“And the only one who believes
that
.” Arabella had to stifle a smile. “Unfortunately there already is a Primus.”
“Santos Nimali?” Inigo scoffed. “He’s insane.”
Arabella laughed again. “Have you seen him? Talked to him? I have.” She smoothed her skirt, wondering if there was a way to live through this after all.
“When?” Inigo asked.
“Almost two years ago,” Arabella said. “The daughter who hates me wanted to see her brother Timo. It was a tender meeting, if you are the sentimental type.”
“Which you are not.”
“No, but she is. As is Santos. He was very lucid. It seems his madness was caused by curses.” She looked over at him. “Something you apparently are quite adept at. My daughter claimed to have removed the curses that caused his madness. She also did something very interesting, something I was less inclined to believe than I am now.” She paused to study him. “She removed curses from Rorik.” Inigo didn’t react so she turned her eyes on Faron. “I learned later who put them there.” Faron blanched, and she smiled.
“You can’t prove it!” Inigo yelled.
“Not to you,” Arabella said. “But the moment Santos Nimali and my daughter see you and your accomplice, they will know. I doubt Santos will be inclined to approve you as
Acting
Primus.”
“I won’t be acting anything,” Inigo said. “And he doesn’t have to approve me—council will do that.”
“Perhaps you’re right. But Santos
did
approve me. Rorik and I visited shortly after I was selected as Secundus.” She wasn’t going to tell Inigo they’d gone to kill Santos and the girl. “For all that he’s been absent, Santos Nimali is a powerful Mage—more powerful than any other Mage alive—and he
is
Primus. You must be very confident that council will support you. Especially after the Acting Primus and Secundus both mysteriously die.”
“Inigo,” Faron said.
“Be quiet!” Inigo shouted, and Faron snapped his mouth shut.
Inigo would
never
be Primus if Santos was against it. He knew that. Arabella sat back in her chair, waiting. She knew the exact moment when he realized that he needed her alive. He looked up, met her steady gaze, and looked away.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To live,” Arabella replied.
Inigo sighed. “All right. It’s you who have won. For now. You have a plan?”
“Yes.” Arabella looked at Faron. “You will have to wait to become Secundus.” She stared at him for a moment before turning to Inigo. “Do we need them?” she said, referring to Faron and Hestor.
Inigo’s eyes narrowed but then he signalled to the other two. Hestor looked like he would have said something, but Faron shoved him out the door before he had a chance.
Arabella sighed. “It must be nice to have such dutiful and trusting friends.” Hestor was Inigo’s creature—she would have to kill him—but Faron? She might be able to turn him.
“Your plan?”
“Yes. I will invite Santos to Founders Day,” she said. “We can ask him to pay respects to Rorik. While he’s here, we can have him accept me as Acting Primus and you as Secundus.” She paused. “I know it’s not what you’ve waited all these years for but it’s a surer bet than a war.”
Inigo scowled. “I will agree to this only if we agree to kill Santos once this is done.”
“Of course.” She didn’t think Inigo would have any more success than she and Rorik had had over the years—and now she was grateful. Santos alive would be her small bit of protection against Inigo attacking her. All she needed was enough time to convince some allies she had more to offer.
“Will he come just for that?”
“Perhaps not,” Arabella said. “So I will tell him he can visit Timo. He’s been asking for that for years.”
“You said you didn’t know where Timo was.”
“I don’t—but neither do they. This will ensure that they all come—Santos, the girl, her husband.”
“I see,” Inigo said.
Arabella smiled as Inigo rose and left. She was sure that he was already plotting ways to kill Santos and his party—which was precisely what she wanted. If he succeeded, she was rid of them. If he failed, he would be to blame and she could select her own Secundus. Preferably one who didn’t want her dead.
KARA TUCKED HER
arms around her body, trying to ward off the chill. Reo knelt beside the hearth in the estate kitchen, adding wood to the banked fire, trying to coax more heat out of it. It was dark, middle-of-the-night dark. Santos muttered at a pot of water to spell it hot enough for tea. Mole paced the room and that frightened her. She shivered. She had never seen Mole so agitated.
“Enough,” Santos said. He waved a hand and the fire flared, startling Reo, who rocked back on his heels. “Let’s hear it.”
Santos crossed the room and sat down at the table, beside Kara. Reo padded over and sat on her other side, and Kara shivered again. They all knew it was bad news, news she wouldn’t want to hear.
“All right,” Mole said. He stopped in the middle of the room, facing them. “Timo’s disappeared.”
“Why?” Kara asked.
“When?” Reo asked at the same time.
“I don’t know,” Mole said. “Rorik is dead. The council says Timo killed him and ran away.”
“No,” Kara said. “He wouldn’t.” She looked at Mole. “Rorik. Are you sure he’s dead? There’s been no news—
Santos
has not been told.”
“He died two days ago,” Mole said. “Timo disappeared that same night.”
“Two days?” Santos looked at Reo and then Kara. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I,” Reo said. “Has Arabella Fonti been declared Primus?”
“No,” Mole said, and Kara sucked in a breath. “There’s been no word of a successor to Rorik. Master Mage Inigo seems to be in charge.”
“Where is my mother?” Her mother would have declared herself Primus if she’d been able to.
“By blaming Timo, Inigo and the council are discrediting Arabella.” Mole shrugged. “I didn’t want to wait until dawn, when I could learn more. I thought you should know as soon as possible.”
“You did the right thing,” Santos said. He rose and set out four mugs, then filled them with tea from the pot.
Kara grabbed one and wrapped her hands around it, staring down at the steaming liquid. “We need to find him,” she said.
Reo put an arm around her and pulled her into his warmth. “We will,” Reo said. “Mole will return at nightfall and find out more, and Santos has his own channels.”
Kara looked up to see both Mole and Santos nodding.
“We’ll find him,” Santos assured her. “Someone knows where he went.”
“Yes,” Kara said. She didn’t want to think that he might be dead. She wanted to believe that if Arabella Fonti was alive, then Timo was too—but her mother had sacrificed her first child to her ambition, and Kara wasn’t sure she wouldn’t sacrifice her second child as well.
“WHAT DO YOU
see?” Santos asked her.
It was mid-afternoon, and Kara was with Santos and Giona in the small covered loggia that Santos had built at the top of his house. From here they could see in all directions. As always, mage mist swirled at the edges of the barrier Kara had erected years ago to keep spells from reaching Old Rillidi. Far away she could see Mage Guild Island, the bright afternoon sun reflecting off the many spells that circled the tallest towers.
“The spells sent against us seem weaker,” Kara said. She lifted her hand to shade her eyes and squinted. “I think Rorik’s spells died with him.”
“Hmm.” Santos stepped back under the roof and out of the hot sun. “He did that on purpose.” Kara glanced at him, and he continued. “If all spells died with the Mage the islands would have fallen into the sea long ago. Rorik must have had some doubts about Arabella’s desire to hurt you.”
Kara stepped into the shade and continued to stare out at the barrier. It wasn’t anything she could see, since it wasn’t a magic spell, at least not in the way Santos and Giona created magic spells, but she could feel it, as though it was an extension of her will to keep everything bad out.
“Do you feel your spells once you’ve created them?” she asked. “Can you tell if they’ve been activated or if they’re weakening? Do they keep drawing power from you?” Even after living beside two Mages for years, there was still so much she didn’t know about magic. And even more that she didn’t know about her own unmagic.
“They don’t keep drawing power,” Santos said. “Not unless they’ve been created that way. The same applies to spells that have been triggered. You have to create it to alert you when it’s completed what it was fashioned to do.”
“That would not be pleasant if it was a destructive spell,” Giona said. “I wouldn’t care to be notified that it had been successful.”
“But you wouldn’t set that type of spell in the first place,” Kara said and smiled up at him. Soft-spoken and gentle, Giona was the least likely Mage to ever use magic to hurt anyone. Her smile faltered. But that was exactly what she and Santos were asking of him.
“I can if I have to,” Giona said.
Kara met his eyes and nodded. Yes, he wouldn’t want to and he would never start a fight, but neither would he run away from one. She smiled again. That was something he’d learned from her brother Osten. They’d been inseparable ever since Reo had found them together all those years ago. At twenty-two, Osten, her father’s son, seemed to have finally grown out of most of his belligerence. But some of it had rubbed off on Giona.
Kara looked out at the barrier. “I think we should set a few more spells to dissipate magic,” she said. “In case Inigo decides he doesn’t think we should live.”
“I’ll do that,” Giona offered. “It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
“Mole should have returned by then,” Kara said. Gyda, she hoped he was home soon, and with good news.
TIMO CLUTCHED HIS
pack close, his head down, as he trudged through the open square. It was quieter than it had been last night, but there were still a few groups of people dotting the square. A woman approached a couple of men who lounged by the fountain. They waved her off with a laugh. When she turned away from them, she spotted Timo hurrying across the square.
“Where are you going in such a rush, love,” the woman called to him. She took a few steps, her hips swaying, until she stood directly in his path. Timo changed direction but she grabbed hold of the strap on his pack.
“Ow,” she yelled and snatched her hand away, cradling it against her chest. “What’d you do to me?”
Timo stopped. She’d reacted to the spell he’d set on his pack, the one to keep thieves away, but here, in the daylight of the open square, he didn’t want anyone to notice him.
“Sorry, Donna,” he said and bobbed his head. “A trick I learned in my home villa, to keep the pickpockets away.”
“What’d you do?” she asked. She massaged her hand a moment more then she dropped it to her side and smiled widely at him. “I’ve got some tricks of my own I could show you.” She leaned close, and he smelled her stale perfume and last night’s garlicky stew.
“Just a bur stuck to the strap,” he mumbled and took a step away from her. “I have no guilders to spare.”
She flicked him a now disinterested look. “Come see me when you have some,” she said. “I am a true Artist, I can tell you. I’m here every day from noon until midnight.” She turned to walk away. “Unless I’m entertaining.”
Timo sighed and looked around. No one was staring at him, no one appeared suspicious of him—the lounging men and a couple of women traversing the square seemed engrossed in their own business. He set off across the square again.
Although the island was small, it had two bridges connecting it to other guild islands. Timo had already investigated the one that crossed to Mason Guild Island. That island had a bridge to Old Rillidi but he’d felt uneasy about using that route. It was too direct, too expected. Mage Guild would be looking for him by now—he couldn’t afford to do the obvious.
Now he was on his way to the bridge that led to the island Server and Producer Guilds shared. It was the smallest of the guild islands, since most of their Guildsmen lived where they worked, but with his disguise he would blend in.
There were no other bridges from Server and Producer Guild Island so he’d need to get to Old Rillidi by boat. His old picture book showed a ferry dock but he doubted they went to Old Rillidi. Goods and people would travel to Merchant Guild Island though. If he could get that far he could cross the bridge to Old Rillidi. His only other option was to hire a boat. But from whom? Who could he trust to not report him to Mage Guild?
Movement caught his eye and when Timo glanced over, his heart stopped. Someone—a Seyoyan—was staring at him. As Timo got closer, the Seyoyan’s eyes flicked down to the mauve mage mist that traced the flap of his pack. Then his eyes were back on Timo’s face. A grim smile flashed in his dark face and his long white braids fluttered when he nodded.
Even when Timo was past him he could feel the Seyoyans eyes on him, and he knew he’d seen
something
about Timo that he’d found interesting.
At the edge of the square, Timo ducked into a lane and out of sight of the Seyoyan. The last thing he’d wanted was to be noticed. Should he be worried? Seyoyans had their own reasons for doing things—so Primus Rorik had told him—but they didn’t meddle in guild politics. He’d look at the bridge and then head straight to his room. And keep out of sight of the Seyoyan.