“Comenius!” Noria burst into the shop, her red curls flying wild around her wide-eyed, freckled face. Her left cheek was smudged with grease, and she wore a pair of coveralls and black gloves on her hands, indicating that she’d been working on something mechanical. “You’ll never believe what happened in Shiftertown this morning! Some humans –” She stopped short at the sight of me, hesitation crossing her face. “Oh, hey, Naya and, umm, Wolf-guy –”
“Fenris,” Fenris corrected her mildly. She continued to stare at him, uncertainty warring with the excitement and fear in her eyes.
“Go on,” I encouraged, my voice casual despite the cold pit of dread hollowing out my stomach. “What happened in Shiftertown?”
Guilt flashed across Noria’s face. “Some humans decided to go and riot in the Shiftertown Square,” she said. “They came with bats and swords and stuff, and started bashing in windows and looting stores.”
“Fuck.” I collapsed into one of the chairs in the sitting area, overwhelmed. Humans buying magic protection and looting shifter stores… “We’re looking at civil war if something isn’t done.”
Comenius sighed. “That doesn’t necessarily surprise me.”
I glanced up at him. “Why?”
Noria flopped down into the chair across from me. “Com did some divination magic last night, and as usual it gave us a lot more questions than answers.” She rolled her eyes. “But according to him, the tea leaves point to a shit-stirrer in the works.”
“I believe the term I used was ‘provocateur’,” Comenius corrected mildly. “But nonetheless, I’m afraid it’s true. Someone behind the scenes is stirring up this trouble, and it seems their objective is to create strife between humans and shifters.”
I frowned. “Who would want to do that?”
We all turned to look at Fenris at the same time, our brows arched. He took a step back, palms up. “What?”
“I don’t mean to state the obvious here, but –” Noria started.
“The Mage’s Guild would definitely have motive,” I finished for her. “Or at least someone in it. If humans and shifters are united against them, they’d have a harder time controlling us, and we might even be able to overthrow them.”
“That’s outrageous.” Fenris drew himself up, and in that moment he looked a lot like the Chief Mage. “The Mage’s Guild would have much less harmful ways of ensuring obedience. We need the residents of the city to co-exist peacefully in order for everything to continue running smoothly.”
“We?” Noria’s eyes narrowed, and she slowly stood up. “You know, I’ve never heard a shifter refer to himself as ‘we’ in conjunction with mages. Most shifters hate mages.”
Fenris’s yellow gaze hardened. “I am not most shifters.”
Normally I would have told Noria to back off, since Fenris was a friend, but something about her words struck a chord with me. “Still,” I interjected, “you have to admit it’s a little strange that your loyalties seem to lie more with the mages, than with your own people. Don’t you have a clan, or at the very least a family, who deserves your loyalty more?”
Fenris glared imperiously down at me, and my heart shrank a little – he’d never looked at me like that before. “Lord Iannis is the only family I have,” he said stiffly. “I don’t have anyone else, not that my past is any business of yours.”
By Magorah, I felt like the biggest fool in the world. “Fenris, I –”
“It doesn’t seem as though you have any more need of me.” Fenris bowed to us all. “I’m going to catch a cab back to the palace, where I can be more useful. Good day to you all.”
The bell on the door jangled as Fenris left the shop, and my heart sank straight into my shoes.
“I think I just won the award for biggest asshole of the year,” I muttered.
Noria frowned. “I don’t know, Naya,” she said. “He’s clearly hiding something.”
“And who are we to judge him for his secrets?” Comenius laid a hand on Noria’s shoulder, and she looked up at him with a startled expression on her face. His voice was gentle, but his clear blue eyes were stern, filled with that ageless wisdom that tended to grace magic users. “We all have them buried in our past, and Fenris is entitled not to share his secrets if he doesn’t want to, just as the rest of us are.” His gaze swept over me as well. I wondered if there was a spell that would enable me to sink through the cracks in the wooden floor, and if so, why I hadn’t learned it by now.
I ran a hand through my hair, and pain jabbed at my scalp as my fingers caught on some of the more unruly curls. “You’re right, Com. I shouldn’t have pried.”
Noria’s scowl returned. “I don’t think it’s wrong to be suspicious, especially since he’s allied with the enemy.”
I sighed. “It’s not as black-and-white as that, Noria. Actions speak louder than words, and Fenris has been nothing but helpful to me.”