Changes

Bear gave one of those odd laughs that Wess did... a sort of wheezing snigger. “Of course, the man is so wrapped up in his own consequence that he hasn’t thought things through very well. Because if Lena wasn’t his, then for all of his claims about how irresistible he is to women and how clever he is, his own wife found him quite inferior to someone else altogether, and he’s been played the fool! It’s something right out of one of those tavern songs where a woman bids goodbye to her husband at the front door and brings the lover in the back, and when the husband asks about strange boots under the bed, she tells him something ridiculous.”

Bear wheezed again. “Just wait. As soon as it dawns on him that he’s set himself up to look like the doddering old man in a farce, he’ll deny ever having said that.”

Mags applauded slowly as Bear bowed and sat down—both for the performance and for Lord Wess’s cleverness.

“I imagine that got around pretty quick to Marchand, because according to Lord Wess he hasn’t let out a peep about you not being his since,” Bear continued. “Backed himself into a bad corner with that one.”

Lena nodded slowly. “I just—I—” She let out her breath in a huge sigh of mingled frustration and unhappiness. “I think about him using all those other Bardic Trainees, and I just want to—I don’t know. But he is immensely talented. He’s also immensely self-absorbed. For so long, all I wanted was for him to take notice and be proud of me and now... now I just don’t really know what I want . . .”

“You’ll figure it out,” Bear said with confidence. “You can do anything you put your mind to. I’ve seen it.”

“Not everything . . .” She shook her head. “But... Amily, Mags, are you safe now? Is it over?”

“Gotta be,” Mags said. “They’d be insane t’ try t’ get Amily after thet. Completely bonkers. Oh, I don’ thin’ they’re gone, they took on th’ job uv doin’ fer th’ Karsites what th’ Karsites ain’t been able t’do wi’ armies. Ev’thin’ I read offen ’em tells me once they git a job, they stick on’t till thet job’s done, ’less they kin figger out how t’break t’contract. But they gotta be smart ’nough to know that snatchin’ Amily ain’t gonna git ’em what they wants.” He tried to imagine himself into Stone or Ice’s head and failed utterly. “I dunno what they’re gonna do next. They ain’t like thet crazy one, nor th’ feller what tried t’burn t’stable. They... think. Tha’s all they do, actually. They be thinkin’, calculatin’, alla time. They gotta be thinkin’ what they kin do, an’ I cain’t reckon like they kin.”

“Well, good. Does this mean you’re going to go back down into Haven to spy with Nikolas?” The light from the lone candle that was all Mags was willing to have for light in this heat flickered across her face.

“Dunno. Well, I know Nikolas’ keepin’ the shop goin’, ’tis one uv ’is main ways t’get ’is own spyin’ done. But I dunno iffen I’m gonna go back down there soon. Things are kinda all of a muddle right now.” He frowned. “We still don’ know who t’other two plants are up ’ere on th’ Hill. We gotta figger thet out quick, an’ I don’ think makin’ ev’body take a fealty oath unner Truth Spell’s the best ideer for fndin’ out.”

“Someone’s suggesting that?” Bear said, surprised.

“ ’Course. It’s purt well guaranteed thet if there’s a right bad idea, some’un on t’ Council is gonna suggest it.” Mags grimaced. Interacting with the Court and the Council was one part of being the King’s Own that he was just as glad he didn’t have to do. He might well envy Nikolas the attendance at those fabulous High Feasts he had heard about, and wish he could see some of the fabled entertainments—but dealing with anyone highborn except those he knew were his friends and allies?

No. At least, not for a lot of years.

“Mags... I’m not so sure about that,” Amily said into the silence. “You said yourself, these aren’t the sort of people that give up, and the one thing they know they can use to get to Papa is me . . .”

He frowned a little with irritation, but frowned more when Bear gave an exaggerated sigh. “Amily, that doesn’t make any sense,” Bear began, and Amily got a stubbon look on her face and started to talk over him in a higher and slighty whiny voice. And the more she talked, the more he began to feel . . .

Well, he wasn’t sure what he felt. Very irritated, as she started out from the reasonable assumption that Ice and Stone were frighteningly clever, appallingly inventive, and terrifyingly well trained, and spun that into a wild fantasy of strange, unstoppable killers with one foot in the spirit world who had, like some weird Pelagirs creature, gotten her “scent” and would not rest until they carried her off. Her tone grated on him and set up a headache just behind his cheekbones. He began to harbor the exceedingly uncharitable notion that—well, although she had not liked all the restrictions, she had liked being the center of attention and the praise she’d gotten for being willing to play bait—and now that attention was going to be taken away, and she didn’t want that to happen. The attention she would get for having her leg worked on was passive... and it was centered on a defect. The attention she had gotten for being essential to laying the trap was active and centered on her bravery. Oh, he could see that all too well.

And he didn’t want to listen to the convoluted, paranoid fantasy of someone who had turned into an attention addict. Not when it was distracting him from real danger and obscuring how he was supposed to solve it.

The room seemed way too hot. He wanted to lie down or get a drink, but most of all, he wanted to be alone.

And suddenly, as Lena added her voice, much more shrill than usual, the gathering turned from supportive and friendly to argumentive and confrontational. And Mags had no idea how it had gotten that way.

Or why.

Wait—

Yes, he did know. He just couldn’t do anything about any of it. Because despite having survived the kidnapping, nothing had changed. Well, nothing, except that right now the bare thought of how narrow their escape had been was making him feel sick; paradoxically, as more time passed, he was getting more obsessive and anxious about that narrow escape. In the short term—he would stand by what he said; there was no way that Ice and Stone would make a second kidnapping attempt, not this soon, not when the whole Hill was on alert.

But for the long-term, paranoid fantasies aside, Amily probably was still in danger, and she still could not defend herself or even run away with her leg the way it was.