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Another day, another bag of messages. All the usual sordid secrets and lies. Another tidy little stack of parchment forming a monument to human folly.
The last letter in the stack was a surprise, though.
Evika Videle was the magysk equivalent of little Gina—sparkling and gleeful. Decades had gone by, and Evika had never understood that Moira didn’t like her. And so, despite the fact that Moira had gone to the Empire and renounced any former allegiance, Evika still wrote to her on a fairly regular basis.
Moira almost never wrote back to the young student sorceress.
Dear Moira,
I’m sure you’re wondering how my attempts to lift your order of banishment are coming along.
“No, I’m not,” thought Moira.
Freagast Harald says it’s too soon to make a final decision. But he seems very sympathetic to your plight. I told him there’s no reason why a good Ivich girl like you should have to make your way among the unbelievers. And because I was born in the Empire, and was a pagan until I saw the Light, I think the Freagast understood the full weight of what I said.
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” muttered Moira. “More than you do.”
Some people here (I won’t name names) say the fact that you married you-know-who means you’re lost to the Void forever. Personally, I think it shows you’ve got a good and decent heart. I mean, Earstien is love, isn’t he? So true love can never go wrong, can it?
“You’d be surprised,” said Moira.
Please remember, Moira, that I’m praying for you. Don’t despair.
“I won’t,” said Moira miserably. She levitated Evika’s letter over her desk and then, with a quick spell, incinerated it.
The ashes were still falling when Lily knocked and opened the door. She saw the cinders on Moira’s desk and shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am, but I thought I might call it a day. You might think of doing the same, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
On her way home from the palace, Moira found a new edition of the collected poems of Trontius Vermaculus, and now, with nearly all of the day’s work done, she could curl up with it and a glass of wine in the back parlor of her house, with the door open to the garden to catch the evening breeze.
The only bit of the day’s business she hadn’t finished was signing and sealing the divorce papers. They sat over on the little cherry wood wine cart, and every time she got up to top off her glass, she would look at them for a second, and then go back to reading poetry. She would need to find witnesses tomorrow. Or perhaps the day after that. There was no particular hurry.
At least not for her. Who knew what Faustinus’s plans might be with Gina? Out of nowhere, she felt an unexpected pain in her chest at the thought that he might want to marry the girl. Not that Moira was jealous. She felt sure of that. She didn’t want to be married to Faustinus anymore, so Gina was welcome to him. But not quite so soon.
About the time she was thinking about finishing her wine and going off to bed, she felt a light pulse of pressure in her jaw—a sign that someone had used magy nearby. And she immediately knew who, the same way she recognized his step coming up the garden walk, even before he stepped into the light of her lantern and said “Hello.” It was Faustinus.
“Good evening,” she said, straightening her dressing gown a bit and tossing the book aside. “What on earth brings you here at this hour?”
She couldn’t keep a slight note of annoyance out of her voice, though she knew immediately this had to be a professional matter. Once upon a time, he would come home that way every night, using magy to transport himself instantaneously into the garden from the side street. And some nights, when she felt his spell, she would go out and meet him there, in the dark, and pull him over to the cushioned marble bench under the fig tree. But those days were long gone now.
Instead of answering, he wandered over to her wine cart and poured himself a glass. He noticed the divorce papers there.
“Still haven’t gotten around to signing them, I see,” he said lightly. “If you’d like, we could go down to the Mariposa Tavern at the end of the block and find some people to witness it for us. Then we could have a drink to celebrate.”
Why was he in such a hurry? Was this really about his affair with Gina? Or was there no affair at all? What if this was all in Moira’s head? She nearly asked him about the girl, but she stopped herself with the words literally starting to form on her lips. Prying like that was unworthy of her.
“No, thank you,” she said, “Some other time, perhaps. Now I assume something awful must have happened, or you would’ve left this until tomorrow.”
He took a sip of his wine. “Yes, indeed. I got a message today. Not through your girls. I hope you won’t feel slighted.”
“Of course not.”
His official position, since resigning his appointment as Plenipotentiary Legate, was as Court Sorcerer, Alchemist, and Astrologer, but he had a vast network of old friends and colleagues all across the known world, and it never surprised her when he managed to find out news before she did, even though being the first to learn about things was part of her job.
“So, what was the message?” she asked. “Who was it from?”
“It’s from Caedmon, and it’s rather significant.”
Caedmon Aldred was one of the most famous hillichmagnars in Myrcia, and he had served at court as an advisor to Myrcian kings for centuries. He was also an old friend of both of theirs, especially Faustinus.
“I suppose I don’t need to tell you that this is quite secret,” Faustinus said, “but there’s something of an emergency at court in Formacaster.”
“What’s happened? Has someone else been murdered?”
“Not quite. It seems that when the Gramirens escaped the fall of Formacaster to the advancing Sigor forces, our old friend, Broderick Gramiren the younger, took a little something with him.”
Once upon a time, for reasons that Moira had never fully understood, young Broderick, the son of the man who had seized the throne, had served as Faustinus’s squire in battle. She had found him a typical, clueless teenager, but by all accounts, he had grown up into a fearsome warrior and a well-respected leader of men.
“What did they take?” she asked. “The crown jewels?”
“Yes, actually,” said Faustinus. “Edwin Sigor is going to have to be crowned with a cheap replica if no one can find it. But they took some things far more important than that. They took the Book of Finster and the sword of Edmund Dryhten."
Moira gave a low whistle. The Book of Finster, also known as In Aid of Leornian’s Rulers, was a magysk work that gave advice to the kings and queens of Myrcia, protected by powerful enchantments to ensure only people who knew a secret spell could ever open or move it. And Edmund Dryhten had been the king who had fought a successful war to unite Myrcia. His sword was a priceless artifact and a potent symbol of national unity. If word got out that the new Sigor king, Edwin, had lost the crown, the book, and the sword, then people would question his legitimacy.
“Oh, and they took several thousand Sovereigns from the treasury, too,” added Faustinus.
“Well, shit.” Moira got up and poured herself more wine. “I suppose that means the civil war is going to continue forever.”
“That’s what Caedmon is worried about,” said Faustinus. “And the Freagast and rest of Diernemynster, too.”
The Freagast of Diernemynster acted as a kind of unofficial leader of all the hillichmagnars in the Trahernian lands, including the ones who, like Caedmon, served as advisors at the courts of Ivich believers. During the war with Loshadnarod, Faustinus and Moira had killed a Loshadnarodski hillichmagnar named Daryna Olekovna. This was the “crime” for which they had been banned from Diernemynster. And because of the ban, they depended on news from friends, like Caedmon or Evika, to know what happened there.
“Oh, one other thing,” said Faustinus. “Caedmon says you and I are suspected at Diernemynster of having a hand in the assassination of the old king.”
“That’s ridiculous. Caedmon knows perfectly well the assassin was Sir Robert Tynsdale, the king’s half-brother.”
“Using a magysk ring you gave to him.”
“And that you helped me spell. Besides, I didn’t give it to him to help him kill anyone, but so he could help Lily and Callista rescue....” Moira stopped and sighed. No need to trod this well-worn ground yet again. “You know, it doesn’t even matter. They’re going to believe what they want to believe.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
He slumped into a chair by the hearth—the same chair where he had always sat in the evenings, back when this had been their house together. She half expected he would kick off his shoes and put his feet up on the table. And she found herself fighting the sudden urge to go sit on his lap, the way she so frequently had.
She missed much more than the physical intimacy. She missed the way they had talked and planned and schemed together while seated that way. Countless secret missions and deadly plots had been hatched in that chair between the two of them. And now, facing this new crisis, it seemed so odd to be talking things over while sitting ten feet apart. It felt wrong, somehow.
“I don’t suppose your girls have heard anything about the theft from the expatriate community here, have they?” he asked after a few moments of thoughtful silence.
The question jolted her out of her pleasant little daydream, and she very nearly said, “Well, if you want to know, why don’t you ask Gina yourself, next time she’s over at your place?” But she restrained herself.
Or did he want her to say it? Was this a challenge, to see if she would call out his behavior? Or maybe he was trying to bring up the subject casually.
In a calm, carefully measured voice, she said, “No. This is the first I’ve heard of it.” And then, feeling slightly braver, she added, “But Gina Brembana has contacts there, you know.”
“Ah, Gina, yes,” he said in a completely innocent tone, as if he had forgotten the girl even existed. Then he sat up straighter. “Look, I hate to ask you, but this is rather important. Nobody wants this war to keep going for another generation. If you’ve got some time, could you look into this yourself? Maybe have Gina take you around so you can talk to these contacts of hers.”
Moira nodded. “Yes, I could do that.” It was a good idea, and she probably would have thought of it herself in a day or two, anyway.
He left soon after that, and she went up to bed at last, though it took her a long time to fall asleep. She thought of Caedmon and Broderick the younger. She thought of the new King Edwin and his family, who had also become her friends. But mostly she found her thoughts returning again and again to Gina and Faustinus. Was their supposed affair all in her head? After all, Faustinus had asked her to go around the Myrcian expat district with the girl. A man wouldn’t really tell his wife (even his soon-to-be-ex-wife) to go spend the day with his mistress, would he?