Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(25)

Tier heard it because he rubbed her nose playfully. "You do controlled well enough that most people don't think you have a temper at all. Now, me, I enjoy a good screaming fight once in a while."

She laughed. "You do not. I have a miserably hard time picking a good fight with you." She waited a heartbeat or two. "So what do you think of Hennea?"

"How old is she?" he asked.

It was not what she expected him to say, though it seemed to bother Hennea that she was older than Jes.

"I don't know," she told him. "She looks about ten years younger than I am. Twenty-four or  -  five maybe? Their age difference is less than ours."

He rolled until his shoulder was under her head. "I think she's a good deal older than she appears."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's in her eyes. When my eyes aren't reminding me of her apparent age, I feel that she is an old, old woman."

Seraph thought about what he'd said for a moment.

"The control that Ravens strive for usually only belongs to the very old," she told him. "I've seen it in other Ravens besides Hennea, though I've never managed to get it right." People thought Seraph cold, she knew, but it was so hard to keep her emotions at bay - and if she didn't, she would be very, very dangerous for everyone. Magic required a cool head, and her temper was too easily lit. "Hennea's control is the reason, I think, that Jes can tolerate her touch when most people bother him."

"Magic can make people live longer," said Tier. "I once met a seventy-year-old wizard who looked no older than forty."

"Wizardry, yes, but, as I told you, the Orders don't work like that. Healers like Brewydd can perhaps extend their lives, but not past reasonable limits."

"You said that wizardry runs in the Traveler clans," said Tier. "Could Hennea be a wizard, too?"

Seraph sat up, crossed her legs, and stared at his face in the dim light. "You seem awfully certain that she's old." Owls could tell when someone lied, but that was as far as their truth-seeing went - or so she'd always supposed.

"It's just a feeling," he said half-apologetically.

"All of the Raven Bearers are wizards," she told him. "Just as all Guardians are empathic. So, yes, Hennea is a wizard as well. But a Raven restricting herself to magic without using the Order... it would be like stuffing cotton in your ears to sing, Tier."

"I know difference between wizards and Ravens is that wizards use ritual magic and Ravens don't have to," said Tier. "But I've seen you use rituals."

Seraph nodded. "Right. Wizardry is knowledge, and Raven is intuition. That's true as far as it goes, but it's really just the end result of the difference rather the real difference. It's like saying the difference between a dog and a cat is that a dog is obedient and a cat independent."

"Can you explain it to me?"

She thought a moment. "I have a very loose analogy. Imagine magic is a bakery that allows only some people in to make bread. These people can neither smell nor taste."

"Hard to bake bread that way," commented Tier.

"Very hard. But they manage because they study the recipe books very carefully and learn to measure each cup of flour, each grain of sugar."

"Solsenti wizards." Tier took one of her hands and played with her fingers.

"Right. Now a few of these wizards were given a ring that allowed them to smell and taste."

"And the ring is called the Order of Raven."

"That's right."

"But they could take off the ring."

Seraph rolled her eyes in exasperation and began speaking rapidly. "Only with caustic soap that burns. And the bakery is hot, so hot that some people die of it. Others learn to deal with the heat and manage to stay there a very long time - but only because all they do is bake bread, and they cannot leave or stop baking or they will die - those are the wizards who live centuries. But the ring protects you from all of the heat."

He threw an arm around her waist and rolled her under him as he laughed. "All right, all right. No Raven would think of working wizardry, and Ravens don't live for centuries."

"That's right," said Seraph, burying her face against his neck. "So Hennea is not a century-old wizard - nor is she the Shadowed. We would know - Jes would know."

Tier rolled to his side and was still for a while. She thought he'd fallen asleep and was halfway there herself when he spoke again.

"If Hennea joined you to help bring down the Path, why is she still here? Why isn't she looking for her clan to rejoin them? You said that the Path didn't kill them all, only her Raven lover."

Seraph started to answer him, but he continued. "It was Jes who made me question it. I think if she felt she was free to go, she would have left us as soon as she could simply because of Jes."

"What do you mean?" Seraph asked frowning. Tier was better with people than she was, but she was certain Hennea was attracted to Jes. "She likes Jes."

"She loves him," he said, with a certainty Seraph didn't feel. "Which is why she would leave if she could."

"That doesn't make sense." She hated it when Tier did that. She didn't doubt he was right - he usually was correct about people - she just hated it when he went out of his way to be obtuse, which was why he did it.