“Lord Vladimer,” Phoebe Broome said, “before we take this any further . . .
Did
you know of the attack on the Lightborn Mages’ Tower before it happened? Because that is what that sounded like.”
The silence was long, and Vladimer’s breathing quick and shallow.
“You referred to a misjudgment. A mistake that cost you your position and your brother’s regard. May I know—as the person responsible for my people being here, as your ally in this, or so I believed—whether you knew, and, if so, why you chose not to warn the Temple or us?”
“Magistra Broome,” Vladimer said, “you heard my offer to the Lightborn. It was meant. If he leaves any part of me, it’s yours.”
“What use is your life to me?” Her voice shook with distress. “Do you have any
idea
what this plan of yours will mean for us? We are mages, Lord Vladimer, and the one characteristic that is common to the lowest and highest of mages is that we sense vitality, which means we sense life, we sense death, and we sense suffering. And there are times when that pain is
unbearable
.”
“Magistra,” Vladimer said, coming to his feet. “The creatures that slaughtered us also appear to have magic, and no such fine sentiments as these.”
“They are not fine sentiments to
us
, Lord Vladimer. They are the truths we live by. Before we accept your orders to do
anything
, did you stand by and permit the slaughter of the Lightborn mages? If so,
why
?” There was a long silence. “That’s right, your
life
is easy for you to give up. But the
truth
, no.”
Telmaine, rising, thought she had never seen Vladimer look so sick, not even when he learned of Casamir Blondell’s death. She said, almost in a whisper, “There was more to his ensorcellment than coma.”
“How so? The Shadowborn died; any ensorcellment was broken.”
She wished Phoebe Broome were a woman of her own class, because there were ways of communicating the unsayable to those who understood the code.
“If it makes any difference to you,” Vladimer said, starkly, “I realized my error when the relic of my loyal lieutenant, Casamir Blondell, was laid in my hands. He denounced my decision—in fact, he accused me of treason—and went on his own to investigate. He was caught and killed, or incapacitated and left for sunrise. But between my receiving his relic”—an amulet Blondell had worn to protect himself against magic—“and being rendered unable to act, was a span of minutes. I was on my way back to ask for my brother’s ear when Magister Tammorn attempted to bind Lady Telmaine. In attempting to stop Telmaine’s magical outburst, I shot the blameless Lady Sylvide, and was promptly overpowered and drugged into a stupor on the excuse of insanity.”
“I thought . . .” Phoebe’s hand moved slightly, the gesture as stillborn as her initial thought. “No matter the shunning, the denunciations from pulpits, the expulsion from work, from families, from society—no matter all of that—I thought there must come a time when we would by our virtue prove ourselves,
prove
that magic was not what the Sole God’s Church said it was, what history said it was, what the slander in the broadsheets said it was. I thought there would come a time when you—all of you—would understand that all we wanted was to live and do our work as well as we were able. . . .” Her voice trailed away.
“Magistra Broome, I am truly sorry.”
A half shake of the head, perhaps of negation, perhaps simply to clear her mind. “And you,” she said to Telmaine. “Did you also know? Did you also keep silent?”
“I . . . ,” she said, weakly, remembering listening to Mycene and Kalamay toying with Bal’s life and her sister’s happiness. Phoebe would never understand what had made her probe Mycene’s thoughts. In a low voice she said, “I thought Vladimer would—”
“Vladimer,” Phoebe Broome said, flatly, “but not you.”
She shrank under that tone, and for a heartbeat hated her. What did
she
know of the stifling restrictions of society that punished the least initiative in a woman—she with her father and her brother and her commune? But in the shabby little boardinghouse where her flight had brought her, Telmaine had gathered both responsibility and power into her hands, despite the fact that by doing so, she had lost society, virtue, the self that was. She said, simply, “I did not know how then.”
“Curse you. Curse you both,” Phoebe said, and turned away.
“
Wait
,” said Vladimer, in raw appeal. Phoebe halted, but did not turn. He spoke not to her, but to her father. “Magister Broome—” He choked to a halt.
Farquhar Broome tilted his head to one side, considering him. “Dear boy,” he said gently, “we have built a tradition and earned trust by only practicing magic upon the willing. You are as far from willing as a man could be. And that is something I need no magic to know. “
“I do not
want
,” Vladimer said harshly. “Indeed, this is the very last thing I want. But I
will
that it should be done. If this is what it will take for you to work with me, then
do it
.”
Phoebe drew breath, her expression a mingling of outrage and protectiveness. But magic flowed, and she did not speak. The elderly mage smiled at Vladimer, the creases in his face falling into well-worn pleats. “I am quite old, dear boy, as I suspect you already know, given the dossier you will have compiled on me. Life was not always as kind to me as it has been in these last years, when it has given me a home, a community, and a son and daughter to cherish me. There is not much in the way of men’s natures and conduct toward one another that I do not know. If you entertain some notion that I will be more forgiving, perhaps you are right. But I will remind you that it is the young ones, the ones like my daughter, you must also convince.”
“You are their master, Magister Broome. If you accept,
they
will,” Vladimer said, intensely.
“Oh, dear,” Farquhar Broome said. “It is not quite like that, but, yes, I do have some influence. You
should
ask my daughter, but you find betrayal by a man the less painful to contemplate, for all you pretend such dislike of women.” He clicked his tongue at Vladimer’s recoil. “I have met it all before, as I said. . . . Shall I ask the others to leave?”
“No,” rasped Vladimer. “Let them witness it done.”
“Then sit down. I will be quick.”
Vladimer did, lowering himself painfully onto the hearth again. Telmaine resisted the urge to move away. The mage took Vladimer’s head between his hands, turning his face up with gentle pressure. The magic was no more than a breath, but Telmaine felt the healing in it. Then Farquhar Broome stooped and kissed Vladimer on the forehead. Unexpected as the gesture was, it was not theatrical or absurd. Telmaine’s throat filled: she remembered her own father—not a demonstrative man—kissing her so, when he gave his last gift to her: permission to marry Balthasar.
“Dear boy,” the mage said, “I dare not urge you to be easier on yourself. You are able—and you are willing—to do great evil. But you are equally able—and equally willing—to do immense good. Which you do is a choice you will make every day.” He straightened, released Vladimer, and stepped back.
Vladimer’s cane toppled slowly to the carpet as his hand went to his arm. His face and entire posture relaxed at the sudden release from pain. “What an extraordinary sensation,” he murmured; Telmaine was not sure that he was aware he was speaking aloud. She felt a discreet nudge of magic, and the cane hopped upright again, coming to perch by Vladimer’s knee.
Phoebe was standing with her hand pressed to her lips. With her attention on Vladimer, Telmaine had not sensed any exchange between Phoebe and her father, but obviously it had happened. “Lord Vladimer,” Phoebe said, in quite a different tone, and her father tapped her arm. “We shall just let that settle a while, shall we?”
“No!” Vladimer said urgently, surging to his feet. His cane spilled again, but when Telmaine tried to pass it to him, he ignored it. Speaking quickly, overriding any question or offered sympathy, he said, “Notwithstanding their apparent magical strength, the thing—one of the things—that perplexed me throughout this is how capricious their actions have appeared, a mixture of the subtle use of ensorcellment and coercion and the gross manifestations of magic. It may be they are capricious by nature, but I have found the assumption of caprice rather than logic to be a dangerous one to make about one’s enemies. We must think this through, and quickly. Was Stranhorne merely the first, geographically, or was there a reason why it should suffer the first mass attack?”
He started at a forcible knock on the door: Noellene di Studier, with Laurel di Gautier at her shoulder. “Lord Vladimer, excuse me. There’s a telegram from Minhorne—”
He almost lunged at her, snatching it from her extended hand without a word of thanks. Telmaine sonned the momentary surprise on Noellene’s face, and the more speculative attention on Laurel’s, as he used both hands to tear it open. He dropped into an armchair, spreading the telegram on his lap to sweep his fingers over the text. They held their collective breath.
He lifted his head. “The Lightborn have delivered an ultimatum to my brother. They wish the city surrendered to them in reparation for the attack on the Mages’ Tower. They rejected all arguments as to the existence of the Shadowborn. They gave this ultimatum at a meeting, and immediately prior to the meeting, the archduke’s party came under attack from a boy of some fifteen or sixteen years, manifesting Shadowborn magic and purporting to be the son of Lysander Hearne—Balthasar Hearne’s brother.” To Telmaine, he said, “I suspect this is the individual you and I encountered at the train station. . . . The Lightborn gave no indication they were aware of the incident. The Shadowborn was accompanied by Dr. Balthasar Hearne.”
Telmaine heard Laurel di Gautier breathe, “Oh,” but was too dizzy with relief to wonder why.
“Dr. Hearne managed to physically subdue the Shadowborn mage”—Vladimer’s brows rose as he read—“using chloroform, but not before the Shadowborn had incapacitated Phineas Broome and killed the Duke of Mycene.”
If the rumor that Sachevar Mycene had fathered Vladimer had any truth to it, no one would know from his manner. “Chloroform,” Vladimer noted with approval, “is less flammable than ether. . . . Hearne claimed to have been ensorcelled by the Shadowborn, but the ensorcellment obviously had its limits. He also claimed the ensorcellment allows him to survive in daylight. He volunteered to offer himself to the Lightborn court in a living demonstration of the existence of Shadowborn magic.”
“No,” Telmaine breathed.
“Why?”
“Despite considerable reservations that he is acting according to his own will, my brother decided he had no choice but to take the risk, in hopes that Hearne could provide the evidence needed to convince the Lightborn.” To Farquhar Broome: “Can someone be ensorcelled to move during daylight?”
“Not by us,” Farquhar said. “Nor, to my knowledge, by the Lightborn. How intriguing.”
By his expression, “intriguing” would not have been Vladimer’s word for it. To Telmaine, he said, “Your husband appears to have survived the transition. They were able to exchange words with him through the wall.”
“Are they sure it is him?” Laurel said.
Vladimer nodded approval. “His sister—who is a mage—vouched for him, as did two members of the commune working at the palace who had no known contact with the Shadowborn. They all confirmed he was Darkborn, ensorcelled, and the man they had known in the past as Dr. Hearne. Which passes for certainty, I suppose, in these times.
“According to Hearne, there are two factions of Shadowborn, led by two very strong, rival mages. One goes by the name of Emeya; the other name Hearne could not learn. Their ambitions appear to be territorial, though Hearne could not say why they chose to act on them now.” He refolded the telegram. “Admirably succinct. I owe Casamir Blondell another debt of thanks; he trained his successor well. What is unfortunately apparent is that we are unlikely to get immediate reinforcement from the north—”
“Did my husband know that I am still alive?” Telmaine interrupted. She would be
cursed
if she let this question go unasked. “Did anyone tell him?” If
only
she had made herself known to Olivede at the train station and not shirked that personal awkwardness. If only the—she could say this in the privacy of her own mind—
cursed
Lightborn were not obstructing the mages from speaking to their fellows in Minhorne. If only Balthasar had never opened his door to the pregnant Tercelle Amberley . . .
“If anyone did know to tell him,” Vladimer said, “then my ruse with Blondell’s ash and your jewelry was not nearly as convincing as I intended it to be.”
Farquhar Broome was shaking his head at her with the expression of a benign tutor. His magic drizzled around her, dampening her fires.
“I will inform my brother of your survival when I telegraph in return.” A wintry smile. “We did arrange that he lay the blame for your escape on me.” To Noellene di Studier he said, “I need to speak with your brother and his advisers. This makes it exigent that we use every asset and advantage we have to keep up the pressure on the Shadowborn. . . .”
Telmaine hardly heard. Balthasar, gone into the light and ensorcelled by the Shadowborn. Ishmael, lost around Stranhorne. With tight fists and a tight throat she said, barely audibly, “Magister Broome . . . I retract all suggestion of impropriety around the request you made of me on the train. You had every right to ask, and I . . . have an obligation to answer.”
He gave her a broad smile. “My
dear
girl.”
Balthasar
The summons to the archmage’s presence came a half an hour later. By then, Floria had badgered him not only into self-possession, but into putting his appearance in order. She sent for a pair of eyeshades, two oval pieces of smoked glass held in a fine frame of wire, to cover his sightless eyes. His eyes disturbed Floria; it was plain. Lightborn were averse to physical infirmity, but he had never thought of himself that way.