“And you’re worried about the security for the house?” Dayne asked.
“Nah,” Haberneck said. “I mean, this is not for me. Like I said, I got kin there, they got neighbors, and they’re talking to me. Things are going on, and apparently the sticks are no help. I asked around, no official on this level wants to help, because it would be Constabulary jurisdiction. I realized, I needed to be talking to someone who might be a little more . . . unofficial.”
“Which brought you to me.”
“Ret told me what you’ve done. You saved the ballots, you stopped Tharek, you rescued the folks down there on the Parliament floor when the marshals had their thumbs in their ears . . .”
“That isn’t fair to—”
“Point is, you’re a guy who does. Maybe you can come and do something down there.”
Dayne was certainly interested, and there was nothing else of value being asked of him. “What’s going on?”
“Kids are going missing,” Haberneck said. “Apparently, it’s always been a thing, but in the past week, it’s spiked up something fierce. And nobody gives a damn.”
“Children?” Dayne asked. “You have my attention.”
Jerinne found the Tarian Chapterhouse oddly subdued when she returned to it after the Palace Garden event. Normally in the afternoon there was a fair amount of activity going on, both on the grounds and in the training room. Instead the place was nearly deserted, save for the staff going about their tasks of cleaning and preparing meals.
Even the baths and bunkrooms were empty.
She took off her dress uniform and put on her cottons, contemplating how nice it would be to just lie down on her bunk with no one else around. She almost never got a chance to do that.
But that also felt like wasting daylight.
She made her way to the training room, which she had all to herself for once. She started with a series of stretches, and then cycling through the calisthenics routine the Initiates had been doing each day. Then she took a quarterstaff off the wall and went through her paces. As strong as she could, as fast as she could, not letting up or slowing down. She pushed herself, pushed through the pain, let herself feel it in her bones, revel in it.
She swept the staff out, and to her surprise it made contact.
“Intense,” Vien Reston, first-year Candidate, said with a wicked smile, having blocked the sweep with her own staff. “You didn’t even notice me come in.”
“Probably not wise,” Jerinne said, “to be so in the moment to ignore my surroundings.”
Vien brought up her staff, circling it around to then sweep at Jerinne’s feet. Jerinne dove over it, rolled onto her feet, and spun on her heel to strike Vien. Vien was already there with the block. Then they started to spar in earnest: full strength, full speed. If either of them missed a block or a dodge, they could end up in the infirmary.
“Where is everyone?” Jerinne asked.
“Where were you this morning?” Vien asked back, not losing her pace for even a breath. “Oh, right, you were at the Royal Gardens. How was that?”
“Boring and intense at the same time. Assassin tried to kill the king. But yet, so many speeches.”
“Assassin? That’s exciting.”
“Dayne and the marshals stopped him. And Madam Tyrell was there, but she went off somewhere else afterward.” Jerinne stopped herself from saying “Amaya” in front of Vien. As far as Vien, or anyone else in the order was concerned, there was no familiar relationship between Jerinne and Amaya. Nor did she have the informal, unofficial mentorship under Dayne.
“She didn’t tell me,” Vien said. Hard jab. Low swipe. Kick. Perfect form, no pattern. Savage poetry.
“So where is everyone?”
“Most of the Adepts and Candidates are getting assigned details for security of the Parliament, and members of Parliament. And that meant the other third-years went with their mentors.”
“No assignment for you?”
Overhead hammer. “I have an assignment. Initiate Drill.”
“So where are the first- and second-years?”
“Took them for a run,” Vien said. “A good ten-mile one. Most of them are collapsed on the yard now.”
“And you came in here to spar?”
“I came in here for a cool down,” Vien said. “But I couldn’t pass up the spar.”
Jerinne signaled she was done and hopped back a few steps. “I appreciate that. I missed morning training, and—”
“And you don’t have the mentor for the rest,” Vien said. “Sorry.”
“No need,” Jerinne said. “It is what it is.”
“I’ll be gathering the first- and second-years in here in a moment,” Vien said. “You’re welcome to stay.”
She didn’t phrase it as an order. Vien had cooled from her initial overzealousness in her position as Initiate Drill. Maybe being a bully lost its appeal when she got beaten by the traitor Osharin.
“I’ll pass,” Jerinne said. If the other third-years were with their mentors, she’d go seek out Dayne. “I think I’ll clean up and do some reading.”
“Mind and body,” Vien said. “Keep it all sharp.”
Jerinne put her staff back on the wall and made her way to the water closet, passing the heaving and wheezing first- and second-year Initiates as she did. After washing off her face, she changed into her regular uniform, belting a sword but forgoing the shield, at least for today. Dayne would be at the Parliament. Maybe he had something interesting planned.
Veranix was quite pleased with how lunch had gone. A storehouse of effitte and efhân wrecked, the sellers thoroughly chastised and magically tagged so Delmin could track them later. Their funds stolen, which Veranix would discreetly donate to the Lower Trenn Ward, where effitte victims were being treated.
Victims like Veranix’s mother.
He even had time to drop all the gear back at the safehouse—Mila’s term for the hidden bunker Kaiana had found to replace as their headquarters after she moved out of the carriage house—and get his school uniform on before going to class at two bells.
This was his Practical Use of Magic class, first one of the
