Page 66 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

“Same thing.”

Hardly.“First lesson of learning to fight? You almost never get to pick the time or place.”

They’re the same words Finn said to me when she started my training in the driving sleet right after our mother’s execution. Her body hadn’t even begun to rot on the Black Quay when Finn pulled me into the alley and told me to throw a punch at her.

She caught it in her fist, then held a knife at my throat in a blur.

From then on, Ihadto be faster than her.

But I don’t tell Aoife that. I don’t tell her anything about myself.

Slowly, we start to form a routine.

She comes with me to the dinners I’m forced to attend, both of us trying to blend in at whatever awful table we’re placed at.With both her and Talon as my shadows, the noble daughters seem to hesitate from attacking again. I catch their calculating glares.

More than once, I catch the prince lingering close too, always with a look in his eyes that borders on a strange, sly kind of interest.

After dinner, I train with Aoife until even my own muscles ache.

She pushes herself with a desperate determination that mirrors my own. I can’t help but wonder if this is how I looked to Finn when she first trained me.

I show Aoife the most vulnerable spots to strike a larger opponent as she describes how Prince Cashel refuses any glass of wine offered to him and how the High Queen watches him. She tells me which of the noble daughters speak to the Cymreans, and which ones do not.

And slowly, my plan for my opponents begins to come together.

The second invitation from the High Queen’s secretary arrives with my dinner, announcing in a looping script that the Test of Wisdom—whatever that will be—is set for the day after tomorrow. I push myself through drill after drill with Talon that night, punching and twisting and pushing my muscles to the point of exhaustion. Each punch and duck and kick gives me back a tiny semblance of control, even as the hours tick by after they leave and sleep refuses to come for me.

Because I still haven’t figured out how to get into the High King’s rooms.

And as far as I know, no peasant has ever survived the second test of the Assay.

My mind runs through the risks and possibilities all night with no answers. The staircase leading to the king’s chambers crawls with gardai and courtiers. One look when I ventured out with Talon days ago under the pretense of exploring the castle was enough to make it clear I have zero chance at getting to his door without being blocked or questioned. Either one could get me killed then and there. Not to mention, the High King hasn’t been at any of the dinners since the First Look, when he murdered the musician with the green shawl.

Now, even the servants are whispering about his absence.

The next morning, I flip carefully through the pages of the book Wolf left for me, as if looking at it again can give me any hint about whatever comes next.

Anything is better than sitting here alone, just waiting for tomorrow.

I close my eyes and let the dangerous coals of hope simmer in my chest.

Old Ones, Eireann could be so much better than what we are right now. With healer mages, we could be a place where a fever or a wound didn’t always need to be fatal. With combat mages, we could be a place where Cymrea wouldn’t dare to invade. Where, even in a famine, common mages could help stretch supplies of grain and fruits and meats.

Where suffering is a tragedy, instead of the norm.

For centuries, the High Kings tolerated the mages, and the mages kept to their scrolls and spells and out of court politics. But the Martyr and this High King… neither, my mother alwayssaid, had any interest in the way things had been done before. The High King wanted the mages to do his bidding. The Martyr wanted mages to wield not just magic but influence at court.

And here we are.

Not even the Martyr herself could reverse the draining of the Seven Wells. It would be like trying to refill a lake that’s run dry.

But, fuck… if we could buy magic for ourselves—barter it from traders from the republics breaking free of Cymrea’s grip or even from the Málmar Islands—everythingwould be different. Even if the legends about remnants of magic lingering in the bones of dead mages were real, that would be something.

Anything is better than the way things are now.

I have to believe that’s what the Whisperers are fighting for. A better, more equal world where even if the Seven Wells are empty, we’re allowed to buy magic, even if the mages have to get it from somewhere else and bring it here.

I choose to let myself believe.