"It's a gamble, isn't it?" Van considered that, and nodded slowly. "Let's."

Awkwardly, Andreas rose. "May I ask a couple of questions?"

The Kalindi Patriarch nodded. "Go ahead."

"I'd like to know whether the Alexeiev in question is currently present, and if so, whether he would be willing to give us his evaluation of his new sensitive."

The room went quiet; in the stillness, a tall man, no older than Van, in brown jeans and a short-sleeved dress-shirt of green and beige, stood up.

"I'm Teodor Alexeiev, and I'd be more than happy to."

The Kalindi Patriarch's forehead furrowed. "It's a bit out of order, but it makes more sense to hear your perspective now rather than waiting until later in the proceedings. And it's certainly relevant information." He glanced at the other Elders; the Donovan Matriarch nodded firmly, the others more slowly.

Teodor Alexeiev took his place in the centre, greeting Andreas with a nod as he passed that Van took to mean they were acquainted.

"Teodor," the Kalindi Patriarch said. "You understand that you are under oath to speak truth, as accurately and completely as you can?"

"Yes, and I don't expect that to be difficult."

"Would you tell us, then, how your new sensitive behaves?"

"Amazingly well," Teodor said promptly. "I wanted a second sensitive to keep my first one company and to help around my greenhouses. The contrast between the two was a bit of a shock. Larkspur, when I got her a few years ago, went through what I gather is a normal stage of confusion and fear. The information I was given by the hunters when they brought me Foxglove was exactly what was said already, that there were unusual circumstances and I should watch him carefully. Fox, however, seems to have skipped the fear and confusion stage for the most part. No panic, no hysterics. I admit I tend to be fairly gentle, but I think it's a given that a sensitive with no real knowledge of mages or magic will be terrified regardless of how gentle the treatment. Fox was clearly cautious and apprehensive, and he did spend a few days testing limits, but that passed quickly. Since new sensitives generally are completely ignorant of magic, and since I'd been warned about possible trouble, I was rather curious as to why he knew a surprising amount—including understanding the basics of why we need sensitives and how shapechanging works—and was so little trouble. So I asked him directly. I had every intention of tracking down a copy of this book for myself, and was looking into it when I learned about this hearing. All in all, it was a pleasant surprise, to say the least."

It helped, Van thought, in utter relief. It works. This mage was open and receptive, but even with one less so, it would have made a difference. Oh please, let us win this so we can get more copies out there... It works, it helps, we have to keep going...

"Questions?" the Kalindi Patriarch asked.

"No," Elena said curtly.

Van shook his head. "Thank you," he told Teodor.

The Alexeiev mage grinned, as he returned to his seat. "Come talk to me afterwards, and I'll give you some material for the sequel."

Technically, the comment could probably be considered out of line; Van tried hard not to smile, but he definitely felt better than he had in days.

"Let's let sequels wait, shall we?" the Santiago Matriarch said, but she didn't sound annoyed.

"Hunters," the Kalindi Patriarch said. "Your next witness?"

"Olaf Ingemar," Elena said.

A man, his short-cropped hair entirely silver and countless creases marking his face, stood up from the front row behind the hunters and moved towards the centre chair. In his grey slacks and immaculate white dress shirt, he could have passed for, say, a peer of Van's boss Zach. The overwhelming difference was that Zach's life was devoted to easing pain.

"Olaf," the Kalindi Patriarch said. "You understand that you are under oath to speak truth, as accurately and completely as you can?"

"Yes." His voice was a not-unpleasant baritone.

Van wondered how many sensitives had died or shattered completely hearing that voice. No one would count, only Olaf's research notes held that information. Their names, he was certain, were lost forever.

Elena shifted forward on her chair, arms crossed on the table in front of her. "Olaf, could you please tell everyone your qualifications and your evaluation of the impact of Rory Donovan's book?"

"I am a biologist," Olaf said. "And I have spent over forty years exploring the most efficient way to properly break a sensitive to obedience."

It was an effort of will to keep listening—and to keep from showing his utter revulsion while Olaf calmly and clinically described how ignorance, fear, and abuse put and kept sensitives in their proper place, and how Van's book interfered with this. It, always it, never he or she, denying his victims even that much humanity. Using mundane techniques of psychological and physical terrorism, but maybe worse, using magic and shapechanging to underline their helplessness. It sounded more like a bad mad-scientist movie, Olaf calmly describing shapechanging urethra and anus out of existence and leaving the sensitive in question to suffer for a day or two, with a clinical passing mention of the best food and drink and medication to speed up the process, and reversing the change only as a reward for obedience. How could he ever play with Oblique and Randi again, hearing echoes of that kind of monstrous torture? And that was only one of Olaf's recommended methods, one he considered mild.

"Don't panic," Andreas murmured, close to his ear. "This will work against them."

Van glanced at him, startled. How could it possibly, when what Olaf was saying supported a couple of centuries of tradition? Andreas' far hand, he noticed, was stroking the hair of his sensitive reassuringly, and the sensitive had shifted to lean more towards him.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Andreas gave him a small smile, and said, very softly, "Listen."

Van blinked and obeyed. Olaf's voice… but there was a rising mutter behind them, as well, that he hadn't noticed.

The Elders were trying to stay completely expressionless, but Elspeth wasn't the only one who wasn't entirely succeeding. In fact, only the Vladislav Patriarch seemed completely unmoved. Van wasn't sure it was any stronger than distaste in some, but nonetheless, it was there.

Olaf finished his report, and fell silent.

The Kalindi Patriarch took a sip of water before speaking. "Are there any questions for Olaf?"

Elena shook her head. "I believe that establishes that while the content of this book could be seen generously as inaccurate, it is unquestionably harmful to mage society. Distributing it to free sensitives can undermine the effectiveness of training, regardless of a single instance of no apparent damage. Giving it to tame sensitives can only undermine the ability to keep them under control, and since any mage is responsible for the behaviour of his or her sensitive, this means it's harmful to the mage whose sensitive reads it. If mages read it and take it seriously they may be more reluctant to be as firm as necessary in order to keep their sensitives in line, and again, that has the potential to be harmful to our entire way of life as well as to the mage whose sensitive discovers that they can disobey with minimal or no consequences. It may even be harmful for sensitives, since there is considerable evidence that sensitives, like some kinds of animals, need to have a clear dominance order for their own wellbeing."

Van looked at Andreas again, hoping desperately that he had some idea how to deal with this one.

Andreas turned his own attention to Olaf. "So the only way to keep a sensitive completely under control is with the methods you've described?"

Olaf frowned. "I didn't say that. I said it was the best way to train them to obey, according to a lifetime of research. It's the method the hunters use on each new sensitive, so other than the occasional self-caught sensitive, all sensitives present have been trained this way in some version, even if it hasn't been maintained."

"So anyone who doesn't maintain this training along similar lines does not have complete control over their sensitive?"

There was a louder mutter from behind, and it didn't sound happy.

Andreas smiled, charmingly. "If I'm misunderstanding the gist of what you've said, please correct me. If the method you described is the best way, then does it not follow that other methods lead to inferior results, which presumably would mean less than complete control?"

Olaf's frown deepened. "It may be control equal to everyday life, but it will never be quite as absolute. Some sensitives yield readily and don't test limits under ordinary conditions, which may become a completely unexpected problem under extraordinary conditions if the sensitive hasn't been thoroughly taught its proper place and reminded of it regularly. It will also take longer to get to the point of being able to count on them to obey on an everyday basis."

"Hm. What would you say is the average length of time, then? Being able to trust one's sensitive to maintain contact alone during straightforward magic is generally acknowledged as a baseline marker of obedience and training. Suppose we count from, oh, first contact with a mage, to that point?"

"It does take a bit of time to get across to a sensitive that there will be dire results for misbehaviour like that…"

"How much time? Days, weeks?"

"To maintain contact? I wouldn't start on that for the first four weeks, say. It's necessary to make a variety of things very clear before taking steps towards training that can be risky to a mage."

Andreas nodded. "Four weeks, even to begin working on that. Thank you. I believe we have no other questions for Olaf, but I do have a question for Victoria, if that's acceptable."

The Kalindi Patriarch glanced at the other Elders, then nodded, looking puzzled. "Olaf, you can have a seat. Andreas, go ahead."

Olaf, looking offended and confused, resumed his previous seat.

"Victoria, could you please confirm how long Neely Donovan has had possession of her current sensitive?"

"Eleven days," Victoria said calmly. "Since just past sunset, more precisely."

"Thank you. I intend to ask Neely to speak later in these proceedings, Elders, but I would like to point out that I have personally seen Neely on multiple occasions doing practice exercises, including creation, while allowing her sensitive to maintain the contact. The sensitive in question read Van's book while free, and has never been trained by any of the techniques Olaf has mentioned. He has, however, by all reports been extremely well behaved and obedient both privately and publicly. This includes while at a gathering in this room after he'd been in Neely's possession no more than seventy-two hours. I think the question of the most effective and efficient means of training and controlling a sensitive remains in doubt, and therefore, the question of how much damage is actually caused by sensitive access to information."

"Noted," said the Santiago Matriarch, and Van thought she looked relieved.

Elena half-rose in her chair, and shot a murderous look in their general direction, though Van wasn't sure whether the target was him or Andreas. Possibly both. "Elders, this is turning into a game of semantics and ignoring the core issues here!"

"I disagree," Andreas said. "We have four key questions. Can the research on which this book is based be considered reliable? Is distributing it to mages against the best interests of mage society? Is allowing tame sensitives to read it against the best interests of mage society? Is distributing it to free sensitives against the best interests of mage society? Professionally speaking, Van's qualifications are impeccable. If there's any question of that, I'm quite prepared to share the results of my own research since I was contacted regarding this hearing. I certainly can't find any grounds for questioning those qualifications, even though I was looking for exactly that. Personally speaking, he has never broken any law or behaved unacceptably in public, and nothing he does in private can be considered relevant. There are no grounds for dismissing the entire book as being fabricated to support a personal belief. Given that there are quite substantial grounds for considering it to be factual and reliable, it is difficult and dangerous to claim that mages should be forbidden to read it, since the only grounds for doing so would be outright censorship and highly subjective, setting a precedent that could have terrifying ramifications in future hearings. It's a long-established North American tenet that each mage has absolute power over one's sensitive as long as said sensitive behaves in appropriate ways in public and towards other mages. That premise has been used repeatedly as the reason why anti-abuse laws should not be passed. If it is acceptable for mages to read this book, it would be a violation of mage autonomy to state that one is not permitted to allow one's sensitive to read it, and that I think would be a virtually impossible crime to ever pursue, far more so than abuse. That leaves only the question of allowing free sensitives to have access to it. Teodor's experience corroborates the more recent experience with Neely's sensitive and suggests strongly that quite a lot more evidence is needed before that question can be answered with any degree of certainty."

"Elena," Victoria said quietly. "Sit down. Now."

Resentfully, Elena obeyed, slouching in her chair with her arms crossed, tension visible in every line of her body, her expression furious. Van watched her warily. The last time he'd seen body language like that, it had been displayed by one of his rare clients who turned physically aggressive.

"Thank you, Andreas," the Vladislav Patriarch said dryly. "Good to know we can always count on your ability to strip any issue down to its fundamentals."

"Those are, in fact, the questions at the heart of this," the Ingemar Matriarch pointed out. "Anything else is distinctly secondary."

"Anyone else, hunters?" the Kalindi Patriarch asked.

Victoria stood up, without even a glance at Elena. "Catherine Eldridge."

Van blinked. A hunter was calling Catherine? But Catherine wouldn't say anything to support the charges… would she? No, there was no earthly way she was a hunter plant, he'd spent far too much time around her and Lila to be wrong about something like that.

Hadn't he?