For a while they all just lay there, waiting for the headache potion to take effect. When his headache finally began to ebb, Mags was able to feel all the muscles that had been tensed up, making it worse. One by one, he coaxed them to relax, keeping his mind blank and thinking of nothing else, just staring at the artificially irregular rock of the ceiling. He wondered how this grotto had been made and who had made it. Whoever had—well, Mags was grateful. And he was equally grateful that no one from the Palace was down here when they had arrived.
“Well,” Bear said into the silence. “You first, Mags. What happened?”
“Nothin’ good,” Mags sighed, but slowly, picking his words carefully, he related everything that had happened, from the time that he and Nikolas had taken up residence to the moment when Nikolas told him that they were leaving. He hid nothing: not what he had done to those poor children, nor what Nikolas had said.
“Huh,” Bear said. “Well... you probably should have gone for the long way with those younglings. At least then you wouldn’t be feeling all guilty now, and you’d know that... no, wait, that’s not true either.”
“What’s not true?” Lena asked.
“Even if—in fact, especially if Mags had spent days getting those little’uns to trust him, then bringing them to the Guard for protection, everyone could still say he’d somehow influenced them. And they would have. And Mags, you’d have even less reason to trust your training.” Bear made a rude noise. “Which is stupid, given what Dallen told you. Companions are better Mindspeakers than any human, or almost any. You’re sure you didn’t somehow taint those younglings, Dallen is sure . . .” His voice trailed off, but Mags knew better than to interrupt Bear when he did that. Something had just occurred to Bear, and he had to think it through before he said it out loud. “I have to wonder if Nikolas isn’t just as sure that you didn’t influence the little’uns as you are. And—and everyone else agrees with him, but they don’t dare tell you. That’s why they pulled you out so fast—something is going on that this just fitted into, and they can’t tell you outright, and they hope you never find out. And that’s why all the people in the know are shielded so tightly. They believe you. They don’t want anything to get out while they try to figure out who it is.”
Mags sat up and stared at Bear, who was still on his back with his hands behind his head, looking up at the rock arch of the grotto. “But tha’s impossible!” he objected.
“Nothing’s impossible,” Bear retorted. “Improbable, maybe. But the second you assume something is impossible, you pretty much open a door for it to come in and happen, because you won’t be guarding against it.”
“There’s a lot of people up here, Mags,” Lena pointed out. “A lot. I know everyone is supposed to be vouched for, but what does that mean, really? Just take the courtiers and the Guard, for instance. Somebody’s uncle who knows their family told the people up here he was reliable, and that’s all there is to it. Same for the servants. Certainly most of them are from families that have served the Crown or the highborn for decades if not centuries, but families die out, and someone has to replace them. That’s just the Palace servants. Some of the highborn who have Palace apartments instead of their own manors bring their own servants. The Hill operates on trust; if you shake that, you upset a lot of people. Do you want to put everyone up here through a Truth Spell to prove they are loyal?”
“No!” Mags retorted, revolted at the idea. Lena was right; the Hill did operate on trust.
“Heralds get a pass because of the Companions, but there are two more Collegia, remember. If you want an example of someone who’s up here all the time and would probably fall right into someone’s hands and babble everything he heard to them if he thought it would get him more adulation, you don’t have to look any farther than Bard Marchand,” Bear continued, with more than an edge of bitterness to his voice. “I’m not saying that he’d work hand in hand with these Agents of yours, not if he knew—but if he thinks they’re just incredibly wealthy and could make him more popular or something, and he thought they were just trying to get a little more influence in the Court, he’d tell them anything he heard and probably help them get on the grounds of the Palace as a bonus. Or take that new protege of his. Where’s he from? We don’t know. How old is he, really? We don’t know that, either. He could be like you, Mags, undersized, and be a lot older than he looks.”
“Any Trainee could, except the Heralds,” Lena replied. “And besides the two Collegia and the servants, there’re all the courtiers, who are always bringing in poor relations, trying to get them advantageous marriages or Crown appointments. For that matter, let’s be really afraid and consider that someone might have murdered a new Guard on his way to take a post at the Palace and taken his place! It’s not as impossible as it seems.”
Mags scratched his head and lay back down. “Reckon not,” he said slowly. “An’ thet business ’bout a Guard... not so crazy neither. Iffen I was t’try an’ git in, reckon tha’s a pretty good way. Guard uniform lets ye inter anyplace on th’ Hill.”
“You know what else I think?” Lena said. “I think the reason Nikolas went all rock-faced on you and you both came back is that what you told him ties right into why they canceled the Healing on Amily’s leg. I don’t think he would have reacted so strongly otherwise.”
Mags opened his mouth—and shut it, without saying anything. It was an unlikely theory—but so was the notion that there were enemy Agents or spies somewhere in the Palace or the Collegia.
And it certainly would explain Nikolas’ stiff attitude.
“Huh,” was all he said.
“I am not gonna tell you to leave it alone, Mags,” Bear said, while he thought about that little tidbit. “But I don’t think you’re gonna get anything out of Nikolas or another other Herald.”
::Rolan certainly hasn’t been forthcoming,:: Dallen put in. ::Which, when you think about it, is interesting. It’s very difficult, even for us, to lie mind to mind—which argues that he is refusing to talk about it because I will certainly know there is something not quite right about a denial.::
“I’ve been thinking about other things too,” Lena said, after another long silence. “I think we’re getting nowhere trying to sort out our own problems. You know, proving that Bear is as good or better than any other Healer, proving that my father is wrong about me, and finding your enemy Agents. I think maybe we should trade problems.”
“. . . just how’s that s’posed t’ work?” Mags asked dubiously.
“Well... look, I have a lot of chances to go just about anywhere up here on the Hill that I want to,” Lena pointed out. “Even Trainees are welcome anywhere they want to go. I know you’ve been training in how to be sneaky, but I’ve been training in how to be welcome. I can literally look everywhere up here for those Agents. What’s more . . .” her voice hardened. “What’s more, I can make people trust me.”
“Wait, what?” Bear asked, startled.
“You know my f—Bard Marchand uses Projective Empathy. They say I have it too, I just didn’t want to... to be so manipulative, so I haven’t gotten much past the most basic use of it, in case I have to use it some day to control a crowd in an emergency.” She lost some of the hard edge to her voice. “So if I really start training in it and use it to make people trust me, the way he does, I can find out a lot.”