Scorched by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #7)(17)

Eager to start work, Chen and Kardanor left right after dessert to pick out an office big enough to spread out his detailed city maps, which he would be bringing up to the Palace as soon as possible. Cirin went back to his own office so that he could review the finances and increase the disaster-relief budget and order the tents and supplies, as per my suggestion.

“I think I will retreat to the library,” Fenris said as he, Iannis, and I rose from our seats. “I’ll dig up some of the more relevant spell books, and draw up a list of the most effective protection spells that will help us secure the city.”

“That is a good idea. I may well join you—” Iannis began.

“Excuse me,” a servant said, opening the door. “Lord Iannis, I apologize for the intrusion, but you have visitors.”

“Yes, and we come on urgent business,” said Garrett Toring, the Director of Federal Security. Iannis stiffened and the hair on my nape rose as Garrett entered the room right on the heels of the servant, a younger mage dressed in dark grey at his side. He looked around the room as we stared at him in shock, and my stomach dropped as his glance lingered on Fenris for a long moment.

“Good to see you again, Chief Mage, Sunaya. Pity you’ve already finished dinner. I don’t suppose there’s any left for us?”





6





“Director Toring,” Iannis said coolly, recovering from the shock well before I did. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Garrett said, a faint smile playing on his lips as he held Iannis’s gaze. The two stared at each other for a fraught moment, tension crackling in the air. Despite Iannis’s deadly calm fa?ade, I knew he was very displeased Garrett had showed up without so much as a phone call beforehand. Garrett gestured to the other mage, who looked around thirty, with dark brown curls and an air of superiority. “This is my assistant, Harron Pillick. I apologize for not sending word of our arrival, but the Minister and I agreed that for security reasons, it would be best not to do so.”

I clenched my jaw at the lie. Garrett might have been on some urgent mission, but there was no sincerity in his apology—he had meant to arrive without notice, to throw us off balance. What was he here for? Did the Minister really know and choose not to tell Iannis? My mind instantly went to Fenris, standing on my right. I couldn’t see his expression, but panic and rage rolled off him at the sight of his deadliest enemy, in a way that deeply unsettled me. Fenris was always so even-keeled, but I could sense his fight-or-flight response kicking in, and the urge to flee was intensely strong in him right now.

Garrett turned to him, his hazel eyes gleaming with interest and calculation. “You must be Fenris,” he said casually, eyeing Fenris up and down like a wolf might a particularly juicy steak. The irony wasn’t lost on me that of the two of them, Fenris was the actual wolf in the room. “I have heard much about you.”

“Surely nothing of interest,” Fenris said calmly, and I was both astonished and proud to see that he was smiling cheerfully, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. That would piss Garrett off for sure. “I am a mere shifter, after all.”

“Ah, but you are being too modest,” Garrett said, and his own smile didn’t waver one bit. “A shifter who studies magical theory is quite rare in Solantha, or even the entire Northia Federation. What prompted you to delve into an esoteric subject that is useless to your kind?”

“Director Toring,” I interrupted, sparing Fenris from having to respond. “Surely you didn’t take the trouble to come out all this way—”

“Trouble,” my ether parrot squawked. He materialized between Garrett and me, his glowing blue wings throwing off sparks of magic as they flapped in the air.

“What is that thing?” Garrett snapped, moving out of the parrot’s way.

“A little experiment of mine,” I said breezily—no way was I going to admit to Garrett that Trouble had been the result of an ether pigeon spell gone wrong. “His name is Trouble, and he appears every time I use the word. I’m still trying to smooth out that particular quirk.”

“Quirk,” Trouble squawked, and he sounded highly offended. The parrot turned his back on me and sailed over to Garrett, settling his glowing, feathered body onto the Director’s gilded head of hair.

“Well, I really must be getting back to the library,” Fenris said, stepping past Garrett, who was unsuccessfully trying to shoo the bird off his head. Trouble wasn’t corporeal, so no amount of shaking or swatting affected him. “I will come find you later, Lord Iannis, if I learn anything pertinent to these quakes.” He flashed me a grateful smile behind Garrett’s back before slipping out through the double doors.

“Quakes?” Garrett demanded, abandoning his attempts to dislodge the parrot from his head. “What quakes?”

“I fail to see why I should answer that, when you’ve yet to tell me the reason for your visit,” Iannis said, letting some of his annoyance seep into his voice.

“Oh, how rude of me,” Garrett exclaimed, and I nearly rolled my eyes. “We are here about Thorgana Mills. My office has been working around the clock since the day of the prison fire. We now have proof that not only did Thorgana survive the conflagration, but her confederates are the ones who caused it.”