wouldn’t fear me, that she’d come to the realisation I was still the same Kas.

Morsus had been labouring for the day, as we found out when he returned; Starday-work tended to pay better, and he had a fistful of copper half-pennies to count out. Orstrum, coming back just half an hour before tea was ready, had been begging, and had considerably less. But it all still counted, all still added to our kitty…

On top of the thirty platinum – three hundred gold – we had enough copper and silver to make up another four or five gold. Peltos had asked for a hundred and sixty and in my haste I’d told his boys to double the sum if they gave me until tonight. That made thirty-two plat, or three hundred and twenty gold. I had to hope that I’d be able to talk him around into giving us an extension on the last portion, if he was really going to hold out for the full sum – but I was going to aim for just a total of twenty plat at first. Let him push me up, and hopefully he’d settle without draining all our cash reserves.

It was on such distractions as money-trouble and food-preparation and twin-interference that I blamed my ultimate fortify defeat – blamed it out loud, with much over-the-top wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Jaid and Jaroan were, of course, subject to summary execution by means of tickling. When both were rendered suitably-contrite, lying panting and exhausted on the floor with their arms protecting their tickle-vulnerable midriffs, I released them on pain of double the torture if they ever dared mess with my focus like that again.

By the time Xantaire handed out steaming bowls and wooden spoons, we’d tidied things away and washed up. I sat cross-legged facing Emrelet on the floor, talking over the finer points of the game we’d just concluded, pointing out what each of us had been attempting to do at different points, the dozens of little plots that had come undone without our opponent necessarily being any the wiser. My choice of Geomancer for my leader came under heavy criticism, as it always did, but I was determined to master that most-difficult of Masters some day.

At one point she poked me on the right side of my chest, gently, and when her hands went back to rest her fingers were touching my own – just a smidgen, a tiny continual caress that she might not even be noticing – but I noticed, doing my best to keep my face from showing the thrill of shock that tingled through me, to keep my hand from shaking as I sought to maintain the contact.

So not fifteen seconds later, when the magister reached up to accept the bowl from Xantaire and inhale some of the steam with a rapturous expression on her face, I fought to keep from grinding my teeth together, displaying a toothy smile at Xantaire in ‘thanks’ for the sudden arrival of dinner.

Still – it was food.

If there’d been any doubt as to Emrelet’s lowborn upbringing, it would’ve vanished once I saw the way she attacked the stew. And I thought she’d been brutal when she’d been playing fortify. At first she went at it demurely, one lump at a time, but once she saw the rest of us giving in to our hunger she joined in readily.

“Mhmm,” she moaned through a mouthful, “zis is ze best.”

I looked up to catch Xantaire’s brief glance of acknowledgement, and it troubled me that she seemed so worried. Was she overthinking things, or was it that I was underestimating just how disturbing the recent chain of events had been in reality? It was hard for me to be objective. I was the one sprouting fairies out of my face, after all.

I really hadn’t thought through how everyone was going to take this.

Emrelet followed my line of sight to Xantaire then, seeming to understand, swiftly returned her attention to her own meal.

I might’ve been skinny but I ate enough when I got chance, and I ate quickly, especially when I was tense. As the first one done with my stew, I set about cleaning up.

It was only when I stepped out to empty the dirty water that I realised how late it’d gotten. The grey cloak of the skies was deepening; the sun was already gone from behind the clouds, or so it looked from where I stood. It had to be a matter of minutes rather than hours now.

As I went about my chores I dissolved my outermost shields, keeping only my star-reinforced circle – I still had thirty plat in my pocket, after all. But I had no idea how close to sunset Peltos would keep, whether he might be early or late or just not even show up… if he or one of his thugs came around, wishing me ill, those shields would give me away – maybe not in the very first instant, no, but it would all inevitably unravel from that point onwards. Even a mere trace of hostility might’ve been enough to trigger the repulsive force – I had no means at-hand by which to test it… The last thing I wanted was for my landlord to find a randomly-unpassable stairway, somewhere within range of the outermost shields, reaching into floors above and below me…

While Jaid and Jaroan went and did the second (far easier) half of the washing-up, I sat with Emrelet in my room. Xantaire was putting Xastur in bed and Orstrum and Morsus were engaged in a card-game (far too random for my tastes) so we didn’t have anyone looking over our shoulder as we got to know one another better.

She was seventeen, only nine months older than me actually. I turned sixteen six months ago, in the fourth month, Enyara; she turned seventeen three months ago, in Urdara.

She knew a few archmages our age, but most were highborn, even given the huge population disparity. You’d expect there to be ten lowborn archmages for every highborn one, at least, but it was the other way around in the Magisterium. Not for lack of trying, apparently. The recruitment department worked hard to hire the lowborn archmages who showed up without a clear form of employment (or they seemed to have done so in her case at least), but most proved uncooperative (I wondered why…). Even if most of those who decided to sign up stuck around and settled on it as their long-term career, despite the risks and rigmarole, the archmages going unnoticed in the population, or worse, going rogue, becoming darkmages, probably outnumbered them twenty-to-one.

So this ‘Elkostor’ who’d come up in last night’s conversation was a posh-boy and she wasn’t likely to be interested in him… I’d gotten one of the answers some secret little part of me had been after.

Emrelet hailed from the woodlands of the small kingdom of Onsolor to the far north-east of Mund, a country which I always mixed up with Onlor – to my ears the people native to those lands all shared Emrelet’s accent; they were typically pale and tended toward thinness, a hardy people; that was enough to categorise them as roughly the same in my mind. But I didn’t mention any of this, given that she was actually talking about the national enmity between the two states.

It seemed Onlor was the sort of obnoxious neighbour no one wanted; wealthier and more militarily-powerful, larger and more advantageously-situated. Onsolor had long struggled for its own identity, while Onlor fought to play the part of the big brother, subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) trying to annex the kingdom in a game that’d gone on centuries, the High Lords and Ladies of the Arrealbord playing one side off against the other in an endless dance.

So it was that Emrelet had ended up coming to Mund. Onlor had blockaded one of the main trade routes into Onsolor, under the pretence of highway maintenance or some such excuse, and starvation had set in within a few months. People were forced to eat their pets, and there were rumours that some had fallen to cannibalism, dark cults spreading out from the cities to roam the countryside in search of fresh meat.

If there were ever to be a sign it was time to leave a place, widespread cannibalism was it. Emrelet’s parents were clearly sensible people; I looked forward to meeting them, and said as much, which elicited a warm flash in her eyes.

She’d used her salary to move them in from the camps outside the city to a place in Rivertown, apparently both affordable and with a minimal murder rate in the neighbourhood – which sounded like a contradiction in terms to me, but I went with it.

The journey itself had taken two months and clearly no small amount of bravery, given the dangers of some of the roads they’d travelled – riding with a caravan through the barren wilderness, following the Eltwent Path that brought them over Dimmervil Pass; they then took passage on a barge to bring them down the Briarflow, a narrow but deep river that fed into the Blackrush just a few miles north of Mund –

“Zat is where I discovered my powers,” she said.

“On the Briarflow?”

She nodded, looking suddenly grim. “Ze trolls had knocked down a dozen trees and used them to almost, ahh, dam up ze river.” Her Mundic was excellent for someone who had clearly not been speaking it regularly for very long; there were the odd moments when she had to search for the right words but they were few and far between. I wished I had such an aptitude. “Ve vent around a bend and zere zey vere, vaiting for us.”

I hadn’t seen her look troubled like this before now. I leaned forward to ensure I caught everything she said.

“Zere vere about eight or nine of zem, I think. Have you ever seen a troll, Kas?”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think so.”

“Ten to fifteen feet tall. Huge heads,” she spread her hands to indicate a sphere about three feet in diameter, at which my eyes widened, “viz mouths like our own, but jaws vhich open here,” she drew lines with her fingers leading back from her lips, as if her mouth could open all the way back below the ear. “Thin, but do not underestimate zeir strength. Zeir flesh is tough like bone, sharp like blades; zey can rend limbs from bodies, even tear down ze trees…”

She paused, remembering, and I was frozen, imagining.

“Zey are brutes; zey take vhat zey can, killing anyone in zeir path.”

Her robe, more like a gown of heavy cloth, left one shoulder and arm exposed; the sleeve on her other arm she rolled up now, baring her forearm.

A mess of scars that ordinarily I’d think of as hideous, except it was her arm and I couldn’t; the assessment just couldn’t gel and it was rejected as soon as I thought of it. But, nonetheless, I knew my body had reacted in an instant of revulsion. I knew it more by the atmosphere of the room which seemed to suddenly change than by any introspection – right now I was keyed in to her emotions in a way I couldn’t quite explain, as if I’d left any desire to experience me behind and now deigned to try to experience her – who knew when I’d get this chance again, any chance to speak with her like this for real? – and I sensed before she did it that she was about to move to roll her sleeve back down –

I placed my hand on hers gently, not to stop her in the motion to cover it up but to let her know I’d recognised my mistake, that it wasn’t conscious –

I looked in her eyes.

“Please,” I said, “don’t?”

She blinked, and I saw a tear shine in her eyes; but it was gone before it could roll down her cheek.

She didn’t move the hand, and I left mine where it was, for as long as she’d let me.

I looked down at her forearm again.

“Zis is vhere it clutched me. Vhen I avoke.”

Awakening. Yes, that was the word for it indeed. That bit I could attest to.

I could imagine this prompting the same kind of stress I’d been feeling the day it happened to me. She’d said the flesh of the trolls was blade-like, but I hadn’t realised quite what she’d meant until I grasped that this was a troll’s hand-print. I could see the scars made by the fingers, dozens of lines like the marks made by jagged razors, and then the unscarred spaces between the fingers; the worst patch, where the troll’s palm had pressed into her flesh…

I felt angry, then confused.

I looked up at her, met her eyes – but didn’t ask the question.

No. I wouldn’t have had it healed either.

“Scars have a way of becoming part of you, don’t they?”

Now the two tears fell, but she was smiling this time, the grimness gone from her.

“I take it you used the river –“

She caught my hand suddenly, rather than letting me rest it on the back of hers, gripping my fingers in her own. “Oh, ze trolls had no idea vhat hit zem,” she said, and then laughed briefly, wiping her eyes with the hand she’d been showing me, leaving the other in my clasp. “I had no idea vhat I voz doing, of course – you said, zis is ze same viz you?”

I nodded, smiling, and she continued: “So one minute zere I am, being pulled up into ze air by one of ze trolls – and zere comes a vater elemental out of ze river behind it – and ven it catches him, he realises zat it is twice his size and still growing. He let me go, tried to run… soon enough zey all try to run…”

I was holding my breath. “What did you do?”

She seemed to be holding back all of a sudden. There was a worried-sounding twang in her voice as she replied, “Vhat vould you have done?”

“Well…” I thought about it. “Trolls can only be killed by fire and acid –”

“Vhich I did not have – vell, I didn’t know how to control ze fire, yet, you see…“

I thought about it, and when I spoke I tried to keep the chill I felt from my voice:

“Drowning, then?“

She nodded, and bit her lip. “It voz not as you imagine. Zey struggled. I…”

“Y-you knew if you let them go they were going to do the same thing to the next people who passed by. I get it.” I did my best to smile. “It’s not sacrilegious to want to protect your species.”

She cocked her head.

“Erm – I mean, it’s not wrong, it’s not,” I chose a word she was sure to know, any magister with more than a week of training would know it, “heretical.” She nodded in understanding, but my words still hadn’t reached her; they were just empty phrases. What could words do to assuage the guilt, when you’d put down some rabid creatures that were undoubtedly as deadly as a nest of snakes – but as helpless in the moment, under your power, as bag of kittens?

Could I have done that?

“Is zat how you got your scar?” she asked suddenly. “Your…”

“Awakening?” I shook my head. “No – or maybe yes? This was the reason why I didn’t go on the errand.” I reached up, touched the place on my upper cheek where the mark of the knife remained, like a crescent-moon. “I got in a fight, and turned coward. The world… is a dangerous place.” I looked down at our conjoined doubled fist. “It happened a bit before they, you know, died. I didn’t want to go out again at night. They wanted me to go fetch the water – I was thirteen then, and they didn’t want me to be paralysed by my fear, they tried to convince me that I couldn’t be scared…”

I must’ve looked a bit of a mess, because she placed her other hand on top of mine.

“But surely you do not blame yourself, zis refusal, zeir murder –”

“Blame myself? No.” I shook my head, perhaps a little too violently. “No more than I blame them.”

The memory surged through my mind’s eye, as I kick their gravestone, cursing them for their, their what? what! their misplaced kindness? their short-sightedness? their arrogance? arrogance that the world should conform to what the powerless wished it should be, yes, that was it, that was their disgrace: their hopefulness, their childish innocence…

Thinking they were safe. No one was really safe. Not in Mund, not in the Realm, not in the world, nor any of the other dimensions as far as I was aware. Well, maybe Celestium. In the Twelve Heavens…

Were they there now? Were the souls of the dead really taken up, when they were good people, as the ministers of Yune said?

Emrelet was fixing that cool, observing gaze on me, as if already aware I had more to say.

Is she feeling me the way I can feel her?

“I…” It was difficult. “Their killer was caught, for once – my parents were pretty well-liked, you know… witnesses came forward. Toras Lulton, the killer was called. He was hanged.” Which left me…

I met her eyes.

“Which left me feeling nothing. No vengeance to take, even if I’d wanted it. No one else to blame.”

“Zis is vhy you felt ze need to be a champion vhen you gained your abilities?”

I smiled and cleared my throat, blinking back my own tears. “I suppose you could see it as something of a huge overreaction, couldn’t you? It didn’t really feel like that, though, you know? No, it was quite by accident. I mean, sure, I always wanted to be a champion – who the hell doesn’t? – but see, I didn’t get my powers in a fight. The Bone Ring, that happened after. I was sulking, and then I saw Zel and her faun-pal having an argument – you remember Flood Boy? About so tall?” I held out my hand three-and-a-bit feet in the air and she nodded. “Anyway, I just so happened to pick up their names – which is apparently a big shortcut when it comes to taking command of an eldritch. Zel signed up with me right away, and he didn’t take much encouragement – or should I say pestering?”

“Oi!”

You did harangue him a fair bit, Zel.

“That… may be true, but… better for him to sign-up willingly, right?”

“I’m sorry – where was I?”

Emrelet was smirking; a light had dawned in her eyes as she realised what it meant for me to be joined with the faerie queen.

“Oh yeah – so no, being a champion wasn’t the first thing I came up with. I had ways to make money, but they were either illegal or ineffective, given the time constraints. It was the Bone Ring encounter that pushed me into it – unfortunately for them.” With my free hand I patted the pocket with the money in, which jingled dutifully. “Fortunately for me.” I regarded her thoughtfully. “But I thought you had surely had your powers much longer than mere months. You’re… so practised. You make everything you do look easy.”

“You took ze – Termiax and Rissala’s demon avay from zem. You didn’t make it sound so difficult.”

“That’s different, isn’t it?” I said, struggling with the notion. “I don’t really have to do anything, to use my powers. It’s all in the mind – I just kind of point, and wave, or just say something with the right intention, and it all just comes together.”

“But zat is vhat an archmage is!” She spoke softly, but with ardour. “Our spells are instinctive, not learned from some book! Ve vork in ze very source of magic, using our imagination to reshape ze vorld. Ve are ze same, you and I.”

I looked down at our joined hands, placed my free hand on top of hers, then looked back up –

There were certain looks you could give someone if you wanted to signal you were interested; sometimes you’d do it unconsciously, other times you could try to do it deliberately. I’d been deliberately doing it at her probably far too much this afternoon, spamming it like I’d spammed my Geomancer’s Hill-Shunt special power, missing every time.

This was one of the accidental ones, and it didn’t miss. Her grey eyes, irises of bluish steel flecked with leaf-green rays, looked deep into mine – and I felt my breath catch in my lungs –

Boom, boom, boom. The door of the apartment shook in its hinges.

Not one of our knocks.

It was showtime.