Springreaver blinked, then nodded. “Right. I can do that. Thank you for the ideas, Miss Longshanks.”
Rexei started and blinked. She looked between Alonnen and the other young woman, visibly taken aback.
Gabria had the grace to blush. Ducking her head, she apologized. “Sorry. I’m used to spotting all the females running around in male clothes. This is the one place where we’re safe to be females. I don’t wear skirts often, but I like to wear them here, sometimes.”
“I told you, Longshanks, we have a lot of women who try to hide their gender in this guild. Speaking of which,” Alonnen added, snapping his fingers and pointing at his assistant, “Springreaver, have you got room for one more in your quarters here? Longshanks could use a spot.”
The blonde shook her head. “Sorry. In fact, it’s now crammed with seven others, and we’re all now on rotation for sharing the bed and the couch. We had forty more from the local lot show up this morning. If you didn’t need me in here and if I hadn’t already given up my middle-circle quarters, I’d be headed back to the unshielded Hydraulics tenements on the north shore. They’re probably being filled up, though.”
Sighing heavily, Alonnen rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Gods . . . I may have to have you do that anyway. Right. First thing, Miss Springreaver, is to get on the talker-box to the Consulate in Heiastowne. Tell them there’s going to be an emergency meeting of all Heias Guild representatives this evening at sundown. Consuls, Sub-Consuls, grandmasters, and whatever Guild Masters can show up at the Consulate Hall from our nearest neighbors. There are a lot of them around, the Gods know . . .
“Then—politely—request Captain Torhammer to loan us his leftenant as well, since what will be discussed involves the governance of Heiastowne in the wake of the dissolution of Mekha, so-called God of Engineering and false Patron of Mekhana.”
“I’ll pass it along through my friend Marta, sir,” Gabria agreed.
Alonnen looked around, but there weren’t any actual seats in his office, other than the one Springreaver was currently occupying. He folded his arms across his chest and muttered a curse. Gabria blinked, but Rexei took it in stride. He shrugged and gestured at the chamber. “This place isn’t exactly set up to be the heart of a new government . . . and it cannot become the new heart. But we are going to remind all the other guilds that we do still have a government of sorts. And now that the priesthood isn’t being backed by the power of an unholy, un-dead God, we—the guilds, all of them—need to step up and take over.”
He looked at Rexei, who was slowly nodding, her gaze fixed on something beyond the walls of his study. “The guilds must take the lead. They’ve been our strength all along.”
Nodding as well, Alonnen unfolded his arm and draped one around the young woman’s shoulders for a brief, comforting squeeze. As much as she needed protecting, he knew he was going to have to ask a lot of her. Alonnen had never prayed to Mekha for help—no one in the kingdom had for generations, save for the priesthood—but he did have a sense for when someone had been tapped to be an instrument of the Threefold God of Fate. “Come on, let’s go back to my sitting room, since it’s the only place with more than one seat and more than enough privacy to start talking about this idea you had, about a Patron Goddess of Guilds.
“At least, I hope it still has some privacy left,” he added, guiding both of them out of his study. “For all I know, my chief housekeeper has shoved my entire family into my quarters by this point, trying to find room for everyone. If I’m not lucky, I’ll not only be stuck sleeping with my younger brother and his motorhorse-loud snores, but my father and maybe an uncle or a cousin as well, all crammed into my bed—you did sleep alright, didn’t you? Last I saw, you were curled up in an odd position.”
She blushed but nodded. “Most of me was warm. And, um, not too uncomfortable.”
“Good.” He patted her on the back as they reached the fourth floor. Voices could be heard from behind the first three or four doors. “I’d take you to a workroom, but not at this time of the morning. It’ll have to be my sitting room. A lot of my workrooms are being used for painstaking experimentation.”
“Experimentation?” she asked.
“We sometimes get mage-tomes shipped in from outkingdom, but since we daren’t get any living mages for instructors, we have to work out not only the translations for those tomes, but also what their actual meaning is. The inner circle of the Vortex is the only safe place to practice such magics openly, but they still require wardings to contain any accidental explosions or upsets in the aether.” Catching a hint of wistfulness in her gaze as they passed one of those doors, Alonnen reassured her. “Don’t worry; if you’re going to be here for a while, you’ll have a chance to enroll in classes as a student-apprentice. In we go . . . and excellent, no one is sleeping in here. Have a seat.”
Briefly glancing at him, she studied the collection of leather-padded furniture, then picked an armchair. It was clear she didn’t want to sit on the sofa, though Alonnen couldn’t be sure if that was because it would have allowed him to sit next to her or because his brother Dolon had lain on it last night. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do anything that’ll make her shy and bolt like a scared, half-tamed horse.
After all, Rexei Longshanks was not the first fearful, gender-hiding apprentice to enter the Mages Guild. Alonnen was fairly confident he could win her trust, even if it had been a few years since he had last gentled and soothed a nervous apprentice. He meant what he had told his mother last night, of course; Rexei Longshanks hadn’t nearly enough magic to be apprenticed directly to the Guild Master. But she was still important enough to need handling by him personally. He needed her to trust him.
That meant picking an armchair across from hers rather than the sofa. He went a step further and arranged himself with his back tucked into the corner of the chair and his leg hooked over the opposite arm. Not exactly the most Guild Master-ish of postures, but it did make her relax a bit. Bracing an elbow on the unoccupied armrest, he gestured at her.
“Tell me about this Guildra concept you have. If we’re to ensure law and order remains in place across the kingdom, then we need to impose it locally and ensure it spreads. Having the idea of a Patron Deity is too deeply ingrained to ignore, particularly now that we have none . . . but nobody will ever want another lying, false deity like Mekha,” he acknowledged. “So. How long ago did you first hear of Guildra? Or did you come up with the idea yourself?”
SIX
Still a little off-balance from that friendly hug, Rexei focused on settling her thoughts. Alonnen Tallnose was not the only person here in the heart of the Mages Guild to touch others so casually. Going downstairs to break her fast, she had seen a couple dozen late risers laughing and chatting, and yes, touching each other in friendly, companionable ways. In ways she had not seen since the destruction of her family.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed such friendly closeness. It unsettled her even as she longed for it. This whole place unnerved her, even as it made her want to relax—even her habitual mental humming, protective and omnipresent, seemed quieter in the back of her mind here. The place felt warm and cozy to her inner senses. It was hard to uncurl from her protective mental huddle and accept that comfort, when she had been forced to live out in the cold and the damp for so long.