“Yield?” Gabe held his wand and staff. The staff was anchored against the ground, a foundation to launch from if he needed it, while Gabe could feel the magic coiling up his wrist, ready to pounce. He was in excellent form today, fully recovered from the previous week, and he’d had Alexander fighting for every inch of ground from the beginning of the bout.
Alexander promptly raised his hands, signalling that he did. He took a breath before speaking. “Yield. Take a breather, then the last bout?”
Gabe grinned. “You need to get out more. Too much time behind a desk the last few months.”
The older man snorted. “Keep telling yourself that. No, it’s that you’re vibrating with the summer. And we’re on your land.” They were indeed in the salle behind Veritas. None of the staff would come down here, not without Papa or Uncle Magni’s permission. Everyone else was out. Mama and Papa had a do in Trellech that night. Rathna and Ferdinand were off at a portal until at least supper time. Isobel had begged the day to go see her family, since they had a bit of work to do on the Saturday.
Gabe had, in fact, been enjoying taking a bit of the afternoon for himself. It was a rare treat. When Alexander had offered the duel, he’d been glad of it. Now, though, he cocked his head as they made their way to the observation seats. Gabe pulled out a bottle for himself, then raised an eyebrow. “Ginger beer? Lemonade?”
“Ginger, please.” Alexander lowered himself into a chair, sticking his feet to rest his heels on the ground in a decided sprawl. Gabe lifted his bottle in a toast as he passed the other over.
As he sat, Gabe shrugged. “You want to talk about something. At least one thing.” He considered what he’d spotted so far. “Three or four.”
Alexander snorted once, lifting his own bottle. “Most people wouldn’t spot it.” He wriggled his other hand. “And you’re not most people. That’s the point, actually. First, how do you feel about the way your bit of work on the first went? Now there’s been time for it to settle.”
“Hard to tell, isn’t it? It’s not as if Hitler dropped dead on the night, and even if he had, there’d likely still be a war, at least for right now. Nothing so obvious changed that we know of. On the other hand, there’s no sign of a mounting attack across the Channel by sea. By air, though, that’s another thing.” It was a relief to be talking to Alexander, who had access to all the information Gabe had and likely a good bit more, in a well-warded space.
He let out a breath and went on. “The air attacks though, that worries me. Last night wasn’t terrible, not nearly as much as it could have been, but...” Another shrug. “We’re back to dreams, really. Eagles, which is really not subtle of my subconscious at all.” Not given the German fondness for ‘adler’, the eagle, as a symbol.
“Just eagles?” Alexander asked it almost casually.
“Also dragons. Or rather, I keep seeing a flicker of emerald, something that’s more a wing than anything else.” Gabe half-closed his eyes. “Mind, my sleep hasn’t been the most reliable this summer, one way and another.”
“That’s true of us all, I suspect. Anything in particular?” The question was almost guileless, except that Gabe absolutely knew better. He could demur, and Alexander would probably let him get away with it.
“Between Rathna being away, Solstice night, Lammastide.... My dreams have quite a lot to work with. Nothing obvious. Nothing I’d write down in my reports. Even to you.” Gabe spread out his free hand. “And I’ve never been much of a diviner. Not my skill set at all.”
“Fair.” Alexander nodded. “Did you get any sense of anything Fatae touched, over Lammas?”
“How much is everything?” Gabe couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I feel the greenness more than I used to. And I used to feel it a fair bit. Being there, under the oak, knowing she went back to before the Pact, that did something. I could feel the earth rise to me. Not coming to my call like horse or hound or hawk, but I don’t know. There. Watching me.”
Before he could go on, Alexander interrupted. “No dragons?”
Gabe shook his head, a tad irritable now, still rubbed raw by the whole thing. “Not that I saw. It was bloody dark.” Then he went on, before Alexander could say anything else. “In any case, they seemed to be seeing if I had sensible ideas. I have no idea what that’ll mean next month, or over the winter, or after, mind you.”
Alexander grunted. “None of us does. Just hints and whispers and hopes.” He tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, and Gabe could tell he was still circling around some other topic. “Your work for the Council?”
“My report’s not due until Wednesday afternoon. It is Monday. Ergo, I have not finished writing it up yet.” First year Trivium, also honestly, how long had they known each other now? “Besides, I have some interviews tomorrow that need to go into it, whatever they produce.”
“I am the one who has repeatedly told the rest of our lot to let you work at your own pace. For the record.” Alexander flicked his fingers. “Overall, though? Is it worth continuing?”
“There’s not as much talk about building up to a particular working. And—” Gabe hesitated. “One of the interviews is in Christchurch. There’s one death there, and another man poorly. It’s not as if I got a good look at everyone’s faces, but.” Gabe stopped there.
“But something makes you think there’s a connection. That’s an unsustainable magical act for you.” Alexander grimaced. “And the Society of Inner Light folks?”
“I haven’t looked at this week’s yet, it’s on my desk. But last week’s, I quote, said ‘England stands alone and happy’.”
It made Alexander crack into a bitter laugh. “We are alone. Though you’d think she could have a thought for Wales and Scotland, at the very least. Even if Ireland is a tad complex in those particular esoteric circles.” He shook his head. “All right.” He looked up, his eyes half-lidded. “Four.”
“Four.” Gabe was instantly on alert. Alexander hadn’t moved a muscle, not except for his eyes, but that didn’t matter. Gabe could read the shift as swiftly as he had when they’d been duelling. Not perfectly, never that. Alexander was highly competent and just as lethal, and he’d been at his work since before Gabe had been born. One of the very first lessons Gabe had ever been taught that he could remember was the danger of underestimating someone.
“Keep the new moon in November free, please? That day and the next. You might want the following three or four, and the day or two before, if possible.”
Gabe blinked once. Just the once. “Why?” He flicked through the calendar in his head. “The twenty-ninth.”
“Yes.” Which was not at all informative, and Gabe was sure Alexander was doing it on purpose. He usually was.
“Not until you tell me why.” Two could play at that game, and if Alexander wanted to be the unmovable object, Gabe could be something else. Wind and rain wore down rock, eventually. Vines broke it open. As the repairs on the west wing from the ivy had been proving, this year and last. Gabe let his attention widen a hair, to see what else he could pick up.
Alexander set the bottle he was holding down, casually. “You know why. We have an open seat that must be filled.”
“No.” Gabe let it out in a rush. “I said no, eighteen years ago.” There was something prodding at him now, and he turned his back on it mentally. The snare had not closed, not yet. Not that he couldn’t feel it lurking. But Alexander had not actually asked that question, the one Gabe wanted to say no to.
“Times change. Needs change. And—” This got a brittle cough of a laugh. “The particular objections that Livia had to Rathna are no longer in play. Your wife gets on well with Vidya. We’re bringing Isembard in more firmly as an affiliate. You’d have allies. Besides me.”
“Come on, Alexander.” Gabe stood, suddenly, pushing himself away from the chair, up, moving, vaulting to balance for an instant on the top of the hip-height wall that separated the observation area from the salle. Then he tucked and flung himself at the ground, using the momentum and the height to fling himself into a handspring and a flip. He landed on his good foot, facing where he’d been sitting a few moments ago, but now a good dozen feet into the salle.
Alexander was still standing up, but he came to the wall. “A tad excessive, Gabe, don’t you think?” He’d told the truth when he’d said he hadn’t seen the dragon, but now he did, a great green sinuous curve forming behind Alexander, the arch of the wing curving as if in blessing or warding or some unnameable gift. It was a distraction, and Gabe was resolutely determined to ignore it. He settled himself into a duelling stance automatically. “Why, Alexander?”
“We need you to make the attempt. We’re not the ones who decide. But we need you to make the challenge. You, three or four others. Give the land a choice, the magic, whatever name you want to give her.”
“Why?” Gabe could feel his skin near to itching. He wanted to fling himself into more flips and handsprings, but his ankle wouldn’t take much more, not if they were going to duel again. And besides, running wouldn’t actually help. Not with the promise he’d made, not with Alexander. Not with the oncoming weight of everything it meant.
“Come on, Gabe. Did you think you could reach into an ancient portal and not have us notice enough of what you were doing? Ride with the Fatae, a whole night? Or Lammas night. Threes, Gabe.”
“Where do we begin to count?” Gabe pointed out. “I’ve done any number of other things so far. And I have a profession I—” His breath caught. “I can’t give it up.”
“We’re not asking you to.” Alexander leaned his hands on the wall, considered, and then bounced once before pressing up on his hands, sliding his legs to Gabe’s side of the wall before he perched on top of it. “Besides, you’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“Either I’m taking this - whatever you call it - seriously, or I’m not. If I’m taking it seriously, I have to think of the consequences.”
“You don’t have to make your life all about the Council. It might change which cases you take, but maybe not. Or at least not forever, if we somehow win this war and go back to ordinary time, as it were.”
Gabe grunted. Still, he could run the numbers on the Penelopes, how many they had, how many they didn’t, how the specialities ran. More than that, the way the politics ran, it had been ages and ages since a Penelope had been on the Council, nearly as long for a Guard. Both were bound by oaths that sat poorly with what the Council had to do.
More to the point, he had a set of skills - more than one set - they couldn’t fill easily. All of them did, really. “What would be…” He cut off the words. He didn’t want to say the words ‘ask’ or ‘expect’ or anything like that. “How would that work?”
“Meetings, as you’re doing now, near enough. Projects. Advising Cyrus. In time, whoever replaces him. The rest of us. Taking on what you felt you could do well.” Alexander spread his hands, but Gabe didn’t fall into the trap of assuming that this was over. It was only barely begun.
“End of November.” It came out sharper than Gabe had meant.
“Yes. Will you make the challenge, Gabe?” Alexander’s voice was now absolutely neutral.
There it was, brutal and blunt, and yet so politely phrased. The question he wanted to say no to, and he had to say yes. He’d promised. His magic was pulsing, not just inside his head, but in his heart, his fingers, his toes, every bit of him.
Gabe lifted his chin, taking as deep a breath as he could, then Alexander flicked his fingers, his eyes darting. Gabe had seen him read oaths, and it had looked like that and not at all like that, as if Alexander had no idea what script or language he’d just read. “No. Don’t answer me now.”
Gabe could guess at what Alexander had seen, at least, and spare a half a thought to be amused that he did not know what to make of it. He nodded once, then offered, as something of a buffer, “I will consider it. Thoroughly. Give you my answer one way or another by the end of the month.”
Alexander returned the nod, briskly and respectfully. Not pushing, and of all the things in this conversation, that was perhaps the most unsettling. It was not the most unsettling thing this summer. But as Alexander himself had said only minutes ago, it had been a summer full of unsettling and arcane hours.
There was a silence then. Alexander was giving him time. Gabe’s thoughts were whirling. He’d need to talk to Rathna, of course. His parents. Mason and Witt, who could help him sort through the implications for the Penelopes as a whole, for his place among them, for what it might mean for Isobel’s training.
He’d heard stories, of course, of what the Challenge might involve. Many people went in bristling to the teeth with magical protections, dozens of potions, charmed cloaks or even armour. Gabe knew his own worth. He knew there were precious few human duellists who could best him, but he wasn’t so foolish as to think he could outfight anything and everything.
On the other hand, most people came out of the Challenge chamber alive. Changed, and they certainly never spoke of the details. Alexander had never spoken of it more than in passing. Not speaking of it, that reminded Gabe of things that bothered him about the Council once more. He was far too used to the easy, rapid collaboration of the Penelopes, the way he brought that home, to talk with Rathna and Mama and Papa and his chosen aunts and uncles.
His hands clenched, then he made himself relax them. He did not need to answer now, in this moment. Not even when he himself knew what the answer was going to be, what it had to be. He could - contrary to all his usual inclinations - step back, take his time, confer.
It wasn’t the question of deciding. Ah, here he was, on far more solid ground, riding a mount he knew far better. It wasn’t deciding whether or not to challenge. That had been decided already. It was how he was going to take the fence, ride the course. It was something like riding a point to point, galloping across country, as he’d done a fair few times. This was a race not just against the other horses and riders, but against the challenges of the land. Brush fences, wood fences, streams, up and down hills.
Not whether he raced, but how he rode the course. His heart settled, and his breath, before he looked up. “What may I ask you about?”
Alexander tilted his head, as if he had expected that question. Sensible of him, Gabe was made of questions. Of course he’d see what he could get. “That’s a matter for some negotiation. But I will freely share what advice is already public. Geoffrey’s alchemist has some potions going, the best of the usual run people want to take in with them. If you don’t want them, it’s not as if they’ll go to waste.”
Gabe snorted at that. “But I get first dibs, if I choose. All right. And less public information?”
“We’ll see.” Alexander held up his hand, forestalling further comment. “I mean it. We don’t talk about much of it, and I am trying to sort through what is permitted but never done, versus what is not permitted and for good reason.” He grimaced. “I have been trying to sort through that, for the record, since the day Garin brought Livia home.”
Gabe blinked once. “You and who else?”
That made Alexander’s lips quirk into a smile. “Cyrus and Mabyn. They left the timing of asking you up to me.”
Gabe nodded once more. “All right.” Then he took two steps back. “Will you duel me again?” Did Alexander dare, with this between them, that was an interesting question for the moment. Would Alexander press to find his limits, or let Gabe have a moment of riding his own competence? Both, probably, because this was, after all, Alexander.
Alexander looked him up and down, then hopped off the wall. “Same limitations?”
Gabe nodded once, retreating to his proper end of the salle. Maybe, just maybe, it would let his mind settle. Alexander could take care of himself in a duel. And perhaps some part of Gabe needed to prove it, before he could take another step forward into what everything meant.
* * *
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