By the time the salad had been taken away and replaced with soup, Dwayne had finished describing Resonance Theory to the two noble men. “While we haven’t fully explored the new spell vials’ full implications for Qe magic, we know that we can use them to train new mages.”

Magdala’s father dipped a spoon into his light green colored soup. “We already have a way to get more mages.”

Dwayne grimaced. “Yes, well, I meant more qualified mages.” When Magdala’s father raised an eyebrow, Dwayne felt sweat break out on his face. “No, I-I mean Soura’s mages could reach a higher peak of proficiency.”

“You’ve spoken of the benefits of your new theory.” Baron Thadden tapped his spoon on his bowl. “Do you have real proof of its viability?”

To delay answering, Dwayne took a swig of beer. The answer was clearly yes since, by casting Qe spells every day in class, he himself had proved the theory’s viability. Unfortunately, that was a secret.

“I’m working on such a proof right now.” Cups, he’d been too focused on his practicals. “Currently, I’m in the middle of assembling materials for a project that will enable a Qe mage to perform Ri magic.” Using the third person there implied that he wasn’t a Qe mage. Too late to correct that. “When I’ve got them, I’ll make the necessary preparations and then train someone in their use.”

Both of the baron’s eyebrows raised. “You have experience with Ri magic? Have you been to the Ri?”

Can’t answer that. “Lord Kalan has some experience.” A name broke through the cloud of memory. “Chika, I believe, taught him some… What’s wrong?”

Lord Gallus stiffly placed his spoon into his bowl. “Chika is a delicate subject.”

“That’s putting it lightly.” Baron Thadden took a swig of beer. “The amount of work our office had to do to smooth relations with the Ri after that debacle was monumental. I still cannot believe that your lord brother-in-law brought an unlicensed privateer to Her Majesty’s court.”

“My brother-in-law,” Lord Gallus’s brows knitted together, “forgot himself.”

Dwayne sampled the soup as he worked through the phrase “unlicensed privateer”. “She was a pirate?”

“Again, even that boorish phrase is putting it lightly,” snapped the baron. “That woman attacked Vanurian ports, Souran vessels, anyone she associated with slavers. Her ‘righteous’ efforts were a constant and unrelenting drain on trade in the Ilyon Sea.”

Attacking slavers was cause for celebration in Dwayne’s book. “What happened to her?”

“Her Highness.” Baron Thadden sat back in his seat. “Through our office, she took advantage of internal Ri politics, some nonsense about whether or not Chika was ‘presenting’ right, and brokered a deal. We captured her and deported her.”

Lord Gallus’s spoon lifted from his soup. “Her Majesty was less than happy with the result.”

The baron winced. “Her Majesty has great ambitions and was trying to make a play for something that the Ri were uncomfortable giving away.” He gave Dwayne a thin-lipped smile. “See? Even three years on, it’s a subject of some debate.”

“But we’re past it now.” Lord Gallus raised his stein. “There’s a new Wesen here, and he’ll bring us into a brilliant new future.” His tone was not joyous.

That word again. Dwayne stood up. “Of course, we could stick to what we know, ignore what we’ve discovered, and-”

“You forget yourself, young Kalan.” Lord Gallus’s tone was now frigid.

Biting down on his words, Dwayne sat back down and hid clenched fists under the red tablecloth. It was unfair. Lord Gerald Gallus, Lord Commander of Her Majesty’s Army, could be a hypocrite, and Dwayne could not call him out on it. If only he could toss a fireball or two into the man’s face, that would get him to take Dwayne seriously.

“Passion,” Baron Thadden lifted his stein, “is to be shackled to purpose, young Kalan.” He took a sip of beer. “I believe we were discussing how to prove your master’s theory?”

Dwayne let his anger, and his magic, fade away and focused on that question. “Like I said, we’ve developed a method that will enable Qe mages to perform Ri spells, and we’re perfecting it so that mages other than myself can use it.”

“Good, very good.” The baron took another sip of beer. “I do have one more question for you. Do you think a mage’s abilities are intrinsic to her?”

Dwayne blinked. “Yes, I do.”

“Emittance Theory does not disagree. Yet your Resonance Theory seems to imply that a mage’s magic can be externalized, even separated, from herself, but when I use magic, I feel my own power within me, feel it responding to my thoughts and projecting my will into the world.”

He pointed at his soup. “ut.” With a gloop, the soup hopped into the air and hung there in the shape of the bowl. “Cueller has blessed us with this power. It resides within us. It can’t be taken away. It can’t be given away. It’s ours. Qeil.” The soup settled back into the bowl.

Dwayne shook his head. “I’m not saying Souran mages aren’t tied to their magic. I’m saying that that’s not the whole picture.”

“Ah, but it is.” Thadden straightened in his seat and loomed over Dwayne, even from the other side of the table. “What if the power of Cueller resides in all mages? It’s common knowledge that Qe and nQe mages hold different amounts of proper and inverted magic within themselves. Why wouldn’t that be true for the less advanced magics, Ri, Xa, even the extinct Vu? All mages may have some amount of all the magics, but in each a single magic must dominate.”

That ran counter to Dwayne’s experience, but the baron was claiming that Resonance Theory ran counter to his. Time to try logic. “If that was true, then I would expect a mage to be able to do other magics, even a little bit.”

Baron Thadden leaned forward. “Can you say for certain that these spell vials you’ve been creating don’t contain magic themselves? It’s more than possible that the caster is draining the vials of the necessary magic and making up for the deficit.”

“I see.” Dwayne turned the idea over in his head. Again, it didn’t match with his own experience, but he’d need to do more testing to prove it false.

“Baron,” Lord Gallus’s knuckles were white from the effort of gripping his stein, “you mentioned that within each mage, one kind of magic must dominate.”

Dwayne frowned. Lord Gallus was missing the point.

“That is the clear and obvious conclusion from the evidence,” the baron replied. “Otherwise, Qe mages would already be flinging fireballs as we speak.” He chuckled. “But as delightful as that image is, it can’t happen. It takes a Qe mage to do Qe magic.”

“So,” Lord Gallus looked Dwayne in the eye, “if we allowed mages of different kinds to interbreed, what would we be risking?”

Dwayne stopped breathing.

The baron shrugged. “What Emittance Theory suggests, and what Resonance Theory doesn’t deny, is that when two magical essences meet, one annihilates the other.”

“I… We can’t risk that.” Lord Gallus looked away from Dwayne. “We can’t risk that future.”

Enough. Dwayne’s fists hit the tabletop. “Are you done?”

Lord Gallus scowled. “Don’t forget yourself.”

“I never forget myself!” Dwayne’s heart pounded in his ears. “I can’t.” He shoved his chair away from the table, stood up, and stomped out of the dining hall.

***

As servants distributed soup to the guests, Magdala found herself trapped in a lecture by the woman sitting across from her, the dean of Lees College of History, Professor Amanda Quill.

The dean continued, one hand on a warming stein of beer. “The Second Convention - which, you’ll note, happened after the official end of the Golden Era - marked a significant decline in the Magisterium’s political power. The nobles of the time, already suspicious of the merchants’ growing power and the Eberharts’ strident rejection of patriarchal rule, assembled here in Bradford to petition the Queen Tania to-”

“Quill.” The tall thin woman to the dean’s right shook her head. “Please don’t use euphemisms. They invaded Bradford with over ten thousand troops and demanded that the good Queen Tania choose her lay niece as her heir instead of her daughter. Ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Magdala perked up. “What was ridiculous?”

“Dean Bruce,” her mother placed her hands on the table, “whether or not mages should be queens is not a polite topic of conversation.”

“It should be,” said the dean. “Cueller has blessed us mages with the knowledge and ability to discern the very foundations of reality. I believe that firsthand experience of those foundations would enrich the Queen’s lineage, not weaken it.” She smiled. “My dear Sage, look at what you’ve accomplished with the backing of a powerful noble bloodline, look at what the future head of your family accomplished down in that heretic’s jungle, and tell me that Her Majesty’s line the Eberharts wouldn’t benefit materially and spiritually from magecraft.”

Magdala coughed. “I don’t think I accomplished much. My contribution was minor at best.”

The dean pointed at Magdala with her soup spoon. “Without your initiative to take charge of the investigation, Walton would be a-”

“Dean Bruce,” Magdala’s mother raised her voice just a hair, “the Magisterium has not, will not, and does not encourage reckless or improper behavior in our students.”

The younger woman subsided. “Yes, of course. I am still proud to be sitting in the company of two nobles who’ve combined their noble bloodline with their magical ability.”

“There are many mages who do that regularly.” Magdala stirred her soup. “Like the Lucchesis and the windsong messengers.”

“Merchants and messengers.” Dean Bruce’s nose wrinkled. “Yes, mages like them are necessary for the economy, but when it comes to leadership, it’s nobles like yourself and your mother who should be leading the way.”

Dean Bruce’s old master placed a hand on her forearm. “Roberta, calm, please.” She smiled at Magdala’s mother. “She’s most passionate about this, and I apologize for encouraging it by giving her free run of the Archives. I didn’t expect her to read so much of it!” She chuckled. “Why, she even found sections that I’d never seen before.”

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Dean Bruce patted her mentor’s hand. “I was just making the best use of my abilities, Master.”

Which didn’t include taking over Lees? Magdala cleared her throat. “Dean Bruce, why did you start your own college?”

Dean Bruce sat up in her chair. Even seated, she was head and shoulders above everyone else. “Six hundred and fifty-seven years ago, short-sighted lay nobles blocked mages from gaining martial power. My college is dedicated to reversing that error.” She offered a weak smile. “That said, I have to admit that none of us have experienced battle like yourself, your lady mother, your lord uncle, Lady Pol and the other surviving graduates of the shuttered Duelist’s College. As a result, we are researchers, not practitioners.”

“You make weapons,” said Magdala’s mother.

“Our enemies abroad have been doing so for centuries.” Dean Bruce pointed south. “Those things you faced down in the Vanurian jungle were weapons, the products of dark heretical research. We at the Magisterium have known this for years, but instead of trying to match magic with magic, we hide behind the wall our forebears built.”

“That wall represents Soura’s strength!” Magdala didn’t quail under her mother’s sharp look. “That wall corralled the hordes, mitigated their overwhelming numerical advantage, and gave our soldiers the space to use superior skill and training to win. Mages couldn’t have done that alone.”

Dean Bruce clapped. “Well put! As expected of the daughter of the Lord Commander.”

“Yes, as expected.” Magdala’s mother dipped her spoon into her soup. “Deans Bruce and Quill, you were both reported absent at Lady Pol’s offering of her paper on Resonance Theory.”

Dean Bruce shrugged. “Yes, unfortunately I had an important time-sensitive experiment to run and couldn’t get away. I haven’t yet found an apprentice skilled enough to run them in my absence.”

Dean Quill picked up her stein. “The Autumn Session approaches and, as always, reminds both professors and students that the Harvest Ball is approaching. I’ve been inundated with requests to find this, that, and the other and didn’t have time to attend an irrelevant offering on a nascent theory.”

The Autumn Session was Her Majesty’s last chance to finalize law and pronounce judgment on pending cases, and it was the boring prelude to the Harvest Ball, which Francesca had been preparing for for months. Already, her wall in their shared room was plastered with sketches of the dresses that she wanted Magdala, Mei, and herself to wear.

Speaking of Mei…

Magdala peeked over at her friend, who was still in the horrible purple striped dress. Francesca was going to rip Huan’s head off.

Magdala’s mother tapped her spoon on her soup bowl. “I know you’ve both read the minutes. What are your positions?”

“Certainly, Lady Pol’s offering was passionate,” Dean Quill shifted in her seat, “but not well grounded in recent scholarship. We must remember that our magic is based on the sea and the sky and the earth, which makes it very different from the vulgar sorceries of Wesen’s flame-slingers and the Empire’s animal-speech makers. Knowing that, can we really say that the old Yaniti empire’s magic - with its fantastical mythical beasts - shared the same fundamental principles as our modern magic?”

“Yes, we can,” said Dean Bruce.

Magdala’s mouth fell open. “We- we can?”

“Yes, we can.” Dean Bruce’s hands traced her ideas. “It doesn’t feel true that magic, human magic, manifests fundamentally differently from person to person. Unlike you, Master, I’ve been in the same room as a Ri casting, and I’ve heard the sounds and rhythms of their spells, which definitely share a grammar with Qe magic. Like us, when Ri mages command, nature obeys.”

Which wasn’t quite true. Magdala had asked Dwayne once about the difference between casting Ri magic and Qe magic, and he’d said, “It feels like Qe magic pulls the world into me so that I can change it, but Ri magic pushes me into the world, which then decides what to do with me.”

Her eyes dropped to her soup. “Ri magic is emotion, not reason.”

“Well said.” Dean Bruce leaned in. “That does makes it inferior to Qe magic, which relies on reason, the master of emotion.”

Magdala leaned in. “What are you-”

A thump sounded from the other end of the table. “Are you done?” Dwayne shoved himself away from the table and stormed out of the dining room.

As the room burst into whispers, Magdala’s mother put a hand to her forehead. “Cups.”

“Well, that was not unexpected,” muttered Dean Quill to her apprentice.

For her part, Dean Bruce remained silent, her eyes on the space Dwayne had occupied.

“He’s under a lot of pressure.” Magdala’s hand wrung the tablecloth. “Making the Scaled Tower operational, attending classes-”

“My pardon, young Gallus,” Dean Quill barely hid a sneer, “but I doubt someone of his… heritage is capable of doing any of that, let alone all of that. Bruce, haven’t you written papers to that effect?”

Dean Bruce’s smile could cut glass. “That wasn’t quite my conclusion, Master.”

Magdala glared at the older dean. “I doubt that anyone our age has ever been asked to do even half of what he’s done without the backing of-”

“Magdala.” Her mother’s voice cut her off.

Magdala subsided. “I apologize, Mother.”

The Water Sage stood up and clapped her hands to silence the room. “Everyone, I apologize for the interruption. My lord brother’s apprentice is still adjusting to our customs here in Bradford. Children his age are still growing after all.” She laughed and the room politely laughed with her. “Please enjoy the viridian squash soup. The next course will begin shortly.”

Sitting back down, she turned to Magdala. “I believe your father requires your presence.” She sounded casual, but Magdala could see the strain at the corners of her lips.

“Yes, Mother.” Magdala rose to her feet. “Would you like me to tell him anything?”

Dwayne’s leaving took the main reason why anyone was here away, and so, more than likely, her mother was going to have to cut this dinner short after the next course.

Her mother’s face went still. “Inform him I appreciated his choice of beer.”

That was probably some spousal signal. “Understood.” Magdala curtsied. “By your leave, Mother.”

“It was very interesting to meet you and your friend,” said Dean Bruce. “May Cueller’s Blessing pour upon you.”

What archaic phrasing. “And you.” Magdala curtsied again and hurried away.

The standard Gallus family protocol for a disastrous dinner was to end it quickly with sugar and alcohol and hope that the participants would be too weighed down with both to remember the bad parts. It also meant that Magdala wasn’t going to be able to speak to Dean Bruce for the rest of the night, which was too bad. The dean was not only amenable to Resonance Theory, but she was more savvy than Lady Pol and was held in better regard than Magdala’s lord uncle. Should Magdala petition to join the College of Martial Magic? It had to be better than Lees and the dusty Archives.`

When she reached her father’s end of the table, Magdala curtsied. “Father.” Without waiting for his acknowledgment, she took Dwayne’s still warm seat. “Mother says that she appreciates your choice of beer.”

“Cups.” Her father glanced down at the other end of the table. “I… understand. So, did you talk with Dean Quill?”

Considering the results of tonight, Magdala and Dwayne were both going to get a scolding, but Magdala was practiced in pulling attention to herself, something her little brother Hans would appreciate one day.

With a smile dripping with sugar, she asked her father, “What do you really think about the College of Martial Magic?”

***

Dwayne rushed past the stunned door guards and out onto Tarpan’s strangely flat drive and then stopped and looked around. There were a dozen carriages parked along the drive, their flickering yellow lanterns betraying their presence in the misty dark, and he could not tell which one was his, which one Rodion was sitting in, which one would take Dwayne away from the house full of humiliation to the one empty of people.

This failure gave Dwayne’s reason time to catch up to him. He should go back, apologize, face the consequences, but, if he did, he’d have to apologize to Lord Gallus and even weakening the Water Sage’s rage wasn’t worth the hit to Dwayne’s pride. Besides, right now, he was hungry and tired. Tomorrow, he would eat, drink, and actually deal with the fallout. Right now, he’d find his carriage.

He approached the closest one.

“Wait, wait!” A young page intercepted him and folded into a deep bow. “Sorry, milord, I wasn’t ready.” He blinked up at Dwayne. “Lord Dwayne?”

The voice was familiar. Dwayne looked past the stuffy red and gold outfit and peered at the boy’s face and blonde curls. “Hans?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Magdala’s little brother grinned. “Are you going home already?”

Dwayne nodded. “This was… tiring.” He frowned. “Why are you here?”

Hans lifted his chin. “Pages get to stay past their bedtime. My big sister told me that.”

Dwayne chuckled. “I’m sure she did. Can you find my carriage?”

Hans saluted. “Yes, Lord Dwayne. Just a tic!” He scampered off into the darkness.

Dwayne found himself chuckling again. The boy certainly took his role as page seriously.

With nothing but the rustle of leaves to distract him, Dwayne’s thoughts again returned to what he’d just done, and anxiety skittered back into the pit of his stomach. He’d walked out on a Gallus dinner, one designed to present him to polite society, and thereby insulted two of the most powerful people in the queendom. When the Queen heard about this, she’d order Lord Kalan to strip away Dwayne’s status as his heir and as Adjunct Librarian, and then Dwayne would be left out in the street, forever locked out of the halls of magic and knowledge.

Or the Ri could take him.

“Ain’t you dressed up like a cock’s brush?”

A short lean maid in a plain yellow dress and white pinafore approached Dwayne, her hair neatly hidden in a white bonnet, but he didn’t notice because her skin was darker than his.

“You got a tongue?” The Wesen maid looked into his open mouth. “These Sourans didn’t slice it out and put it in that soup, did they?”

“I-I can speak,” said Dwayne. “Who are you?”

“Cussed lightning, they have you speaking like them!” The maid inspected his suit and shoes. “And dressed like them. Ain’t none of that velvet cheap. The Gallus’s have your ‘tract?”

“My ‘tract? What’s a…” Dwayne realized that the maid didn’t see an nobleman’s heir or a mage’s apprentice standing before her. “No. No, I’m not- You… you don’t know who I am?”

“What? Am I supposed to?” She peered into his face and then shook her head. “Nope. I have the faces of all the stringers and blowers with fingers and lips good enough to please people as nobbed up as the Galluses, and you, Mr. Velvet, ain’t one of them.”

The maid spoke in riddles. “Are you talking about entertainment?” asked Dwayne. “Like bards and traveling players?”

The maid’s jaw dropped. “Shamed light, are you from out of town? No one in the The Sore talks so pretty.”

More slang. Dwayne nodded slowly. “Yes, I, uh, only arrived recently. I’m sorry I-” He coughed. Time to actually communicate. “I’m Dwayne Kalan.”

“Dwayne Kalan? No tribe or clan gave you a name like that.”

Dwayne’s eyes slid away from her. “I… don’t know my given name.”

“That’s a shame.” The maid held out her hand. “Akunna Ibeabuchi.” When Dwayne shook her hand, she said, “Born in Wesen, and bo-”

“Ah, Gretchen, there you are,” said Baron Thadden.

Akunna leapt back from Dwayne. She bowed. “At your service, milord.” The energy she’d had, her curiosity, had evaporated.

Baron Thadden smiled. “Please retrieve our carriage. Where’s the page on duty? Oh, young Kalan, I didn’t see you there.”

Doubtful. Dwayne bowed. “Are you leaving early too?” He kept one eye on Akunna - the name “Gretchen” didn’t fit - as she set off down the drive.

Baron Thadden lowered his voice. “Just between us, I was never going to stay long past the first course. Our office has so much work to do before the Autumn Session, and Her Highness such high expectations of her staff, that senior members such as myself must work late into the night.” He rubbed his chin. “Surely, your office has some work to do before Session?”

Probably, but Dwayne would have to find it first. “No, not yet. Right now, I’m organizing the files, starting with the license paperwork.”

The baron didn’t reply for a moment. “The licenses, huh? Is your master assisting you? Are you dispatching documents to him via horse or windsong?”

“He’s focusing on Walcrest at present.” Whenever Dwayne sent Lord Kalan work, it came back a week later with a note stating that Dwayne should take care of it on his own. Not aggravating at all. “There’s a lot to be done.”

“Of course.” Thadden patted Dwayne on the back. “Hopefully, he’ll find the time soon.” He turned to face the drive. “A bright boy like you will go far.”

Dwayne frowned. “Far?”

Thadden nodded. “You know our discussion back there was most bracing, a true delving into the nature of our world. You saw me tossing clubs at your theory, and you caught them with aplomb.”

Dwayne looked away. “That’s… generous of you, Baron. Lord Gallus wasn’t convinced.”

“I’m not surprised.” The baron gestured to Tarpan’s grounds. “We nobles prize family above all else, and everyone knows that Magdala is the Lord Commander’s favorite child. No parent, not even a great man like Lord Gallus, wants to be separated from their favorites.” He leaned close. “My advice? Forget about pleasing him and focus your efforts on mastering that savage temper of yours. Remember that a true Souran mage uses logic to make her arguments, not fickle passion. Oh, Gretchen has brought my carriage.”

Two carriages, one plain, the other styled in brown and gold trimmings, rolled up to them.

Akunna stepped out of the fancy one. “Milord.” She bowed.

“Excellent, excellent.” Thadden nodded at Dwayne. “With that, I take my leave, young Kalan. I shall monitor your progress closely.”

After he stepped into the carriage, Akunna closed the door behind him, but, before she left, she turned to Dwayne. “Are you free, you who knows not their past, knows not their name, knows not their caste? Are you free?” She didn’t wait for Dwayne’s response before she rushed to the front of the carriage and shouted for the driver to go.

“She gave you a poem.” Hans opened the door into Dwayne’s carriage. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Dwayne stepped up to the carriage, Akunna’s words bouncing around in his head. “Thank you, Hans.” He looked inside and froze.

“What is it?”

“Where’s Ro- my steward?”

Hans turned to the front of the carriage. “Driver?”

“Said he had something to take care of, milord,” answered the driver. “Told me to wait for you. I hope he brings my scarf back. Me brother gave it to me.”

This wasn’t the first time Rodion had disappeared like this, but it was the most inconvenient timing. Feeling empty, Dwayne stepped into the carriage and allowed Hans to shut the door after him. As the carriage rumbled forward, Dwayne considered how to master his temper. The only thing he could think of was to tamp down on his emotions and become Souran.