“Porridge and tea,” Jeff said. “Very early this morning.” He frowned at me. “You didn’t go to supper when Lord Commander Thadro came and got you?”
“No,” I said, pulling out a chair and sitting. “I was on display and I guess Thadro felt having me stuff my face wouldn’t present a good image.”
“Yeah, but—” Jeff started, then pressed his lips together as if something might slip out.
“It was an oversight, my lord,” Cais said. “One that we will now rectify.” He lifted the lid off a tureen and stirred with a ladle, and heavenly aromas filled the room. “No meat, correct?”
That was correct. Having grown up in the Border, where forest boars greeted you with shouts of good morrow, I had different ideas on what constituted food. But I was more than happy with what was set before me—thick fish soup served with warm bread and butter that hit my stomach like a healing balm. I quickly scraped my bowl clean and Finn filled it several more times, while Jeff sat at the table with me and told me about the guards’ mess. Finally full, I set my spoon down with a sigh of repletion. Murmuring thanks to Finn, I started to push my chair back. Finn, however deftly replaced my empty soup bowl with a covered dish. “Dessert, my lord.”
I shook my head, wistful. “No, thank you. I’m full—”
Finn removed the cover to reveal a slice of the magnificent cake. “I had Cook put aside a piece for you.”
I relaxed back into my seat. Maybe there was room, a little corner somewhere that was crying out to be filled. I sure as hell was going to try to find it. But before I could take a bite, the cake was snatched away.
“Hey!”
Laurel put a paw on my shoulder to hold me down as he plunked a large cup in front of me. “Drink this, then you’ll get your sweet.”
I didn’t need the fumes rising from the cup to recognize it—it was the same vile tea that Laurel had dosed me with after I’d battled the djinn storm during our voyage to the Border last spring. I glared around, seeing a kettle hanging on the fireplace hob. The Faena had been busy.
Laurel put a honey jar on the table. “The Lord Commander was right—you look like you’re about to fall on your face. What happened this morning?”
Scowling, I picked up the honey jar and spooned heaping amounts into the tea. “Someone was touching me.” Picking up the cup, I quickly chugged the tea down, but the bitterness still hit hard. “Poxy hell,” I said, shuddering.
Laurel took the teakettle off the hob. “So you used the talent against this person? That’s a little extreme, no?”
“Yeah, well, when I looked, nobody was there,” I said, my scowl deepening as he poured a second cup.
Laurel stopped midpour, his amber eyes suddenly intent on mine. “Nobody was there,” he repeated. “Where did this nobody touch you?”
My face heated as I remembered the forced intimacy of the touches. “Neck, back, forehead, throat and chest,” I muttered. “But I stopped him there. Broke the goat-tupping deviant’s hand.”
“Broke his hand,” Laurel echoed.
“Well, more probably his wrist, the way I twisted it.”
“His,” Laurel repeated once more. “This invisible nobody was a he?”
“It felt like a man’s hand,” I said. “Large and sort of square.” I frowned. “But it was soft and smooth, like a girl’s.” Thinking on the kind of man that had no calluses— even the king had some from sword work and handling the reins—my frown deepened. “Freaking pervert.”
“Scholars have soft hands,” Laurel said absently. “As do mages.” Realizing that my cup was half full, he resumed pouring. After lacing it with honey, I swigged that too, with a shudder. Unfortunately, he refilled my cup once more, the kettle emptying with a gurgle. Scraping the rest of the honey jar into it, I drank the last of the tea—and the tiny hammers that had been beating against my forehead eased, then stopped. Not that I was going to admit it.
Laurel slid my cake back in front of me, but my attention was on his worried expression as he returned the kettle to the hearth, and I didn’t pick up my fork.
“Mages?” I asked. “Why would a mage be after me?”
“Have you told anyone about this, Rabbit?” Laurel asked in return.
“Part of it,” I began.
Laurel gave me a sharp look. “Why not the whole?”
“Because no one was pox-rotted interested,” I said, just as sharp.
“That’s true, honored Laurel,” Jeff said. “When he tried to tell the Lord Commander, he was reprimanded, and His Majesty cut him off and wouldn’t let him finish. Even Arlie and I didn’t listen—we were kind of mad that he landed us in jail.” He shrugged. “I guess everyone was more concerned about the consequences and not why he’d done it in the first place.”
“I see,” Laurel said. Coming back from the fireplace, he placed a paw on my forehead; checking, I supposed, for fever. “And how do you feel now, Rabbit?”
“Very tired and extremely cranky,” I said, my voice still sharp as I batted his paw away. “What the hell is going on?”
“Someone tried to bind you,” Laurel said, evading my hand to place his paw once more on my forehead.
Cais didn’t react to Laurel’s statement, but Finn, loading dishes on the cart, allowed them to tilt, dropping a knife onto the rug. It bounced a couple of times and Cais glanced down at it, then at his nephew. Turning bright red, Finn ducked down to pick the knife up.
I pulled away from Laurel’s paw again to stare at him blankly. “Bind me?”
“Yes,” Laurel said. “As a mage does an apprentice.”
“But why?” I asked, my voice rising.
“For control. To control you.”
“Against my will? People can do that?”
“Of course they can,” Laurel said. “When you arrived in Elanwryfindyll, did Magus Kareste ask your permission when he and his fellows tried to bind you again?”
The memory arose of how Kareste met me with nine other mages in Loran the Fyrst’s throne room—and the metallic taste that filled my mouth as they tried to slip a talent-made leash on me.
“But I was Kareste’s apprentice and was bound to him once before.” A sudden worry struck me. “Do you think the Magus has escaped?”
“No,” Laurel said. “He’s still imprisoned by the Lady, else I would know it. Whoever is trying to bind you doesn’t need prior workings; he just has to be close enough to see you. It’s by line of sight, the closer the better.”
My eyes widened so much that I thought they were going to fall out. Jeff looked similarly affected. “That’s all?” I gasped. “Just give me the eye and snatch me?”
“In the Age of Legends this kind of abducting was common. It was why many of the leagues, guilds and unions came into being. As mutual protection societies.” Laurel once more placed a paw on my forehead. “Societies that Iversterre does not have.”
I thought on the morning in Theater Square and the crowd that had pressed about us. “But it could’ve been anybody,” I said. “The square was full of people.”
“So the invisible sorcerer was hidden among many,” Laurel said. His paw sliding down from my forehead, he lifted my face and I found myself staring into his amber gaze as the warmth of his rune filled me. “Still, just as Kareste underestimated you, so did this other, and you stopped the working.” His ears went back against his skull. “For now.”
Chapter Ten
Laurel waited until I was tucked into bed before leaving to join Jusson’s meeting. I had offered to go with him— I didn’t know which motivated me more, Thadro’s sarcasm or the fact that I’d been stalked by a faceless sorcerer—but Laurel refused.
“No. You can barely stand. Go to bed.”