“Yes, Highmage,” she said impatiently. “I’ve been running tests on some multi-purpose conduits for my own self-defense, but they’re not done. This idiot was supposed to bring the prototypes to me.” She rolled her eyes. “Serves me right for employing a Kwen who can’t read the words ‘this way up.’”
Sciona met Thomil’s eyes, and he seemed to understand.
“Ma’am, please.” He played along beautifully. “I didn’t think there was anything explosive—”
“Guards, remove this Kwen,” she said, “before he can get himself into more trouble. I never want to see him in this building again.”
“Highmage Freynan…” Mordra said tentatively, “I think Highmage Renthorn is the only one who can hire or fire the staff on this floor.”
“Well, Highmage Renthorn was the one knocked out in the blast, so I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll agree with me. Gentlemen,” she addressed the two security guards, “if you would take this Kwen away.”
The guards rushed forward all too eagerly and roughly hauled Thomil from the library. Sciona ached to go after him, to make sure he was alright, but for the moment, she was trapped here with her colleagues.
“Miss Freynan,” Tanrel put a hand on her lower back, and it was all she could do not to jerk away. “That must have been taxing for you.”
“Luckily, I’m on my way out to take a few days off.” She put a hand on Tanrel’s and pushed it from her waist. He put it back.
“I’ll walk you to your train.”
“No, thank you.”
“I insist.”
“It’s really not necessary, Highmage.”
“Nonsense. I’ll accompany you to—”
“No, you will not!” Sciona shoved him back, realizing at that moment how close she was to tears, how little control she had over her own body. “And, if you press the matter, I can arrange for another conduit malfunction!”
“I’m sorry?” Mordra said in alarm. “Did you just say another—？”
“Easy, Tenth,” Tanrel said. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s—”
“You want to know something, Tanrel?” Sciona cut him off, all her rage seething to the surface out of her control. “I think you do this friendly, spineless, peacemaker thing to cover the fact that you’re a worthless mage. And you think if you just get everyone to like you, they won’t notice.” She narrowed her eyes in a vindictive smile. “They notice.”
“Um—I—excuse me!” Tanrel stammered. “What are you—”
“Do I need to spell it out? You are never going to make a meaningful contribution to our field. Your publications are a transparent rehash of Archmage Thelanra’s rehash of Archmage Nestram’s actual advances in mapping. Archmage Thelanra had little to add, and it fucking shows that you wasted your graduate years studying under him because you have even less. The worst part is that when you do hit on a point that’s almost worthwhile, you wrap it in pages of anecdotes and meditations. Which is a terrible defense mechanism, by the way. Because your anecdotes are insipid.”
“Miss Freynan, that is quite enough!” Halaros stepped forward. “Highmage Tanrel is your senior colleague. Have some respect.”
“And you!” Sciona turned to square with Halaros—because she couldn’t stop herself, because the condescension, on top of everything else, was too much. “When I recommend your books, I tell people to skip chapters four through eight. I mean, a new system for prioritizing coordinates in a spellweb? Really? You realize you’re not the next Archmage Sintrell, right? You’re his shadow.”
She hadn’t had the physical strength to make Renthorn pay. She had just let it happen. But someone was going to bleed, Feryn damn it, and nothing bled like a mage’s ego.
“The really embarrassing thing is that everyone who’s read your work knows that your ‘new system’ is a waste of ink. They’re too polite to tell you. But look around. You see anyone applying that convoluted garbage to their mapping the way they apply Sintrell? No. Because it has no practical use. It’s masturbatory, and if you’d had any real friends review your work, they’d have told you to cut it. But you don’t have friends. You have sycophants like this moron!” She stabbed a finger at Tanrel.
Halaros seemed to be in rictus, his eyes bugged out, his jaw locked open in total indignation.
“Um…” Jerrin Mordra started to interject, and Sciona whirled on him.
“You have something to say to me, Tenth?”
“Uh… no?”
“Smart,” she snapped and swept past her three confused colleagues out of the library.
The outburst had done nothing to unravel the sick feeling in her gut. Halfway down the stairs, her hands were in useless, shaking fists, and her throat squeezed with the threat of tears. She had meant to take a day to lay out plans before putting them into motion. That was no longer an option. If she gave herself a moment of quiet now, she would go back to the feeling of Renthorn’s hands on her, the awful, spoiled tea taste of his mouth, and that thrill in his eyes that, for a moment, had been far too like her own. She reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to throw up in the trash receptacle on the landing.
For once, the vomit was welcome. Stomach acid was better than the taste of Renthorn on her tongue. She didn’t bother washing out her mouth when the heaving had subsided. Renthorn fancied himself a great predator. She wanted to remember him this way—as putrid, half-digested food.
She had departed the fourth floor in the direction of the Magistry’s front doors to avoid suspicion. But when she had finished being sick, she drew a hand across her mouth and doubled back toward her real destination. The head janitor’s office was more of a closet than a room, crammed under a set of stairs.
When Sciona knocked, a voice answered with a heavy Kwen accent, “Come in!”
The old man started, gray eyes going wide to see a white-robed mage open the door.
“H-Highmage,” he stuttered, getting to his feet. “What—”
“Please, have a seat, Mr. Dermek,” she said gently—or as gently as she could with the raspy little that remained of her voice. “I just wanted to ask who cleaned the offices on the fourth floor yesterday.”
“Oh, that would be me.” Mr. Dermek said, and it hurt something in Sciona. Because there was no lift to the fourth floor and this man was too old to be climbing up and down stairs. “You know my name?”
“Thomil mentioned you a few times. All good things,” she added. “I came to see you about a broken spellograph that was in my office. You don’t happen to remember what you did with it?”
“When there’s broken equipment, I always take it to the tech offices to see if it can be repaired.” As he spoke, Sciona noted that his accent was quite distinct from Thomil’s and Carra’s, some of the vowels a little rounder, some of the consonants a little sharper, and she wondered what tribe he came from. Endrasta? Siernes? Probably some tribe she had never heard of, considering she just knew the two besides the near-extinct Caldonnae. Were there any of his people left beyond the barrier? “They said fixing your machine would be more trouble than melting it down, so I took it to the scrap metal bins.”