Chapter 19 #2
“Here’s a thought,” I said, suppressing my dislike of Harron and forcing myself to be objective.
“Why don’t you create an elite squad of human agents and put Harron in charge of them?
The biggest problem our country is facing, as evidenced by how easily Thorgana was able to turn humans and shifters to her cause, is that you mages keep looking down at the other races as inferior, excluding them from important positions even though this is their country, too.
Harron might not have his magic anymore, but he still has all his knowledge, and his nose for scandal.
” Garrett opened his mouth, but I kept talking, my enthusiasm growing for the idea.
“It might be easier for a human unit to liaise with the various Enforcers Guilds across the Federation than for mages. Remember how Captain Skonel reacted to you when we visited him? And speaking of sharp noses, why not have a shifter unit too? The Garaian Emperor employed an entire unit of lion shifters as his personal guard. I’d be surprised if they don’t also serve as an informal spy unit. ”
“That all sounds very unusual,” Garrett said, looking bemused. “But unconventional ideas might just be what we need right now. And you are right—it would be a shame to put Harron out to pasture when he could still be of use. I will consider it, and discuss it with the Minister.”
“Great. Let me know if you need my help.” Not that I particularly wanted to keep working with Garrett, especially in light of his recent actions.
But I was beginning to see that it wasn’t always possible to crush your enemies outright—sometimes you had to work with them.
And if Garrett could convince the Minister to bring more humans and shifters into government positions, it would be a huge step forward for the Federation.
“Very well.” Sighing, Garrett sat back in the chair.
“I am sorry, too, that Fenris did not survive,” he said somberly.
“I know he was a good friend to you. But perhaps it is best that he did not—I meant it when I told you that I was very close to arresting him. I have strong evidence that he was likely not Fenris at all, but Polar ar’Tollis, the former Chief Mage of Nebara.
Their interests and knowledge were far too similar, and eccentric, for me to write it off as simple coincidence.
But,” he added with another sigh, “there is no way I will ever be able to prove it, now that Fenris is gone.”
A burst of anger filled me at Garrett’s callous pronouncement, but icy fear followed on its heels. Fenris might be gone, but Iannis was not. If Garrett did find a way to prove that Fenris was Polar, he could still go after Iannis for performing that illegal transformation spell.
While Garrett stared bleakly at the grate, lost in his own thoughts, I quickly sifted through Fenris’s memories, searching for something I could use to deflect suspicion.
Images of the two of us talking rushed past, of spending nights by the fire out in the wilderness of Mexia, and of fighting Resistance soldiers.
I forced myself not to get caught up in them.
I could feel Fenris’s fond regard of me, his almost fatherly affection, and my heart ached for the loss once more.
Thankfully, his earlier memories of Polar were quite different, and I was able to put my emotions aside and sift through the events that had gotten him exiled in the first place.
“You were right to be suspicious of Fenris, but your reasoning is completely off base,” I said at last, and Garrett’s eyebrows winged up. “Fenris wasn’t Polar—he was Polar’s son.”
Garrett nearly fell out of his chair. “That’s ridiculous,” he sputtered, looking at me as though I were insane.
“Polar wasn’t married, and I never heard that he had any children.
Believe me, I investigated his past in great detail.
And even if he had been married, it would never have been to a shifter. ”
“Well, you missed one secret,” I insisted, thankful Garrett did not have a shifter nose—the lie I was spinning was outrageous, but no more so than the truth.
“About forty years ago, Polar had a one-night stand with a wolf shifter female that resulted in Fenris. The wolf shifter refused to keep the cub because he was a hybrid. Since Polar couldn’t acknowledge him without causing scandal, he entrusted him to Mendir ar’Tollis, Polar’s cousin, to be raised discreetly.
” There was a little truth sprinkled in there—Mendir actually was Polar’s cousin.
He’d been a reclusive mage who lived near Nebara’s chilly northern border, and his scholarly tastes had run very similarly to Fenris’s.
“Mendir?” Garrett’s brow contracted. “I have been to his estate in my search for Polar. The old fellow died a couple of years before the scandal, and the place was empty. But I talked to the neighbors, and there was no mention of any wolf shifter.”
“He was very eccentric and reclusive, from what Fenris told me. He made Fenris hide in the library on the rare occasions he admitted visitors. Fenris told me all about how he had to hunker down behind the big green leather sofas as a cub.”
Garrett blinked as that particular detail, which would have been impossible for me to know under normal circumstances, struck home.
“Unlike me, Fenris only had a tiny bit of magic,” I continued before Garrett could ask any awkward questions, “but he was still brought up as a mage, and he became Mendir’s research assistant when he was older.
He also corresponded with Polar about their research.
When Mendir died five years ago, he inherited his mountain property, but it was very lonely up there, so Fenris took discreet trips to the city to visit his father. ”
“No wonder you two were close, then,” Garrett said, sounding astonished. “You were both shifter-mage hybrids.”
“Yep.” My throat tightened a little—there was truth to that, even if not quite in the way I was spinning it for Garrett. “After Polar got into trouble—”
“Trouble,” my ether parrot squawked, materializing on top of Garret’s head again.
“Dammit,” Garrett shouted, flailing his arms about in an effort to dislodge the bird, and giving me more time to think up a logical conclusion to my story.
“Get over here,” I told the bird, holding out an arm.
“Here,” Trouble cried, launching himself off Garrett’s head.
He landed on my forearm with a flap of his wings, sending a little hum of magic through me.
“As I was saying,” I continued, stroking the parrot’s ghostly head, “once Polar got into hot water, he wrote to Iannis and asked him to take Fenris in, knowing that once he died, Fenris would have no one. Iannis agreed, and he and Fenris became good friends. You know the rest,” I finished with a glare.
“And before you ask, Fenris had no contact with Polar while he lived here. He once told me that he suspected Polar had gone to Faricia.”
Garrett was silent for a long moment, clearly weighing each aspect of the story I’d just spun from him.
“It is plausible, what you say,” he finally agreed.
“I did not know Polar very well, but he was a mage through and through. It would be unthinkable for one of us to live as a shifter, even to escape certain death. Had such a transformation even been possible, submitting to it would not have been in character. Despite the evidence pointing in that direction, I found it hard to believe that your Fenris and Polar could have been one and the same. I’m glad you finally saw fit to explain about his peculiarities. ”
I was silent, resolutely repressing a tiny spark of guilt at misleading him. There was no point in feeling remorse—Garrett could never learn the truth, or Iannis would be at risk once more. “Now he is dead, I am no longer bound by my promise to keep his secrets,” I finally said.
“In any case, I shall no longer be devoting so much time to this matter,” Garrett said, smiling thinly. “I may have become a little too obsessed with this case, to the detriment of my career.”
“Maybe you could stop attacking my fiancé, too,” I suggested dryly, “and just focus on being good at your job, if you want the Minister’s position so badly.”
Garrett’s face flushed. “I am good at my job,” he said, drawing himself upright.
“And I am not afraid to do whatever is required to move up in the ranks. But,” he admitted, softening a little, “these past few days have shown me that Lord Iannis is a very good Chief Mage indeed, who went far beyond what most of his peers would have done to save and protect his citizens. It would be a disservice to the people of Canalo to remove him. So you need not fear on that count.” He stood up, then bowed low.
“I must go check on Harron now. Good evening, Miss Baine.”
He walked out, taking all the fear and anxiety I’d been experiencing over the last few days with him.
Sighing, I settled back into the couch, feeling both relieved and sad.
My lies had been spun too late to do Fenris any good, but with any luck, they would at least save Iannis from further persecution.