Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Stavros’s new intense “need” for assistance puts a significant damper on what little social life I was developing. When Esmae catches me outside the dining hall, arriving for breakfast while we’re just leaving after an early one, I feel like I haven’t seen her in a year.
“Your employer is keeping you awfully busy these days,” she says with a sympathetic smile when I stop to say hello.
Stavros glowers from where he’s also halted several paces away. Which is about as far as he’s gotten from me at all in the past two days, although at least he allows a door between us when I use the latrine.
I offer a wry smile in return. “I’m surviving. It’s good to see you, but I don’t think I can stay for much of a conversation.”
Esmae’s single-eyed gaze darts to Stavros and then back to me. Her laugh sounds a bit nervous, maybe because he looks like a menace even when he’s leaning against the wall in a supposedly nonchalant pose. “That’s all right. He’s got to give you a break at some point, I suppose. For now…”
She fishes in her carry pouch and produces a fine gold chain with a simple flower pendant dangling from it. A teal gem gleams at its center. “There was a merchant selling these in sets of two. I didn’t need both… I thought it might go well with your dress.”
She tips her head toward my turquoise gown, which I guess I must wear often enough for anyone to figure out it’s my favorite.
My heart squeezes with a bittersweet pang. For an instant, I’m seven years old again, beaming at Linzi’s dimpled five-year-old face as she holds out a daisy she plucked to me.
Outside of Casimir’s bath, that’s probably the last time anyone offered me any kind of present.
As I take the necklace and fasten the chain around my neck, a faint aura of magic prickles into my chest. It feels like one of those minor spells shopkeepers who can afford it use to encourage people’s purchases.
Well, even if Esmae bought it partly thanks to magical influence, she didn’t have to give the second necklace to me.
Julita scoffs. Cheap thing. Might not even be gold all the way through. I doubt it cost her more than a few bits.
If she wasn’t an ephemeral presence residing inside my head, I’d kick her. Nobles obviously don’t understand that a thing can be worth much more than the money you have to pay for it.
I aim a more emphatic smile at Esmae, wishing I was a better friend to her than one who has to make up lies and pretend to be someone I’m not. “Thank you. They do go together well.”
Stavros clears his throat with an air of impatient boredom. I shoot a glower back at him before gathering my skirts. “Sorry. Duty calls.”
Esmae pats my arm. “I won’t keep you from it.”
I pick up my pace to draw up beside the former general as he strides through the nearest entryway and across the courtyard. “You don’t have to protect me from her. She’s tried to stop Anya and the others from harassing me.”
Stavros lets out a disbelieving grunt. “That little mouse couldn’t defend you from a fly. Are you really so overworked? I thought you were looking forward to today’s expedition.”
I make a face at him, but I honestly can’t complain.
Yes, I’ve spent the past two days constantly on edge that my magic will flare up and spark Stavros’s suspicions. But the truth is that the former general’s presence has scared off all of the enemies I’ve made here.
We’ve been eating early or late, and I’ve mostly been trotting at his heels from responsibility to responsibility, so my path hasn’t crossed with Anya or Romild much. But even when it has, the sight of him looming nearby has kept their mouths shut and their hands to themselves.
So far, no more assaults has meant no more flailing deadly magic tearing up my insides. I can thank him for that, as much as I’d prefer not to.
And I’ve been counting down the hours to our trip today.
“How long a ride should it be?” I ask without deigning to address his comments.
“No more than two hours if we set a good pace. Mostly flat country roads, nothing too onerous. I hope you’re up to that.”
The glint of challenge in his eyes adds Thief to the end of the last sentence even if he didn’t say it out loud.
“Sounds like a walk in the park,” I declare, even though I haven’t ridden outside of the city in nearly ten years.
Just to prove how little concerned I am, when we reach the stable I walk straight to Toast’s stall.
Stavros lets out a guffaw when he sees where I’m going. “You’re not serious.”
“We’ve made friends. Haven’t we, Toast?” I reach to scratch the stallion’s jaw, and he does actually lift his head for me without hesitation this time. “He should set a good pace, I’d think.”
“He’ll do that,” Stavros drawls. “Whether it’ll be in the direction you want to go…”
“Let me worry about that.”
Toast makes a show of shaking his mane and stomping his hooves as I lead him into the yard, but he doesn’t put up too intense a fuss. How often does he get taken out at all by anyone other than reluctant stable hands ensuring he gets the minimum of exercise and idiot noblemen proving their bravado?
Sometimes kindness is the way to go. If he scares me off too much, he knows he’ll be stuck with just those louts again.
Naturally, Stavros has a stallion of his own, an immense ruddy chestnut that looks picked to match both his size and his hair.
His current prosthetic—a narrower hooked loop of metal with a thumb-like protrusion on one side, which I guess must be designed for riding—snags around the reins easily so he can lead the animal to the gate.
His mount falls into step with him with perfect coordination. Beside me, Toast kicks up his heels with a rebellious snort.
Traitor.
Beyond the college walls, Stavros swings into the saddle as easily as dropping into a chair. Toast sidesteps when I reach for the saddle, leaving me hopping for balance, but I get a good grip on his mane at his shoulders and heave myself up regardless.
“I’m fine,” I say to Stavros’s raised eyebrow.
To my immense gratitude, Toast does mostly behave on our way out of the city.
We circle around the college grounds through the inner wards, cross the river over the longest bridge, and have only a short trek through the outer neighborhoods before we can pass through the gate nearly due north of the city.
Stavros flashes a seal imprinted on a leather token at the guards there, and they motion us through without comment. We pass a line of merchant wagons and carts hauling farm produce and then find ourselves with open road ahead of us.
The former general studies it with occasional twitches of his head where his gaze lingers. I can’t see anything but wild fields and neater farmland on either side of us.
Far ahead, a dark smudge of forest shadows the horizon. The early morning sun warms my hair through the scattering of fluffy white clouds.
Not even the tang of manure from the nearest farm can diminish the freshness of the air away from the city streets. I drink in a big gulp of it and start asking the questions I haven’t risked while we were within the college’s walls. “Where do your colleagues think we’re going?”
“I mentioned that I’d heard of an excellent smith out this way who King Konram might want to bring on for arming our forces. Sadly, we’re going to discover that he’s off on a pilgrimage of his own.” Stavros shoots a cocky grin at me.
“Very convenient,” I agree, and adjust my grip on the reins. I’ve been waiting for us to take this step in our investigation, but that hasn’t stopped a knot of anxiety from forming in my gut. “And the temple where we’re actually going is devoted to Inganne?”
Stavros nods. “I suspect there’ll be plenty of music and frivolity if you didn’t get your fill of dancing at our interrupted ball.”
I roll my eyes. “I think I can manage to restrain myself.”
The godlen Inganne presides over creativity and play. She’s generally depicted as childlike, with round cheeks and bouncing curls. It’s hard to imagine her taking out vengeance on me even if she happens to look down on her devouts and notice my illicit power among them.
I can hope, anyway.
I should be glad we’re not heading to a temple of Sabrelle, the combative godlen whose sigil Stavros bears, or of Creaden, given the royal godlen’s hard-on for justice and authority.
When Toast takes a mind to investigate the tufts of clover off in the field we’re passing, I give him a firm tap. “You said more than one of the orphans Ster. Torstem took an interest in have dedicated themselves there?”
“Yes, three of them. Two girls, who I know you were particularly concerned about, and one of the boys.”
“How long ago?”
“The boy was nine years ago, the girls six and two.”
A good range of time, then, in case Torstem’s intentions have changed over the years.
The thought of all that time passed gives me pause.
“If the orphans are tangled up with the scourge sorcerers somehow… that would probably mean they’ve been experimenting for quite a while, wouldn’t it?
Torstem sponsored the ‘institute’ more than a decade ago.
I thought the daimon only began acting up recently. ”
The former general grimaces. “That’s true. If the conspiracy has been underway for years, they’ve either mostly kept their experiments away from the college before now, or they’ve started escalating their magical practice in the past few months.”
I suppress a shiver. “Maybe for those plans Torstem was talking about.”
Stavros glances over at me, swaying so easily with his stallion’s even gait that I want to jab my heel against his side.
“We’ll obviously confirm that the devouts are who we expected and question them about Ster.
Torstem’s involvement in their lives. Do you have some test in mind to determine if they snuck off to whore themselves out at his bidding? ”