The girls eagerly rushed to get the supplies, and I stood back and watched as they put out the lace tablecloth and tiny porcelain dishes. Liu, the natural ringleader despite her lack of magic, directed where everything should go, and I set the pastries on the platter she’ddesignated.
We spent the next hour having tea, all of us pretending to be noble ladies from various countries. I used the opportunity, as I did with nearly all of our playtime sessions, to teach them a little bit of magic. I conjured water into the pot, and Rusalia boiled it with her magic, while Tinari kept the pastries warm by heating the platter lightly. Liu had brought real tea leaves from the kitchen, and within no time she was pouring tea into the cups for us toenjoy.
At some point, Trouble decided to make an appearance, and the girls had fun chasing him about the room. He was a great favorite with the kids, and he didn’t mind letting them try to catch him—they couldn’t really touch him anyway, and he seemed to understand it was agame.
As I watched the girls play, I wondered if I would soon be playing with my own children. Now that Iannis and I were about to be married, having children seemed to be the logical next step, and with my Heat coming up on our honeymoon, it might be the perfect time to get started. But was this really the right time to do it, so soon into our marriage? Or did we need more time to settle into the new, strange life we were creating together? I’d have to talk it over withIannis.
“Look,” Rusalia cried, getting my attention. “I’ve been practicing my firemagic!”
I glanced up to watch her conjure a thin stream of flame, then shape it into a heart. “Good job!” I said as the other girls squealed. A spark jumped from the flames, alighting on a pile of cleaning rags on a nearby table. To my horror, the rags ignited, and the girls’ squeals turned into screams as flames shot straight toward the ceiling. Rusalia lost control of her fire magic, and the next thing I knew the flames were spreading to the drapes and the carpet and were rapidly headed for a box of dolls in thecorner.
“Get back!” I yelled, jumping to my feet. I shoved the girls behind me, then quickly conjured a wave of water. The water splashed over everything, dousing the fire in an instant, but leaving behind the strong reek of damp soot. Sighing, I pushed a hand through my hair and surveyed the damage. The curtains were beyond repair, as was the table those rags were sitting on. The girls seemed unhurt, but they were sooty too, and Rusalia’s skirt had been badly damaged by thefire.
“What happened?” Carlin, the butler, demanded as he rushed into the room. His eyes widened as he surveyed the damage, and he glared at the cowering girls. “Do you have any idea how long this is going to take to cleanup?”
Ignoring him, I bent down to sniff at the rags, which had been burnt to a crisp. “Alcohol,” I said, straightening up. “Whose idea was it to leave rags soaked in alcohol in this room?” I planted my hands on my hips as I stared down thebutler.
“The playroom was not a priority, with all the guest rooms being readied,” he said stubbornly, refusing to back down. Carlin was a holdover from the previous Chief Mage and had never liked me much. “And I hardly expected the rags to be set on fire. Someone should teach these children to better control theirmagic!”
“Andyoushould stop acting so high and mighty before I decide to burn you to a crisp,” I growled, stalking over to him. Carlin paled as I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You know damn well that this is the playroom and these children are still learning how to use their magic. Make sure the servants don’t leave cleaning supplies or anything else dangerous in hereagain.”
“Yes, Miss Baine,” he said grudgingly, bowing his head. I resisted the urge to smack him across his judgmental face—clearly this man had either never dealt with children or had no patience for them. I was going to need to have a chat with the steward about this later—if my own children were going to be running around the palace someday, I definitely wanted to make sure their play spaces were safe. We’d need a trained mage nanny, I realized, or perhaps two, to keep up with them. And perhaps it was time for Carlin to retire to some beachside cottage. What kind of pension package did his job entail? One more thing to findout.
“All right,” I finally said, turning back to the children. “What do you say we go enjoy the rest of our dayoutside?”
The girls were feelingguilty and scared after the near-disaster in the playroom, but once I managed to coax them outdoors, they quickly forgot about the fire. Soon enough, we were engaged in a game of hide-and-seek. The vast gardens would ordinarily make it quite a challenge, but as I closed my eyes and counted to thirty, I could hear the girls giggling as they scampered off in different directions. I was going to have to make an effort not to find them too fast—I could ferret them out all too easily with my shiftersenses.
“Ready or not, here I come!” I called, finally opening my eyes. The girls were nowhere to be seen, but as I stood up, my nose twitched, easily separating out their scents. I decided to follow Tinari first, whose scent was redolent of candy and book binding glue. Pretending to look around and search, I casually made my way around the side of the palace toward the rosegarden.
On my way to Tinari’s hiding place, I passed by one of the shallow pools dotting the palace garden. I stopped for a second to admire the glimmering carp swimming below the surface, then frowned as I realized I couldn’t see any. Despite the bright, sunny weather, the water was an odd dark color obscuring the normally clear depths. Had somebody contaminated the water with some kind of dark ink? And what would that do to the poor fish? Drawing closer, I noticed a ripple near the edge closest to me, and the hairs on my arms rose as I scented a strange brand of magic. It was a lot stronger than the usual burnt-sugar smell, with an exoticundertone.
“What the hell is going on here,” I murmured, bending at the waist a little so I could get a better look. I wasn’t stupid enough to let the dark water touch me—if there was some kind of spell at work, that might not be safe. I was just about to call to the gardener when a giant pale hand shot out of the water and grabbed me around thewaist.
“Hey!” I yelled, shock and horror filling me as I struggled against the fist. What the hell was going on here? I blasted it with fire, but the flames had no effect as the hand yanked me beneath the surface of the pool. The water was only four feet deep, so I expected to hit the ground instantly, but instead I was dragged deeper, and deeper, until the water pressure was unbearable. My head was splitting, my lungs were bursting for air, and there was only cold darkness. Not a single life form was around me aside from the giant fist crushing my ribs, not even the flash of a fishscale.
By Magorah,I thought dimly as I began to lose consciousness. My struggles grew feeble as I ran out of air and lethargy weighed down my limbs.Am I about todie?
7
Just when Iwas certain I was about to expire from lack of oxygen, the hand hurled me out of the water. I crashed into the grassy earth at full speed, and would have cursed when I felt my nose crack if I hadn’t been so busy coughing up gallons ofwater.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” I managed to gasp when I’d finally expelled the last of the water from my lungs. Sputtering, I rolled onto my back and pressed a hand to my nose. It was already healing, but I sped up the process with a little burst of magic as I stared up at the sky. It was still blue, and the sun was shining between the puffy white clouds, but the air was a good twenty degrees colder and the scents around me were unfamiliar. What the hell had happened? Where was I? None of the magic I’d studied explained the trick with the giant fist, and there was nothing in Fenris’s memories to explain iteither.
“She looks like a drowned rat,” a female voice sneered in a strange language, and I froze. Pushing myself up, I twisted around to see that three women were standing a short distance away, staring at me. There was also a little boy hiding in the branches of an old tree nearby. I’d been so discombobulated by my arrival that I hadn’t noticed them atfirst.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded as I struggled to my feet. Fenris’s knowledge allowed me to understand her—she was speaking some version of Manucan, an old dialect. My shoes were filled with water, and my damp clothes were working against me. Scanning the area briefly, I saw that I was standing in the garden of an old country house made of gray stone, partially overgrown with moss and ivy. While it looked ancient, the mansion was in good repair, and the gardens had a variety of well-trimmed trees and bushes. Everything but the house and sky was in shades of lush green, and the air was damper than back inCanalo.
The three ladies standing before me were regarding me with various expressions of disdain or curiosity. The one on the right, silver-haired and hunched with age, seemed the kindest, her pale blue eyes shining with worry and excitement. The one in the center was middle-aged, and my eyes widened as I took in her silver-threaded dark red hair and her violet eyes. And the one on the left, who stood far taller than theothers…
“I am Ta’sradala,” she said imperiously, looking down at me from her straight nose. She wore a pale green gossamer gown and had long hair the exact same shade as Iannis’s cascading around her willowy frame. Her shimmering violet eyes were narrowed with disdain, and her mouth was curled back into a sneer, but even these things did not detract from her ageless beauty. Her alabaster skin glowed as if power simmered just beneath the surface, and by the way the air shifted subtly around her, I expected that it did. "And you, little beast, are not worthy to stand beforeme.”
“Let me guess,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and mustering all my bravado, because I wasnotabout to let these women see that, inside, I was starting to quake in my boots. “You’re Iannis’s grandmother, and you”—I turned to the middle-aged woman—“are hismother.”
“Ennartha ar’Sannin,” she said, inclining her head slightly. Unlike Ta’sradala, her expression was blank, but I had no doubt that she wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me. “Welcome to Manuc, MissBaine.”
“Welcome indeed,” Ta’sradala scoffed. “We should smite her right where she stands. I will not allow such riffraff to mingle with mybloodline.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, taking a step toward her. My shock was quickly dissipating as fury took its place. “I don’t care who you are or how powerful you are. You don’t have the right to yank me from my home and then insult me on top ofit.”
