Captain Taylor was not easily impressed. In fact she seemed to hate him on sight. He hadn’t even done anything this time, but she was convinced he had a bad case of worshipping Theola and didn’t have what it took to keep her safe.

It took every ounce of self-restraint James had to not prove he had what it took by challenging her to a fight and getting the satisfaction of seeing her lose to him. Only the thought that the Captain of the Mage’s Guard was one of the few people who might be able to give him a fair fight held him back. Challenging her and losing would be disastrous.

She told him what he needed to know, though: Theola had twelve bodyguards, and three were on duty at any given time. When he was off duty he was expected to rest and train; he had a room to himself, thank the stars for small mercies. She also gave him instructions for how to comport himself when meeting with those above his station (James dug his nails into his palms to prevent himself from punching someone).

Those instructions were mostly an unnecessarily long and complicated way of saying “look intimidating and keep your mouth shut”. James could do that, though his normal approach was to use his mouth for purposes of intimidation. And then there was the whole lecture on why he shouldn’t let Theola sneak off unguarded and wander into any of the magicians’ training rooms.

James found a perverse joy in the idea that Theola was going against what Captain Taylor – and by extension presumably Felix – wanted for her. He had no interest in putting a stop to that even if he’d been remotely capable of it; even if she wasn’t a Mage she was way out of his league.

After suffering through an hour of this and getting ten minutes’ worth of information out of it, he was finally told where he could get food. He had eaten while being enrolled in the usurper’s army at lunchtime, but the portions had been disappointingly small and the fare bland compared to what he was used to. Now he was starving.

And the new position definitely came with better food: the Mages’ Palace had a grand kitchen to rival any in the country and far fewer people to feed, since Theola didn’t keep her own court. James devoured his steak as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and then set off to explore his new room.

It was a lot better than he’d expected, downright luxurious in fact. Maybe even nicer than his room back in the Duchess of Crelt’s palace; that didn’t hold a candle to either of the two palaces on the Central Ring. A four-poster bed, walls decorated with the symbol of the Mages – the decorators had clearly worked quickly – even a carpet. He was a little less pleased by that, since it made it harder for him to chalk wards.

The skirting-board would serve, though, so the first thing he did was to set up a basic network. He used the same template as he had back in the unassigned magicians’ dormitory. Despite the increased area inside the wards, it was easier: warding was always more natural when you were placing wards around an existing boundary rather than arbitrarily imposing one.

And there was even a door to chalk the central symbol on. He considered the implications of making it so visible to anyone else who entered, but decided he had nothing to fear: it was common enough among magicians, especially those used to combat, to lay wards around any place they planned to sleep. No-one would think it remarkable that he was doing the same.

That done, he found himself with no obligations for what little remained of the day. His first shift began at noon the next day – he was to guard Theola as she lunched with the so-called King Felix, which promised to be interesting – and he had trained enough for one day between the staged fight with Cat, the incident with the squares and his ill-fated spar with Theola.

Normally on the rare occasions when he found himself with time to spare he would read magical theory, or play cards and drink with Charles or other members of his inner circle. But there was no-one he could call a friend here, and he had no interest in getting to know his fellow bodyguards. And Jacob Winter hadn’t brought the few magical theory books he owned to war.

It shouldn’t be too hard, with Theola’s token, to acquire a reasonable supply of reading material – but doing the same at eight and thirty after noon would be hard. That would have to be a project for tomorrow, and in the meantime – he considered going exploring; if he was caught somewhere he shouldn’t be he could always claim he was lost, looking for the bathroom or the library or the training room or the temple – but it was late, and he wasn’t at his best after such a long and unusual day.

So, despite the early hour, it was best to sleep. He would need all his strength for the next morning.

It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in months. Before there had always been a new emergency, new spells to learn or new troops to train or new wards to lay. There were never enough hours in the day, and sleep had suffered as a result even when he had a proper bed rather than the closest thing to one it was practical to bring on campaign.

Now he was away from all of that, and he slept for twelve hours straight. He hadn’t realised just how tired he was. He woke much refreshed and with an urge for a large breakfast; evidently he hadn’t eaten quite enough last night after all.

He washed and dressed quickly and returned to the dining room. He wasn’t alone: half a dozen others in the same shiny new uniform with the Mages’ symbol that he wore were gathered around a table, chattering amongst themselves. These, then, were his new colleagues.

The door swung shut behind him, louder than he intended, causing them to start and look up. “You’re the new guy, then?” said one of them, a man in his mid-thirties with a thick ginger beard.

“That I am,” James replied. “Jacob Winter. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” It wasn’t, but it was much easier to get on with people when you obeyed the unspoken social rules. “Now where do I get food?”

By the time he’d filled his plate with eggs and bacon, they’d made space for him at their table. Right, then: time to pretend he wanted to eat with his enemies and get to know them. He could do that.

“What shifts d’you have, then?” asked Ginger Beard.

“Noon until six after,” replied James, and shovelled a forkful of bacon into his mouth.

“Lucky,” said the woman sitting next to him. She was thin but wiry with tightly-cropped blonde hair, and reminded James of a spring waiting to uncoil. “I’m on midnight to six after. It is boring as a starless sky standing guard outside the Mage’s room. People should not be awake at that time. Name’s Eleanor, and if you make any comparisons to Eleanor the Bold, I will tear you limb from limb.”

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The threat was clearly a joking one, but she still delivered it without once changing her tone or flinching. This one was dangerous, then, and he shouldn’t cross her. He was tempted nonetheless. Jacob wouldn’t, he told himself firmly.

That seemed to mark the beginning of introductions. James told himself he would remember all their names, but he already knew he’d fail at that. Ginger Beard was Christopher, that one would at least stick in his mind. He’d be one of James’s shift partners; the other was a small quiet man who introduced himself only as Will.

“We were thinking of sparring a little after this,” said Christopher (James made a note to ask him if Chris was an acceptable nickname). “Care to join us?”

“You were thinking of sparring,” corrected Eleanor. “I am thinking of sleeping.”

“All the better for the rest of us,” Christopher replied. “We might stand half a chance now.”

“I’ll join,” said James. A good fight was just what he needed to get him alert and awake, and he was interested in finding out where he stood against his new colleagues. That would be a better measure of the strength of Felix’s magicians than, well, Theola.

The Mages’ Palace held a combat room very similar to the one in which he’d fought Theola; there were different enchantments to test yourself against, but the only significant difference was that the containment wards were larger. About ten yards by ten, James guessed.

He soon discovered the reason for that: the spars were not intended to be between only two magicians. Each shift fought against the others. It was sensible: if there was an emergency, James needed the perfect coordination with Christopher and Will that came only from hard-earned practice.

Or he would have needed that, if he were here to protect Theola.

Eleanor’s two shift-mates had apparently prioritised sleep over breakfast after finishing their shift that morning, so with her gone it was noon-till-six against six-till-midnight.

“We’ve been outnumbered the last week, ever since Tim was reassigned,” Christopher explained. “This is our chance to turn the tables on them. So, new guy – “

“Jacob – “ James interrupted. He hated being known as new guy already. He made a mental note to ask about this Tim and what had happened to him when they weren’t two minutes away from a fight.

“What do we need to know about working with you? Attacker, shielder, disruptor?”

James shrugged. “I prefer attacking, but I like to consider myself a jack-of-all-trades.” Tying himself down to a particular role seemed stupid: why limit his options and capabilities when he could just tackle everything at once?

“Master of none, eh?”

James felt the familiar urge to punch Christopher in his smug face. He managed to restrain himself only with the thought that he had the opportunity to prove him wrong right here and now.

“Will’s our shielder. Best in the business. I’m mostly an attacker, so you want to disrupt?”

“Can do,” James said. “Just fire off chains of counterspells, or anything more advanced?”

“Just make sure nothing gets through to us.”

“Got it. You can permute the shield so that my spells will pass through, right?” James asked Will.

“I’m a shielder,” Will repeated.

That was, to be fair, pretty much how James would have reacted to someone questioning his competency in his specialist area.

They stepped into the containment wards and took up their positions, standing close enough together that Will could cover all three of them with a strong shield. James hated the way that limited his mobility. It was why he preferred fighting alone. Still, he could make this work if he had to.

One of his opponents counted down from five, and then they began. James fired off a chain of five counterspells. He couldn’t keep that up for the entire fight, but the first few seconds before Will could get the shield up were the critical ones. Whatever the enemy were casting, none of it had any effect on them.

He took a second to take stock of the situation. The enemy had a shield up as well; one of them was firing what looked like shield-breakers, while another was crouched on the ground behind them, preparing… was he trying to perform a combat ritual? James was sceptical for a moment, but if the shield held he might have long enough to complete it. And if that happened, it would almost certainly lose them the fight.

So the enemy shield needed to come down quickly. Christopher was casting shield-breakers but they were having seemingly no effect. James shifted to a mixed chain, as he had against Theola: shield-breaker, counterspell, repeat. And on the fifth iteration of the chain, there was a shimmer in the air and the enemy shielder began frantically casting.

“Did you – “ Christopher began. James didn’t spare the breath to reply. There was no time: they had seconds before the shield was recast, they had to press their advantage. If Christopher wasn’t going to, James would. He summoned a gust of wind to tear across the wards and knock the enemy off their feet, and followed it up with a spell similar to the one Theola had used against him, reducing the friction on the ground beneath them.

All three of them went down, hard. James grinned and kept attacking, firing spell after spell without pause. An attack of pure magical force, easy to resist or disrupt when prepared but devastating against those already fallen, pushing them into the edge of the containment wards. A chain of disruptors to nullify their attempts to fix the damage he was doing. Levitations on their clothes, dragging them into the air, if only for the moment before he cast again.

James stepped outside the shield. He didn’t need it; he fought alone. One of the enemy had managed to cast a couple of purging-spells and fired off a spell at James; he countered without stopping to wonder what it was, and aimed a targeted disruptor at him. There weren’t many magicians who could make use of those in combat, but for those that could taking an enemy’s ability to cast, even for a few seconds, was invaluable.

He kept going, advancing and firing off spells as fast as he could think, knowing nothing but the next step, the next gesture, the next dodge. After his humiliation against Theola the sheer joy of being in a fight he was winning was overwhelming.

“Jacob?”

What? Who was Jacob? It didn’t matter. There could be no distractions: it was just him and the enemy, just the next spell and the next moment. That was the way to truly fight: to abandon thought and be guided by magic and instinct.

“Jacob, stop!” Someone grabbed his arm.

A new enemy. He pivoted, jerking his arm free, and prepared to cast –

Wait. No. This was Christopher. Christopher was on his side –

He was Theola’s bodyguard. He fought for Felix. That made him an enemy –

And one he couldn’t afford to kill here and now –

He stopped.

“Jacob, what in stars’ names was that?” Christopher sounded angry. Why was he angry? What had James done wrong?

He glanced across to the other side of the containment wards, where the six-till-midnight shift lay battered, bruised and exhausted. Ah, yes. That. Perhaps he had taken this a little too far. “I’m – I’m sorry – I don’t know what came over me – “

“You’ve fought before,” said Christopher.

James nodded, realising too late that Jacob Winter was not used to combat, whatever talent he might have.

“Really fought. Life or death. Them or you. Too many times.”

Too many, and yet never enough. It would never be enough until Charles had his throne.

“After a while of that, every time you fight starts to feel like that, doesn’t it? You should have warned us. We could have done things differently – “

James shook his head. He didn’t want Christopher’s special treatment. It wasn’t like he was a keg of explosives that could go off at any second. He glanced over at the other squad again. On second thoughts, maybe Christopher had a point. “This was the first time it’s been this bad.”

It was the first time he’d sparred against agents of the usurper, people who were by any reasonable measure his enemies, even if he was hiding that for now.

“I see. Do you think it’s likely to happen again?”

James shrugged.

“Perhaps it’s best you don’t spar with us for the next while.” Christopher hesitated. “Though you were good. On Eleanor’s level. I can see why Theola chose you. Now go and rest; there’s an hour and a half until our shift, and Captain Taylor will have us flogged if we’re not ready and fit to go precisely on time.”