“Hi.” Fenris smiled at me reassuringly, but the Chief Mage remained silent and stony as usual. I held my breath, remembering his promise that I would not escape punishment. What was he going to do to me now?
“Right.” I clasped my hands in front of me. “So, would you mind telling me what my punishment’s supposed to be? Or did you call me here so you could study me in the hopes of finding new things to criticize?”
“Punishment?” The Chief Mage waved a hand dismissively. “There is no punishment. I just said that to satisfy our audience. This was simply a test.”
My jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
“Why don’t you sit down,” Fenris said gently, indicating the chair he had vacated.
Normally I would have refused, since I’m more comfortable standing, but in my shock I numbly obeyed. “What part of the last twenty-four hours was a test?”
“All of it.” The Chief Mage took a seat as well, and Fenris remained standing next to him. “Your cousin making the rescue attempt, Chartis ordering you to come to a hearing, all of it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“It had come to my attention that the Director has not been sharing pertinent information with me,” Iannis explained, clasping his hands together and resting them on the blotter covering his desk. “I do have eyes and ears in the city, and I found out through them that your cousin was going to make a rescue attempt last night. I strengthened the wards to make sure that he would fail and left with Fenris to see what would happen during my absence. As I suspected, Director Chartis decided to take matters into his own hands without first alerting me to the problem.”
A sense of foreboding filled me, and I leaned forward again. “Wait a minute. How did you know Rylan was coming?”
Iannis waved his hand dismissively. “As I said, I have spies. But if you’re worried as to whether or not I am going after your cousin, I shall not bother just yet. The Resistance is hardly a concern – they’re little more than a scattering of snakes hiding out in their holes in the desert country. There are more important matters requiring my attention at this time.”
I gritted my teeth as my hands curled into fists in my lap. The way he spoke of the Resistance, as if they were nothing more than a cockroach beneath his boot, made my blood heat, and not in a good way. But I decided against mentioning it – I had to pick my battles, and there was no way I was going to win this one, not now anyway.
Instead, I directed my anger to a more pertinent matter. “You know that both my cousin and I could have been killed last night, right?”
“A possibility, but highly unlikely since I calibrated the wards to ensure they were not set to kill.” His eyes gleamed as he regarded me. “I find it very interesting that you were able to breach the wards at all to free your cousin and his friends. That part of the plan was not anticipated.”
I scowled, crossing my arms over my chest. “Well if you hadn’t wanted me to do that, then maybe you shouldn’t have given me access to my magic.”
The Chief Mage shook his head. “The level of magic I granted you access to should not have been enough to allow you to bypass the reinforced perimeter. It should have barely been enough for you to breach the wards keeping you inside the palace walls.”
I sighed. “So what? We already know that my magic bursts out when I’m in danger. Is it really a stretch that it would do that when someone I care about is in danger too?”
The Chief Mage arched a brow. “Has that ever happened before?”
“Well…” I racked my brain, then deflated when I couldn’t find an example. “No.” Only when my own life was on the line.
“The bond must have weakened more than you realized,” Fenris remarked to Iannis, studying me with a frown of his own. “Either from your interference or because of something her father has done.”
“Great.” I stood up, tired of being peered at like a caged mouse, and beyond sick of hearing about my father. “Now that this is all settled, can I go? Like, as in, back to my actual home?”
“Soon,” the Chief Mage said. “I’m not quite finished studying you.”
“Oh yeah?” I leaned forward, pinning him with a glare. “Well, I’m finished being studied!”
Iannis scowled, rising to his feet so he could tower over me. “I don’t know why you’re so reluctant,” he began. “If I am able to complete my investigation, you could –”
“I don’t care!” I slammed my palms against the table, making it shudder. “While you’ve got me cooped up in here, people are dying out there! There are shifters being murdered by silver poisoning, and nobody is investigating it no matter how loudly I yell, including you!” I poked my finger in his chest.