“Emily,” Caleb began. He sounded nervous too. It was something personal, then. Caleb had always been more enthusiastic talking about magical theory and spellwork than anything more personal. Spells weren’t embarrassing, after all. “How was your summer?”
“I spent most of it preparing for the exams,” Emily told him. It was hard to sound welcoming when she wasn’t sure what she felt. “Come on in and close the door behind you.”
Caleb entered, taking one of the smaller chairs. Emily sat down at her desk, silently glad it was between her and Caleb. It wasn’t much of a barrier—she knew a dozen spells that could reduce it to atoms—yet it put something solid between them. It was yet another reminder that there was no way they could go back to being just friends without some bumps along the way.
I don’t know how Imaiqah managed to have so many boyfriends, she thought. Imaiqah had had more lovers than every other girl in the year put together, as far as Emily could tell. She found a boy, spent a few weeks with him and then broke up and moved on. But then, she didn’t have to work with any of them.
She met his eyes, trying not to think about his arms around her. “How is your family?”
“Recovering.” He shook his head, slowly. “Father is on the new city council; mother’s practically taken over Sorcerer’s Row, now that some of the former residents have moved away. That won’t last, she says, but it keeps her occupied. She’s been talking about trying to attract more magical talent to Beneficence.”
“That would be interesting,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea—too many magicians too close together tended to lead to fights—but Sienna presumably knew what she was doing. “And the city itself?”
“A mess,” Caleb said. He shifted, uncomfortably. “Oh, things look to have returned to normal—on the surface—but there’s an undercurrent of fear running through the streets. We lost quite a bit of investment immediately after the Fists were defeated, even though your bankers remained in place. I daresay Cockatrice picked up a lot of our deserters.”
Emily shrugged. Imaiqah sent her regular reports, but Emily hadn’t had the time to read them. She’d been too busy with her studies. She trusted that Imaiqah would use the chat parchments to alert her to anything that required immediate attention. An influx of trained craftsmen from Beneficence wasn’t a problem, not in Cockatrice. There was no shortage of work for them if they were willing to stay permanently.
King Randor might worry about immigration, she thought. But he’s unlikely to put up with any nonsense.
She shook her head, inwardly. Ideas were spreading all over the Allied Lands, changing and growing as they were fitted to local conditions. The attempted assassination of King Randor and his sole daughter—his sole legitimate child—had merely been the tip of the iceberg. Who knew what would happen when republicanism and socialism, if not communism, really took off? The basis of power in the Nameless World—the aristocracy of might and magic—was already being questioned. There was no way the kings and princes could put that particular genie back in the bottle.
Because they can’t counter it, she mused. What does give them the right to rule?
“I’m sure the locals don’t mind,” she said, out loud. Cockatrice and the other cities within the barony had a constant influx of newcomers, mainly runaway peasants from the nearby estates. Most of them rapidly blended into the city’s population and vanished. She’d certainly never been interested in hunting the immigrants down and returning them to their former masters. “There’s always work for willing hands.”
Caleb smiled, weakly. “There is.”
Emily leaned back in her chair, wishing—suddenly—that they were talking about their project. Or magical theory. Or something that didn’t feel as though they were tap-dancing over an emotional minefield. She hadn’t had any problems working with him over the last year, had she? She’d thought those feelings were dead and buried. But she hadn’t spent any time outside work ...
We used to go on dates, she reminded herself. She’d never thought she would enjoy it, but she had. And now we don’t.
She nodded to the sideboard. “Kava?”
“Please,” Caleb said, sounding relieved.
Emily rose and walked to the sideboard, trying to keep her emotions under tight control as she poured the drinks. And yet, the mere act of preparing Kava the way he liked it hurt. Imaiqah had once told her that men were useless when it came to dealing with emotions, but Emily didn’t feel any more competent at controlling hers. She’d thought, once, that she’d never have a boyfriend, let alone a real relationship with a man. And yet, when she’d been offered the chance, she’d jumped right into it ... she hadn’t thought, she knew. She’d gone too far, emotionally if not physically. Perhaps that was Imaiqah’s secret, Emily wondered. She’d kept sexual pleasure separated from her more intimate emotions.
She passed Caleb the mug and returned to her desk. Caleb sipped his drink gratefully, but she knew he was stalling for time. She’d known him long enough to be sure when he was reluctant to broach a particular subject. Her imagination provided too many possibilities, ranging from their joint project to their former courtship. She didn’t think his parents would want him to try to restart the courtship, but what about the rest of his family? House Waterfall might just feel they had a say in his relationships, after all.
“It wasn’t easy for any of us,” Caleb said. She knew, from experience, that he was slowly circling the subject at hand. “Casper’s death shook the family, followed by ... well, everything else that happened. Marian’s betrayal ...”
“She wasn’t in her right mind,” Emily said. She’d had enough experience with mind-warping magic to know how dangerous it could be. “I didn’t think anyone knew about her.”
“No one outside the family knows the truth, save for you and Frieda,” Caleb said. “Mother was careful to warn us to keep it to ourselves. The council ... father fears they are still looking for scapegoats.”
Emily sighed. Janus was dead, killed by his false god. Very few of the other Fists of Justice had survived the mobs, when their grip on the city was shattered. Anyone who had survived had probably fled by now, knowing they’d be brutally murdered when—if—their secret came out. She just hoped they hadn’t taken Master Wolfe’s papers with them, if they hadn’t been lost. It would probably be better, all things considered, if they’d been destroyed in the final battle.
And if the council can’t fix the city’s problems in a hurry, she thought sourly, they might try to put a scapegoat on trial just to hide their failure from their people.
“I won’t breathe a word of it,” she said. She felt a stab of raw sympathy for Caleb and his family. They were sitting on a secret that could see them lynched—or forced to flee their hometown. And it wasn’t really their fault. Subtle magic had a way of twisting people until black was white, up was down and right was wrong—or vice versa. “Is that what you wanted to ask?”