The Magister nodded solemnly and drew his hands to the small of his back. “You are Kerrigan Reese.”
Kerrigan felt a shiver run up his spine. Orla had admonished him to stay away from Vilwan, and this trio represented his old home. Part of him wished running were an option, but even if there were no snow, he could not have moved fast enough to escape a spell.
And running would be thinking like prey.
Kerrigan nodded slowly. “I am.”
“I am Magister Syrett Kar. I am here to take you home.”
“Take me home?”
“To Vilwan.”
Kerrigan shook his head. “Vilwan is not my home.”
The woman leaned in to whisper something to Kar, but the Magister raised his left hand to silence her. “Adept Reese, you have been through a great deal. The Grand Magister is pleased with all you have accomplished. You are now required to return to Vilwan with us to complete your training.”
“There is nothing more for me to learn at Vilwan, Magister.” Kerrigan tugged on the sleeves of the sheepskin coat he wore, then stripped off his mittens. “I have things that need to be done here, and I will do them.”
“You are mistaken, Adept Reese.”
The man snaked menace into his voice and it found an ally inside Kerrigan. My whole entire life has been spent being mistaken, learning, training, trying to do things no one else could do, being told I was wrong, and being made to do it over and over again until I got it right and got another task. None of his teachers had ever told him why he was being asked to do the things he was, why he was getting the training he was. All they told him was that he was wrong or stupid or too slow or too sloppy. They had used the same tone of voice over and over, and part of him bent to respond to it.
Another part, however, rebelled. It was the part of him that had been reinforced by countless little things. Since leaving Vilwan he had done many things right. Perhaps not everything, but he had done enough things right, and those successes drained Kar’s voice of some potency.
Kerrigan brought his chin up. “By what authority do you command me?”
The Magister’s composure broke for a heartbeat, but he narrowed the surprise out of his brown eyes quickly enough. “How dare you question me?”
“How dare I not, Magister? I know that I am engaged in the struggle to defeat Chytrine. I know she will stop at nothing to stop me. How do I know you are not students of her academy masquerading as officials from Vilwan? In fact, I do not believe you are from Vilwan, but instead serve at the consulate here.”
While Syrett Kar kept his face impassive, the chunky Adept at his right did not. That man looked surprised. His female compatriot’s blue eyes darkened as she stared hard at Kerrigan. She took a couple steps to the left and removed her gloves.
Kar glanced in her direction and frowned. “Adept Tetther, no melodramatics. Adept Reese will not be attacking us.” Kar’s gaze returned to Kerrigan. “Your questions are well asked. We should go to the consulate to get the answers. I do know you’ve not visited there yet. That should prove I am genuine.”
“Chytrine surely has agents watching our consulate.” Kerrigan fought to keep his nervousness out of his voice. “You may return to the consulate, and when you have sufficient authorization to compel my return, then send me a message and I shall come. Not before.”
The woman snarled. “We do have ‘sufficient authorization.’”
Kerrigan turned his head, slowly and fluidly, imitating the look of contempt he’d seen Resolute use. “Sufficient for you, perhaps, but my concerns dwell in spheres far above your petty interests.”
He knew he’d been pushing it with that last, and she reacted hotly. Power began to course through her as her fingers clawed. Kar turned toward her, snapping a command, but her eyes had tightened into angry slits. The other Adept began to withdraw, a look of horror widening on his face.
Time began to move oddly for Kerrigan. Part of him—the scared child that wanted to comply with Kar’s commands—recognized the danger. Just from the traces of the magick radiating out from Tetther, Kerrigan deduced she was a combat specialist and had been ready to deal harshly with him. Part of him wanted to drop to his knees and beg for mercy, but the fear remained muted and controllable.
Another part of him, that which had studied magick, likewise recognized the threat. He analyzed it in an instant, knew the spell, and had a choice of a half-dozen spells that would counter it. A couple he could have cast quickly enough to stop her spell from even being cast. Her effort would have been bottled up in her body, and would have savaged her. As an exercise in magery, he viewed his counter and the consequences in a completely clinical matter—the human cost merely a minor abstraction.
A third part of him, the part tempered by all he had seen and done since leaving Vilwan, won out. He ignored the fear. He acknowledged the cost. Then he gestured with his right hand, simply and easily, triggering a spell he knew so well that using it was hardly an effort.
It was the telekinetic spell he’d used to pluck books from a library shelf and, just as easily, had used to pluck a ship from the ocean. In this case he used it to tickle snow from a roof and brought it sliding down upon her in a small avalanche. The snowfall slammed heavily into her back, pitching her forward and burying her. It knocked the wind from her and shattered the concentration she needed to cast her spell.
Kar leaped back a step. He looked at her, then carefully brushed a dusting of snow from his chest and arms before turning toward Kerrigan. “You took a chance dealing with her that way.”
Kerrigan shook his head. “No chance at all.” He looked up at the roofline and Kar turned to follow his gaze. Up there, at the peak of the red tile wedge, squatted Lombo. “If I hadn’t done something, he would have. Please tell Vilwan I am well protected.”
The Magister blinked, then glanced at Tetther struggling to free herself from the mound of snow. “You are not what I was led to believe you would be.”
“And what was that?”
Kar started to answer, then snapped his mouth shut. “It doesn’t matter. I shall get the authorization. But I suppose I should ask what you will consider sufficient.”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I suppose that is a point I can discuss with the Grand Magister when he arrives.”
“You can’t honestly believe…”
Kerrigan held a hand up. “My last mentor was slain by Chytrine, but she was your senior by decades. You know enough about me to know I am assigned to no one school of magick, so I have no Magister over me. With Orla dead, the Grand Magister is the only one to whom I should answer. That is the way of Vilwan. It is the system from which you derive your authority.“
Kar frowned. “Now you have me puzzled, Adept.”
“About what?”
“You have concluded that I am not sufficiently versed in combat magicks to apprehend you. If I were, I’d not have brought Adept Tetther along, and had I had any inkling of this outcome, I would have brought more people. You are powerful enough to ignore me, but you provide me this reasonable request to give me a way to preserve my dignity and avoid having to explain how I failed to bring you in.”
Kerrigan fought mightily to keep any expression off his face. Will had recently confessed to Kerrigan that he didn’t really know what Kerrigan had been carrying until Kerrigan himself had confirmed his guess. Will called it a bluff. Just as Kerrigan had assumed Will had known something he did not, Kar was assuming Kerrigan had drawn certain conclusions and Kerrigan clearly saw it was in his best interest to let the Magister go right on believing them.