Declan parted company with Gavin as they approached the door to Gavin’s suite. Gavin removed his medallion and opened the door.
“Kiri, fair warning…we have guests,” Gavin said, his voice raised just a bit as he entered the suite with the others trailing behind.
Kiri broke into a huge smile when she saw Lillian and walked straight to her. The young ladies embraced, and Gavin smiled when he saw how tightly Kiri hugged Lillian.
“How are you?” Kiri asked as they ended the embrace.
Lillian nodded, saying, “I’m doing well. The nightmares are infrequent, and I don’t jump at loud noises anymore.”
“Good,” Kiri said.
“I hope that doesn’t mean our talks are over.”
Kiri grinned. “I hope so, too! So, what brings you here?”
“Our families want to speak with Gavin,” Lillian said. “They asked us to be the messengers.”
“Did they say what they wanted to speak to me about?” Gavin asked.
“No,” Braden said, his deep voice rumbling throughout the common room, “but all our parents are at the Mivar Estate.”
“Mother was very emphatic that you understand this is a request and not a summons,” Mariana was quick to interject. “She said one does not summon Kirloth.”
Gavin chuckled, grinning. “Okay. I’m not summoned. Still, though, if they’re all there…I see no reason not to see what they want. Do you want to go, Kiri?”
“Unless you want me to go, I have plenty to keep me occupied here.”
“Well then,” Gavin said as he indicated the door, “let us proceed.”
It required a little less than an hour to cross the city to the Mivar Estate. Several times, Gavin recognized a face in the crowd from the day he was introduced to the Wraiths, every time a different face, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many of them were traveling with them unseen through the crowd. He suspected not even the King of Tel was so well guarded…but then again, Leuwyn didn’t have the Lornithrasa trying to kill him.
Lillian walked ahead of the group to reach the bell-pull as they approached her family’s ancestral home.
“Lillian, have you ever tried approaching the gate like your grandfather does?” Gavin asked.
“No, why?”
“No reason. I was just curious.”
Lillian gave Gavin a thoughtful look before she turned away from the bell-pull and walked straight to the gate. When she neared it, everyone heard the lock click open just before the gate swung wide. Lillian stifled a gasp and turned to Gavin.
“How did you know?”
“I didn’t, not for certain. It’s just that some of my readings lately suggested that the protections are tied to each bloodline.”
“Then, why doesn’t it open for Father?”
“Well…he’s not a wizard, Lillian. The protections have no way to recognize him.”
Lillian’s face fell just a bit. “Oh.” She turned and led the group onto the land that uncounted generations of Mivar’s descendants called home.
By the time they crossed half of the seventy-five yards that separated the manor house from the gate, Adelaide stood on the portico to greet them. She smiled as the group approached.
“It’s always good to see the four of you together,” Adelaide said. “I remember all the years you played together as kids when your parents came to Tel Mivar.” Her eyes found Gavin, and the smile faded. “My condolences, Gavin. Torval and I regret we did not send a message at the time.”
“It’s quite all right, ma’am,” Gavin said, “and thank you.”
“Oh, my goodness…I thought we established you’d call me Adelaide after you saved Lilli,” Adelaide said as she turned to lead the group into the house. “They’re in the parlor.”
Gavin smiled. “Yes, Adelaide.”
The parlor turned out to be a sitting room on the right side of the foyer. Gavin couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting to the doors of the Conclave Hall as he followed Adelaide and wondered where Mariana and Torval had secured the strongboxes from the vineyard.
Lyssa Cothos and Sypara Wygoth shared a sofa on one side of the room, while Carth Roshan and Torval each sat in armchairs. They stood, though, when Gavin entered.
“Thank you for coming,” Lyssa said. “I hope we did not disturb you.”
“Nonsense,” Gavin said. “My friends said you wanted to speak with me.”
Lyssa, Sypara, Carth, and Torval each looked at one another, as if silently determining who would speak. Torval must’ve won. He gestured for Gavin to take a seat as he and his other guests did so as well.
“We’ve been discussing the hearing…Tauron’s ‘theatrical farce,’ I believe you called it…and it was certainly that. We’re still smiling over the memory of Dakkor not caring about the Council in the slightest.” Torval paused a few moments as he looked to each of his counterparts once more, before turning back to face Gavin. “Gavin, we’ve spent a lot of time discussing this, and we want you to train our Heirs. We want them to be true arcanists, not empowered mages.”
Gavin almost allowed his jaw to drop and looked to Lyssa, Sypara, and Carth in turn. Each nodded as Gavin’s eyes met theirs.
“I don’t have any issue with it, myself, but am I allowed to train people? Don’t I have to be an instructor for that?”
“Not if you do with them as your mentor did with you…claim them as your apprentices as was in the old ways,” Lyssa said. “Under Article 24 of the Code, that removes them from the authority of the College…and those fools on the Council.”
“You really don’t like them at all, do you?” Gavin said.
“Oh, Valera’s competent enough, and she does what she can. I have nothing to say against Kantar, either, but they’re only two of nine. They’re often outvoted. Part of me wishes you had proceeded with removing them when Tauron tried to hand you over to the Guild of Shadows.”
Gavin saw Lyssa’s eyes tighten just a bit as she said ‘Tauron,’ and he wanted to know what history they had. He turned to his friends, who stood together on one side of the room.
“What are your thoughts about all this?”
Lillian stepped forward, saying, “We went to our parents, Gavin; they didn’t decide this on their own.”
Gavin blinked. “You did?”
Lillian, Braden, Wynn, and Mariana nodded.
Braden said, “As long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to create items imbued with power. I’ve wanted to make artifacts. No mage ever born has been able to make anything even close to the quality our ancestors took for granted, and I had to come to terms with the idea that it was beyond me, too. When I saw what you did on the Council floor, I started to hope that maybe-just maybe-I could have my dream after all.”
Gavin’s eyes found Mariana, and he said, “You’re a graduate of the College, a Semagus if I’m reading the runes right. Are you certain you want to go back to school, as it were?”
“I’ve always felt I was just kissing the surface of what was out there,” Mariana said. “Every time I cast a spell, it feels like there’s something inside me trying to get out. I want to learn what I’ve been missing.”
Gavin thought back to the reticence Lillian showed when speaking with him in the hallway outside his suite, and he frowned. “And you were afraid you couldn’t come to me? I thought you knew you could come to me with anything.”
“You’re-Kirloth-now,” Wynn said. “You-haven’t-been-to-the-mentor-sessions-in-some-time. Everyone-thought-you-moved-on.”
Gavin sighed. “I haven’t moved on, Wynn. Events spiraled in a direction I wasn’t expecting after the duel, not to mention Marcus’s death. I didn’t explicitly choose to stop attending the mentor sessions. Speaking of those events…Torval, where are those strongboxes?”