Cold Magic

“We were both duped,” she raged, turning the bracelet around and around her wrist. “Lied to. Used. I am so angry I could—” Her expressive face sheared through so many emotions so quickly that it was dizzying.

Rory leaned forward. “You could what? I am all ears.”

“It was a figure of speech, you wretched idiot,” she said with the same dismissive scorn she heaped on her sisters when they annoyed her. “There’s nothing I can do but sit here and be grateful for these very fine and high-placed and fabulously wealthy people who have been so generously willing to offer a sad, impoverished lowly Barahal shelter, food, and a bed.”

She turned quite, quite pink, as with shame.

“Bee!” I said.

She jumped to her feet and strode to the window, her back to me. “I know nothing of what you have suffered, and yet here I am speaking only of my own mild difficulties. I’m terribly selfish.”

Astonishingly, she burst into tears. Real, raw tears.

I ran to her and hugged her, and she pushed me away and cursed so frightfully that I laughed. She wiped her eyes and threw one killing look toward Rory, who had closed his eyes and was pretending to not be there.

“Bee! What happened?” I demanded.

“No, you tell me first,” she cried. “Tell me what they did to you!”

“I’ll tell you everything, but I want to hear your story first so I can start making a plan.”

She set a palm on the perfectly polished glass of one of the windowpanes. The garden, in winter, wore its green yew hedges as its brightest tone; leafless fruit trees lined a path toward several round graneries partially obscured by willow hurdles set around them like a stockade. Beyond lay stables and laundry. The high stone boundary walls were obscured by trimmed evergreen yew trees, guardian against magic. For a house in Adurnam, they had a lot of land.

I waited, and she began.

“You can imagine what happened after the magister hauled you away that night. Mother and Father did not sleep. A few chests were packed with clothes, necessaries, and Father’s private correspondence.”

“What happened to the package Andevai—the magister—gave to Uncle?”

“They burned it first thing, all of it. They threw that book you found on the fire, too.”

“Lies the Romans Told?”

“Yes. But when they weren’t looking, I pulled it out and hid it behind Uncle Daniel’s journals. Which they left behind.”

“They left behind the journals? How could they?”

She shrugged. “We left the house before dawn and went straight to the harbor. A Kena’ani captain was obliged to offer us passage when Father invoked the old custom of motherhouse. While we waited in a cabin on the ship, Mama and Papa told me the truth. Thirteen years ago, a contract was forced onto the Hassi Barahal clan by Four Moons House. The magisters held evidence that the Barahals had spied for Camjiata during his campaigns while at the same time selling information to the princes and mage Houses allied against Camjiata. In exchange for keeping the evidence of this double-dealing a secret, the magisters had the right to take possession of the eldest Barahal daughter at any time before she reached her majority. Me, Cat. It was me they wanted, not you.”

“I know.”

“How could Mama and Papa think I would ever forgive them, once I found out?”

“Bee…”

“Let me finish. The tide turned and the ship sailed. I sweet-talked the harbor pilot into smuggling me on board the pilot’s skiff when he returned to harbor. The ship could not turn against the tide, so they went on to Gadir without me. I hope they think I cast myself overboard and drowned!”

“Bee!”

“I don’t mean it! Not for the girls’ sake. I left a note. I didn’t want Hanan and Astraea worrying. They were so scared, for I had to drag them from their beds and make them dress in the dark in the terrible cold. Shiffa and Evved and Cook went, too, but I knew Pompey and Callie remained behind. I walked home. But you know, Cat, there was almost no food left in the root cellar, and coal enough for only a week, and no money at all. I can’t imagine how we were meant to survive the winter had we not been forced to flee!”

“But—”

“Pompey went back to his family in the country. I gave him some things he could sell, for I thought it only fair he should have a severance wage. Callie has nowhere to go, you know. She’s got no kin. I couldn’t turn her out on the street, so we sold off a few things Mama and Papa had left behind. Once I was certain we had sufficient coal to heat the kitchen and grain to keep two of us for some months—for Callie knows exactly where to find the cheapest victuals at the tradesmen’s market—then I went to the academy and asked to speak to the headmaster. I asked him to contact Four Moons House for me so I could exchange myself for you.”