Gossip
“Perhaps we’re overthinking this,” Kai said, her voice light. “Let’s just walk out the front door, shall we?” She drifted in that direction, pausing now and then to smile demurely as guests plucked orders from her tray.
Math’s stomach clenched. “No. That’s—no.”
Captain Nuhzar had just entered the ballroom.
Kai made a faint sound of dismay. Through their bond, he felt her irritation flicker hot, tempered by a measured wariness. “He’s becoming tiresome. Damnably persistent, that one.”
“He thinks that’s a virtue,” Math muttered, scanning the room without looking like he was scanning the room.
The party itself was a blur of silk, laughter, and chandeliers. Wealth and power thickened the air, but Math lacked the context to gauge how much—only that it was enough to make his own presence absurd.
Retreat was blocked. The servant overseer guarded the kitchen doors with razor focus. Without empty trays, they’d be turned back. And Nuhzar still loomed near the front entrance. Gods knew how many knights waited outside.
That left only one path: the grand staircase curling up to the second floor and the gilded double doors at the top. As Math watched, a server carried a tray of pastries up, knocked on the door, and was allowed inside.
He tugged on Kai’s sleeve. “We’ll have a better chance if we split up. I’ll meet you at the top.”
She shifted beside him, elbow to elbow, their trays aligned like shields. “Remember that you’re a wild mage,” she murmured. “Your limitations are self-imposed.”
“My inability to manifest a weapon begs to differ.”
“My magic doesn’t care about my belief, but yours does, and you countered a spell I cast at the height of my powers without even trying. Don’t undersell yourself.” Her amusement sparked bright for a moment—then she vanished into the crowd before he could argue.
Math worked his way along the dance floor’s edge, head lowered, tray balanced. He let the ambient murmur wash over him. Guests discussed the usual: Vilsenor’s provocations, Cinoparan skirmishes, Valdea’s diplomatic silence. Pirates. Lomar. King Sanistral’s ambition to annex everything that moved.
Nothing about Kaliri. Nothing about trees.
He began quietly circling defensive spells. If things went wrong, there wouldn’t be time to cast later. Kai’s words echoed. If she was right, his limits were lies the Order had trained into him.
He’d been told knowledge was power. But if Kai was right, ignorance was the real secret.
Kai traded trays with another servant and moved toward the stairs. Math watched her pass directly behind Nuhzar, and nearly had a heart attack. She didn’t even break stride. Nuhzar, thankfully, didn’t notice.
She reached the top, knocked on the door, and was admitted.
Math inhaled once, steadying himself, and followed.
The door cracked open when he knocked. A woman in a white-and-sky-blue uniform regarded him, the lion of Rokasmaa gleaming on her chest.
She didn’t ask his name. Just gave him a squint, lifted her chin, and said, “What do you have?”
Math glanced down at his tray. “Fruit tarts?” he offered, a touch too hopefully.
From the foot of the stairs came a sharp bark: “Kaven!”
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t turn. Didn’t even breathe.
The guard barely reacted—too much noise, no reason to think the shout was meant for the man with the pastry tray.
She smiled. “Perfect. Those are her favorite.”
The guard opened the door and ushered him inside.
The moment Math crossed the threshold, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Not about escaping Captain Nuhzar—that part was brilliant. But this? This had all the hallmarks of jumping off a tree branch only to realize it had been growing from the edge of a cliff.
The room wasn’t a room, as much as an opulent upper foyer: gaslit, marble-floored, lined with polished woodwork and velvet drapery.
Hallways stretched left and right, unmarked doors lined the walls, and a sweeping balcony opened onto the city of Cherkiss.
Whether palace, hotel, or private manor, it catered to the elite of Rokasmaa.
And it was crawling with soldiers.
All of them wore the formal white-and-blue colors of the empire. A jeweled sword hung from every belt. Math counted a dozen before he stopped trying.
The woman who’d opened the door gestured him toward a linen-draped table. A severe man in scholastic robes was transferring food from Kai’s tray with the reverence of a priest arranging an altar. Nearby—
Math mentally stumbled.
That was an Idallik Knight.
She wore no armor or tabard, but instead a luxurious gown that wouldn’t have looked out of place among the dancers downstairs.
The gold-embroidered crest on her dress declared her allegiance, as well as the fact that she was busy circling spells on the food—poison warding and toxin detection.
The sort of thing one might do when protecting someone important.
Next to her, another servant waited to ferry dishes to some unseen location.
This wasn’t a staging area. It was a buffer zone for someone important enough to warrant this level of paranoia.
Someone important, yet also someone not mingling with the guests below.
Then he saw it: a tiny hand snaking up from behind the table to steal a pastry.
Math made a decision.
He stepped sideways, closer to the Idallik Knight. “Excuse me, ma’am—are you one of the knights? Because there’s a man downstairs claiming he’s one, too, and he wanted to do something to my tray. Is he one of yours? Should I have let him? He got so mad when I said no.”
She looked up sharply, one hand drifting beneath the table as if to reassure herself of the location of a weapon.
“No,” she said flatly. “He’s not one of mine.”
Someone began pounding on the doors.
“Open up! This is an Idallik matter!” Nuhzar’s voice roared.
Soldiers snapped into motion. Half of them rushed to the door, pulling Math and Kai behind them. The rest formed a defensive wall in front of the food table.
The knight swept out from behind the table with a great swishing of skirts.
In her absence, a small face peeked over the edge of the table. Large, dark eyes took in the scene. Math pretended not to notice.
Had it been just the soldiers, Nuhzar might have bullied his way through. But with another knight present—one of high rank—that wouldn’t happen. She’d force Nuhzar to explain himself.
Across the room, Kai caught Math’s gaze. She pulled a ring from her finger—identical to the one she’d used at the Cherkiss train station—and glanced at the balcony. The message was obvious.
He nodded.
At the door to the ballroom, a narrow crack opened.
“Do you have any idea who you’re disturbing?” the knight asked, her voice low and lethal. Math wouldn’t have heard it without the sensory-enhancement spell he’d cast earlier.
“Go,” he murmured.
Math and Kai ran.
Shouts erupted behind them, but the soldiers were normal humans—fast, but not fast enough. As they reached the balcony, Kai made the same gesture she had on the train, whispered the same phrase, and hurled the ring.
It struck the outer wall—and gravity flipped.
Math’s stomach lurched as the world turned sideways. Suddenly, “down” meant the sheer stone facade of the building. He and Kai leaped over the railing and landed running, boots skimming the vertical surface as though it were flat ground.
They were higher than he’d realized—four stories, maybe more. Below them, another rooftop waited two floors down. Beyond that, steam rose from the station’s idling train engines.
They hit the lower roof at a sprint. Math heard startled shouting from behind them, but it was already fading.
They ran.