Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(30)

Perhaps I can ask Fenris to try and get my weapons back for me.

Huh. That might actually be a good idea. Even if he held on to them for me, that was better than leaving them to the Enforcer’s Guild. Heck, I might even be able to get him to convince the Chief Mage to let me wear them – the guards would think twice about messing with me then.

With that thought in mind, I left my makeshift training area and went to find Fenris. A human servant told me he was in the West Wing, so I headed in that direction, passing through the balcony that overlooked the foyer as I did so.

“What do you mean, we can’t see her!”

I froze at the sound of Noria’s strident tones, and looked over the railing to see her standing below, arguing with the mage who served as the receptionist for the palace. Her cloud of red curls bounced around her face in time to her wild gesticulations. Next to her stood Comenius, who looked slightly uncomfortable about her outburst. Both were dressed in white from head to foot – mourning colors – and my heart sank into my toes as I realized what that meant.

Roanas’s funeral.

Rage began to build inside me. Why had nobody told me he was being buried today? Even if I couldn’t have attended the funeral myself, I would have liked to pray for him, perhaps even hold a rite on my own.

“I’m sorry, but Sunaya Baine is a prisoner,” the mage sniffed haughtily. Ire bubbled up inside me as he wrinkled his long, slightly crooked nose. “And as such, she is not cleared for any visitors at this time.”

“That’s preposterous!” Comenius protested, his handsome features tightening into a scowl. “Even Prisoner’s Isle allows their inmates visitors, and Sunaya hasn’t even been sentenced.”

“I don’t know why you’re wasting your time here,” the mage sneered. “With her volatile behavior, it’s only a matter of time before the Chief Mage has her executed –”

The animosity building inside me finally came to a head. I vaulted over the balcony, twisting around in the air before landing in a crouch directly in front of the mage.

“What was that you were saying about my volatile behavior?” I asked, baring my fangs at the snotty old mage. His wrinkly skin turned sallow, his beady eyes widening as much as they were capable.

“Naya!” Comenius and Noria exclaimed at the same time.

The mage’s bushy grey eyebrows quivered as he scowled at me. “Just what is the meaning of this, young lady? Are you threatening me?”

The guards standing by began to close in, and I stepped in front of my friends to shield them, not wanting them to get caught up in another altercation with these brutal bastards.

“Fenris,” I called out mentally. “Could use a little help here.”

“Sir, we apologize for the intrusion,” Comenius said swiftly from behind me. I turned to see him grab Noria around the waist and begin steering her towards the door. “We’ll just be on our way now –”

“No!” Noria actually stamped her foot. “I’m not leaving!” She flung herself at me, and I staggered as she wrapped her arms around my waist like a child would do to a mother who was trying to leave them behind somewhere.

“Noria,” I muttered, trying to extricate myself from her grasp as the guards drew closer, one of them testing the draw on his short sword. I didn’t want to give the guards an excuse to work off some of their aggression on her. “You can tone it down a notch.”

“May I ask what’s going on here?”

Relief sang through my veins at the sound of Fenris’s voice, and I turned to see him standing at the top of the stairs, watching us with a bemused expression.

“Oh hey.” I waved nonchalantly, as if I didn’t have a human girl dangling from my waist and a bevy of guards ready to pounce on us. “I’m just greeting some visitors.”

“This vile hybrid threatened me!” the reception mage shouted, pointing toward me with a trembling finger.

Fenris’s brow darkened as he descended the staircase. “I don’t care for your choice of words, Canter,” he said sternly, the guards backing away as he approached.

“Who is he?” Comenius murmured in my ear, watching wide-eyed at the way Fenris managed to intimidate everyone else in the room. “Isn’t he a shifter?”

“Yeah, but he’s friends with the Chief Mage,” I muttered back. “And also his right-hand man. So everyone seems to listen to him.”

“That’s strange,” Noria mused, also watching with narrowed eyes. “The Chief Mage giving a shifter that kind of power, while oppressing the other shifters under his rule?”

I shrugged, but the words struck me nevertheless. It was strange that Fenris had so much influence over the guards and even some of the mages around here, even if he was a friend of the Chief Mage’s. Moreover, I still didn’t understand why the two of them were friends in the first place, especially since the Chief Mage certainly didn’t show me any kind of preferential treatment. What made Fenris so special?

Canter seemed to recover from his momentary panic attack, and drew his robes around himself imperiously. “I don’t see what business it is of yours what I call her,” he sniffed, “but in any case that’s not the point. These two hooligans,” he jabbed a finger towards Comenius and Noria, “came in demanding to see the prisoner, and I denied them on account of the fact that she isn’t cleared for visitors.”