“You received it?”I asked.
“He sent it in this evening.I’ve yet to read it, but as he was in capable hands, I trust it is good.”He gave me a generous smile.“The sooner we make his personal experience public, the sooner falsehoods such as these”—he held up the newspaper article—“can be dispelled.”
My gut churned at the undeserved praise, wondering at the contents of Edmund’s report.Would his personal experiences be any better than the falsehoods?Would any emissary have moved the needle on humans’ view on witches at all?
“When will Sir Archibald be questioned, Your Highness?”Maddox asked.
“After I work through this case about the missing treasury funds.”Crown Prince Bennett gestured to the mess of papers on his desk.“I’ve looked through the records this year and it isn’t adding up.It’s taking precedence over everything else at the moment; I may have to call for an investigation.My father will want that to take priority over all other cases, so I cannot say.The two of you should go back and rest.We’ll meet in the throne room tomorrow.”
A clear dismissal.He probably wanted to get back to his paperwork.
After taking our leave, Maddox and I walked back out of the palace gates, him leading a speckled gray horse he had borrowed from the palace stables, its hooves clip-clopping on the silent road.I was suddenly exhausted, as if all my energy had spilled to the floor like an overturned box of pins—and I was in no mood to pick it up.
“Come.I’ll take you back to your boarding house.”Maddox mounted the horse with ease and held out a hand.The lamplight along the street set his blond hair aglow.
“I can go back myself,” I said.
“After almost getting killed?You can’t be serious.”
I withdrew the talisman I finally found buried deep in my satchel.“I have coercion magic, don’t I?”
I half-expected Maddox to withdraw in fear or disgust, but he merely said, “Why didn’t you use it, then?It would’ve protected you.”
“It would have,” I said bitterly.If only I had kept this within reach, that scuffle with the assassin could’ve ended in less than a minute.Why hadn’t I used it?Why had I refused to make use of the magic that made me valuable to everyone else aboveground?
“You shouldn’t be afraid of it, you know,” Maddox said after a moment of silence.“It’s like a sword.”He patted the weapon hanging from his belt.“When I first got this thing, I was scared witless.I thought one wrong move would kill my training partners one after the other,” he said with a laugh.“But when I learned to use it, to control it, it wasn’t so scary anymore.I had a choice.To use it, or not to use it.”
I looked up at him.How I used or didn’t use my coercion magic had never been my choice.I had made a mistake as a child and Ma had forced me to hide it like it was something shameful.Yet, that very point of shame had become the reason why I’d been accepted onto the Witch Committee.
I doubted Maddox had ever been shamed out of using a sword, then had all his worth suddenly put on it.He was trying to be helpful, but years of conditioning was difficult to shake off.I had grown afraid of my hypnosis, convinced that if I used it, I would become wicked, even if I knew it wasn’t true.
It was all too much to explain to him, so I only nodded.
With some effort, I climbed up and settled on the saddle behind him.We rode in silence, the horse’s steady rhythm almost lulling me to sleep.
29
