Bound by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #2)(52)

“You’re done f*cking with the lives of innocent shifters, Nila,” I growled instead. “In fact, if I have it my way, you’re done period.”

“Pah!” Brin actually had the audacity to spit on my boot. “You shifters are all just mangy animals anyway.” He began to struggle as the other Enforcers pulled him from the room. “You’re rabid beasts that need to be leashed for your own good!”

His shouts continued to echo from down the hall, and I glared at him as I watched him go. I was breathing hard from the effort of holding myself back from chasing him down the hall and beating him into a pulp. Because Brin thought humans were better than shifters, he was justified in drugging and kidnapping them and forcing them to kill each other? If anyone deserved that kind of fate, it was him.

“So,” Captain Galling said, returning my attention to him. “You say you need a task force? When?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Annia admitted. “We don’t know when the next Royale is. But I have a feeling it’ll be in the next few days, and with a bit of snooping around I should be able to find out when. I’ll head over to Turain this afternoon.”

“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “You’ve already been there twice. It’s going to look pretty suspicious if you’re snooping around a third time. I’ll go myself, in a different disguise.”

“Are you sure?” Annia demanded. “You won’t have any trouble with the smoke?”

“I’ll dig up a charm from somewhere to help me deal with it. Trust me, Annia, it’s better this way.”

“Alright.” Captain Galling pinned me with his hard stare. “You’re certain that no one suspected anything after the magic stunt you pulled?”

“Not that I know of.” I shrugged, the idea making me a little uneasy. “Nobody tried to stop or question us.”

“Fine. But you’d better be right, Baine, because if you send us walking into an ambush I’ll have your hide, Chief Mage’s apprentice or not.”





16





I tried to get out of my duties at the Mages Guild that afternoon so I could go to Turain, but the Chief Mage wasn’t available, and Director Chen wasn’t having it, so I was forced to spend the rest of the afternoon doing grunt work as usual. Dragging my feet down the hall on my way to the Secretary of Agricultural Magic’s office, I was turning over an idea in my mind about how to convince him to let me out early when the Finance Secretary walked out of a room.

“Oh, Miss Baine.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he caught sight of me. “Where are you headed to?”

“Department of Agricultural Magic,” I said, pointing down the hall. “Why?”

“Oh, well never mind Soren,” the Finance Secretary said impatiently, referring to the Secretary of Agricultural magic by name. “This is more important than sending out letters to farmers. Come along.” He waved me into the room he’d just come from.

“What exactly am I helping you with?” I asked warily as I entered the room. It was a large clerks’ office, with rows of beige metal file cabinets lining the walls, and a number of desks arranged throughout the space, all covered with stacks of paper and ledgers. Many of the people sitting at the desks and going through these records were apprentices, but a few of them, to my surprise, were humans.

“The Mages Guild does employ human accountants to help me keep up with the regular work,” the Finance Secretary said, correctly interpreting the question in my gaze. “The apprentices are all well and good, but I need some regular trained members on my staff, and there aren’t very many mages who are willing to put aside spellcraft to work on numbers.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense.” I knew I definitely wouldn’t want to volunteer for the job.

I followed the Finance Secretary into his office, which was in a smaller, separate room that featured a large glass window enabling the Finance Secretary to observe the others in his department. Other than that, though, his own office was much the same as the outside room – lots of file cabinets, stacks of leather-covered dispatch boxes, and shelves filled with ledgers. There was a tiny golden set of scales on his desk that I assumed was meant to be used as a paperweight, and a small potted tree with a braided trunk that I recognized as a money tree.

“Does that thing really give you financial good luck?” I asked as I sat down in one of his visitor’s chairs.

To my surprise, the Finance Secretary’s lips quirked briefly as he eyed the plant. “No, but it’s a gift from my wife, so I care for it all the same.”

The small insight into his personal life reminded me that beneath their stony facades, mages were people too. I wondered if they were just as stiff and formal amongst their families in the privacy of their own homes, or if they showed more warmth. I’d glimpsed warmth in Iannis enough times to know that I couldn’t discount the possibility.

The Finance Secretary’s smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come, and he reached into a drawer behind his desk and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book. I recognized it as the ledger he’d been studying back in Danrian’s office at Sandin Federal Bank.

“I found this ledger in a wall safe hidden behind a painting in the bank manager’s office,” the Finance Secretary said tersely, flipping it open. “I thought you might want to know about it.”