Latimer favored her with a thoughtful look.
Selena held her breath.
“There was not a lot of information about you to be shared,” he said at last. “You are a young noblewoman who has taught herself some spells. You show promise, and the Assembly wants you as a member.
“A better question, I should think, is which of the Three Orders sent me.”
“And?”
“I am a red-robe,” he said. “Hence, the High Master of the Red Order sent me. Do you understand the significance of the color?”
Selena thought back to what she had read of the demigod Lyrend and the wizard warriors who had thwarted him. “Red-robes follow Quess, the neutral Goddess of Magic. So you are neither an advocate of good nor evil, but of balance.”
“Eloquently put,” Latimer said, sounding impressed. “Generally, the Assembly sends an emissary who belongs to the Order that the novice is expected to join. I wonder, did the Assembly choose correctly? Have you pledged…or do you intend to pledge…your loyalty to Quess?”
Selena had considered the question before—or at least a variation of it. All three Goddesses had appeared to her in a dream. How was she to know which one of them most deserved her devotion?
Or had she already chosen Quess by virtue of learning magic from a red-robe’s spell book?
“Well,” she said, “I am not an evil person, so I think it is safe to rule out the Black Order.”
Latimer stopped her with a raised hand. “Black magic is not necessarily reserved for villains alone. Many black-robes would argue that they are not bad people, merely ambitious.
“Black magic emphasizes spells of overt power. Those incantations tend to be destructive in nature, it is true, and the way of the black-robe does tend to be a more selfish path than that of the other two Orders. However, there are more than a few black wizards who use their battle magic for the benefit of others.
“What I am trying to say, Selena, is that saying white-robes are good and black-robes are evil is a gross oversimplification.”
Selena bit her lip and said, “I suppose I would need to know the advantages and disadvantages of belonging to each Order before I could make a choice.”
“Too true,” Latimer said, “though it might be that one of the Goddesses has already chosen you. That is often the case with those who seek out magic on their own.”
“How would I know?”
Latimer scratched at his goatee. “Perhaps the logical place to start is by examining the source of your spells. You must have obtained a spell book or found some scrolls…?”
“I bought a spell book by accident while at Mongalith Fair.”
“Do you have it with you?”
Selena swallowed her affirmative reply. What if it were all some clever scheme to separate her from her treasured book? For all she knew, Latimer had made it up—the Assembly of Magic, the Seminary of Wizardry, all of it.
Maybe there were not thousands of wizards in Altaerra. Maybe there were only a few who competed for a finite number of spell books.
“I cannot imagine that you would have left it at your castle,” he prompted.
If he wants the book badly enough, he will get it, she thought. He could lay me low with one blast from his wand long before I decided which spell to cast in defense.
At last, she said, “It was the only thing I brought with me.”
“That shows dedication. It would seem the High Masters were right about you. Might I have a peek at it?” As though sensing her distrust, he added, “You have my word as a wizard and a gentleman I have no designs on keeping it.”
Since she could find no good reason for denying him a look at the spell book, Selena rose and retrieved it from where the woman attendant had stashed it behind the bureau. She handed it to Latimer and watched him carefully as she sat back down.
Latimer’s eyes swept down the first page, absorbing the introduction written by the Nebronemite wizard Gethen. He then flipped through the rest of the pages, eying some passages for a short while and dismissing others immediately. Selena wondered if Latimer already knew all of the spells her book contained.
She wondered how valuable Lydia’s unasked-for gift truly was.
When Latimer reached the final incantation, his lips dipped in a slight frown, and he made a faint humming sound.
“Now this is interesting.” He waited a few seconds, driving Selena mad with curiosity, before looking up from the tome and saying, “The majority of these spells can be cast by a mage of any Order. They are fairly basic, which is why you were able to puzzle them out, I suppose. The spells are mostly of a utilitarian nature, neither overtly constructive nor destructive, which would indicate an inclination toward the White Order or the Black Order, respectively.”
“So it is a book of red magic,” Selena concluded, her cheeks burning at the insult Latimer had subtly sent her way.
“Possibly,” he said. “Probably, in fact…but not necessarily. There are some spells that can be derived from any of the three Goddesses. Simple spells can be ambiguous in that they can be used for good, evil, or something in between.”
“Why is that interesting?” she snapped. How dare he call her spells simple!
Latimer narrowed his eyes slightly, perhaps perplexed by her pert tone.
“I have seen all of these spells before…or at least variations of them. But there is one here, the last incantation in the book, that I have never seen personally. I have heard of these types of spells, but you would be hard-pressed to find them in any of the Seminary’s libraries.
“Tell me, Selena, have you ever performed the spell I am referring to?”
His serious expression set off warning bells in her mind. She had planned to cast that spell on her grandmother, but she was not about to admit that to Latimer.
“As a matter of fact, it is the only spell I have not cast,” she replied. “I never had a reason to. Besides, it seemed wrong to invade someone’s privacy in such a way.”
“And I suppose you never used the invisibility enchantment to compromise someone’s privacy?” Latimer asked with a snort.
Recalling her father and Alger White’s conversation about the Alliance of Nations, Selena smiled. “But there is a difference between what can be witnessed with the five senses and a person’s inner thoughts. People can control their actions, but they cannot always control what they are thinking.”
“Too true,” Latimer muttered.
“Which is why the Assembly would not approve of spells that give wizards the power to read another person’s mind,” she decided. “It would only breed an environment of mistrust.”
“Indeed,” Latimer said. “The Restrictions forbid a magus from invading the privacy of anyone, gifted or ungifted, and that includes scrying. Scrying is when you watch events unfold from a distance. A crystal ball is the most common means, though there are other methods.”
Selena mulled over his words. There was certainly a lot to learn about the wizard community. The Restrictions—whatever they might include—implied there were laws. Had she unintentionally violated the rules by spying on her father and Old Alger?
She decided she would have to be careful not to say too much to Latimer, a representative of the Assembly. Then again…
“How would the Assembly find out a wizard violated the law unless they were spying…scrying themselves?” she demanded.
Latimer laughed and shook his head. “You are a bright one, Selena. The Assembly is rife with such mysteries. Maybe the Goddesses whisper in the Mastermage’s ear. Or maybe the High Masters and Senators are hypocrites.”
He shrugged as though neither possibility would surprise him.
“Who enforces the laws?” Selena asked.
Latimer’s face darkened for an instant before brightening back to his usual bemused expression. “So many questions. There will be time enough to answer them all, but not tonight. It is late, and I, for one, am exhausted.”
He stood up and handed her the spell book. Selena stiffened in her chair. There was only one bed.
“I will ask for a cot.” He opened the door. “And I shall knock before reentering so that you may remove your dress in peace. I hope your other clothes are dry. Either way, you have my word your sleep will be undisturbed.”
After he left—and after much fumbling—she managed to dislodge herself from the dress. Although her shirt and pants were still damp, she wasted no time in putting them on. She was starting to trust Latimer, but that did not mean she was prepared to sleep half-naked in the same room with him.
Selena placed her spell book underneath the pillow and drew the blankets up over her. She had so many unanswered questions swimming around in her head, but she knew sleep would claim her before she could puzzle any of them out.
To her surprise, her last thought was of Lucas Thorne and her unexpected guilt at sharing a room with another man.