She hadn’t quite prepared for Archmage Bringham to ambush her right outside the door.
“Freynan, there you are!” he beamed, and before Sciona got a chance to wonder why he was grinning, he did something even stranger.
He hugged her.
Archmages did not hug, in Sciona’s experience. The shock was so profound that, crushed in his arms, she barely registered his next words.
“We did it!”
“Wh-what?”
“Or I should say, you did it.” Bringham drew back to hold her shoulders in a grip vibrating with excitement. “You did it, you brilliant girl!” His voice cracked like a boy’s—like he could cry. “You’re in!”
“She’s in?” Alba screamed.
“I’m in?” Sciona said blankly.
“Archmage Orynhel announced it in the waiting chamber, but you weren’t there.”
“But… how?” Sciona said weakly.
“Walk with me, Miss Freynan. Miss Livian, if you’d give us a moment?”
“Yes, Archmage,” Alba said, glowing with joy. “Of course! Oh! Oh!” Seemingly at a loss for what else to do with herself, Alba turned and hugged the secretary, who looked as stunned as Sciona herself. “She did it!”
Putting an arm around Sciona’s shoulders, Bringham steered her down a deserted hallway away from the restrooms and the waiting chamber.
“I don’t understand,” Sciona confessed as soon as they were out of earshot of Alba and the secretary.
“What’s not to understand, my child?”
“I didn’t… I should be disqualified. I broke the ceiling!”
“Did you ever!” Bringham laughed. “Don’t worry. The maids have almost got the mess cleaned up as we speak. And those crusty murals needed touching up anyway.”
“But I didn’t follow Archmage Duris’s instructions.”
“Oh, stuff Duris.”
“I—what?”
“Excuse my language, but Duris doesn’t actually have the authority to end an applicant’s examination. He likes to throw tantrums, yes, but only the Archmage Supreme can call the end of an examination. You were right to hold your ground and ignore him. Never forget how to do that, Sciona.”
“Do what, sir?”
“Know your rights, know your spells, and press on past the detractors—or through them, if you must. It’s a skill you’ll need over and over again in the High Magistry.”
“Right.” As an idealistic child, Sciona had assumed that highmages and archmages all supported each other, despite their differences; how else could they work the miracles that kept Tiran running? After years of working for Bringham, she knew that powerful mages could be as uncooperative as anyone and that miracles were hard-won.
“Can I tell you a secret, Miss Freynan?” Bringham lowered his voice with a conspiratorial smile. “I was the one who put the industrial cauldron in Duris’s head.”
“You what?”
“I let him think it was his idea, of course, but I needed the Council to see the sheer power of your siphoning abilities. After that, there wasn’t much to discuss. They had to accept you.”
“Had to?” Sciona still didn’t follow. Was there anything in the world the Mage Council really had to do?
“Well, with the expansion project coming up, we need solid sourcers—genuinely exceptional innovators in the field of mapping and siphoning, not just passable legacy inductees.”
“I haven’t heard about any expansion.”
“Oh, right! Of course!” Bringham batted himself in the forehead. “It hasn’t been publicized yet, but our much-needed barrier expansion has finally, finally gotten approval from the city.”
“Oh my God!” Sciona felt her eyes go wide. “That expansion? The expansion? It’s really happening?”
“It’s really happening.” Bringham looked as giddy as Sciona. “This year, if we can get the plans together. But shh,” he winked. “There’s going to be a big announcement in two days.”
“That’s a lot of spellwork to get together,” Sciona said in awe and a simmering undercurrent of something more. Hunger.
“You’ll be briefed on your role before you start at your new lab.”
Her new lab… her own lab. A chance to work on the most ambitious magic since Tiran’s founding. It was surreal.
“I was supposed to wait until the Council finalized the decision before telling you, but I think the research you’ll be assigned is obvious.”
She shook her head.
“Mapping innovation,” Bringham said. “You’re going to be looking into ways to source enough energy for the barrier expansion.”
“What?” That had to be a joke.
“You’ll be among a few highmages putting forth proposals—including your predecessor in my lab, Cleon Renthorn—so it isn’t as though the sourcing will all fall to you, but I have every confidence that your contribution will be significant.”
Sciona’s body didn’t feel real, but her mind was already racing, digging into this prompt of all prompts: how to source enough power to expand Tiran’s barrier. Already, she was itching for her pen to start making notes, start sketching spellwebs.
“But…” Sobering doubt caught up to her, insisting that all of it was too good to be true. “They would never give this project to a novice highmage—or anyone less than an archmage—would they? It’s too important.”
“Normally, you’d be correct,” Bringham said. “But Tiran’s key mapper was Archmage Ardona, God keep his soul. That’s not to diminish Archmage Gamwen’s skill; he’s a genius in his own right, but he’s had his hands full making up for Ardona’s absence. He simply doesn’t have the time to devote to a massive new project on top of all the day-to-day responsibilities he’s inherited, and Archmage Thelanra, bless his heart, hasn’t been sharp enough for manual sourcing in years. This examination was specifically held to find a new mage who could source—really source—at the level of a Gamwen or an Ardona.”
“I see…” It made sense. With the exception of Jerrin Mordra, Sciona’s fellow applicants had all been strong mappers and siphoners. This was probably how Bringham had gotten Sciona’s sourcing-heavy resume considered in the first place.
“What did I tell you, Freynan?” Bringham radiated pride. “This is your time.”
“I… Archmage Bringham…” Damn it. Now, after everything, she was going to cry. “I-I don’t know what to say. Thank you for this. For everyth—”
“No, my dear.” Bringham held up a finger. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Cry?
“Credit me or anyone else for your success. As it is, other people will try to credit me for the purpose of tearing you down. Be cold, be hard, and don’t give them an inch, you understand? No matter what they say of you.”
“What will they say?” Sciona asked. Or rather—“What are they saying?”
“Oh, the sort of nonsense you’d expect,” Bringham sighed, “that you manipulated your way here, that I pulled strings for you to serve my own ambitions, that the Mage Council only entertained your application to appease City Chair Nerys.”