Sukata never looked quite ordinary, for she was tall and ever so slightly out of proportion and had claws, but dawn always made her delicately unreal, and Kendall could only wish those who hated the Kellian could see more of them at this time of day. Rennyn had once told Kendall that Rennyn’s great-grandmother had called the Kellian stained glass monsters, and that had made Kendall so annoyed, not least because she couldn’t help but admit that it fit.
"It is a rich house, but I think it was a happy one too," Sukata said. "And this branch of the family less insular than the Claires. Daunting to know that all of them died seeking ways to stop Queen Solace."
"Sebastian said that a lot of them were killed trying to do one big joint experiment. By the time he was born there was only one old man living here." Kendall, watching her friend’s face narrowly, tried to puzzle out new shadows. "Are you thinking that maybe there was a baby or two they didn’t know about? That there might be some of this Surreive part of the family still out there?" More people who could control the Kellian, if Rennyn and Sebastian were out of the way.
"That is a possibility. Given the situation with Prince Helecho, it may even be something we could have reason to be glad of, if we fail to protect the Claires."
Only just preferable to be inherited by some unknown person, instead of a nasty demon prince. Better by far to deal with Rennyn and Sebastian, and that was still fingernails on a chalkboard to the Kellian, for all Rennyn was so careful to never accidentally order any of them about. Even if she got better and could have a Kellian baby with Captain Faille, even if it was one of their own people who inherited the ability to control them, the Kellian would always on some level be property because that was how the spell was structured. They hated it so much.
Kendall washed, and let Sukata catch her up on a drama Kendall had slept through. One of the servants, working for thieves based in the house set flush with theirs, had managed to take books from the Tyrlanders' luggage, and only Sukata’s sharp hearing had uncovered them.
"Trying to steal Thought Mage techniques?" Kendall guessed, buttoning her shirt.
"So it seems. This house was linked to Duchess Surclere when she wrote to direct it be prepared for guests, and it seems at least one group moved immediately to search for secrets. Though, interestingly, the mage they work for—Magister Accan—vanished a fortnight ago.
"Bet the ones you caught aren’t the only lot in this house keen to sneak a peek," Kendall muttered, as they headed down to see what the specially hired household had produced for breakfast.
"That is not a bet at all," Sukata replied in her extra-neutral voice as they opened the breakfast room door.
Kendall wasn’t pleased to find Dezart Rhael Samarin serenely stuffing his face. There weren’t many people who could rival Rennyn for being completely full of themselves, but this Samarin was definitely a contender. Probably worse, because he couldn’t be more than a few years older than Kendall. This morning, the smug git had put his mask on the table and piled his plate with what must be a bit of everything from the nearly dozen covered dishes lined up on one side of the room.
These smelled good enough for Kendall to set aside an impulse to turn on her heel. Instead, she ignored the spy altogether, filled her own plate, and sat so that the flowers in the centre of the table made it easier not to have to look at him. Samarin just ate, and it seemed they could hope for a quiet breakfast, but then the Pest showed up, looking like death warmed over, but never able to keep his mouth shut for long.
"May I ask you a question, sir?"
"I don’t see how to stop you," Samarin said, but not nastily. "Get your breakfast first, though."
"The enchantments on your mask," the Pest went on, the second he sat down. "The most obvious is the one that prevents anyone but you from wearing it. But there’s at least one secondary enchantment, and I cannot untangle its purpose. Is it something you can to tell us about?"
Samarin glanced down at the mask. "Can? Yes. Will? No. I’d be interested to hear if you can successfully divine it, though, since it’s not designed to announce itself. Do you find Duchess Surclere’s methods of casting difficult to learn?"
That wiped the Pest’s special keen look from his face. When they left the ship, Rennyn had given him the same exercises Kendall and Sukata had started with, and Kendall knew he practiced them each evening after they’d finished the day’s travel. And that he wasn’t doing too well with it, was still making his test object twitch and jump, rather than being able to pick it up. It was obvious that he’d hoped to quickly pass Kendall and Sukata, or at least catch up to them.
"I have barely taken the first step of learning Thought," the Pest said, in the super-serious voice he used for anything about magic. "My lessons so far are nothing new, since the basics of what standard instruction calls Force Magic were already well known. Achieving any kind of control is difficult, of course, and I can see why Duchess Surclere insists on focusing on the strictly physical and advancing in degrees toward abstract concepts. But the discussions we have had on Symbolic—" The Pest broke into a rapturous smile that made him look moon-struck. "Symbolic is already considered a perilous artistry, where poor choices have monstrous consequences, but the combination of Thought and Symbolic is an enormous step. Words, Sigillics, are so limited. When I first heard of Her Grace’s use of Thought Magic, I focused on the immediacy, but the true marvel is that it allows you to cast what words cannot say."
He really talked like that. Almost as stupidly wordy as some of the books Kendall had tried to read.
The Pest had taken a deep breath to calm himself down a little, adding with a quick shrug. "I’ve only begun to face how difficult it will be."
Samarin had listened attentively, with just the slightest crinkling to the corners of his eyes while the Pest went into his usual raptures. "And you two? Sukata and…Kendall, yes? Do you consider Duchess Surclere’s techniques attainable?"
"The techniques, yes." Sukata was being guardedly polite. "The conceptual leap required for Thought to become more than crude, physical manipulation…that I can only hope for and work toward. But even the short time I have spent learning from Her Grace has shown me that I habitually approach magic in a very fixed and inflexible way, and that the thoughts and feelings of even the most rote of Sigillic casters have a greater impact than we are ever taught. And I begin to wonder if the reason that the Claires cast as well as they do is because they regard the rules as negotiable."
"I’d bet thinking the rules don’t apply to them is half the reason there’s only two of them left," Kendall said bluntly. That or a habit of offering spies bed and breakfast.
"It’s just a better level of understanding," the Pest said, still super-seriously. He’d never made the mistake of being directly insulting to Kendall again, but he kept trying to explain things to her, like she was the poor backwards child everyone had to be nice to. It made Kendall even less inclined to do the Sigillic assignments they were all given.
"What were you doing up in the attic last night anyway?" she asked, in hopes of knocking him off his cleverer-than-thou perch.
But the Pest just shrugged and said: "I fell out of bed and thought, since I was up, that I might as well look for the hidden library. Then everyone turned up with swords and half frightened me out of my skin."
The unbelieving smile Samarin produced at this almost reconciled Kendall to being stuck with him, but the Pest was too busy stuffing his face to even notice. The door opened and Lieutenant Meniar came in, also looking like he hadn’t slept. He gave them a weary smile and headed straight to mound a plate high with food before settling in the chair opposite Kendall.