Page 49

“I suppose I can see the appeal.” At least for someone with a stronger stomach and weaker principles than hers. “Commanding that kind of carnage at such a distance…”

“See! You do understand!”

Renthorn pressed closer with terrible desperation, his breath quickening.

“Step back, Renthorn.”

He didn’t. “You’ve felt the thrill too. This is why you have to show me, Freynan! I have to know the power you’ve known. I have to taste it!”

“This excites you,” she whispered in realization. “Not just the power itself… The act of taking human life.”

“We’re a species of predators, Freynan. What could be more exciting than the raw truth of that? This is conquest. It is power . It’s what made our forefathers the superior race. It’s how they raised a city from a wasteland of savages!”

“You need to take a breath.”

“I need you.”

Sciona yelped as Renthorn tried to kiss her. She pushed against his chest with all her strength, a forearm at his throat. The effort kept his mouth from hers, but it didn’t free her—she was still trapped between his arms, the shelves digging into her back.

“Help!” she gasped. “Someone, help!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that.” Renthorn’s mouth was up against her hair, breath hot on her scalp. “If they come running, who are they going to believe? The best sourcer in the Magistry? Or the new political hire who took all of three months to fall apart?”

“Where’s the raw honesty in that?” Sciona demanded.

“Here,” he breathed.

And Sciona shouted as pain shot through her ear. “Did you just bite me, you f—”

“Come back to my laboratory,” he said against her cheek. “If this is too public for you. We’ll talk mapping behind closed doors.”

“No!” She jerked in another fruitless attempt to get him off. “I’m not going anywhere with you, and you’re not having one line of my spellwork!”

A chuckle bubbled from somewhere deep in Renthorn’s chest. “That’s not how this works, though, is it? The true mage is a conqueror, Freynan. And conquerors don’t ask. We take.”

Clutching his hands painfully in her hair, he pulled her head back and kissed her on the mouth.

Sciona had never been kissed before. She knew it was a thing girls were supposed to want, to fantasize about.

She never had, particularly, but part of her still raged that she was losing this moment of her life to a deranged Cleon Renthorn.

Her right hand went to her belt, only to find her overstuffed bag of books blocking her way to her cylinders.

“No!” She turned her head away, but Renthorn had crushed his body into hers so that there was no leverage to push him off. “I don’t want—”

“Yes, you do. You’re a mage like the rest of us. Yes, you do!”

At last, Sciona got hold of a cylinder, bruising her hand in the effort.

She couldn’t see the paint markings and didn’t care.

Whether she startled Renthorn or permanently burned his eyes from his skull.

She just wanted him off. He struck the conduit aside at the last moment, and it discharged with a bang against the nearby bookshelf, exploding several old tomes.

Something maniacal lit Renthorn’s face as charred paper fluttered to the floor. Realizing his head had nearly been blown off his shoulders seemed to delight him.

“Still using schoolmage’s conduits to defend yourself, Freynan?” he laughed—as though Sciona had had the time in the last three months to devise a multi-purpose highmage’s wand. “You must really want this.”

The ensuing struggle was depressingly one-sided.

Renthorn might be half drunk from lack of sleep, but so was Sciona, and he was so much bigger than she was.

A hand gripped Sciona’s thigh through her dress as Renthorn spun them both around.

The world tilted, and Sciona’s back slammed into the surface of a reading table, her head crashing painfully into the base of a lamp, and Renthorn was on her.

His hand had seized the clasp of her robe when an ice-cold voice hissed, “Highmage!”

Renthorn turned toward the voice—and caught Thomil’s fist full in the face.

The two men were close in size, but Renthorn might as well have been hit by a train. He flew several feet back before sprawling on the library floor, out cold. It would have been comical had Sciona’s heart not been hammering pure panic through her veins.

“Thomil!” she gasped, lurching upright on the desk. “What… Y-you’re not even supposed to be here!”

“You’re welcome, Highmage.” He shook out his hand. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah. Sure. B-but…” Sciona’s heart was beating too hard, knocking all her words askew. “You-you… why?”

“After you left, I realized I couldn’t just sit around waiting for things to go wrong,” Thomil said, rather breathless himself.

“I was on my way to your lab to see how your meeting had gone, but this wasn’t what I thought I’d find when I—Gods, Highmage, I’m so sorry.

” He had lifted his hands like he wanted to put them on her shoulders.

But he maintained a careful few steps of distance—as though afraid she would startle like an animal if he came too close. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Sciona tipped off the table onto her feet—and into his arms.

“Oh,” Thomil said in surprise as she fell into his chest and squeezed him to her. “Um—”

Her voice came out in a half-sob. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

It was insane to find comfort clinging to Thomil.

Sciona was more aware of that now than ever.

If there was one person in this building who had just cause to hate her—one person who did not owe her shelter—it was Thomil.

But everyone Sciona had come into this job admiring and trusting had all turned out to be monsters.

There was no other place to shelter. And she was selfish enough to take it.

“Is he dead?” she asked, not wanting to turn around and look at Renthorn.

“Gods, no. I didn’t hit him that hard.”

“Mmm. Shame.”

Thomil let out a quiet, rather frayed chuckle that vibrated on the same frequency as the unstoppable shaking in Sciona’s limbs.

“Thomil?”

“Sciona?”

“We’re surrounded by devils.”

“That’s what I tried to tell you.”

“I know.” Eyes squeezed shut, she ground her forehead into his chest so hard it had to hurt him. “I should have listened. I just… I had to find out for myself.”

“I know you did.” Thomil’s hand was on her back, rubbing a gentle circle. “I know. It’s alright.”

And Sciona couldn’t believe that he was offering her comfort. After everything. She was about to clutch him tighter when footsteps came pelting through the stacks, disturbing the quiet of the library. The two of them sprang apart like repelling magnets.

By the time the highmages rushed into view, Sciona and Thomil were a socially acceptable several steps apart—although that didn’t make the scene any less strange.

“What the hell is going on here?” Highmage Tanrel demanded.

Sciona opened her mouth but couldn’t come up with anything to say. How was she supposed to explain this?

“What happened to Highmage Renthorn?” Evnan asked as Jerrin Mordra ran to check his pulse.

“He’s alive. Evnan, go get help!”

“Yes, Highmage.” Mordra’s assistant nodded and ran from the library.

“Miss Freynan,” Tanrel said seriously. “What happened?”

“I...” Sciona’s gaze flicked to Thomil, then lit on Tanrel’s hand, which had gone to his pocket watch.

Her colleagues carried more than exploding cylinders for self-defense. They had all worked in the High Magistry long enough to build or commission devastatingly powerful multi-purpose conduits. Halaros also had a hand in his robes, closed on what Sciona could only assume was his wand handle.

Her eyes darted back to Thomil as she fully registered how much danger he was in. If the highmages thought Thomil had laid a hand on one of their colleagues, they were within their rights to kill him on the spot, no questions asked.

“Did this Kwen assault you, Miss Freynan?” Tanrel said as all attention in the library shifted terrifyingly to Thomil.

“No!” she said too shrilly. “No!”

“Nillea,” Halaros addressed one of his assistants. “Run and fetch the security guards.”

“Wait!” Sciona protested, but the assistant had already hurried to do as Halaros said.

Mordra, Halaros, and Tanrel closed on Thomil. Suddenly so eager to defend Sciona now that she was a damsel and there was a dirty Kwen to save her from. Her fists clenched.

“Is that how Renthorn got hurt?” Mordra demanded. “He was trying to defend you?”

Sciona very nearly let out a scream of laughter, but Thomil’s life hung on her next words. He had just saved her—after everything she had put him through. If she couldn’t return the favor, what was the point of her? What kind of power did she really wield?

“Freynan?” Tanrel prompted.

“I…” Think, Sciona . For Thomil. Think!

“Enough,” Halaros said impatiently. “She’s clearly in shock.”

“You!” Sciona turned on Thomil, at last glimpsing their way out of this. “You’re fired!”

“But…” Thomil looked as nonplused as the surrounding mages. “Ma’am—I—”

“You will not speak again!” She rounded on Thomil, deliberately putting her body between him and Halaros, who was probably the most dangerous of her three colleagues. “You useless, miserable imbecile! I want you out of this building immediately!”

“Miss Freynan, we can handle this,” Tanrel said. “If he’s put hands on you, he should be—”

“Excuse me! I don’t tell you how to deal with your servants, do I?

” Sciona hated using the word ‘servant’ instead of ‘assistant,’ but she needed to sell this.

Thomil had drawn the attention of the other mages.

She needed it diverted, needed him invisible if she was to move forward with any of the plans half-formed in her mind.

“As for you,” she turned back to Thomil. “How many times have I told you to be careful with my test conduits?”

“Test conduits?” Tanrel said as Nillea returned with two security guards.