“Easy, Highmage,” Tommy said. “It’s a nice word.”
There weren’t any books in the university’s library on Kwen languages, so Sciona supposed she would just have to take Tommy’s word for it.
“He’s just honored to serve free drinks to the new highmage everyone’s been talking about.”
“People have been talking?” Sciona had known that the whole university would talk, of course, but hearing the damn janitor reference it made her ill. She took a swig and focused on the burn, willing it to melt some of her anxiety. “Do you…” She shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Do you know what they’ve been saying?”
“I’m terrible at keeping up with gossip, ma’am,” Tommy said. “You’d have to ask Raehem.” He nodded to the bartender. “He’s the one who hears everything, but it looks like he’s busy.”
“That’s just as well.”
Sciona didn’t need to know the things people were saying behind her back. Having heard what her own peers thought of her, she couldn’t imagine the talk in the bars was any more charitable. Cringing, she took another drink in the hopes that it would wash the image of Renthorn’s greasy sneer from her mind.
“May I ask you a question, ma’am?”
“Sure.”
“It seems that people haven’t been particularly kind to you in your new job. And it also seems that it wasn’t an easy job to get.”
“You have no idea.”
“So, why do it? Why work yourself so hard just for… the way the other mages treated you today?”
Sciona didn’t answer until she had downed that first glass. Then she perhaps answered a bit too much and too truthfully.
“It’s compulsive. Always has been. My cousin thinks it’s about my parents—or rather, my lack thereof. The fact that I’ve always wanted to do something big, something that would be remembered by thousands of people… Alba thinks that’s because I didn’t grow up with parents to support me. Nobody was going to care what I did just because I did it. I had to make them care.” Sciona frowned at her glass for a moment, her fidgeting index finger tracing a circle through the condensation. “She’s not giving herself enough credit. She and my Aunt Winny have cared for me better than most parents do their real children.”
“But you don’t agree with your cousin?” Tommy asked.
“No. Of course, Alba thinks it’s about love—because that’s how she and Aunt Winny measure the world. They’re sweet like that.”
“But you?”
“I’m not sweet. The world isn’t about love for me. It’s about power.” The alcohol had blurred the world like a Kaedor mapping spell. But Sciona automatically sharpened in response to the fog. A sniper, honing in on the truth. “I think I’ve just had a problem with magic since the first time I tasted it—like some people have a problem with alcohol.”
Tommy nodded, not a trace of judgment in his expression. “I don’t know about your obsession with magic, ma’am, but growing up without parents is no easy thing.” Something in those words was too dark and too near.
“Your parents?” Sciona asked softly.
“They died when I was young. But I had my older sister.” He took a deep drink. “Like you have your aunt and cousin.”
“It’s good to have someone.”
Tommy gave her a grim smile of agreement before knocking his glass into hers and tossing the rest of it back in an impressive single draught.
“Why magic, do you think?” he asked when Raehem had supplied them both with second—and third—drinks. “Why is magic your poison of choice? If you want to achieve something on this mortal plain, why not choose some field of work where women don’t meet as much resistance? Teaching? Homemaking? Local politics?”
“There’s no glory in homemaking or teaching—and I’m lousy at all those things, anyway.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, ma’am.” He had to say that to be polite.
“But it is. All those jobs involve people, and I’m terrible with people. Magic is the one area where I can shut myself in a room with my books and my thoughts and come out more powerful than I went in. It doesn’t matter how big, or strong, or pretty you are in magic. It doesn’t matter how much people like you. With my fingers on the keys of a spellograph, if I can just think hard enough, I’m the most powerful person in the world. That’s a feeling a woman just isn’t going to get anywhere else.”
Tommy was nodding. “Fair enough, ma’am.”
Drinking with the Kwen was a frankly devastating experience. Sciona had always prided herself on being able to put away a respectable number of drinks for her modest stature. She had been sure she could outdrink any of her male peers if it came to a contest. Tommy was on his… well, she had long since lost the ability to count with the empty glasses all sliding over one another, and he still wasn’t slurring.
“I can’t let you walk back alone, Highmage,” he said at one point when the bar had mostly emptied.
“It’s fine,” Sciona said.
“It’s not, though, ma’am. People get robbed and worse in these streets this late.”
“This late?” How long had they stayed out?
“You should always have someone with you.”
“Yeah?” Sciona shot back. “Who’s walkin’ home with you?”
“I’m different. I don’t look like such an easy mark.”
“Did’you listen to nnnothingIsaid ’bout magic?” Sciona demanded, though she was starting to forget precisely what she had said to Tommy—about magic or any subject. “How I look doesn’matter. It’s power.” Sciona reached into her bag and produced a cylinder. “Power matters!”
“What is that, ma’am?” Tommy asked as she held the cylinder out to him. “Lipstick?”
“No,” she said, then let out a belated snort of laughter. “God! How big d’you think my mouth is?”
“Okay, so what is it?”
“Ss’a voice-activated conduit I invented in junior academy—or, well, I thought I invented it.” She scowled. “Turns out Archmage Duris was already using spells like it to revamp the city guards’ firearms, but whatever. I was twelve.”
“Firearms?” Tommy said in alarm.
“Here…” Sciona wasn’t sure when she had pressed the cylinder into Tommy’s hand and wrapped her fingers around his, but his skin was warm on hers, his callouses rough like crisp spellpaper. “I’ll show you how it works.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Highmage.”
“Shushhhh. Look… see… a conduit is a magical object that anchors a pre-written spell.”
“I know what a conduit is. I didn’t realize you could just compose one for yourself and carry it around, unlicensed. Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Only if you’re a lousy composer. No better way to learn about conduits than by handling ’em. And look, it’s all fine. I marked this one in black. That means it just makes a smoke explosion. The dangerous ones are on my belt.”