Sciona’s immediate impression was that the apartment was barer than it had been on her first visit. She wasn’t sure how that was possible when the two Kwen owned so little, but a tattered suitcase stood in the corner, straining at its fastenings.
“Are you two taking a trip?” Sciona asked.
“Uncle Thomil says it’s not safe for us to stay here now that you’ve got him messed up in your business at the Magistry. So, thanks for that.”
“You two should be safe,” Sciona said, though she knew better than to say ‘trust me.’ Her judgment had hardly been reliable of late. “As far as the Magistry knows, Thomil’s been fired for unrelated reasons.”
“I know,” Carra said shortly. “It’s still best if we can’t be found at the address the university has on file.”
“Do you have someplace to go?”
“I’m not telling you where we’re going,” Carra said indignantly.
“I just mean—I wanted to know if you needed any help. I have money—”
“Not from you,” Carra snapped over the clink of crockery, and Sciona decided it was best to drop the matter. “So, why are you here, exactly? You gonna scream and cry some more about stuff that’s your fault?”
“No.” Sciona couldn’t help keeping an eye on the kitchen area, watching for a knife. “That’s not the plan, anyway.”
Carra didn’t have a knife when she returned. Just a teacup on a cracked saucer.
“Tea.” She set the cup down hard in front of Sciona, glaring. “I didn’t spit in it.”
Sciona almost laughed again. “No?”
“I’d have done it in front of your face. It’s the Caldonn way.” Carra folded those wiry arms over her chest. “If we’re gonna hurt someone, we do it to their face. We don’t sneak around and lie about it.”
“Like when you were going to literally put a knife in my back?” Sciona asked.
“I would have said ‘hey, Highmage’ and waited for you to turn around so I could put the knife in your face. But you try beating my uncle to the mark at anything.”
“He is fast, isn’t he?” Sciona remembered Renthorn flying backwards into the library wall and found, to her annoyance, that she couldn’t smile at the memory. Not without a scream welling in her throat.
“My uncle was a hunter before he was a janitor or handyman or anything else,” Carra said. “You have to be fast to be a hunter.”
“Well, thank God for that. His speed has saved my neck twice now.”
“His gifts aren’t of your god,” Carra spat, “and they’re not for you.”
“Alright,” Sciona said, not sure why Carra took objection to that particular observation. “I just meant—”
“He got hurt, you know.” There was something raw in Carra’s voice, pain beneath the hostility. “For protecting your Tiranish honor from that rat man.”
“He told you about that?” Sciona felt shame color her face. God, was there nothing Thomil didn’t share with his fifteen-year-old niece?
“Not like it was a big shock,” Carra said without sympathy. “I guess the one surprising part is that the shit weasel went after an upstanding Tiranish woman this ti—”
“Wait, you said Thomil got hurt? What happened?”
“The guards obviously beat the hell out of him, you idiot.”
“No! But—I covered for him! I said—”
“That you were firing him for incompetence,” Carra said impatiently. “You know, that’s more than enough for a city guard to think they get to teach a Kwen a lesson.”
“Is he alright?”
“You don’t get to ask that!” Carra snarled. “The only reason I didn’t push you down those stairs to your death just now is that I promised Uncle Thomil I wouldn’t. That and I know he’s wanted to punch that greasy rat in the face for years.”
“What—Highmage Renthorn?”
“Who else?”
And Sciona abruptly remembered the look on Thomil’s face when she had suggested that the two of them might end up working under Renthorn the Third. Thomil had known something about Renthorn that Sciona hadn’t, something that had made him wary, even back then.
“You’re not drinking the nice tea I made you.” Carra snapped, jerking Sciona from her thoughts. “That’s rude.”
“Right. Sorry.” Sciona lifted the cup and took a conciliatory sip. Convenience store tea was always rough; rather than dried leaves, it was an alchemical powder that was intended to simulate real leaves but always came with a caustic aftertaste. This particular convenience store tea was also oversteeped and ice cold, possibly from yesterday. “Mmm,” she smiled and set the cup down, “just like I used to make.”
Carra eyed her in cold confusion.
“If a boy classmate told me to make him tea, I’d always do it, but I’d make sure it was good and cold and nasty before I handed it to him. It’s a quick way to let a man know you’re not interested.”
“Don’t try to girl-talk me, mage.”
“Try to what?”
“You think because we’re both girls that I’m supposed to have something in common with. But we are not the same.”
“Not exactly,” Sciona conceded, “but we both grew up in a man’s world without mothers.”
“We both grew up in a mage’s world,” Carra cut her off, “and my mother is dead because of you and your magic boyfriends.”
Sciona bit down on the ‘I didn’t mean to’ and ‘I didn’t know’ that rose in her throat.
Your guilt is useless to us, Thomil had said, and he had a point. If Perramis walked through the door today to whine that he ‘didn’t mean to’ abandon his wife to illness and his child to poverty, what good would that do Sciona? What good would it do Carra now?
“My father came apart while I was in his arms,” Carra growled. “My last memory of him is the skin coming away from his face so I could see the white of his skull.”
Sciona tried not to grimace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Uncle Thomil tells me about the things my father used to say to me, the nicknames he used to call me, his jokes that used to make me laugh. When I try to remember any of that, when I try to remember what his voice sounded like, I can only hear him screaming. Blight took all of him. Even my memories of him. So, don’t talk to me like we’re the same.”
And God damn it, Sciona was crying.
“Don’t do that!” Carra said in rage. “You don’t get to do that!”
“Do what?”
“Cry like I’m the one who’s done something bad to you.”
“Would you rather I not cry?”
“I’d rather you and all your mage friends shoved your staffs up your asses and died!”
“I’m—” Sciona swallowed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m not crying to get your sympathy.”
“Aren’t you?” Carra demanded. “That is how Tiranishwomen solve their problems, isn’t it? You just mope and cry, and woe is you, and everyone comes tripping over their dicks to rescue you.”