Then as he lifts up his cup to take a sip, I feel magic ripple out of him. I reach for my wand while I look around. We’re in a bubble with shadowy edges.
Cloaked.
My turn to roll my eyes. He’s showing off that he can work magic and do everyday tasks at the same time.
Two can play that game.
I use a small trace of magic to lift one side of his cup, tipping it a higher angle.
Nariel rapidly catches the cup with his other hand before it upends on his face and casts me alook.
I raise my eyebrows in response.
He dips his head, acknowledging the point. “Perhaps not as easily while under fire.”
I nod. “I’m seeing if a local wizard can help.”
Saying that out loud somehow makes it more real, and in turn makes my chest tighten. I have not been able to rely on wizards in Low Earth for help before. The one person I wanted to connect with when I returned wanted nothing to do with me in no uncertain terms, and while that feels like rubbing salt in an open wound every time I remember, I’ve respected that. But thistime I have something tangible that other wizards can do against High Earth, and for themselves.
I hope it’s enough to matter.
“You’re in touch with other wizards, then?” Nariel asks.
“A few. Aren’t you in touch with other spirits?”
“I rule one of the largest territories in Dark Earth,” he informs me dryly. “So yes.”
Oh.
Well, so much for acting like this is all old-hat to me, I guess.
“So,doyou spend a lot of time here, with all the kinging you have to do down below?”
“It depends what you mean by a lot.” Nariel relaxes back in his seat, adjusting the angle of his cap so he can see me better, which somehow looks even better, damn it. “But perhaps more than you’d expect. My subjects also must, necessarily, spend time in Low Earth if they are to survive.”
Because Dark Earth doesn’t have enough magic. “You could make them come to you, though.”
“And so I do. It is simply notallthat I do, as a matter of practicalities, which I’m sure you understand.”
“Oh yeah, totally.”
I mean, I sort of do, on account of having apprenticed with a powerful grand magus who did make people come to him as a power play—and who would also sometimes drop in unannounced as a different kind of power play.
But honestly.
Nariel shoots me another amused look. “I take it your wizards do not come to you with information?”
Darn. Probably should have pressed that point instead of making a joke.
But calling them “my wizards” is a laughable conceit.
“Most wizards don’t want anything to do with me,” I say matter-of-factly, as if this wasn’t devastating to me when Ireturned or a point of anxiety now. “But there’s another wizard who—well, there’s a spell High Earth does when they take people for training that causes their families to think that they had an offer for a prestigious boarding school abroad. But when they come back, schools these days expect to see actual paperwork, right? Which High Earth doesn’t care about. So there’s a wizard who has taken it upon herself to track us all down when we reappear, to connect us with fake school paperwork and give people a rundown of some basic life things they missed and will need to know about. She pretends to be a school administrator for any references, soshe’sconnected with all of us.”
Which is why I don’t tell Nariel Leticia Jones’ full name, just in case, because if High Earth ever learns this, it’ll be much easier for them to stop me. Letty is a middle-aged Black woman who takes no shit and knows all about organizing. And she knows where I live, and also where every other wizard in Low Earth lives and how to reach them.
Fortunately, although she’ll think I’m nuts, she’s the one wizard in Low Earth I can count on. “She’s the only wizard I’m sure will help me,” I tell Nariel.
“Why?”
