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Magic flared. The castle heaved. Mistress Constance let out a gasp of pure triumph.

“Got him!” She looked up and grinned. “It worked!”

I smiled back. The castle’s wards were bound to the grandmaster … but we had samples of his son’s blood. Right now, the wards were unsure who was their actual master. We couldn’t take over directly, not yet, but we could keep him from using the remote wards to crush the riot and nip our coup in the bud. And Boscha couldn’t go back to the board and demand help, not without exposing himself as a failure. He had only one option left. I hoped it wouldn’t take him long to realise it.

Pepper caught my eye. “What if he brings the board with him? Or the rest of the staff?”

I shook my head. Boscha had nothing now, save for his post. He’d lost his army, he’d lost control of the school’s wards … the board would fire him on the spot, a move that would lead rapidly and inevitably to his assassination. The Supremacists would see him as a failure … worse, a failure who’d make them look like bloody fools if it ever came out. It would, too, if they didn’t tie up the loose ends as quickly as possible. Boscha might be a bureaucrat, instead of a fighter, but even he had to realise he was now expendable. The board would eliminate him, then try again with someone else.

“We have to move,” I said. “Constance, will the spells hold?”

“They should,” Mistress Constance assured me. “The magic should last for a few hours at least.”

I nodded as we hurried out the room. There was only one place Boscha could go now and that was the wardchamber, located under the school. Unless he’d decided to flee … I doubted it. He was nothing without the school, and he knew it. He wasn’t incompetent, when it came to magic, but he didn’t have time to reinvent himself. Too many people would be out for his blood.

The rest of the staff joined us in the antechamber, looking nervous. I didn’t blame them. We had committed ourselves to victory or … I had to smile. If we had to flee, we were far better suited to making new lives for ourselves. Hell, we could flee as a group and open a whole new school. We had the means and money to make it happen. But we didn’t intend to lose.

We waited, counting the seconds. Boscha didn’t show. I cursed under my breath as time seemed to slow, mocking us. What if Boscha had outwitted us? Or fled? Or … being caught and murdered by the students? I’d never heard of a full-fledged sorcerer brought down by a student, but stranger things had happened. If the sorcerer got overconfident and the student got very lucky …

And then Boscha stepped into the chamber.

Chapter 9

He looked a mess.

I would have felt sorry for him, if it hadn’t been his fault. His robes were drenched with … something. I hoped it was just water, and I feared it wasn’t. His hair had come loose; his eyes were grim and his magic … I gritted my teeth at the way his power was swirling around him, driven by anger and frustration and something I didn’t care to look at too closely. My earlier thoughts—magicians didn’t need pomp and circumstance—came back to mock me. Boscha didn’t look like a powerful sorcerer, not now. He looked like a drowned rat.

“You …” His eyes flickered over the group. “What are you …?”

I stepped forward. “You have a choice,” I said, flatly. “You can leave the school, giving us your oath to stay out of politics for the rest of your life, and we’ll give you enough gold to live comfortably until the day you die. Or you can fight us now and die.”

Boscha blinked, as if he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. I half-suspected he was in shock. His entire world had come crashing down in less than an hour, and no matter what he did, he was in deep shit. Crushing the student riot with the wards had been his only option, and we were blocking his way to the wardchamber. What else could he do? Nothing, I thought. His army was effectively neutralised, his allies would ditch him to save themselves … what else was there? And our offer of gold might just convince him to leave peacefully.

We don’t know how the wards will react if we actually have to fight him, I thought. The school wards were ancient and powerful, and there were quite a few things about the design that had never made sense. They might protect their master, even if he was kept out of the wardchamber, if we fought him. Or he might come up with something unexpected.

“You … you traitor,” Boscha managed. I hoped that was a good sign. If he was spitting insults, he wasn’t hurling curses. “You …”

“You created an army, with the intention of using it to stage a coup, take over the Allied Lands and impose Supremacist rule on the entire world,” I said, flatly. “That’s treason.”

I dared not give him any more time to think. “Your choice,” I said, flatly. “Leave and take our gold, or die here and now.”

Boscha glared at me. I glared back. It was galling to even think of giving him gold, but we had to sweeten the offer enough to convince him to take it, rather than digging in his feet and forcing us remove him by force. What was he thinking? I hoped—prayed—he took the easy way out. If we killed him, there would be all sorts of problems with the board. They might brand us murderers and use it as an excuse to hide their own role in the affair.

“You …” Boscha stopped and started again. “They’ll kill me!”

“They’ll kill you anyway,” I pointed out. “You’re of no use to them now.”

Boscha wilted. I felt a stab of guilt and tried to hide it. Boscha had caused a lot of problems, directly or indirectly, and we’d be dealing with the aftermath for years to come. Part of me wanted to start hurling curses, to blast the wretched man into a pile of blood and gore; the rest of me knew we had to try to get him to leave peacefully. I watched his eyes, waiting for the first hint he had something up his sleeve. But he didn’t …

“I’ll leave,” Boscha said. “And I will trade oath for oath.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, then took the parchments from my robes and showed him the oaths. They were simple enough. Boscha would stay out of politics and, in return, I’d give him more than enough gold to let him live a comfortable life anywhere he liked. Dragon’s Den was probably too hot for him now, after everything that had happened, but anywhere else would be delighted to take his gold. As long as he kept his head down—and perhaps changed his name—he should be fine. Probably.

He tossed his talisman at me—I felt the wards embrace me the moment I touched the metal—and then turned to leave. I directed Pepper to escort him to collect the gold, then teleport him to the nearest city. We’d search his quarters, pack up everything that was his and transport it to him. He could do whatever he liked with it afterwards. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t accidentally send him something dangerous, something that could be turned against us. I knew better than to rely on the oath completely.

“Well,” Mistress Constance said. “Shall we go tell the board?”

I nodded, rubbing my fingers over the talisman. “All students are to return to their dorms at once,” I said, using the wards to project my voice throughout the school. “Any student caught outside the dorms will have detention for the rest of the year.”