I looked around, suddenly realising how dark it had become. ‘Not until you tell me what this is about.’
‘It’s about you deciding whether or not you’re going to be a man.’
‘You keep going on about me having to be a man. You keep insulting my people’s magic and my family’s –’
‘The world’s got plenty of mages, Kellen. What it needs are men and women.’ She made the words sound different than the way people usually say them. Important, somehow.
I hated the way she spoke about magic as if it were a joke, as if my people were no different than children playing with toys. More than anything I hated the way she kept holding the fanned cards out to me, challenging me to take one.
‘Look, I’m not—’
‘Shut up and pick a card. Pick a card or turn around and walk away and don’t ever look back. The world is a big and dangerous place and there’s more darkness filling it than you’ll ever know. Only one thing fights that – men and women who don’t walk away from their debts. Pick a card now, Kellen, because I won’t ask again.’
I was so sick of her tricks and her games. For every little thing she taught me, there was some test or trap, each one forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do. But even though I’d only known Ferius Parfax for all of three days, I knew without the slightest doubt that while this might be a trick, it wasn’t any kind of joke. If I didn’t take the card I would never see her again. I don’t know why, but the thought scared me. I took a card from the middle.
‘Three of hearts,’ I said, my eyes captured by the dark crimson hearts set against the beige background, the calligraphy of the number three written in the same red-black ink as the back of the card. ‘What does it mean?’
She closed the deck and slipped it back into her waistcoat. ‘The card you pick doesn’t matter.’
‘Then I don’t get it,’ I said, holding the card up. ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
She sidestepped around me and headed further down the alley. ‘How should I know? Just do the right thing. Maybe just look that animal in the eyes before you consign it to death. Do what you think the man you want to be would do. Then I’d suggest you get rid of that card real quick.’
I looked down at the thing as if it might burst into flames. ‘What did you just make me take? Is this some kind of curse?’
‘Life’s a curse, kid. Love is the cure.’
I started running after her but stopped myself when I realised how stupid I must look. ‘I don’t know what that means!’
‘It’s your debt, Kellen. You figure out how to pay it. Reckon I saved your life, so now that’s one less debt for me.’
I wanted to tear the card up and toss it on the ground and stomp on it until it was crushed into dust. Damned Ferius Parfax with her stupid jokes and her tricks and her mysterious remarks. I looked back at her and saw that she was almost at the door of the guest house. ‘Wait! If the card is supposed to represent some kind of debt, then what are you doing with a whole deck of them?’
She held up something in her hand and I heard coins tinkling. ‘Getting really, really drunk,’ she said, and walked through the open door.
I was halfway home and walking through a narrow alleyway that usually provided a convenient shortcut when I found myself face to face with a palace guardsman. He looked oddly out of place in the dirt and dust of the alley.
‘You startled me,’ I said, trying to recover my breath.
He gave no reply, but instead held out a roll of parchment. Even in the dim light I could make out the black wax seal of the dowager magus. I cracked the seal and opened it, careful not to let the anticipated gold disc fall out. However, the parchment was empty, save for a single, hastily scrawled message. ‘At your convenience,’ it said.
I looked down at the ground, wondering if perhaps the disc had fallen without my noticing. Without it, Osia’phest wouldn’t allow me to attempt the third trial alongside the other initiates. ‘Was there anything else with the message?’ I asked the guard.
Again he remained silent.
I noticed he also made no move to leave, or to let me walk past him. ‘So when she says, “At your convenience,” what she really means is …’
The guard gave me a slight smile for the first time. ‘Now,’ he said.
My second meeting with the dowager magus was just as odd as the first, though vastly more uncomfortable.
‘Just how stupid is your father?’ Mer’esan asked, hands across her lap as she sat in her chair looking up at me.
I worked my way through a rather long list of possible replies, trying to find one that would perfectly articulate my anger at this slight against my family’s honour while also protecting me from a death sentence. ‘Forgive me, Mer’esan, I don’t understand the question.’
‘Yes, you do. Your father believes the Mahdek have come back from the dead to attack our people, that they decided to target your sister, and that bringing a nekhek to our city is a good idea.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Disgusting little monsters.’
‘Ferius …’ I hesitated.
‘Speak,’ Mer’esan commanded.
‘She says the animal is called a squirrel cat – that it’s not a demon at all.’
‘And what do you believe?’
Again I searched for a reply that wouldn’t get me into trouble. ‘Lord Magus Ke’heops,’ I began, using my father’s formal title, ‘believes that some of the Mahdek must have survived, perhaps growing their numbers in secret. He believes they intend to use the nekhek to—’
‘No, he only says he believes this foolishness.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Apparently you think he’s even more of an idiot than I do. He hopes to take advantage of this opportunity to show how his strength is what our people need now that my husband is dead.’
A thought occurred to me then, like a fist clenched around my stomach. ‘Do you intend to resist my father’s election as clan prince?’
‘I couldn’t care less who becomes the next clan prince, child.’
The next words came out of my mouth far too fast for my own good. ‘Then what exactly do you care about, Mer’esan?’
The sudden stare she gave me convinced me that I’d gone too far. She rose to her feet and began walking around me as if I were a poorly made sculpture she were examining. ‘You fought your own friends to save the Argosi woman. Why?’
I considered my reply. If Mer’esan had decided that Ferius was, in fact, some kind of spy or wished us ill, it wouldn’t be hard to interpret my actions as treason against my own people. ‘You commanded me to maintain her interest in me, Dowager Magus.’