Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Then how can I show you?”

  He knew exactly how. She should not have to lead him there. “I don’t know if you should try. Maybe I should just let them have you.”

  “Them …”

  “Your magi. They don’t want us to be together. No one does. Your magi hate me, and my magi don’t trust you. Maybe they are right.”

  “No.” He could not hide his anxiety now. “No. Forget about them. I want us to be together! Tell me how to make this up to you. To show you I love you.”

  Now she would see if he really did. “You can’t be around those girls anymore.”

  He protested immediately. “But Brigita is under my protection. I have to be able to talk to her.”

  “Talk to her, perhaps.” If this was a negotiation now, she could be reasonable. “You can ask her how she is and if she needs your help. You can’t socialize with her.”

  “I have to socialize with my magi. You know that.”

  Yes, she knew that. There were formal social events with the Circle’s magi every month, almost every week. Such parties helped ensure loyalty and service. “You know that that’s not what I mean.”

  He thought about it for a little too long. “I understand,” he sent finally. “What about Rose?”

  “Josselin’s clerk?” She was surprised. That girl seemed far too bookish to have gone swimming with boys.

  “I have to be able to talk to her about Circle business.”

  “About Circle business, yes.” Tabitha was not worried about Rose. Josselin’s office at the Hall housed a far greater danger.

  He named it. “And Koren?” The sense of him was quite still, awaiting her judgment.

  “Circle business,” she answered firmly.

  He did not protest. He did not make the ridiculous assertion that his feelings for Koren were brotherly. But he was upset, though he tried to hide it from her. Like all men, he wanted to be free to have fun whenever he wanted, with whomever he wanted.

  But that was not the way this was going to work. He was bonded to her. And she knew how to ensure his loyalty. “You know I love you too.”

  A flood of shock, and then joy, filled the space between them. She sensed him moving closer, and she turned away slightly before he could touch her. “Not in front of everyone.”

  His mental touch softened, melting into that sweet, intense point of warmth that left Tabitha as breathless as a long kiss. The skirt of her cloak billowed out against his legs, and she realized just how close he already was to her. She could feel the tension of his body. She could sense where that tension centered, how much he was fighting it, how hard he was fighting it. Tingling warmth spread between her legs, up her stomach, up her spine. It seemed to lift her breasts and cover them with heated kisses …

  She flinched, taking a step back and withdrawing her mind. She could not let him know how much his desire fed hers. He needed to believe that it made her uncomfortable. Properly uncomfortable, for a lady like her. “Please don’t,” she said softly aloud.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

  He was still too close. She opened her eyes to look down at the sterncastle deck, and the sunlight slanting across it made her wince. She took another step away, closer to the mast wrapped with the rope and the sail and the broken yardarm. She folded her arms over her chest. Her breasts were still tingling.

  Don’t. Stop it. She could not sleep with him yet. Her telepathy had to be perfect, perfect enough to hide everything. She still had time, right? He would not ask now, would he?

  No. No, of course not. No gentleman would be stupid enough to ask a lady to sleep with him right after he had upset her so badly. In fact, this entire situation may have bought her more time, beyond their anniversary in the autumn. Josselin had advised the magi girls to wait at least a year, not just a year.

  He was calling to her again. She shoved down her thoughts and opened her mind a fraction, and he sent, “I love you.”

  It still made her uncomfortable. Alain had said it, but not to her. Not to Tabitha, but to Marjorie. Nicolas had never said it, and even if he had, he would not have meant it.

  But this was different. It really was. This should not make her uncomfortable. Graegor was different. He could not be more different from Nicolas. Graegor did mean it.

  She meant it, too. She did. She loved him. She knew she loved him because she could not stand the thought of Koren kissing him, or any of those Telgard girls pushing up against him. When she imagined it, her magic scraped her raw with remembered rage.

  He was hers.

  “I love you too,” she sent.

  Again he took a step toward her, and so she lifted her head to take a wide look around. The ship was no longer moving forward. Sailors were up on the other two masts, reefing the square sails. As Tabitha turned further, she finally noticed Captain Flint standing at the top of the sterncastle ladder. He was frightened. His bald head was sweating and his big, bony shoulders were tense as his hands squeezed the rail. He was holding his mouth shut, and his eyes darted from her to the mizzenmast and back again.

  Tabitha gave him a regal nod. “My lady,” he said with a deep bow, “I must ask your permission to change course to the north instead of continuing east. I would very much like to put in at the shipyard at Port Couluar.”

  The shipyard was an excellent idea. It was imperative that she return her father’s ship to him in even better condition than when she had borrowed it. If Captain Flint and his crew knew what was good for them, they would never breathe a word of what had really happened. “I understand,” she stated. “Such an unfortunate accident. Lord Natayl will fund the refit, and Lord Contare’s ship will see me safely back to Maze Island.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” The captain gestured toward the front of the ship. “My lady, we have set stools on the forecastle for you and the Lord Sorcerer. I hope you will be comfortable there while we inspect the mizzenmast.”

  “Of course,” she said, and started for the ladder. The captain quickly jumped back down it, and held it as she, then Graegor, descended. As Tabitha crossed the quarterdeck, she darted her eyes around it, looking for more damage, but she could not see anything obvious.

  It was embarrassing. A Betaul sorceress should never lose control of herself like that. She needed to keep practicing calm and still. Calm, and still, and balanced.

  “How was your trip?” Graegor asked as they made their way down the second ladder to the main deck. His sending was careful. He wanted things to be normal again.

  “It was very nice,” she told him. Small talk would smooth the moment. “The wedding was beautiful.”

  “That’s good. Did the pyrokinetics work the way you wanted?”

  “They worked perfectly. Everyone was thrilled.”

  “It’s great to hear that.” As they wove their way across the main deck, ignoring the staring sailors, he asked, “And how is your father?”

  “He is in good health and temper.” Very good, in fact. The day before she had left Cuan Searla, one of the servants had delivered a note to her chambers, a note that had taken a huge weight off her shoulders. In her father’s handwriting, there had been two short lines: “It works. Thank you.”

  You are welcome, Father. Maybe by the time she returned to Thendalia to inspect Elder Partridge’s farms, there would be another wedding.

  The farms. She hesitated. Should she tell Graegor about her meeting with the heretics?

  No. Not yet. There was nothing yet to tell, and there would not be, until, unless, Elder Partridge pulled all the shovel-men out of the Betaul Marches. It was a Thendal matter, about which the Telgard sorcerer had no reason to know. She did not need to boast of her success, like he had. Especially since she was not yet sure if it was a success.

  “How was the weather up there?” Graegor asked then.

  “Colder than here.” They had nearly reached the sloping ladder up to the forecastle. “But it did not rain on the important days, so that was nice.”

  “Yes,�
� he agreed. “One less thing to worry about.”

  But there was more to worry about here, now, than ever before. That rogue maga. The two Telgard sluts who were her keepers. Jeffrei, who hated Tabitha and would do anything to undermine her.

  Koren. She worried Tabitha the most, because she was never going to go away.

  Chapter 14

  Graegor glanced toward the workroom’s open window, listening to the midmorning murmur of the city beyond the Hall. Was it louder than usual, the day before Solstice? Or was it just that the deserted office was quieter than usual, the day before Solstice?

  A fat drop of water made a splat onto an open page, and Graegor quickly leveled the pitcher’s spout. He’d poured onto a leaf instead of into the soil. With sharp focus and a gesture, he pulled the water out of the paper and floated it in a tiny sphere back to the potted ivy plant. It soaked immediately into the dirt and was gone, but the paper was permanently wrinkled. Varrhon would notice—but at least it wasn’t coffee this time. Graegor closed the ledger in the hope that the weight of the other pages would smooth it out, but then sighed, because Varrhon would notice that he’d forgotten to bookmark it.

  Contare normally liked to water the office plants himself, but he’d had a bad headache upon waking this morning and had stayed home. Graegor didn’t mind doing it, and he was getting better at summoning water from the air to keep the glass pitcher full as he made the rounds. This next plant, though, required something different. He set down the pitcher and pushed over the back of one of the library chairs to turn it into a ladder, and climbed to the ceiling fan. As it spun lazily above his head, he focused on its plant, a ripple ivy, and summoned just a little water into a mist above the leaves. He let it condense, then repeated the steps a few times, at which point he could only hope that enough of the water would slide down the stems and get to the soil and the roots.

  The fan spread the mist over his face, and he wiped it with his forearm before he took hold of the finial at the fan’s lowest point. The thaumat’argent tingled against his mind with enough intensity to satisfy him that the spell was not yet fading. He jumped to the floor and reversed the ladder back into a chair.

  It really was quiet. He had seldom been in these office rooms by himself. Lord Henrey was usually here, in the private office on the opposite side of the workroom from Contare’s. But this morning he was attending a Solstice event at Lake Masudar hosted by the Aedseli First Minister. Varrhon was with him, and Ragnar had been gone for weeks, visiting his parents in Telgardia. Jeff was still sleeping off a hangover, a full day and a half since Samyel’s graduation party.

  A clerk’s tasks could be tedious, but Graegor didn’t mind covering those either. Only an hour ago, a hand-delivered note from Lady Serafina’s office had requested a “firm and final” count of the temporary latrines installed along the river for the week-long festival. Graegor had added up the pile of paper tags to find the answer—two hundred and six—while the Medean magus anxiously waited.

  On Jeff’s worktable sat the approved permit for repairing some pipes in some hospital, ready to go back to Josselin’s office. Maybe he should do that now. It was just the next door along the corridor, and Koren probably wasn’t even there. Even if she was, Tabitha was at an Academy event right now and would not “catch” them talking together as she had before.

  He had to make sure that everything stayed absolutely perfect between them, so that tomorrow night went exactly as he was hoping. With a little help from Arundel and Ilene …

  He felt his gen surge and his face grow hot, and the plant next to the one he was watering opened its newest growth of tiny pink flowers. It was getting very hard to not think about tomorrow night. He’d been planning it for two months, ever since that day on the ship when she had pulled his magic into hers and their power had surged together, as one, so intense he’d nearly lost himself in light. He’d never given his power, given himself like that to anyone. She had nearly drained him.

  But she loved him. She loved him. She’d said it, he’d felt it from her. In that moment, he’d felt such heat and desire from her it had shocked him. It had embarrassed her so much, she’d smothered it within moments, but he was sure of what he’d felt. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Somehow, he had pulled himself out of the fire that day. Even after that terrible fight, they were still together, and in love. And he would make everything perfect for her tomorrow night.

  He shivered, and quickly forced his mind back to drawing water out of the air.

  It wasn’t long afterward that Contare called to him. “There’s a surprise for you down at Redbird Harbor.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it.”

  This was intriguing. “Any hints?”

  “It should be a good surprise.”

  “I hope so. Are you feeling better?”

  Contare’s wordless answer was noncommittal, which meant no, but he waved aside Graegor’s concern. “Just make sure you get to all the plants in the workroom before you go.”

  Graegor scurried around the room with the water pitcher for a few more minutes, his curiosity increasing. Was it Contare’s ship? Had he moved it from the canal to Redbird Harbor? No, he wouldn’t have done that, not after Graegor had asked his permission to use it tomorrow night, exactly where it was. So, another ship? That was the only thing he could think of that belonged in a harbor and was big enough for him to notice when he got there.

  Was someone here? Was Audrey here? In every single one of her letters, she told him how much she wanted to visit, and he wouldn’t put it past her to decide that she was grown-up enough to just leave home. Or maybe she had convinced their parents to make the journey, unlikely as that was. Maybe that was why it was a “good” surprise?

  Just go and see.

  He’d shut the door to the office’s reception room behind him before he realized that he hadn’t sensed the wards at all. He paused to focus, pressing his hand to the door and the strip of thaumat’argent wrapped around its wooden frame. Yes, he could sense the ward now, but it needed renewing. He’d mention it to Contare. Still attuned, he clearly sensed the ward at the bottom of the stairs, and he triggered the one on the narrow side door when he was still two paces away from it. It opened for him onto the little porch with the curving stairs that led to Pellata’s Garden. He saw two grey tabby cats hiding among the trees and flowers as he headed toward a tall, wrought-iron gate, which was also warded and led to the portico of the museum.

  Some Medean vendors had gotten permission to set up food carts here all week, and dozens of students were already lined up, even though it wasn’t yet noon. The smell of spiced pork was tempting, but Graegor eased his way past. His face was well-known to most of the Academy magi by now, and he missed the relative anonymity of his first few months here. Most of them noticed him, some of them nodded, and a few even murmured greetings, but fortunately none of them were Adelard girls and he was able to escape to the street without being waylaid. Ferogin’s latest harassment tactic involved sending a maga or two to cross Graegor’s path and ask him embarrassing questions, and Graegor had not yet handled any of the encounters well.

  The questions were mostly about his relationship with Brigita, of course. There was no way Brigita’s pledge could be kept quiet, and there was no way its details could be kept from mutating as they passed from student to student. He grimaced. That was why he had tried to tell Tabitha about it when she was still out to sea, before her magi could reach her. For all the good it had done.

  The sorcerers themselves—all of them, young and old, even Ferogin—acted as if Brigita’s pledge was not worth the time it took to talk about it, and the magi already pledged to the Circle behaved likewise. To them, any pledge from Brigita—and presumably, any pledge from Tabitha’s magi—was no more than an expression of loyalty. Real pledges, pledges at graduation ceremonies, were spoken in the Hall, at the Table, before the nine-pointed star that was the Bond of th
e Circle. With each pledge, the crystal at the heart of the Bond flared bright—and even brighter against Graegor’s gen—and every magus and maga who pledged was obviously moved or shaken by the experience. The Circle was very likely right in viewing other pledges as inferior.

  But at the most recent graduations, the two he had attended since accepting Brigita’s pledge, most of the non-Telgard graduates had kept looking over at him and Contare, as if expecting something, instead of staying focused on their own sorcerers. Graegor had asked Contare if foreign magi had ever pledged to him, and Contare had said that there hadn’t been anyone without at least some Telgard blood. There was no precedent for Brigita eventually pledging to Graegor instead of to Ferogin. That clearly bothered the Academy magi, and would even if Brigita hadn’t once been a rogue.

  At that thought, Graegor glanced from side to side as he walked through the crowd. Many of the buildings here had covered porticos or recessed doorways where watchers could linger. Open stares from foreign Academy students didn’t make him nearly as anxious as secret stares from people who wanted to kill him.

  He’d attempted to trigger more trances, to see if the cats or dogs or birds of the city would lead him to any secrets, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere. The animals weren’t concerned about his priorities. But he now noticed animals everywhere, in far greater numbers than he’d ever realized. Right now, without even turning his head, he could see three calico cats and two black-and-white ones in various lounging poses. All the roofs were lined with crows, gulls, and doves, and every third person on the street seemed to be walking a dog.

  He’d never owned a dog. Dog and cat fur made his mother’s skin break out in a rash, so they’d never kept pets.

  This surprise had better not be Audrey. Or if it was, it had better include at least one of their parents. She wasn’t even ten. He quickened his pace.

  Redbird Harbor was the largest and busiest in the city, with wooden docks and stone wharves on both sides of the river. Lady Serafina and Lord Lasfe had doubled the usual rental rate for moorages during the festival week, but they could have tripled it for Redbird and not seen any decline in demand, even with the sponsorship requirement to get through the gates. The summer Solstice festival had officially begun on Mansday and would end after Sunsday, and even today, with only a couple of days left, ships were still arriving and clogging the river. Amplified announcements sounded from the thaumat’argent cone on the portmaster’s tower, but they were hard to hear clearly. That spell probably needed renewing too. The magi on port duty were guiding the vessels into the slips, but nothing happened quickly, despite the shouting and hurrying of people trying to make it so.