Triand would not have been surprised to know that the man behind the smooth black mask in the library had been able to escape capture. A simple levitation spell and a quick teleportation had put him out of harm’s way and out of reach of the wizards of the Riestran Order of Ebonmight. She would have been surprised, however, that he was not only a very skilled wizard but also had in his youth made it to the rank of captain in the Finustran army, was an excellent uncle to his six nieces and nephews, and volunteered at the monastery of the Healers of Dresnam. Neither of these properties were of any use to him now as his feet dangled a foot off the ground and his handsome unmasked face turned colour as he gasped for air before finally, after agonising minutes, dropping to the stone floor.

  “I accept your apology, conjurer Fradus.”

  The Inner Circle of Manisum remained quiet; the ones farther down the hierarchy, who stood along the wall of the room, were glad they hadn’t removed their uniform masks yet so the Archmage would not see their faces. Two of them broke from the ranks and bore the body away; the dead man was still warm enough to draw blood from.

  Archmage Acarald the Wise sighed. The young mages just weren’t from the same stock as his generation. Too stubborn, too headstrong, too impatient. “My Triand ... It was foolish of him to think he could challenge her on his own. And I have no call for fools.”

  The members of the Inner Circle nodded. They wouldn’t have made it this far up the ranks if they hadn’t played their cards right.

  “Dismissed.”

  The mages filed out of the room. Only the five highest remained, gathered around the orb map of the continent that materialised out of thin air. Acarald glanced at them. You really had to make do with what you were given these days.

  He handed the next best person his staff to hold as he adjusted the hovering dials on the map. It was a good staff; taller than its owner, made out of unidentifiable material that had been carved and moulded and made to form a rectangular pattern at the top surrounded by floating runes, the centre of which held a large blue gemstone that matched the Archmage’s eyes and robes. Wizards of the old school went in for style.

  Which didn’t mean he was harmless.

  “Any sign of her?”

  The Inner Circle fidgeted. There were ways of finding a mage, of course. Tracking the residue of their magic work, discovering the patterns of their spells ... Naturally, it was easier with specialised mages. A decent water wielder or curse-reliant warlock was as easy to discover as a strawberry in a bowl of broth. A few adjustments to the Synthesised Arcane Diagnostic Magnificator – a handy invention originally intended to locate and send help to mages who, out on magical adventures, got trapped in caves or abducted by undersea fish people, and slightly modified by the great Acarald himself – and the magic user’s signature could be traced across the continent.

  There were some difficulties, of course. Witch magic was notoriously hard to track, but who cared about them? Druid magic was equally difficult, but they could be found by following reports of strange wildlife behaviour or sudden trees. This mage’s way of using her talents, however, was as idiosyncratic as a necromancer talking a dead elephant into playing the bagpipes and just as easy to find. She never used magic long enough to pinpoint her location. If she would use a large-scale spell there might be a chance, but it would seem she knew this.

  None of this was what the Archmage wanted to hear.

  “Not since she left Riestra,” a tall warlock with blonde hair curling down to her lower back said. Her birth name was Gidali, but she was generally known as the Scourge of the South. This title was never disputed, or at least not by anyone who didn’t have a latent death wish. “I took the liberty of sending some of my students to investigate. She used a disguise to leave the city, this much we know. If she is using diversion spells, they are very thorough.”

  Acarald chuckled good-naturedly. The five mages looked at each other in alarm.

  “We have blockades all along the main roads,” the Head Conjurer said quickly. “I will personally ensure there will be one of ours in every major settlement. We are recruiting as many others as we can ...”

  “I am minding the skies,” a wizard as old as the mountain the tower stood on said. His milky eyes turned in the general direction of his colleagues. “She will be spotted by a bird eventually.”

  “Granted, it would be easier if we knew where she was heading ...”

  Acarald turned and everyone fell silent. He smiled; it was terrible. “Indeed.” He jabbed a thin forefinger at the orb map. Small orange dots blinked in and out, transforming into intricate runes which the ever-twitchy Master of Runes could decipher with the crook of one shaky forefinger. Other dots had been permanently marked on it, indicating sightings. “She would be a fool to choose a straight path. For the past months she has been ... hopping around. And then she disappeared again. She had us distracted and she will manage again.”

  The mages looked closer at the lines drawn between each of the spots where she had been sighted. The extremely short-sighted Master of Birds held Waldemar, the resident falcon, up to the map to get a better picture. “This spells fu...”

  “I know what it spells.” Acarald vanished the map with a gesture. “This is precisely her kind of humour.” He said it in a tone that suggested more pride than anger. “Keep monitoring the roads. All of them. Let our members with ambition know to bring me her staff. Oh, and tell them not to disappoint me.”

  The mages nodded grimly.

  “Nothing can happen to her. Or to the girl. I’m sure she will want her to stay alive. We can use that.”

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  “Listen to this, a group of warlocks is called a pandemonium.”

  Iwy looked up sleepily. She had dozed off for a moment, as they were resting in the shadow of a tree besides a road heading vaguely north. Triand was giggling maniacally over one of her stolen books.

  “What is that? Compendium of Where to Find Mystical Creatures?”

  “It’s really good.”

  Iwy stretched and dug in her bag for an apple. She looked at the fruit for about a century.

  “Oh, you know what a group of witch hunters is called? A troubling!”

  “Hm.” Iwy put the apple back.

  Triand glanced up from the group name of sorcerers. “Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  “You sure? You’ve been pretty quiet since we left Riestra.”

  They had kept walking long after the city had been out of sight. Triand had insisted on taking the smaller roads instead of the main one. She had lasted until they found a convenient piece of forest where she weaved her protective magic and immediately collapsed. Iwy had had a lot of time to think while her master snored. Unlike the other woman, she wasn’t getting much sleep. Every time she did, she saw her mother trying to tell her something, but no matter how hard Iwy listened she couldn’t hear her.

  They were two days’ travel away from the city now and with every step she moved further from home the dreams got worse.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Triand shut her book and turned towards her. “Alright, I’m guessing you’re lying and it’s really ... everything.”

  “I mean, I don’t want to talk.”

  “Have it your way. I’m not walking in this midday heat, so we’re gonna be here for at least another hour.” She leaned forward and propped her head up on her hands. “And I’m gonna stare at you the whole time.”

  Triand seemed to think she was helping and Iwy was in absolutely no mood for it. “Stop that.”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m just not going to look at you.” Iwy turned around with finality.

  Triand didn’t need to know everything. She was her master, not her friend. That whole master-apprentice aspect didn’t lend itself to a good heart pour-out. Besides, she probably wouldn’t understand. She didn’t have family ... well, she probably did, but she’d never mentioned them. Except for the comment about her mothers, not even once.

  Now she could feel Triand’s eyes burrowing into the back of her skull. She wasn’t sure if this was a magic thing or just her natural talent to irritate. “You can’t keep this up for a whole hour!”

  “You’re right. I once stared down a mountain troll and an Elvish customs officer, I can do this for hours.”

  “If I tell you, will you stop?”

  “Maybe.”

  Iwy turned back. “They found my letters.”

  Triand blinked at her. “Who did what now?”

  “The witch hunters. When they raided our room at the inn they found some letters I was writing. What if they read them?”

  “Did you write something saucy?”

  “They might find out where my family lives, you absolute walnut!” It wasn’t enough that she had to worry about one crazy wizard far away. No, no, he just had to have followers, and the country just had to establish a new witch hunter brigade, all near her village, all at the same time. Why didn’t someone throw a dragon at her on top of everything else? She couldn’t possibly be worried enough yet.

  Triand let that pass, but her face grew a bit softer. “Don’t worry about that. I left them protected.”

  “Does that also work against wizards who don’t like non-mages?”

  “Yes. They won’t find your folks.”

  “Alright, but what about my friends?”

  “Are they in the same village?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then they’re fine.”

  “Why? Did you put a protective ring around the entire village?”

  “No, that’d be much too complicated. I put one around every farm I found before I met up with your folks.”

  It was Iwy’s turn to stare at her. “That’s less complicated?”

  “From a purely magical perspective, yes. Look. People move occasionally, yes? They go to another village, visit neighbours, go on holiday, all that. So it doesn’t make sense to protect a village ‘cause you’d be protecting anyone who’s in there at the time. That also goes for witch hunters or wizards, even if they’re hiding, spells ain’t picky. It’s easier to put a charm on a house that sticks to every person who actually lives there. But that’s a different spell, and you can only do that if you’re relatively close. And I’m really glad you only have eleven families in that place, otherwise that would have killed me.”

  It was better than nothing, but she still felt like rushing back and placing the entirety of Riansfield behind a wall of fire that no outsider could pass. “So they’re safe? And you promise?”

  “They’re as safe as I can keep them,” Triand reassured her. “And they know how to handle themselves. Your mother looks like she’d strangle a man with her apron when it comes to it.”

  “If I find out you flirted with Ma, I’ll kill you.”

  “There, that’s better.”

  Iwy’s lips dragged themselves into a half smile against her will. Maybe Triand wasn’t only annoyance wrapped in terracotta robes.

  “Eat something and pack up. We can still get some miles in today.”

  Iwy’s eyes wandered to the direction they had come from. Riestra had also possibly been her last chance to get on a cart to Ryebridge. But if someone told you they needed you to save a not insubstantial amount of people that happened to include your own, you could hardly say no thanks.

  “I shouldn’t have left. I wasn’t supposed to leave, I was supposed to be the homechild.”

  The look of utter confusion on Triand’s face was solid enough to be packaged and sold. “The what now?”

  Iwy returned the look with added taxes. “You know. The one who doesn’t move away and can take care of the farm.”

  “Is that a Midlands thing?”

  “Doesn’t everyone do that?”

  “And you’re supposed to do it by yourself, how?”

  “Well, no, with my children… which I won’t have since that requires a partner…”

  Iwy was beginning to see the flaw in her parents’ logic. Aside from Famer Danils and his wife Scarface Marni, who had no luck in that respect, bless them, she was the first person she’d met who probably wouldn’t have any children, but she had two sisters, two brothers, and twelve cousins spread out on either side of the family that still lived in her area; someone would be able to help. But it was still technically her job.

  Triand groaned as she packed up her bundle. “You people have so much family, how can you stand that? I had a mother and an aunt, and I was ready to throw ‘em out the window.”

  “That way you’re not alone. Sometimes I’d like to throw them out the window too, especially Derek, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Definitely not magic.”