Jade winked at Emily. “You’re not alone,” he said. “You’ll always have a place with us.”
Lady Barb cleared her throat. “And while we’re waiting,” she said, “you can tell us what happened at Laughter.”
Emily gave her a sharp look - she could tell when someone was trying to distract her - but she knew she’d have to talk about it sooner or later. It had been Lady Barb who’d asked her to go to Laughter, in the hopes Emily might be able to determine what was going wrong at the school. Emily composed herself, then started to talk. She still didn’t know who’d been behind Simon. Someone powerful, clearly. And, perhaps, someone with a grudge against her.
Nanette is the most logical suspect, Emily thought. She hadn’t seen anything of Nanette since the brief encounter in Zangaria, when Alassa’s wedding day had nearly ended in her death. What has she been doing all this time?
The thought mocked her. Nanette was dangerous. And yet, where was she? It wasn’t like the girl Emily had met to let the grass grow under her feet. Was she training with dark wizards? Was she working for her enemies... Emily wondered, suddenly, if Nanette was working for Master Lucknow. Or had she given up the feud entirely? It wasn’t impossible. Nanette could have taken ship to the Southern Continent or simply travelled into the former Blighted Lands. Cat wasn’t the only one setting up a kingdom of his own. There were hundreds of others trying to settle the unclaimed territory.
“Interesting,” Lady Barb said, when she’d finished. “The plot was underway a long time before the end of the war.”
“Yes.” Emily had wondered about the timing. The unknown person or persons behind Simon could not have known what was going to happen. She wondered, idly, if they’d changed their plans when the war came to an end. And yet... it seemed as if they’d thrown away their best chance to take the school to ensure the conference went off the rails. “I don’t understand it.”
“Not everything involves you, whatever Master Lucknow may say,” Void said. “That you were there, in place to stop the plot, might just be bad luck.”
Emily nodded. Given time, the plotters could have claimed the entire school. They could have hacked their way into everyone’s mind, twisting their perceptions until they became unwitting slaves. And yet, they’d thrown the opportunity away. It nagged at her mind. What had they been thinking?
She glanced at her master. “How long do we have to wait?”
“As long as it takes,” Void said. There was a hint of irritation in his voice. “Alassa is a formidable negotiator. It may not take that long.”
Jade cleared his throat. “I have a question,” he said to Void. “You have enough power to make them back down. Why did you ask Alassa to take the lead?”
Void showed no sign of being surprised by the question. “I could have intimidated them,” he said. “I could have cowed them. I could have called on favors from a hundred councilors and had the proceedings brought to a halt. It would have worked, in the short term. But in the long term it would have been utterly disastrous.
“Combat sorcerers have egos. Big egos. They would have hated and resented me if I’d crushed them. They would have told themselves that they were still in the right, that they still had right even though I had might. They would have convinced themselves, eventually, that I was just a father defending his daughter, that I was acting out of emotion rather than cold reason. They would have felt so humiliated that they would have refused to consider, let alone accept, that I might have been right. They would certainly never have forgiven me for pushing them around.”
He smiled. “Alassa, on the other hand, is a ruling monarch. She can speak for an entire kingdom. Her mere presence is a sign that not every aristocrat is going to go along with the council. She can present them with an argument they cannot ignore so easily, an argument that warns them that vast numbers of people, powerful people, will stand against them. And it is easier for them to back down in the face of such opposition. They can present it as a rethink, rather than a complete surrender.”
“Alassa is also Emily’s friend,” Jade pointed out.
“It doesn’t matter,” Void said. “Alassa wields a very different power than I do. And it is a power that is far harder to... ignore, once you take precautions. They’d have to convince a vast number of councilors to vote against their best interests, if they want to ignore Alassa.”
“Which is pretty much impossible,” Lady Barb said.
“Correct,” Void said.
Lady Barb snorted. Emily rubbed her forehead. Void and Lady Barb had never gotten along, ever since Lady Barb’s apprenticeship with Void had ended disastrously. Emily wished her adoptive mother and father would get on a little better, although she doubted either of them would ever unbend enough to accept the other. They’d both had good reasons, or thought they had, for doing what they’d done. And yet, it had resulted in a lifelong feud.
The door opened. Alassa stepped into the room. Her face was a blank mask, suggesting she was annoyed and yet unwilling to show it. Emily wished, suddenly, that she’d been the one to handle the negotiations. She trusted Alassa, but she would have been happier being the one making the deal. Alassa might get the blame if the deal fell through. Emily wasn’t blind to the price Alassa had paid, challenging the committee in their castle. It might come back to haunt her.
“Emily,” Alassa said. She sat next to Jade. “They’ve agreed to back down.”
“Really?” Jade glanced at her. “What was the price?”
Alassa elbowed him, hard. “Two things,” she said. “First, the conference is back on. They want to hold it at Whitehall now, rather than Laughter. I guess that explains the Grandmaster’s interest
