But right now, I have an easier—well, no,smaller—matter to consider.
I turn my attention to the menu with deep concentration.
After a moment, Zan tells me he is getting an egg dish with tomatoes in it that I can try, so that’s one item eliminated from the list.
And maybe that’s the way to do it—gather more information as quickly as possible so I’ll have more basis to make decisionslater.
So I choose a sandwich of several other vegetables I don’t recognize, and once the waiter has whisked our slates away I ask something that’s been bothering me.
“You said Tasa had to rebuild Crystal Hollow,” I say. “I assume that’s because the Quiet suppressed any spells that were worked into the infrastructure that the priests tax people to renew. What I don’t understand is how a null could rebuild those.”
Zan leans forward and beckons me closer over the table.
I follow without question—
Okay fine maybe one question.
“Isn’t the sound magically dampened?” I whisper.
I feel him smile against my ear and shiver. “No, it’s acoustics. No magic needed. Just like with the plumbing at the cottage.”
Wow.
Before I can think about that, though, Zan continues, “Kovan asked to use my scales.”
I’m distracted enough by his presence, not to mention the revelations, that it takes me a moment to remember he’s talking about how a null rebuilt an entire village.
“They had to be subtle so the Order wouldn’t catch on,” he whispers, “but my scales are baked into the foundation of many of the buildings here.”
My eyes widen in shock.
Zan hasdefinitelybeen underselling how much he’s put into making an option for sages to be free.
“In aggregate,” he explains quietly as I hold very, very still, “my scales form a kind of net that enabled small magics—the kind that are small enough that people used to be able to manage them without the priests—to work stably even in the Quiet, when bigger ones wouldn’t. The priests merely believe that only minor magics, the kind they themselves don’t value,canwork here, and that they’re unreliable. Which is true, since my scales are no longer in every appliance in every house.”
But theywere.
A waiter deposits plates next to us.
I look at the sandwich in front of me like it’s a worm.
Can’t I just have interesting magical discussions? Do I really have to maintain my body?
I sigh. It’sprobablydelicious.
“So does that mean Crystal Hollow is free from taxation?” I wonder before gingerly picking up the sandwich, taking a breath, and chomping.
Whoa. That’s... a lot of flavors all at once.
Zan snorts and leans back. “Definitely not. Priests may not enter Crystal Hollow, but they have a contact to handle tax collection for them. Ostensibly it’s for martial protection—keeping Sanctuary Isle safe from foreign conquest. But in practice—”
“They’ve isolated it,” I murmur, digging something out of the sandwich. “And kept Crystal Hollow dependent on the mainland for goods they can’t produce in sufficient quantity themselves. What is this?”
“Bell pepper. And yes. Over the years the Order has taken pains to keep a strong hold in Chitsui, the province across the water.”
Even when they couldn’t get the result they’d wanted.
Just so that people didn’t have an option of rejecting them.
