Thomil tilted his head. “Are we… admiring Renthorn, now, then?”
“No! God, no!” Sciona said, horrified that Thomil had read admiration anywhere in her words. “I was just thinking that there is a certain honesty to his view that seems to frighten other mages. And whether it’s worse to be an honest monster or a monster in denial, Renthorn’s brand of honesty certainly doesn’t fit the cloak of holy righteousness the Council wraps around the Magistry. I just—I see why his father might try to shut down that kind of overt cruelty.”
“Well, if Renthorn’s father has succeeded thus far, it’s almost certainly been at the expense of his son’s victims,” Thomil said.
“Yes,” Sciona agreed, “but maybe Renthorn’s already made the mistake that will be the end of his career.”
“What? Crossing you?” Thomil said with a fond smile that warmed something in Sciona she hadn’t realized could still feel warmth.
“No,” she said. “Putting you in my lab. If Renthorn didn’t enjoy bullying his inferiors quite so much, we wouldn’t have ended up together, would we?”
Thomil’s smile turned wry. “Well, it remains to be seen whether it was his mistake or ours.”
“I take your point about Renthorn, though,” Sciona said, “and I’m sorry. It was stupid to ask why he wasn’t stopped.”
“It was,” Thomil agreed, “for the same reason this whole idea is stupid. Your average Tiranishman—however cruel or kind he seems—will not care.”
“Well, they can’t care if you don’t give them a chance,” Sciona protested. “Most Tiranish people aren’t like Renthorn.”
“But they don’t need to be like Highmage Renthorn for this to go poorly,” Thomil protested. “They just need to be like Highmage Tanrel or Archmage Bringham, strongly preferring to look away.”
“Bringham and Tanrel have never been publicly confronted, though. That will make a difference.” At least, that was what Sciona had kept telling herself as she worked through the night on her spellwork. “And again, we’re still talking about high-status mages. But the common people of Tiran are different. Kwen have lived side-by-side with Tiranish in my neighborhood for decades.” Granted, Sciona never interacted much with them, but Winny did. Alba did. “My aunt exchanges holiday gifts with them, same as anyone else.”
“Your aunt sounds like a lovely person, but—”
“There was a boy from my neighborhood,” Sciona said, “one of the baker’s sons. He went off to be a barrier guard last year. When he came back—after seeing what happened to the Kwen at the barrier and being forced to keep it a secret—he couldn’t take it. He took his own life.”
“So, your evidence that regular citizens will take this revelation well is that your sample size of one killed himself?”
“Alright, it sounds bad when you put it that way but consider: he couldn’t talk to anyone about what he’d seen, couldn’t do anything about it. If everyone in the city knows, everyone will have to reckon with it. Together.”
“And you think that will go well, do you?”
“Is she still at it?” a voice said, and Carra rounded the corner, drying her long hair with a borrowed towel. “Gods, mage, I tried to tell you he wouldn’t like your idea any better than I did.”
“I’m so sorry, Highmage Freynan,” Thomil said as Carra slid onto one of the barstools by her uncle, and he really sounded it. “I don’t think this is going to work out the way you want it to.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?” Sciona demanded, looking from Carra to Thomil in frustration. “Pretend nothing is wrong? Just let things at the Magistry go on as normal while people continue dying on the other side of the barrier?”
“No.” Thomil rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, fingers gripping the short hair there in agitation. “I just—”
“Look, I understand this is probably not the smart thing to do.”
“So, why are you doing it?” Thomil asked.
“Because I have to.”
Thomil made an exasperated noise. “Then why did you even bother asking my opinion?”
“That’s what I said,” Carra muttered.
“I…” Sciona faltered. Damn it. “You’re right.” They were both right. “I’m being selfish, and arrogant, and…” Painfully, Sciona swallowed her pride and all her instincts. “If you really don’t want me to go ahead with this, then I won’t.”
When Thomil just frowned, Sciona turned to Carra, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me, mage. If you want to make a mess of this cursed city, I’m not jumping in to stop you.”
“And you, Thomil?” Sciona asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know.” Thomil let out a growl of frustration. “I don’t know because I honestly don’t know for sure what will happen—to you, to the Kwen in the city, to any of us.”
“But things should get better for the Kwen once people know the truth.”
“I really doubt that,” Thomil said. “Here in Tiran, we’ll probably be worse off.”
“How do you figure?”
“Don’t ask me to explain Tiranish behavior. All I know is that living honestly has always ended badly for my people, and I doubt it will end any better for you.”
“But maybe not,” Sciona said as Carra rolled her eyes. “The archmages are subject to public scrutiny and judgment. Half the power they wield is political, contingent on public opinion. After the city knows what they’ve done, the Council will be the enemy, not me and certainly not the Kwen.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Because they’re butchers and cowards!”
“Butchers who have given the Tiranish homes, warmth, safety, electric lights, fast trains, running water, and a sense of being blessed by their God. That’s a lot to ask a person to give up for something as pesky as the truth.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Sciona’s voice shook. “I do. Firsthand. But if a selfish egomaniac like me can see sense, why shouldn’t the rest of Tiran?” That actually got a smile out of Carra. “They have parents, and siblings, and children. They know loss. They’ll understand the atrocity of magic.”
“You forget that plenty of Tiranish don’t see Kwen as people,” Thomil said. “By the laws that govern your society, Kwen can’t be raped, can’t be wronged, can’t be murdered. This will just be a reason for the Tiranish to retreat further into the idea that Kwen aren’t human.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Among the Kwen tribes that predated Tiran, there was a tribe of the foothills called the Eresvin. Until my great grandparents’ time, they were known as the most peaceful of all people in the known world. They farmed mostly and hunted rarely for dislike of killing. By the time I was born, they had turned to cannibalism, hunting not just animals but smaller tribes. They pursued my people a hundred miles past the edge of our former territory when we were too few to turn around and fight them.”