“And you have given us the cold shoulder since we were children,” Void snapped. “We didn’t ask to be born!”
“I will continue to raise the issue with the council,” Uncle Mago said. “Until then, you need to convince them that their fears are groundless and that they have no reason to worry about you. I know it seems unfair, but…”
I scowled. “What sort of proof would they accept?”
Uncle Mago said nothing. I doubted he had an answer. Strange magics were always worrying, at least until they were properly understood. The council didn’t know how our father had planned our birth, or linked us together at a very primal level, or even… they’d thought, from what I’d heard later, that we might even come into our magic as children. It was lucky we hadn’t. We’d have killed ourselves if the council hadn’t killed us — executed us — first.
“You’re never going to do it, are you?” Void’s voice chilled me to the bone. He’d given up hope. “The family will never accept us.”
“Acceptance takes time,” Uncle Mago said. I thought I heard a flicker of doubt — or fear — in his voice. “And you have to work towards it.”
“And how long should we keep working,” Void demanded, “when we have no idea what will be enough? You have seen us as adult magicians, doing your dirty work, for years! What more do you want?”
I saw Uncle Mago flinch. “It takes time…”
“How long?” Void’s magic flared. “How long do you think you can keep us dangling on the edge of a string, begging for favours…?”
“We took you in,” Uncle Mago said. “And we gave you everything.”
“And yet you kept us at arm’s length,” Void said. “What does it take?”
He turned and left, closing the door behind him. Uncle Mago looked at me.
“Your brother is upset,” he said, as if I couldn’t see it for myself. “And that is part of the reason the family is reluctant to accept you…”
“He’s right to be upset,” I said, tartly. It really wasn’t fair. We’d done so much and it wasn’t enough. “How much more do you want us to do?”
And on that note, I swung around and left the room myself.
Chapter Three
Under other circumstances, our house would have been a marvel.
It rested just inside the estate’s walls, within the grounds and yet far enough from the mansion for us to be unobserved. The brick walls were strengthened by our spells, keeping out prying eyes; there were bedrooms for each of us, a potions lab, a spellchamber and a large kitchen, stocked with produce from right across the countryside. The servants refused to clean our chambers, but we didn’t mind. The servants weren’t loyal to us. If we’d chosen to live there, we would have been very happy with it. But we hadn’t and we weren’t.
“Uncle Mago has made it clear,” Void said, after recounting the entire meeting to Hamilcar and Himilco. “We will not be invited to the Gathering, now or ever, unless we convince the council they have to take us seriously. We are good enough to carry out tasks for them—” he’d spent some time expounding on his theory about the true purpose of our last mission “—but not to be counted as part of the family. What are we going to do?”
“We could be childish,” Hamilcar suggested. “Legally, they still have to treat us as children.”
“Maybe so, but we are adults,” I pointed out. Children were supposed to be seen and never heard. “Do you want to be treated as a child for the rest of your life?”
“Aunt Hilda was treated as a child,” Himilco reminded us.
“Aunt Hilda was touched in the head,” Void countered. “She was teetering on the brink of insanity for years. She didn’t know who she was… she couldn’t even go to the toilet without help, let alone wash and dress herself. Her magic was skewed, dangerous to herself and everyone else. I ask you, are we anything like that?”
“And Aunt Hilda died under suspicious circumstances,” Hamilcar added. “Might we?”
I grimaced. I could see the family’s point, when they’d quietly decided Aunt Hilda could never be regarded as an adult. She’d been mentally disabled, to the point that — if she’d grown up anywhere else — she would have been hidden away in the attic or exposed to the elements long ago. Instead, the family had tried to cure her. One of their attempts had gone wrong and she’d died. Or so I’d been told. We weren’t the only ones who suspected she’d quietly been killed before her magic, constantly sparking dangerously, got someone else killed.
“They can’t treat us like that,” Himilco said.
“They do treat us as children,” Void said. “How many things can’t we do, because we are not considered legal adults?”
“We can go,” Hamilcar said. “Pack up our stuff and leave.”
“And go where?” I asked the question, but everyone was thinking it. “Where can we go?”
“Where can we go, without the family name?” Void met my eyes. “They want us to leave. They want us to abandon the family.”
“You don’t know that,” Himilco said.
“I do.” Void sounded very certain. “They can’t kick us out without the council’s agreement, and they can’t get that agreement unless we give them good cause. The councillors might not like us — they fear us — but we are our father’s trueborn sons and if they try to kick us our without a very good reason there’ll be a revolt in the ranks. Too many councillors will worry it’ll set a precedent that could be used against them, a few years down the line. No, they can’t kick us out. But they can make us miserable until we leave of our own accord.”
I feared he was right. The family council was doing everything it could to make it clear we weren’t welcome. They’d done everything short of sending minstrels to our door… not, I supposed, that they’d find anyone willing to do the job for any amount of money. Minstrels, heralds and messengers were very unpopular, particularly the ones who brought bad news or caterwauled their way across the world. We’d be quite within our legal rights to change them into birds, permanently. It would certainly improve their singing.
“Right,” Hamilcar said. “And you want to stay with people who don’t want you? Want us?”
“We are family,” Void snapped. “We are children of House Barca, just like everyone else who will be presented at the Gathering. By what right do they tell us we don’t belong? By what right do they deprive us of our birthright? It should be ours. They should raise us up in pride, for all we have done for them! And instead, they want us to go?
“It’s not going to change. They’ll keep us dangling on a string, constantly holding out the promise of acceptance, without ever granting it to us. We’ll be children for the rest of our lives, constantly denied the rights of adulthood… you know they blocked my apprenticeship and would have blocked yours” — he nodded to Hamilcar — “if we hadn’t obscured the plan until the deal was done. They won’t change. They won’t accept us, unless we make it impossible for them not to accept us.”
“We can just walk away,” Hamilcar said. “And have done with it.”
“And let them win?” Void looked from face to face. “Why should we?”
I had no answer. I was angry too. We all were. The urge to do something — anything — to force the council to acknowledge us was overwhelming. It would be easy to go, but we wouldn’t have the family name or access to family resources… I doubted, somehow, they’d start screaming for our return the moment they ran into trouble. We were useful tools — no doubt about it — but hardly unique. There was no shortage of sorcerers willing to serve as deniable assets, in exchange for money and support. They’d have fewer problems with obeying the family too.
Perhaps we should have walked away, but we couldn’t let it go.