The Chief Mage’s face darkened. “You’ve sent word to all appropriate ports telling them to keep a lookout for a man matching Yantz’s description?”
“Of course.” Fenris folded his arms. “We’ll find him yet. With all the eyes and ears we have, he’s bound to turn up in our sights somewhere soon. We should have him apprehended within a week.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“So they still haven’t found Yantz?” Comenius asked, forking up a mouthful of noodles. “I would have thought he’d be apprehended by now.”
I sighed, pushing bits of lasagna around my plate. “Yeah, he’s been pretty elusive so far.” It had been ten days since the night he’d escaped, and though the Chief Mage’s contacts were on full alert, there was no sign of the former editor.
“Maybe, but that’s no reason to look so bummed.” Noria twirled a bunch of spaghetti around her fork and gestured towards Comenius and Annia, who were seated around the large glass patio table with us. I’d invited them all out to dinner at Pomodoro, an Elanian restaurant in Rowanville, so that we could catch up after this whole ordeal. “We’re all here together, alive and well, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, and considering that you’re here with us too, that’s a damned miracle.” Annia lifted her glass of wine to me, her dark eyes sparkling. She was a more sophisticated version of Noria, with wavy, dark red hair, flawless ivory skin and a slender figure. “When Noria sent me that telegram telling me that you’d been arrested for killing with magic, I thought you were a goner for sure. Instead, here you are sitting at this table, and not only do you have your Enforcer’s bracelet back, but you’re a freaking apprentice to the most powerful mage in this city.”
“Hear, hear,” Comenius agreed, and we all lifted our glasses and drank.
“Thanks guys.” I gave them a grin that I didn’t really feel. “I really appreciate you all being here.”
Noria shrugged. “Hey, you’re paying, right? Why wouldn’t we come?”
I plucked a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table and threw it at her, and she caught it, grinning. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” I said as everyone else snickered. “Just because the Enforcer’s Guild rewarded me with a small fortune for solving the case doesn’t mean I’m filthy rich.”
Noria snorted. “It practically does. Now that you’re the Chief Mage’s apprentice, I’m sure you’ll get the choicest cases. If you play your cards right, you might end up being like all the other hoity-toity mages and never have to work again.”
Annia elbowed Noria in the side, who yelped. “Don’t say nasty things like that,” she scolded her sister. “Naya’s not the kind of person who’d sit back and rest on her laurels.” She grinned at me. “I’m sure we can expect her to continue getting into all kinds of trouble.”
“What are you going to do now though?” Comenius asked. He tapped the Enforcer’s bracelet on my wrist. “Are you going to chase bounties again, or pursue your magical studies full time?”
I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “I’d like to do both in combination,” I said. “But it depends on whether or not the Chief Mage is going to stop giving me the silent treatment.”
Iannis and I hadn’t spoken for four days now, ever since I’d announced to him that I was moving out of the palace. He’d been utterly furious, claiming that I wasn’t ready to be without his protection because I’d barely been able to defend myself against Yantz and Talcon, and that he had a responsibility to look out for me as his apprentice, and he couldn’t do that if I was living outside the palace. I’d told him that I wasn’t a child, that I could take care of myself, and that if I wanted to continue doing work as an Enforcer I needed to put some distance between us so that people would stop treating me so differently.
He’d threatened to take my Enforcer bracelet away, and I’d threatened to publicly refuse his apprenticeship and humiliate him. We’d nearly come to blows, but in the end he’d just given me one of his frigid looks and swept from the room.
I hadn’t heard from him since.
“Do you really need to continue your apprenticeship after all this?” Noria wrinkled her nose. “I mean, it seems like you’ve learned enough to be able to control your magic. If I were you, I’d ditch town and join up with the Resistance.”
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure that my morals align with the Resistance after all.” I told them about the bombs and weapons Fenris found in Yantz’s mansion, as well as his possible ties to the Resistance, and brought up the terrorist attack I’d heard about at the banquet again. “Their methods are starting to sound pretty questionable to me.”