She thought he looked at her more seachingly than usual. “I’ll be happy when we leave, but I’m fine.”
Aruendiel grunted and took up a piece of paper from the table. “I have received a letter from Lolona, the Toristels’ daughter. I had written to Mrs. Toristel to notify her that you had been found. It was Lolona who replied.”
“Lolona? Is she at the castle?” Something in Aruendiel’s tone gave Nora a feeling of disquiet. “Why didn’t Mrs. Toristel answer your letter?”
“Mrs. Toristel is dead.”
Nora stared at him, aghast.
“Yes, it seems that she suffered a constriction of the chest.” He seemed to be trying to speak crisply, but his voice dragged. “She had had one before, a few years ago, but recovered. This one was more serious.”
Nora closed her eyes and saw again Mrs. Toristel struggling in the snow, where Dorneng had flung her. A constriction of the chest? A heart attack, most likely. “What caused it? Was it because Dorneng—”
“It happened shortly after your abduction, as best I can tell from Lolona’s account. She is not much better a letter writer than her mother was. Well, they did not have a patient teacher.”
“Mrs. Toristel tried to warn me. She knew something wasn’t right about Hirizjahkinis—I mean, Ilissa pretending to be Hirizjahkinis.”
“I am not surprised. She was ever an astute judge of character.”
I had only a handful of friends in this entire world, Nora thought, and that’s the second I’ve lost. She took a deep breath. “This would not have happened if I had not—”
“If you are planning to take responsibility for Mrs. Toristel’s death, I must preempt you. She was an old woman who was not in good health, who worked too hard for an exacting master, and that same master, who might have saved her, was absent, taken captive through his own foolishness. It is maddening, Mistress Nora, that I have spent several lifetimes practicing magic and yet that is no guarantee that I use it wisely or that it brings any good to me or those around me.”
“You do a great deal of good,” Nora said, more heatedly than she meant to. “And you do use magic wisely, more wisely—” She was going to say more wisely than he’d behaved in other areas of his life, but that sounded like faint praise. “Mrs. Toristel,” she added, “admired you very much.”
“Perhaps she was not as good a judge of character as I thought.” Aruendiel sat in silence for a moment, his gaze unfocused, then glanced back at Nora. He cleared his throat. “I confess, I still do not quite grasp how you were able to free me. Algebra, you said.”
“It took me a while to work it out,” Nora said. In more detail, she told Aruendiel how she found him, figured out what sort of trap he was in, and then floundered by sheer luck into a way to enlarge his prison, even if she could not destroy it. Aruendiel nodded slowly as he listened.
She was not sure what to say about the wasted, white-haired figure in the dungeon, although she had an inkling that it was already less real and less fearsome for her than it was for Aruendiel. “I knew that once you could reach out and start doing magic again, you would be fine,” Nora said.
Aruendiel said only: “I am grateful. It was a horrific imprisonment.”
Then he remarked, more easily: “Ershnol the Silent was caught in a similar trap once. He escaped when a rat knocked over a candle and burned the building down. In my case, of course,” he added, “it would have been more difficult to burn down that dungeon.”
It felt familiar and consoling to be talking magic with Aruendiel again, after all that had happened since her last lesson back in his tower, the day they’d done the observation spell. She wished they were there now, safe among his books. How soon before we can finally leave this place and go home? she thought. There is no Mrs. Toristel to welcome us, now. That will be hard, very hard. But I’ll have Aruendiel. And he will need a friend, he’ll need me more than ever, with Mrs. Toristel dead and Hirizjahkinis dead or a prisoner or whatever has happened to her. And—Nora resolved suddenly—I will
“Now we must talk of different matters,” Aruendiel said. “We must discuss your future.”
“What is there to discuss?” she asked, surprised.
Aruendiel frowned. He looked at Nora without catching her gaze directly. “There are two things. The first concerns the young man who escorted you through the Ivory Marshes.”
“Perin Pirekenies.”
“Yes. I gather that you first made his acquaintance in Semr last summer. He has been to see me.”
“What for?” Her first, uneasy thought was that this had something to do with the challenge that Perin’s father had issued to Aruendiel. They were going to fight a duel.
“He would like to marry you. He has asked for my permission, since I have been your—guardian, in a sense. I have, of course,” Aruendiel paused, “given my consent.”
Nora wondered whether she had heard correctly. Aruendiel’s face was composed and serious, as though what he had said made perfect sense. Finally, she managed to get a single word out: “Why?”
“I have given it careful consideration, and I believe this is a very desirable offer of marriage. I have made a few inquiries about Perin Pirekenies, and from all accounts he is an honorable man and a good soldier, and he stands to inherit an estate that, while not exceptionally large, will be adequate to support you and your children.
“His bloodlines are not unblemished, of course.” A bitter rasp entered Aruendiel’s controlled tone for an instant. “You may not be aware that he is the grandson of my wife and her lover.”
“I figured that out.”
“Ah. Well, his father was legitimately adopted by another relative, and the rest of the family line is entirely respectable. Despite the scandal involving his grandparents, he is connected to some of the greatest families in the kingdom. Given my own involvement in the matter, I could rightfully refuse permission for this match, but I am not inclined to do so. On the contrary, I must recommend that you accept his offer.”
“I barely know Perin,” Nora said. “I’ve spent a few days with him. And why would he want to marry me? I’m not a noblewoman or an heiress.”
“He admits that it would be an unconventional match, but that does not seem to trouble him. He has taken a liking to you and is concerned for your welfare. He argues convincingly that the marriage will rescue you from the unfortunate situation in which I have unfairly placed you.”
The conversation was becoming more and more surreal. “Unfortunate situation? What do you mean?”
“Perin Pirekenies,” Aruendiel said impassively, “has pointed out how your name has been tarnished because of your association with me. It is commonly assumed, he tells me, that you are my mistress.
“You are young and unmarried—at least, you are absented from your husband—and I am a widower with an old reputation for being a libertine. It is no surprise that the world would jump to mistaken conclusions. I have heard such fools’ talk from time to time, but never considered it worthy of notice. I did not think about the injury that such gossip would inflict upon you.”
“Oh, please.” Nora shook her head. “It doesn’t mat—”
“It does matter, especially for you. You are in a more vulnerable position than most women. You have no family—not in this world, at least—and you are a foreigner. I have been remiss, keeping you under my roof all these months.”
“Well, where else would I go?”
“Now Perin Pirekenies offers you a place to go. And,” he went on before she could reply, “since I no longer have a housekeeper to be any kind of chaperone for you, it is all the more advisable that you marry Pirekenies.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Pirekenies is quite serious.”
“Then why didn’t he ask me himself? Why did he talk to you about it?”
“He is acting in the customary way.”
“And you agreed on my behalf?”
“Well, the final decision is yours. A woman should not marry against her will.”
“Oh, thanks for that!” Standing up, Nora put her fists on the table and stared down at him. “What is
Aruendiel’s face tightened. “I am trying to do what is best for you.”
