The waitress returned, with three glasses of something rare and expensive. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t want to accept any obligation to Lord Ashworth, no matter how small. If he noticed - if he cared - he gave no sign. Instead, he sipped his own glass with casual abandon. I noticed a flicker of disgust cross my brother’s face. Drunken magicians were dangerous. Hasdrubal had managed to convince the staff to ban alcohol from the school, but the students could still drink in town. And when they got drunk ...
“We have a problem,” Lord Ashworth said. His face twisted in distaste. “Have you ever been to the Principality of Yolanda?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never actually visited.”
Lord Ashworth made a face. “The principality is really nothing more than a town, some countryside and a handful of mountain passes,” he said. “It would have been swallowed by a bigger kingdom by now, except for a combination of geography and political reality. Her neighbours - she has three - want her, but they don’t want their rivals getting their hands on her either. King Jonathon - he styles himself the just - has managed to play his neighbours against one another, through a mixture of threats and promises. It doesn’t hurt that Yolanda has a sizable magical community. King Jonathon himself may be a mage.”
I nodded, impatiently.
“We have been quietly monitoring the situation,” Lord Ashworth told me. “The White Council has been using it as an example of what the council can do, meditating disputes between kingdoms and arranging matters so everyone is reasonably happy. Keeping Yolanda independent, and the trade routes open, is in everyone’s interests.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“A handful of magicians, including a top-rank alchemist, have gone missing,” Lord Ashworth said. “They were in Yolanda, all long-term residents. And we don’t know what’s happened to them.”
“An alchemist,” I repeated. “Was he one of the ones with ... interesting ... ideas?”
“She,” Lord Ashworth corrected. “And no, Layla wasn’t known for flights of fancy. There was certainly no suggestion she should take her experiments somewhere unpopulated, where she would be the only person at risk if something went badly wrong. She ran a simple apothecary and generally kept herself to herself. She had no partner, no children, no apprentice. The only reason we know she’s missing is because her former master didn’t get a letter from her.”
I had no patience for his bullshit. “You mean, she was there to keep an eye on things for you,” I said. “And you lost contact with her.”
Lord Ashworth didn’t bother to deny it. I wasn’t too surprised. House Ashworth had clients everywhere, as did the rest of the Great Houses. I’d long suspected they were used as a covert intelligence network, particularly the ones with no apparent links to the magical aristocracy. For all I knew, Layla might even be related - indirectly - to Lord Ashworth himself. She would hardly be the first member of magical aristocracy to set off on her own path, trying to forge a life for herself. And as long as she stayed in touch and made herself useful, her family wouldn’t care.
“We made indirect inquiries,” Lord Ashworth said. “We were told she closed her shop and left. That would be so out of character for her that we know it’s not true. Further inquires revealed a number of other magicians going missing. It isn’t easy to keep track of magicians, and it isn’t uncommon for the more independent-minded to simply vanish after graduation, but somewhere between five and twelve magicians have gone missing.”
“In Yolanda,” I said.
“Yes,” Lord Ashworth confirmed. “They were all residents of the city.”
“And not the sort of people who would simply vanish one day,” I mused. “What have you done about it?”
“We cannot send an investigation team into the town,” Lord Ashworth said. “The politics are very delicate right now. If the monarch refuses to allow it, we cannot do it. We can’t even ask without risking a political crisis.”
“That is true.” Hasdrubal looked as disgusted as I felt. “There is nothing, legally, that can be done.”
“Really.” I met Lord Ashworth’s eyes. He looked away. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go to the town, find out what’s happening and report back to us,” Lord Ashworth said, bluntly. “We’ll decide what to do upon your return.”
“If that is what you want,” I said, with heavy sarcasm, “it will be my pleasure to serve.”
“Good,” Lord Ashworth said. He slapped a pair of gold coins on the table for the waitress, then stood. “You know where to find me when you have something to report.”
He strode away. I stuck my tongue out at his retreating back. It was childish, but ... I’d put up with his sneers since I’d been a child. Even now, when he needed me, he sneered. I was going to make him pay for it, one day.
“There are odder rumours coming out of the region,” Hasdrubal said. “One of them involves a necromancer.”
I doubted it. The established necromancers were quite some distance to the south. There might be a newborn necromancer in Yolanda - the rite was terrifyingly easy - but there was no way he could escape notice. Not for long. The tiny kingdom would be knee-deep in bodies by now. The White Council would have all the excuse it needed to intervene. None of the surrounding kingdoms would argue.
“I’ll sneak into the town, see what I can dig up,” I said. “But it isn’t a necromancer.”
“No,” Hasdrubal agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t something bad.”
I couldn’t disagree. Magic could make monsters out of magicians. I knew that far
