Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(57)

“Yeah, see you.” Iannis lifted his beer to them in salute and took another long pull from it as they walked off.

A mixture of relief and triumph filled my chest as I leaned in to whisper in his ear. “See? I told you things are bad out here. I’m not the only one who hates mages.”

“Yes, and it seems that, at least in Maintown, mages aren’t the only ones who are hated.” He grinned at me.

Heat scalded the tips of my ears. “That’s not fair,” I said hotly.

He held up a long-fingered hand. “I know, I know,” he said. “All of this talk about drugs and shifters is alarming. It will be looked into.”

The gravity of his voice and expression settled me – this was the Iannis I knew. But before I could open my mouth, the bartender finally returned with our food.

“Thank Magorah,” I groaned, hopping back onto my own stool so I could grab my lamb burger. I bit into it, and closed my eyes as the rich flavors burst across my tongue. I’d forgotten how hungry I was.

We ate in silence, Iannis calmly eating his tilapia as I wolfed down my burger. I finished the thing in less than five minutes, and was about to start in on my donuts when a brunette in a slinky black dress inserted herself between us. She leaned her bare shoulders against the counter, smelling of perfume and stale sweat, and I wrinkled my nose.

“Hey sugar,” she said in a high, breathy voice, batting her long lashes at Iannis. “Care to have a drink with me?”

Iannis arched his blond brows, his pale eyes running up and down her body in a way that made my blood boil. “I –”

“We’ve got a play to catch,” I snapped, sliding off my barstool. The girl glared at me, and I gave her a smile that was both sweet and deadly as I snatched Iannis’s hand and pulled him off his own barstool. “Sorry, sweetheart, but go and pick on someone else’s guy.”

“‘Someone else’s guy’?” Iannis murmured as I dragged him out of the club, his voice tinged with amusement. “I thought we’d established that I wasn’t your male and you weren’t my female.”

“You are for the purposes of this outing,” I retorted, tossing his words right back into his face as I hailed a cab. My fingers tightened around his, and for reasons best not examined, I didn’t let go until we were safely headed back to the palace. Maybe I hated it there, but within those walls at least I understood the territory and rules between us.





Chapter Sixteen




The next morning, a servant knocked on my door and told me that the Chief Mage required my presence in the audience chamber for an important meeting. Groaning, I dragged myself out of bed and made myself as presentable as I could – I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, my mind replaying my outing with Iannis over and over.

As soon as we’d gotten into the cab, Iannis had dropped the illusion, and along with it the lax, easygoing manner he’d adopted in his human guise. I’d plied him with questions about how he’d blended in with the humans so easily and why, even though he seemed to acknowledge the importance and validity of technology, he didn’t really use it in his palace, but he blew me off and told me to be quiet. He’d spent most of the time staring pensively out the window, and I’d left him alone.

Hopefully, whatever had been going through his mind last night would result in positive action this morning.

When I arrived at the audience chamber, I was surprised to see Captain Galling of the Enforcer’s Guild there, along with three other people I didn’t know. Iannis was standing behind his desk, and I caught a glimpse of Fenris standing next to him in wolf form, his bushy brown tail sticking out from behind the stone desk.

“Miss Baine.” The Chief Mage nodded at me in greeting. “I’d like to introduce you to Lalia Chen, the future Director of the Mage’s Guild, and her apprentice, Benalin Liu.” He gestured to the two mages on his right.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Baine.” Director Chen nodded at me, and I automatically returned the gesture. She was a beautiful woman, with ivory skin and a head full of fine, glossy dark hair that was pulled back from her oval face into a ponytail. Her willowy form was clothed in deep red robes embroidered in gold and tied with a sash at her trim waist. The apprentice, a slender man with close-cropped dark hair, bowed, though hesitantly. The look in his glittering eyes told me he wasn’t at all happy about having to show deference to someone like me.

“And you as well,” I told the Director, too surprised to remember to be snarky. I didn’t recognize either of these mages from the party, which meant they had to be from somewhere outside of Solantha. Their accents placed them as Northian, though they clearly were both of Garian ancestry. Had Iannis actually intended on picking a replacement from any of the mages who’d been to the banquet? Or was there some other reason he’d called them all together that night that I wasn’t aware of? “I hadn’t realized a replacement had been found so quickly.”

Director Chen smiled slightly. “My appointment is not yet official,” she said in a quiet voice that was like river water flowing over smooth pebbles – deceptively calm with a hidden strength behind it. “Lord Iannis wishes to test me first, before officially instating me.”

“Well, that makes sense.” I turned to the third man, who wore the same blue uniform as all the other Privacy Guard employees, except that he had gold epaulets on his shoulders and the sword swinging from his hip was more fancy than others I’d seen.