M ARAH FELT…
She wasn’t sure what she felt. She’d been given a mission and carried it out, only to discover she’d been tricked into trying to kill the most famous person in the world; she’d been knocked out, arrested, threatened with a fate worse than death, interrogated… and then Emily – Lady Emily herself – had offered to take her as an apprentice. Marah had been sure it was a con, a trick to get under her skin… a move as sadistic, in so many ways, as the prince’s unspoken threats to her maidenhead. It wasn’t as if the sorceress needed to offer her a bribe, if she wanted Marah to talk. It would be child’s play to compel her to tell everything…
And yet, she hadn’t compelled Marah to do anything .
Her head spun, unable to wrap her head around everything that had happened. Lady Emily had dressed her, then taken her out of the city and… Marah wasn’t sure where they were – she’d never teleported before; she didn’t know how to track the jump – and taken her to her home. Marah knew she was lacking when it came to understanding magicians who’d grown up in magical communities, but she knew it was rare for a stranger to be taken right into a magician’s home. She wanted to believe Emily, really she did, and yet she feared it might be a lie. She’d already been tricked once. She might be tricked again.
She groaned, resting her head in her hands. She’d liked Virgil… no, she’d trusted him; she’d adored him. He’d taught her magic… she had been willing to do anything for him. And yet he’d discarded her, sent her to her death… tossed her aside like a dirty rag. She didn’t want to believe it… she remembered, suddenly, just how many miners still clung to the company’s promises, even though they were clearly not being kept. They didn’t want to admit they’d been fooled, not when they’d been warned… she recalled her stepfather throwing good money after bad and hitting her mother when she tried to talk him out of it. She hated to admit it, but she now understood how he’d felt. It wasn’t easy to swallow her pride and admit she’d been fooled.
Emily waited, saying nothing. Marah’s magic was starting to come back, allowing her to sense the complex web of power running through the house… and Emily herself, a nexus of raw power that outshone Marah like the sun outshone the moon. She was powerful enough to make Marah say or do or believe anything she wished, which… was oddly reassuring. Emily didn’t need to trick her, nor did she have to wait if she wished to make Marah suffer . Marah knew what happened to thieves who were caught breaking into magical homes and businesses, knew the magicians who caught them were free to do whatever they liked. She had tried to kill Emily. No one would say a word if Emily gave her a fate that would make the Crown Prince faint.
And instead, she’d offered Marah an apprenticeship.
Marah swallowed, her mouth dry. It was hard to believe they had anything in common. Lady Emily had been raised by a powerful sorcerer, not a drunken stepfather with a hard heart and a harder hand. She would have had everything she wanted from birth; Marah had had very little, almost all passed down from her parents, siblings and step-siblings. Emily would have known safety, true safety, and freedom to follow her interests; Marah had been put to work as soon as she was old enough, then sold to an innkeeper who had a husband with wandering hands…
It was one hell of an offer. She wanted it. But she feared the worst.
Her mind ran in circles. She doubted Emily would just let her go, no matter what she’d promised. And she had no idea where she was, relative to where she’d been. Plus… she wanted it. Magic was her only edge in a world that was hard and cold and very – very – cruel. If Emily could teach her… if Emily would teach her… if…
“I’ll be your apprentice, if you are willing to take me,” she said, finally. It was a gamble, true, but the reward was worth the risk. “I… where do we even begin?”
Emily cocked her head. “Do you want something more to drink? Or to eat?”
Marah found herself unsure what to say. “No,” she managed. Was it a test? Or… it struck her, suddenly, that Emily was so powerful, so secure in herself, that she didn’t need to boost herself by putting others down. “I…”
“Come with me,” Emily said. She stood and led the way into a comfortable – and surprisingly shabby – living room. “Please, take a seat.”
Emily sat in an armchair, then waved for Marah to sit. “Tell me,” she said. “How did your former master teach you?”
“He gave me a wand,” Marah said, ice congealing around her heart. “He showed me how to craft spells and insert them into the wand, then channel magic through the wood. And…”
“He was stunting your magic,” Emily said flatly. Her lips thinned. “You might have been able to cast individual spells, but putting them together would be difficult and rewriting them on the fly impossible. Given time, it would have become impossible to overcome the damage and cast spells without a wand. Or… you might have been unable to use alchemy or a handful of other skills too.”
She cocked her head. “Did he ever let you learn from other magicians? Meet other magicians?”
“Not really,” Marah admitted. “Why?”
Emily frowned. “That’s always a bad sign,” she said. “It’s hard to judge your progress if you have nothing to compare it to.”
“He said I was getting better,” Marah said. “And he taught me…”
She trailed off, a lump forming in her throat. She’d loved his compliments. She’d rarely been complimented back home, and they’d almost always been double-edged swords, young men commenting on her looks and hinting how much they’d enjoy taking her to bed. She’d known, from the moment she grew old enough to marry, just how bad it would be if she let them, especially not without a wedding band. A boy who complimented her was a boy who’d noticed her… but Virgil? His praise had been wonderful, because she felt she’d truly earned it. And now it had turned to ashes.
“I understand,” Emily said, quietly. Marah doubted she could understand. “He taught you spells without teaching you any of the underlying theory, let alone how to cast them without a wand. We’re going to have to work on it.”
Marah swallowed. “He said only older magicians studied theory.”
“You need to know what you’re doing, or you won’t progress past a certain point,” Emily said. “It’s like building a house. If you don’t know how to lay the foundations, install water pipes and so much else, your house will be rickety and eventually fall down.”
She went on before Marah could answer. “What happened when you used magic without a wand?”
“I…”
Marah hesitated, then took the plunge. “A handful of young girls went missing. We thought slavers had taken them It turned out they’d been taken into Lord Allenstown’s mansion, so… I agreed to let myself be taken so I could break out and crack his wards from the inside. It didn’t go as planned… he chased us through the house, wearing us down until… I managed to push a spell into a piece of wood, turning it into a trap. I thought it made sense. If I could rest a spell inside a wand, why not any piece of wood?”
Emily smiled. “Good thinking,” she said. “Did he ever imply there was anything special about your wand?”
“No,” Marah said. “But he did say my magic would work best with a lone wand.”
“Interesting,” Emily mused. “His plan does seem a little… flimsy.”
“It worked,” Marah said. “I made it work.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “The thing is, it shouldn’t have worked.”
She looked at her hands. “It doesn’t quite make sense. You could only use magic when you had your wand. Any halfway competent guards would have found the wand and removed it before you could use it. Even with the wand, you shouldn’t have been able to take the wards down from inside. He must have had something else up his sleeve.”
Marah stared at her. “Did he…?”
She wasn’t sure how to finish the question. Lord Allenstown had been a slaver. She’d seen his slaves. But… she feared Emily was right. She shouldn’t have been able to escape, which meant… what? Had she been a diversion? Or… or what? Her head ached. Her master had lied to her, and that meant nothing could be taken for granted. Not any longer.
“He was a slaver,” she said. “He deserved it.”
“Yes,” Emily agreed. “But why did your master go after him?”
She studied her hands. “It just doesn’t quite make sense.”
Marah nodded, then forced herself to answer patiently as Emily bombarded her with questions, from the simple and easily answered to the complex and confusing. She didn’t seem to be compelled to answer truthfully, this time, but… she wanted to be honest. And yet… she didn’t want to know if her heroics had been engineered or if she’d just been the diversion or… she didn’t want to know. Emily listened, sometimes asking more questions to follow up her answers… Marah wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. It spoke well of her, if she really meant to take Marah as an apprentice…
“I need to think about what you’ve told me,” Emily said. “Did your former master lay down any ground rules for your apprenticeship? Did he make you swear any oaths?”
“No.” Marah shook her head. “He told me he expected me to use common sense.”
“Which is rarely common,” Emily said. It sounded like a joke, but there was an edge to her tone. Perhaps it wasn’t a joke. “My master had a handful of rules, but you’re too inexperienced to understand them. So…”
She met Marah’s eyes. “Magic is awesome” – for a moment, her face cracked into a bright smile that made her look years younger – “but it is also very dangerous. So… if you don’t understand something, I expect you to ask for clarification. If you feel uneasy about something, I expect you to say as much so we can discuss it. If I teach you a spell, you are free to practice it in the spellchambers, but you are not to experiment with any spells I didn’t teach you without my prior permission. And you are not to touch a wand or any other tools, again, without my prior permission.”
Marah hesitated. “I don’t know what happened to my wand.”
“Forget it,” Emily said, sharply. “If you want to use magic properly, never touch a wand again until you are a lot more advanced.”
She took a breath. “I don’t expect you to follow orders blindly, but I do need you to listen,” she said. “If you disobey me without very good cause, or lie to me, I’ll show you the door.”
Marah swallowed. “I understand.”
“Good.” Emily leaned back in her armchair. “We both need something to eat, so your first job is to go to the shops and buy some groceries. Tomorrow, we can find your family and get their permission for your apprenticeship.”
“I…” Marah forced herself to start again. “Do you need to find my family?”
“You’re too young to enter an apprenticeship contract without their permission,” Emily said, standing. “So yes, we need to visit them.”
Marah hesitated, unsure if she was being tested or not. She didn’t want to go home. It was the last place she wanted to go, save perhaps for the prince’s dungeons. And yet… she watched Emily write a shopping list, then pass it to her with a handful of coins. She couldn’t believe Emily, one of the most powerful and well-connected people in the world, couldn’t put the requirement aside if she wished. It wouldn’t be hard to claim her apprentice was an orphan or fake the documentation, if she even needed it. Or… did she want to see where Marah had come from, to check her story? Or was she testing Marah’s restraint, when she came face to face with her stepfather again? Marah promised herself, grimly, that if the man raised his hand to her again, she’d cut it off.
“I understand,” she said, scanning the list. She had to parse out some of the words, her lips moving soundlessly as she worked them out. Virgil’s reading lessons, at least, had been genuine… she supposed. Emily’s handwriting wasn’t that clear. “Where… where are we?”
“Dragon’s Den,” Emily said. “On the southern side of Alluvia, east of Valadon.”
Marah shrugged. She knew the names, and she was vaguely aware Alluvia bordered Valadon, but that was about it. There was no way she could walk home… Emily might as well have taken her halfway around the world. It was a clean break from her old master, and the handful of others she’d known in Valetta… she wondered, suddenly, if she’d been deliberately kept away from everyone else. Virgil had wanted her dependent on him, in all senses of the word. And it had worked.
“Walk down the road to the shops,” Emily said. “If you get lost, just ask the guardsmen for directions to my house. They’ll point you in the right direction.”
“Really?” Marah wasn’t so sure. The guardsmen in Valetta couldn’t be trusted, particularly if they saw someone young, female, and apparently defenseless. They were brave when it came to manhandling the helpless, but showed their heels the moment they encountered a real threat. “They’ll help me?”
“They will,” Emily said. “Have fun.”
Marah hesitated, then headed for the door and stepped into the warm summer air. Emily closed the door, leaving her alone. Marah walked through the gate and down the street, then stopped… staring at the coins in her hand. The markings were unfamiliar, but their value was all too clear. She could take the money and vanish, heading north as quickly as her legs could take her, and use it to…
Another test , she thought. She had the oddest feeling Lady Emily would just… let her go, if she did. She was strange, not like other magicians… perhaps the test wasn’t a test of her honesty, but her willingness to stay. Marah had never had a proper chance to accept – or refuse – the apprenticeship. She could go now, if she wished, and Lady Emily would say she’d fled…
Her legs buckled. She wasn’t sure what to make of anything. The offer was sincere and yet… it was too much, like someone offering a thousand gold for a piece of meat. It was hard to tell if Emily was right, when she said they had much in common… no, it was impossible to believe. She thought it a trap – she feared it – and yet such a trap seemed singularly pointless. If Emily wanted to do something horrible to Marah, there was nothing stopping her. She could have done it by now.
Marah stared at the coins for a moment longer, then lifted her eyes and looked towards the distant mountains. She could walk out of the city, using the money to buy a handful of supplies, and vanish. She’d be just another wanderer, moving from place to place; no one would pay her any heed. Emily wouldn’t look for her, and who else would care? Her master had tossed her away and the prince would find someone else to torment soon enough…
Sure , her thoughts whispered. You could leave. And it would mean throwing away the best thing that’s ever happened to you .
She dropped her gaze. She would take up the apprenticeship. She would study, until she was amongst the greatest magicians in the land, and then she would hunt down her master and teach him a lesson he would never forget. And… she could find a proper home for her mother, and her siblings, and even her stepsiblings… her stepfather could drink himself to death, as far as she was concerned, if he was even still alive. It was possible he wasn’t, she reminded herself. The mines were very dangerous, and the company cared nothing for safety. He’d hardly be the first person to die in an accident, or be injured so badly there’d be no point in trying to save him. If that happened…
Marah doubted it. But it was a pleasant thought, nonetheless.
She stood straighter as she turned and walked down to the marketplace. It was bigger than she’d expected, crammed with people from all walks of life… she was surprised to see rich mingling with poor, magicians mingling with mundanes. The magicians didn’t seem to be carrying wands, or anything… save for a handful of tools. Her heart twisted in pain, then anger. Virgil had taken ruthless advantage of her ignorance. She hadn’t known enough to know he was lying.
Never again , she promised herself, as she eyed the handful of books on the counters. She wasn’t sure if she had enough money to buy them, but… she would do whatever it took to earn the money, if she couldn’t read Emily’s own books. It would be worth it. She made a vow to herself, deep within her heart. I’ll never be ignorant and stupid again .