"Her Duchessness has been ordered to keep to her bed, and we’re not letting her up until after lunch. Hopefully a long rest without travel will let her finally overcome the impact of that light casting." He glanced at Samarin. "Faille would like to review those dossiers, if you have them."
Samarin brushed his fingers against a pile of paper sitting next to his plate. "Your intention was to spend some days in Koletor waiting for the rest of your group?"
"And sorting out the library here," Lieutenant Meniar said, as Lieutenant Faral came in, and took up a plate. "The Duchess says that most of it should be unremarkable—nothing interesting enough to be worth last night’s adventures—and everything of note should be in this hidden room. It’ll only open to family, but she’s not sure where it is, so we can oblige her by locating the door. And there’s the divination to cast, to see if we can pick up any further indication of—"
Screaming started.
A girl first, then others, with some plate smashing for good measure. Sukata and Lieutenant Faral were gone before Kendall even had time to turn her head, the door swinging in their wake. Lieutenant Meniar put down his fork and hurried after them and the Pest leapt up and followed. Kendall listened to some more crashing, with added banging, then tried a forkful of some kind of boiled and spiced grain.
"Not going to help?"
Kendall eyed Samarin sourly. "They’d rather you didn’t go get in the way while they deal with anything really dangerous. Not that whatever that is will be."
"Why not? The creature you’re hunting is capable of breaching circles, after all."
"Because Sukata and Lieutenant Faral would have known before the screaming started." Kendall crunched a piece of flat, toasted bread, and decided there was more chance of him shutting up if she didn’t point out that he hadn’t gone to help either.
"An Eferum-Get threat anywhere in the house would be known to them?" Samarin waited, but Kendall didn’t bother to answer, so he went on: "And are you finding Duchess Surclere’s methods easy to learn?"
"Don’t you have dossiers for us as well?" Kendall snapped, exasperated by the scut’s lazy amusement. "What do you get out of acting like you don’t know anything about us?"
"Dossiers aren’t inexhaustible," Samarin said. "I know that you had no background in magic before Queen Solace’s final return, and that you and Sukata Illuma have been reported moving small objects with Thought Magic. But that does not tell me whether you find it easy."
"Of course it isn’t," Kendall snapped. "Why would it be easy? Why does it matter to…Fel, you’re not another would-be student, are you?"
"My duties do not permit the time," he said, as if that was something highly ironic. "But I need to evaluate the threat this form of magic poses. Both to would-be Thought Mages, and to the rest of Kole. It matters to an extreme degree if this is something that will injure or kill almost everyone who attempts it. And even more if it is something the majority could achieve."
A world full of mages acting like Rennyn Claire. Or, worse, not acting like Rennyn Claire. Acting, instead, like the Elder Mages, who had wrecked everything they were supposed to be looking after, and let the Eferum-Get into the world.
The Pest came back, followed by Sukata, who said: "Something came out of the cellar. An animal, out to steal food, not hostile. Faral and Meniar are attempting to locate it."
"All that screaming for a rat?"
"Something called a varsh," the Pest said. "The staff seem to consider it unclean."
"A reptile the size of a small dog," Samarin told them. "Usually found in the aqueducts and sewers."
Kendall glanced at Sukata, remembering an occasion in the past when Rennyn’s obnoxious great-uncle had taken control of an animal and sent it to do his dirty work. Which was probably why the Lieutenants were chasing around the cellars after a kitchen-scrap thief. Sukata was polishing off her breakfast with efficient speed, obviously with a task to do, and Kendall followed her lead so she could trail Sukata when she took a glass of juice and the dossiers upstairs to Rennyn and Captain Faille’s room.
Sukata briefly explained what the screaming had been about, and Captain Faille went to check it out in person and go do errands, leaving them charge of Rennyn, still asleep and looking damp and limp. They left the juice on the table beside her bed and moved to the far end of the room, which had another seat built into the windows, though looking out over narrow back gardens.
"I think I like my room better, but they’re both really good," Kendall said softly, inspecting a book that had been left face-down on the sill. Stupid Kolan squiggles. "Do you think we could talk her into not selling the place?"
"Perhaps it’s necessary to fund the restoration of Surclere. The Duchy is very poor, and it will be a large task to revive it. There is no need—" Sukata paused.
"No need for a house here—except if maybe the Kellian decide not to stay in Tyrland. You know, that Samarin, I think he’s here as much to find out more about the Kellian as anything else."
"Yes, the Emperor is interested in the possibility of using us. This Dezart Samarin, there is a sense of…not threat, but the possibility of threat from him. He judges us on several levels, and whatever a Dezart is, it seems a position of considerable authority."
"Could you tell what this other enchantment on his mask was?" Kendall hadn’t untangled more than the fact that it was magical.
Sukata shook her head, but then Rennyn, voice croaky, said: "Both of those doors behind the Emperor had recognition wards on them, and that mask felt like it belonged to them. There may be other places in the Empire set so that you can enter only if wearing one of those as a key. Samarin seems to be swimming in a haze of enchantment, however. Let me know if you unravel any more."
Since it was all just magical buzz to Kendall, she shrugged and went to offer Rennyn the juice. "Are you going to try and get rid of him before we go north to the forest?" she asked.
"It would be interesting to try. But I suspect his value as a deterrent is real. Illidian tells me there are at least two more among our hired staff he considers suspect, but are likely spies, not here to thieve, and will lose interest once I’ve addressed that matter." Rennyn looked across at Sukata. "And while Aurai’s Rest is relatively private, it is no secret, and Illidian does not believe it will be harmed by having an agent of the Kolan Emperor visiting it."
"You are intending to deal with the interest in Thought casting?" Sukata asked, not showing any reaction to the mention of the Kellian’s forest home.
Rennyn nodded. "Before we leave Koletor I will have a small manual published. I would have preferred more time to draft something in-depth and considered, but the core of Thought is so very basic, after all, that I can put something relatively clear together, and hopefully get some of these watchers out of the way. Perhaps even save some lives."
"You’re not starting that this morning," Kendall said, firmly, taking the empty glass. "We’ll read to you if you can’t sleep."
Rennyn’s eyelashes lowered ominously, and it was hard for Kendall not to think of Samarin talking of Thought Mages as a threat. Rennyn Claire, thin, tired and drawn, could still kill annoyances with less effort than it took her to get out of bed. Kendall glowered back at her, not budging an inch.
With a sigh, Rennyn gave in. "Lieutenant Meniar and Illidian are being tiresome. But it’s not worth arguing about." Adding a faint grimace of apology, she rearranged her covers and closed her eyes.