“Thanks again for your help.”
“No,” Dana, as Rodion, returned the servant’s bow, “thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to stitch on those silver torches without your help.”
“Are you,” the palace servant’s face turned pink, “going to be around later?”
Dana assessed them: swarthy, hard worker, but, unfortunately, a diVida and as such a member of the third most prominent mercantile family after the Lucchesis and the Giordanos. Where one had made the sea their business and the other money itself, the diVidas focused on hospitality and required all its members to study the art as it was practiced across the queendom. However, since this one had just started out here at the Palace, it would be some time before they would be useful.
“Perhaps.” To soften the blow of rejection, Dana made a show of looking out the window. “Oh, I believe that my charge will have arrived by now. I should go and get him settled.”
“Of course.” The servant laughed awkwardly. “You have duties. I have duties. I should get back to those duties. Excuse me.”
As they scampered away, Dana straightened Rodion’s sea-green suit then took stock of where lu was. Currently, lu was on the second floor of the West Wing where the more important nobles, mainly Royal cousins, lived while away from their far-flung estates. While there was some intelligence to be gathered here - the duke-in-residence at Ti Mei was of particular interest to the Circle - Rodion’s brightly colored suit and obvious Southern looks stood out too much here, and besides, it was best to hurry. Dwayne would be praying for any excuse to escape.
Following the shortest route to the Royal Secretary’s Office, Dana went down to the first floor and entered the Grand Ballroom through the servant’s entrance, along the way sneaking only a couple glimpses at the discarded pamphlets and letters lu saw along the way. The letters were banal and the pamphlets were the natural responses to last month’s foolish vengehna raid on Walton and spoke of the necessity of “Restoring Soura’s Glory” and “Removing the Blight.” In time, such jingoism would fade.
As lu crossed the Grand Ballroom’s endless expanse of shiny hardwood floors, Dana let only luz peripheral vision admire the brightly polished aluminum fixtures, the careful arrangements of thistles and out-of-season lilac blooms, the quickly constructed Royal seats, and the stage where the Royal Offerings were to be made. Considering how much time the Palace servants had had to set all this up, it was very impressive.
Dana reached the stage, turned right to exit the room, and heard Magdala Gallus’s voice behind luz. “Can’t we be moved to later?”
A clipped, curled voice asked, “Are you not prepared, young Gallus?”
Curious, Dana slipped into a nearby group of servants to listen to the voices emanating from the purple curtains separating the backstage from the ballroom.
“Of course, we’re ready.” Gallus’s attempt at bravado only highlighted her nervousness, “but…”
“The first Offering of the night is expected to astonish and amaze the audience.” Francesca Lucchesi, Magdala’s roommate. “Surely, you don’t want us to follow right after the Lo Ducas.”
“Colin, do you agree with your project partners?” asked the mystery voice.
There was a squeak. “I… I…”
As Colin - presumably Nicole Fletcher’s brother - continued to fail to answer, Dana’s hands busied themselves arranging thistles and lilacs into vases. The mystery voice had to belong to someone older than the students, but not to someone of the same class as Gallus; that “young Gallus” had sounded too deferential for that. They’re saying “project partners” did narrow things considerably, from any number of Magisterium mages to one, the Dean of the College of Martial Magic, Roberta Bruce.
“Young Gallus,” the dean’s voice was low, dangerous, “when I submitted your Offering for tonight, both Her Majesty and Her Highness personally requested for you to go first. Do you want me to throw that back in their faces?”
“No,” said Gallus, “but- ow!”
“We understand, Dean,” said Lucchesi. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Yes, you will. Now,” The dean’s voice softened. Slightly. “I have some business to attend to. Please use this area to resolve any issues. Good luck.” Then she stepped out from behind the curtains, passed Dana, and left.
That was a problem. Dwayne needed this Offering to go off without a hitch. However, maybe there was an opportunity for he and Gallus to get closer if-
“Cups, where did you learn how work so fast?”
“Pardon?” Dana looked down at luz handiwork: fifteen flower vases, each with matching flower arrangements, all ready for placement in the ballroom.
Right, Rodion wasn’t supposed to stand out, not here. “Ah… I just pick up things quickly. Do you need any more help?”
The servant shook her head. “No, you’ve done more than enough.”
“Then I must step away.”
With a bow, Dana did so and entered the little world behind the curtain, where Fletcher was sitting on a crate with a pale blank expression, Lucchesi was rummaging through another crate with a grim look on her face, and Gallus was standing in a corner with her face in her hands.
“Cups, we’re doomed,” declared Fletcher.
“Move,” ordered Lucchesi, brandishing a crowbar. When he did, she levered open the crate and looked inside. “Here’s the large ones.”
Gallus peered through her fingers. “You’re thinking that we have to go with those?”
“Yes.” Lucchesi pulled a ball of azade the size of Dana’s head out of the crate. “They’re the only ones that can be seen from the Royal Seats.”
“But we’ve never gotten those ones to work,” said Fletcher. “We get the small ones to work half the time.”
Lucchesi pulled out another azade ball of equal size and quality. “And we only have two left.”
Fletcher groaned.
“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Gallus was trying to slow her breathing, trying not to hyperventilate. “We just need to calm down and consider the consequences. It’s not like Her Majesty will feed us to a Revenant if we fail. She’ll just be disappointed. Right?” Her question elicited only silence from her partners. “Right?”
Lucchesi sighed. “Mag, you know that Her Majesty could sink our careers. Why are you asking?”
“I would very much like to pretend otherwise.”
Fletcher hung his head. “We’re doomed.”
Dana had intended to offer assistance, but the two azade balls in Lucchesi’s hands could each buy a county back in Vanuria. And they’d apparently wasted others.
Gallus took a deep breath. “Let’s just go with the small ones then. Highest chance of success and we can try again if we fail.”
“What if that’s not bold enough?” asked Lucchesi. “This isn’t a small party at one of our houses. This is the Palace. This is the Harvest Ball. We have to go big.”
“We’re doomed.”
“Colin,” Gallus turned to Fletcher, “are you actually going to be helpful?”
“No,” Colin covered his mouth, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
That was enough to pull Dana’s attention away from the insane wealth in Lucchesi’s hands and back to the issue at hand, which is that nervous, uncertain mages rarely did good work.
Lu cleared luz throat. “Young Gallus?”
Gallus jumped. “Rodion! What are you doing here?”
“I was passing by, and I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Lucchesi narrowed her eyes. “We were that loud?”
Noting Lucchesi’s self-possession, Dana inclined Rodion’s head. “I recognized young Gallus’s voice.”
“Great.” Fletcher threw his hands up. “Even the servants know we’re going to fail.”
“I believe I have a solution.” Dana kept Rodion’s tone deferential, yet suggestive. “Why not consult young Kalan? He’s here in the Palace, attending the Royal Secretary’s Reception.”
Dana had expected that the mages to grab at this lifeline, but actually happened was that Fletcher’s despair turned to anger, Lucchesi’s cool melted into concern for her roommate, and Gallus’s nervousness crumbled into a mix of relief, resentment, and embarrassment.
“We don’t need his help,” announced Fletcher.
“Mag, what do you think?” asked Lucchesi.
Dana watched Gallus deal with her feelings. Lu had an explanation for the relief, Dwayne’s help would definitely get them out of this jam, and the resentment was also easy to explain; Magdala Gallus was Heir to the House of Gallus, whom the Circle’s files described as “bred to be as prideful as their war horses.” The embarrassment was harder to parse. Perhaps, Magdala hated that someone like Rodion had discovered about their predicament, but that was the Circle training speaking. No, the real answer had to lie in the hours that Gallus and Dwayne had spent working together side by side.
Stripping as much guile as lu could from Rodion’s tone, Dana said, “I’m sure he’d be happy to help make your Offering a success.”
Gallus’s eyes widened for just a moment. “Do you think so?”
“Mag, darling,” said Lucchesi, “I know so. Listen…”
As the wind Qe mage leaned in close to whisper something into her roommate’s ear, Dana realized that not only was the Circle’s assessment of Lucchesi correct, lu had an ally in the Gallus and Dwayne project.
Gallus’s face turned bright pink. “He wouldn’t!”
Lucchesi waggled her eyebrows. “He might.”
“Well,” Gallus cleared her throat, “at any rate, his help would be, uh, helpful.”
“Excellent.” Dana ignored Fletcher’s strangled protest. “I’ll take you right to him.”
***
“And that’s why I believe that the switch from ten doun paper to twelve doun paper should be funded next season. Don’t you agree, young Kalan?”
Dwayne’s adopted name jolt him out of his stupor. “Yes, the weightiness of official correspondence should be matched by the paper it’s printed on.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
That inane response gave Giordano time to blink away a glazed look. “Be that as it may, the question of how weighty the paper used in the Royal offices must be handled with care as it requires balancing margins of costs with margins of benefit.” An impressively long, and impressively unmeaningful, sentence. “Baron, could I trouble you to pass this along to my clerk, Miss Monti?”
“Certainly. However,” Thadden gestured at Dwayne, “I believe that young Kalan here is more familiar with her than I am.”
Giordano’s smile showed teeth. “Young Kalan and Miss Monti have already met, and, given your ambitions, gaining familiarity with the highest levels of my staff will benefit you greatly.” He took Thadden’s shoulders and turned the baron till he was facing the appropriate direction. “I recommend you get to it forthwith before some market emergency arises and takes her away.”
“But-”
“Off you go!”
As Thadden stumbled in the direction of Monti, Giordano muttered through clenched teeth, “Cups, I will hear of that later.”
Dwayne stared. “Director?”
“Oh, drop the formality. We’re out of earshot now.” Giordano’s full attention turned to Dwayne. “Besides, I didn’t come to this reception to talk paper; I came to talk to you.”
Dwayne went still. “About the selection?”
“Partially that. Partially curiosity. You see, I like to get a sense of who I’ll be dealing with in the future.” Giordano placed his hands behind his back. “I know the stories: the mage apprentice who stopped a riot, who fought Vanurian horrors in the jungle, who’s sharing fire with every Qe mage he can get his hands on.”
Dwayne grimaced. “That’s an oversimplification. I had help.”
“You didn’t have help passing the Slips Test in a blink. You didn’t have help hiring Vanurians at Walcrest and the Ma siblings at the Tower.”
“I can’t hire anyone else.”
“There.” Giordano’s finger pointed at Dwayne’s nose. “That frank humbleness. That’s what I needed to see for myself to assuage my concerns about allowing a fighting mage anywhere near the Indigo Tower.”
Dwayne stiffened. “I’m just a mage.”
“Are you?” Giordano lowered his voice. “While your lord uncle has done a superb job of keeping what happened down in that jungle quiet, Monti did some digging and found an odd report from a patrol who’d caught a bandit mage out West.”
Ice slid down Dwayne’s throat. On the way to Ti Mei, he, Magdala and Lord Kalan had been set upon by bandits. He’d used Ri magic to help fend them off. If the bandit or her men had remembered any of that… “Do you usually believe bandits?”
“Usually, no.” Giordano spread his hands. “They’ll claim sick daughters, lost farms, other bandits to play on your pity so you’ll let them go. However, this one claimed she lost to a pair of young Qe mages.”
Qe mages. The bandit hadn’t noticed. “Oh.”
“Oh?” Giordano gave him an odd look. “Mages are not to fight. It’s practically carved into the foundations of The Magisterium.”
“That’s not what you were worried about,” said Dwayne. “You were concerned that I’d cause trouble.”
Giordano’s eyes glittered. “I was. After all, your master, his lady sister, and Lady Pol are graduates of the defunct Dueling College. The fact that the apprentice of one and the daughter of another have found themselves in more fights than master and mother ever did could indicate radical tendencies.”
If only he knew. “Dueling College?”
“Once upon a time,” Giordano’s eyes flicked to the room, “the siblings Kalan and a young Lady Pol started a college for mages who wanted to fight with a female Wesen mage by the name of Rionnutte.”
Her again. “I never heard.”
“I’m not surprised. Its dissolution was quite the- Baron!” Giordano erected a polite facade back onto his face. “Were you able to speak with my clerk?”
Thadden nodded. “Yes and she said that she’d put it at her ‘highest available priority.’”
That was a good phrase. If he survived the night, Dwayne would steal it. “Baron, I-”
“Apologies, young Kalan,” Thadden bowed his head for half an instant, “but Her Highness has requested my consultation on tonight’s Mage Offerings. Perhaps I’ll see you at the Lo Duca performance? Director, I hope to speak with you again.”
Giordano smiled broadly. “Oh, I assure you that such an opportunity will occur at my earliest convenience.” When the baron was gone, the Director’s smile evaporated. “Which is never.”
Dwayne gasped. “Director!”
“Oh, don’t be scandalized,” said Giordano with a chuckle. “The Director of the Exchequer avoiding an Associate Secretary of the Gray Tower is nothing next to the scandals in you’ve left in your wake.”
Dwayne couldn’t think of a rebuttal to that, so instead he said, “You were talking about the Dueling College?”
“I recommend you find out what you can on your own. I have a question for you.” Giordano’s blue eyes pinned Dwayne in place. “What is your position regarding provisional licenses?”
“I’m sorry?”
Giordano simply waited for Dwayne to realize that this was the true reason the Director had come.
“I don’t think they’re bad exactly.” A wishy-washy response. “But they do encourage bad behavior. Our Head Guard Mei has uncovered instances of sponsorships being exchanged for money or favors, sometimes illegal ones.”
“Legality aside, I don’t have a particular problem with that.”
Dwayne blinked. “You don’t?”
“Every person here,” Giordano’s gesture encompassed the assembled staff of the Royal Secretary’s Office, “either possesses money or title or knows someone who does. This includes you, the apprentice to the Guardian of the Wall and heir to the Kalan estate and title. Objecting to how unfair that those with means, or those with access to those with means, are able to get ahead is childish. No, what I object to is the drop in quality of the licensees.”
Dwayne wanted to protest, wanted to say that skill alone should determine who got licenses, but he didn’t know a single mage who’d done so. Not the noble Magdala, not the wealthy Lucchesi, not the lucky Dwayne Kalan, who’d just happened to pick up a book owned by a noble mage.
The Director was again waiting for his response. “There’s been a drop in quality?”
“You haven’t had the chance to look into it?” As Dwayne’s teeth clenched, Giordano sighed. “The current provisional license process completely fails to take skill into account.”
“You just said that that wasn’t required to get a license.”
“I meant that it’s not enough to, but a minimum of skill should be required because otherwise what’s the point? Your master’s predecessor used to require each and every single Earth Qe licensee candidate to create an arch out of soft soil and make it last a year.”
“A whole year?” Over that time period, mere concentration wouldn’t be enough. “They’d have to actually build an arch.”
“Which is exactly what we need: the magic to build arches, bridges, houses, and dikes. The queendom is growing, young Kalan. Walton is a city now, Cairnbourne almost so, Adhua’s docks could pass for one, and Bradford’s traffic is practically its own district. While the previous Royal Sorcerer did put too much stock in old mage blood, the licenses she issued went to the skilled mages in those families.”
As unfair as it was, giving licenses to members of old mage families did seem to have less opportunity for abuse than Thadden’s provisional licenses. Dwayne eyed Giordano. “How do you know there’s been a drop in quality?”
Giordano’s expression darkened. “The Exchange doesn’t have any direct evidence, but we know that repairs have been sucking up more and more coin all around the queendom. Eventually, Monti found a pattern.”
Dwayne’s lips thinned. “New work needed more repairs.”
“Far more repairs. The only exceptions are the provisional windsong couriers, who deliver much quicker than their fully licensed counterparts. We can’t prove it definitively though.”
“Why not?”
“We only see where the money flows.”
“Could the Royal Secretary’s Office do it?”
“They only see the permits they write, and before you bring up the High Judiciary or the Lord Commander, you must know that the only office capable of actually finding out what’s happening is yours.”
“Right.” Maybe if the Royal Sorcerer’s Office was actually functioning. “I still don’t like that sponsors have so much power over the provisional licensees.”
“That’s up to your future Royal Sorcerer.” Giordano shrugged. “I suppose you could require all licensee candidates to pass the Mage Master’s Examination, which would fob off the work to the Magisterium, but that’s a high bar to clear.”
“Mage Master’s Examination?”
Giordano raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t heard of it? It’s required to become a professor at the Magisterium.”
“Interesting. Maybe we can adapt it.” And make it suitable for busy, working mages like Nicole.
“Is Baron Thadden aware of your concerns about the provisional license system?”
Dwayne bit down on the obvious answer. “I’ll make him aware.”
“Ah, I expect he will.” Giordano chuckled. “Monti has given me that look before. Oh, it seems your cousin has arrived.”
“My what?”
“My lord,” Rodion placed Magdala next to Dwayne, “young Gallus needs to speak with you.”
Magdala waved awkwardly. “Hi.”
Dwayne stared. Magdala wore a cream dress that perfectly complimented her red hair, which was held up with pearls and pins. His eyes had settled on her pink lips when he realized that she’d said something else.
“Sorry?”
“We…” Magdala winced. “We need your help with the Offering.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “That is if you’re not needed here by…” Her eyes flicked to Giordano. “Director! I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“Don’t mind me.” Giordano executed a quick bow. “I believe that my discussion with your… lord uncle’s heir has come to an end. Do thank your father for his efforts heightening security this year.”
When the Director left, Dwayne’s brain finally reengaged. “I’ll help you.”
Magdala’s happy grin filled the whole of Dwayne’s heart.
“Then we should go now,” she said.
“Just a moment, my lady.” Rodion stepped in close. “My lord, have you seen Huan?”
Dwayne blinked. “He’s not here? I saw him over there.” He pointed to the corner where Huan had been standing by the window. It was empty and the window was open.
“Ah.” Rodion’s tone was flat, controlled. “Perhaps he’ll turn up later.”
“Is anything wrong?” asked Magdala.
“No, my lady,” said Rodion.
“Good.” Magdala grabbed Dwayne’s hand and started to pull him along. “I’ll explain along the way.”
***
After dragging him through the Palace, Magdala pulled a strangely silent Dwayne into the area behind the stage. “Okay, I brought-”
“It has to be you!” Colin flung a hand at the crate of azade. “It’s not the material, it’s not the spells, it has to be you.”
Francesca snorted. “It isn’t. I know I’m doing it right.”
“Then why isn’t it working consistently?”
Magdala closed her eyes and tried not to panic. At this rate, Colin would burn through Francesca’s reserves of patience, they’d be right back where they were the day the azade had exploded, and-
Dwayne squeezed her hand, and his warmth pulled her back into the moment. Which unfortunately meant that they were holding hands in front of people so she hurriedly let go.
“Thanks.” She turned to her team. “What’s going on?”
“He,” Francesca pointed at Colin, “thinks it’s all my fault.”
“It has to be,” Colin spat. “She has to be visualizing the wrong thing. Our spells are well established; her part is the only new thing.”
Francesca’s upper lip curled. “So half the time, I get the visualization right?”
Colin ignored the warning signs. “Half the time you’re actually focusing instead of-”
“Enough.” Magdala’s sharp tone silenced the other nQe mage before he was reminded that Francesca’s patience rapidly depleted in the face of personal insults. “We need to focus on solutions. Francesca, what are you visualizing? Maybe we’re interfering with it in some way.”
“I don’t see how. Even visualizing air,” Francesca frowned as Dwayne went to rummage through a crate, “is easier than visualizing Qe itself.”
As an abstract concept, Qe hardly lent itself to a concrete image. “Are you just imagining the word or something?”
“I mainly pretend I’m doing a real spell.”
“What are you doing?” Colin asked Dwayne.
“I’m wondering,” the Wesen mage pulled a small azade sphere out of the crate, “if the problem is less about visualization and more about sensation.”
Colin scowled. “What like how one casts fire spells? Unlike Ri, Qe is an entirely rational magic. Knowing how it works makes it work.”
Francesca raised an eyebrow. “Until I joined this project, I never gave a single thought to how magic worked.”
Magdala’s eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t?”
“I didn’t. I imagine wind, I cast a spell, wind blows. It’s like eating or talking. I don’t need to know how it works to make it work.”
Dwayne glanced at Magdala. “You seem surprised.”
Magdala nodded. “First and second year nQe mages spend most of our classes studying how our magic works.” As she said that, it rang false. “No, we’re taught what components are and how they interact.”
“True.” Colin didn’t look happy to agree. “No one taught us how to cast a spell. The textbooks just refer to how we cast our congenital spells.”
“I did learn a lot about air and wind and all that,” said Francesca. “If that helps.”
“What if that’s what’s getting in the way?” Dwayne placed the azade in her hands. “You’re thinking Qe is like wind or earth or whatever components are, but it isn’t. It’s magic and that’s second nature to all of us. Rodion?”
The steward appeared at his side. “My lord?”
“How long do we have before the Offering?”
“About an hour.”
Dwayne nodded. “That should be enough time.”
“For what?” asked Colin.
“For you to show me the Offering. If I see it, I may be able to help.”
“You sure you don’t want to participate?” Colin’s lip curled. “Show us how it’s done?”
Magdala rolled her eyes. “We’re the ones who have to do the Offering. What would be the point of having him do it?” The fact that Dwayne couldn’t do it, didn’t need to be said. “Let’s get into position.”
“But I don’t see how-”
“Yes, yes, you want to show up the only Wesen mage in the Queendom, blah blah blah, but we don’t have time for that.” Francesca joined Magdala and held out the azade Dwayne had handed her. “Get into position.”
Grumbling, Colin joined them and completed circle. The arrangement of the circle had been his main contribution: he and Magdala would stand at equidistant from the azade in Francesca’s hands with their hands out, but not touching the material. With Francesca touching the azade and the nQe mages not, her efforts would be magnified and theirs muted.
“Ready?” Magdala did not look to Dwayne for reassurance. She knew she had it. “Three, two, one.”
“nQerikwem!”
“nQeanum!”
“Qe!”
Magdala’s magic melted the azade right up to the barrier Colin’s magic had created, making ready for Francesca’s magic to surge in and charge the azade, which flashed, held its shape for just long enough for hope to bloom, then, as gently as a breeze, rumbled into dust.
They’d failed.
Colin groaned. “We’re getting worse.”
So much was on the line here, she’d come so far, and yet there was the result, a pile of hopeless dust on the floor.
“At least it didn’t explode this time.” Francesca dry-washed her hands of the spent azade. “Let’s try again.”
“I’m sorry.” Magdala backed away. “I can’t.”
Before anyone could stop her, she was gone.