There was a Kellian watching her from the doorway. Two Kellian, and a red-haired woman. Rennyn lifted her head to look at them properly, then lay back and laughed. Not dead after all.
Ignoring her audience, she looked around more of the room. Four beds, and Seb on the one beside hers. Pale and lying very still, but he breathed.
"How is he?" she asked the small, elderly woman sitting on the far side of his bed.
"Out of the woods. He’ll be sitting up in a day or two. It will take several weeks of treatment before muscle function is fully restored, though."
Irisian poison paralysed before death. But still, he would recover, and in time. Not much else was going according to plan, but she would at least have her brother.
"Is it still the same day?" she asked, suddenly worried.
"The same." The woman was watching her with an air of entertainment which Rennyn definitely didn’t appreciate. "You’ll be hungry, I expect."
More than. Moving cautiously, Rennyn sat up. She was wearing some kind of shift, and her focus stone was missing. Both of them. The sense of unreality was fading, leaving her feeling less than pleased with herself. Events had spiralled out of her control.
"What is this place? Sentene headquarters?"
A third Kellian had appeared in the doorway, and this one Rennyn recognised. "The infirmary of the Houses of Magic in Villemar Palace," the Kellian mage said. "The Sentene occupy one branch of the Houses. The Grand Magister asks if you feel able to meet with her after lunch."
Time for interrogation. Rennyn supposed there was no escaping that. "Provided my clothes can be found," she said, which proved an effective Sentene-banishing charm. They withdrew to other parts of the infirmary while the old woman produced her clothing, recently laundered, and directed her to a small side-room where she could change and clean up.
Her clothes, but not her other belongings. It would be inconvenient if they tried to keep the focuses. Rennyn took her time dressing, weighing options: how much to tell them, what to keep back, and when to lie. Associating with the Sentene now changed the timing but not the main features of the plan. Since she’d survived the night she would make the assumption that she wasn’t under imminent threat from within their ranks. Besides, after last night she had to shift her priorities, due to both the strength of the incursions, and Seb’s injuries. She couldn’t care for him and go racketing about the country, which left her with absolutely no choice in the matter.
"You’ve some minor frost bite on your hands," said the old woman, when she emerged. "The severe chill was the more serious matter. Exhausted as you were, you’re at a high risk for lung infection. I boosted your defences as best I could, but you’d be well advised to keep warm and take a few days' rest."
That sounded nice. Rennyn put it on her list of things to do, and turned to the tray of food which had been brought in her absence, concentrating on filling the aching pit in her stomach. A cup of spiced tea with half a pot of honey dumped into it raised her spirits enormously.
"Thank you for looking after my brother," she said, when she rose to depart. "I mightn’t be here when he wakes, so can you tell him that before I get back he needs to produce a highly imaginative and original explanation of just what exactly he was doing anywhere near that incursion?"
There was only one Sentene outside the door now, the red-headed woman she’d seen in Finton, who said: "The Grand Magister’s Chambers are upstairs," and led her past a number of empty rooms to curving corridors and then up stairs which wound inside a circular tower. They stopped at a well-lit room dominated by a long table.
The Grand Magister was standing with a group of people on the far side of the table, but turned and nodded her welcome when Rennyn came in. "I am glad to see you recovered, young lady," she said. "Please, sit."
The missing contents of her pockets were lined along one end of the table, so Rennyn sat down before them. Both focuses were there, two innocuous round globes, one less than half the size of the other. The larger was clear, with only a few faint traces to show how it had grown, while her own was pitch black. She fastened it around her neck.
"How many died last night?" she asked, as the others settled around the table.
"We don’t have a final tally," Lady Weston replied, lines momentarily etching themselves between her brows. "It may be days before we uncover all the bodies. The Docks are the worst hit. Households, ships, even an entire street with nothing but dead. Over a thousand."
It could not have been more than an hour between the breach and Rennyn’s casting. A thousand dead in an hour. Rennyn stared down at her bandaged hands, and wondered if there was any way she could have prevented this.
"No injunction this time?" she asked, rather than prod that sore.
"My dear child, I’m not altogether sure I would dare," Lady Weston said, with a serious edge beneath the light words. "You are quite the strongest mage I’ve ever encountered. Besides, it was rude of me. Can we begin again, with some introductions? You probably know that I am Honoria Weston. This is Councillor Vargas, High Magister Fennis, Senior Captain Illuma, Senior Captain Faille and Senior Captain Lamprey."
Vargas, an ageing but still handsome blond man, was the Queen’s closest advisor, and the only one looking at Rennyn as if he thought her liable to bite. The Sentene, though they’d unfastened their uniform collars enough for her to see their faces, were expressionless. Magister Fennis, balding and pink-skinned, showed every sign of someone in for a rare treat.
She’d paused overlong without responding, and her reply felt strange in its honesty. "Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere."
"Ah." Her answer hadn’t been a surprise. The Grand Magister had been doing some thinking since their last encounter. "So there was a survivor of that fire. One of Prince Tiandel’s sons?"
Rennyn leaned her chin on one hand. "The whole family, actually, since Tiandel was expecting the assault. Feeling was very high against him, and there’d been other attempts. By then he’d realised that he’d only succeeded in interrupting the Grand Summoning, not halting it permanently, and thought it best to remove himself from sight and prepare for Queen Solace’s return."
Magister Fennis leaned forward, eyes widening to comical effect. "He chose to disappear? But then – Queen Solace’s library? Her researches?"
"Moved to safety well beforehand," Rennyn said. This was a question she’d been expecting. "Yes, most of it still exists. Yes, I have it. Perhaps, if this current mess can be resolved, I’ll present it to the kingdom or something. But not until then."
"But, don’t you understand?" Fennis asked, sounding straightforwardly astonished. "With access to that library, to the original documentation, we may be able to discover a way to break the Grand Summoning."
"Perhaps you could," Rennyn said. "The Montjuste-Surcleres have been researching that very problem for the past three hundred years, but I suppose it’s within the bounds of possibility that you could succeed in the bare month you have before the Summoning is complete. I’ll certainly give that idea some thought, and let you know my decision."
His face stiffened, and he looked so like a disappointed child she had to smile apologetically at him. "I suppose this will go quicker, and I might manage to be marginally less offensive, if I just gave a précis of the situation, rather than go back and forth with questions and answers."
"Please do," said Lady Weston, with a quelling hand touching Fennis' elbow.
Rennyn glanced at Councillor Vargas, least likely to understand. "When a mage enters the Eferum to summon a focus stone, they are limited by their inborn strength, plus the strength of their previous summoned focuses. It’s rare to make the attempt more than three or four times because the risks – exhaustion, cold, and Eferum-Get – increase along with the amount of power summoned.