The Will of the Empress

Zhegorz looked at Daja, trembling. “You’re going away?”

Daja looked at Tris, who frowned at Zhegorz as she pulled on her lower lip. I remember that look, Daja thought. Just because we aren’t in each other’s minds doesn’t mean I don’t know what she’s thinking right now. And she won’t say another word until all her thoughts are lined up. She thinks he has magic. She’s thought it since she opened only one shutter. And it must be strange magic, or she’d have told him outright. Or there’s something peculiar in it.

Just because Tris isn’t talking doesn’t mean I can’t, she told herself. “Yes, but it’s all right.” She reached over and closed her hands around Zhegorz’s trembling fingers again. “Yes, we’re going away, but you aren’t to worry, because you’ll be with us. It means you’ll be out of the city—it’s worse in the cities, you said?”

Both Zhegorz and Tris nodded.

“You’ll be with us. Zhegorz, you know my magic’s a little—odd, right?” Daja asked.

Zhegorz nodded. Tris stopped pulling her lip and began to chew on the end of one of her thin lightning braids, lost in thought.

Doesn’t that hurt? wondered Daja, watching in awe as the redhead nibbled her source of sparks. To Zhegorz, Daja said, “Well, hers is, too, and so are the magics of the lady who owns this house and our brother.” She spoke under the clatter as the maids and Wenoura got to work. “And the thing with having odd magic is that you are more inclined to spot it in somebody else. My friend here—her name is Tris—she’s already figured out you hear voices because she hears them, too, on the winds.”

Zhegorz yanked around to stare up at Tris. “You hear them, too?” he asked in wonderment.

“For years,” Daja said when Tris only nodded. “So part of what’s wrong with you is that you never learned a way to manage what you hear, or even that the problem was magic all along. We don’t know about the visions”—Daja glanced at Tris, who shook her head—“though maybe they’re on the winds?” Tris shrugged.

“Well, she’ll figure it out, I suppose, and you’ll stay with

us while she works on it.”

Chime had endured enough of the maids and cook who now bustled around her napping place. She wriggled out between their legs and took flight, to land on the table in front of Zhegorz. The man flinched away and knocked the bench over to land on his back.

“That’s just Chime,” said Tris, reaching down a hand. “She’s all right. She’s a living glass dragon. They’re not very common.”

Daja snorted: In her dry way, Tris had made a joke. Zhegorz stared up at Tris, then cautiously took the offered hand. As she helped him to his feet, he said in a voice filled with wonder, “Are all of you decked in marvels? Are all of you as mad as she is?” He pointed to Daja with his free hand. “She walked into a burning building that was collapsing. And before she did it, she saved my life and the lives of others who were as mad as me. Madder.”

“Collapsing buildings?” Tris asked Daja. She released Zhegorz to put the bench upright again. Gingerly the man sat to peer at Chime, who had decided to charm. As she wove her way around and between his hands and arms, chiming, Daja looked away from Tris.

“A man I knew, supposedly a friend, was setting fires,” she mumbled. “It’s not something I like to discuss.”

“She burned him up,” Zhegorz said, smoothing reverent fingers over Chime’s surface. “Her and other fire folk who were present at the execution. The governor was furious.” He looked at Daja. “It was quicker than letting him burn slow. And he broke the law.”

Wenoura handed Tris a bowl of hot soup and a spoon. The redhead set them down in front of Zhegorz. She didn’t appear to see the single tear that escaped Daja’s eye before Daja blotted it away. Daja could still remember that cold afternoon and that roaring pillar of flame. Knowing she and the other fire mages had saved Bennat Ladradrun an agonizing death hadn’t soothed the pain of his betrayal.

“Hush,” Tris was telling Zhegorz. “Some things you can’t fix by making excuses for them.”

And how did you learn that? Daja wondered. Or is it something you just never forgot, after you killed all those pirates?

Tris looked around. “I should ask the housekeeper if there’s a guest room that can be made up for you.”

“I’ll take him.” Briar strolled in, hands in his pockets. They hadn’t seen him arrive. “The servants can put a cot in my room. You’ll want me close by anyway, old fellow. If you get the horrors, I have drops that will help.”

“Putting him in a room on the downwind side of the house will help even more,” Tris replied. “I think part of his problem now is he’s had too many such drops.”

“Sleeping drops, with no magic in them, then,” Briar said. He sat next to Zhegorz and offered a hand. “Briar Moss. These two are my mates.” Not everyone knew this was slang for close friends, so he added, “My sisters.”

Gingerly, Zhegorz offered his own hand. “I can tell,” he said, his voice soft.

Briar clasped his hand, then let go and glared at Tris. “You know, I don’t go around feeding everybody magic the first time they sneeze,” he said belligerently. “It’s not good for them. You get used to it, and it stops helping. You’d be a lackwit not to know that.”