“You will learn! There will be mages to help.”
“Lessons? Like the one Ban Morin wanted to give me.”
“No! Not at all like that.”
“You just want to …giveme to the king. Like a present. Like I’m athing.”
“No, Netta, I …”
“But I thought that you … that you and I …” I couldn’t finish my sentence. I didn’t know how. Patrick stared at me, his jaw tight and his face pale. I turned away and took a deep breath, clenching my hands into fists at my side. I made an effort to speak slowly and carefully.
“So those are the mages you spoke of? Your group of mages that you told me about—the ones who practice freely, owned and controlled by no one. The ones you told me would take me in. They are employees of the king, then, who will groom me for his service?”
“No! They believe in the free use of magic, as I told you …”
“How is anything you’ve just told mefreedom?”
“They will help you to control your magic. To guide it.”
“Yes, towards your ends. HowusefulI could be to you.” I said coldly. I remembered his face when he had watched me heal the bone-deep wound in my finger. Something had changed then. Even at the time, I had felt it.Silly. Slow.What a fool I had been to let myself soften towards him.
“Not just useful! What you could do,” he continued, “whatwecould do, would be … remarkable.”
I scoffed.
“I mean it, Netta. I saw how powerful you are. I have been working to keep this kingdom from falling into chaos, and I saw that you were the key to it all.”
“And my mother? And the book?”
“We will find them tomorrow! I was not misleading you about that. This is … separate.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’ve lied to me from the very beginning. I want to go back to my rooms. Take me back. Now. Unlock that door.”
We glared at each other for a long, charged moment before Patrick remembered himself and slipped his mask back into place.
Baldbeak nibbled at my ear in concern.
For why so angry?
I did not answer him. I couldn’t. My flushed cheeks were the only reminders of the wine in my veins; the rest of me was stone-cold sober and bristling with irritation.
“Milady wanted to give me to Ban Morin. You want to give me to the king. You are the same.”
“We arenot.”
“You are fooling yourself if you think so. I am not a puppet to be danced about by whoever decides to hold the strings. I am not yours to give away, and I amnota pawn in your game.”
Patrick said nothing. His usual glibness, his subtle barbs and playful quips, had vanished. He stepped swiftly to the door and unlocked it, then took my arm: his grip steady, butno longer gentle. I allowed him to guide me back out into the bright lights and noise of the ballroom, and parted from him as soon as I reasonably could without causing a scene.
“Netta …” I heard him say from behind me, but I ignored him. I accosted one of the tray-bearing servants instead and downed a full glass of sparkling wine, then another. It burned my throat on the way down. The vast room was too bright; too loud. There was too much laughter and too much music for a kingdom teetering on the brink of war.
So. No more Patrick. And no more Dwale, either, clearly. I was alone again, aside from Baldbeak, and if I were to find my mother and her book, I would have to do it alone.
I moved through the glittering throng, keeping my expression neutral, my hands steady, even as my heart pounded, until I found my target.
The Pontiff.
His great golden chain of office made him unmistakable. He stood near the great marble fireplace. The fire was not lit, but the servants had filled the hearth with tall beeswax candles on gilt pedestals, so that light still blazed from it, setting the Pontiff’s yellow robes aglow and his perfectly smooth bald head gleaming.
