Cold Fire

“It’s not meant as an insult!”



“Implying I don’t know my own mind is not an insult?” His jaw was clenched, his eyes had narrowed, and I heard a whispery groan of iron under strain. Yes. He was very angry.



“That’s not how I meant it. You didn’t kill me when you had the chance. You aided me when you could. You defied the mansa by telling him you would stop anyone who tried to kill me. So I thank you for that. But Bee and I have our own problems. A husband is one complication too many.” My hands were squeezed so tightly my shoulders ached. I untangled my fingers and separated my hands. “I’ll make no objection if a way can be found to dissolve the marriage. Let you go your way, and me mine. It’s for the best.”



“So be it.” His gaze flashed up, and if there was a murderous piercing spear in those fine brown eyes I am sure he did not mean it literally. Perhaps he was finally reconsidering the wisdom of believing he had fallen in love at first sight. People could convince themselves of anything.



“Will that be all, then?” Chartji said to me.



“Yes.” I was barely able to croak out the word. Over here, it seemed terribly hot, although the rest of the chamber shivered with cold.



“If you will.” She indicated the door. “The magister and I aren’t finished.”



I let her usher me out, and as I turned back to see if Andevai had watched me go, she closed the door in my face.



5



Let him go his way, and me mine. Our lives led down different paths. I was well rid of him and the way he was contemptuous one moment, a proud cold mage from the top of his well-groomed head to the tips of his gloriously polished boots, and then the next might be mistaken for a staidly polite and provincially traditional—if unusually good-looking—village lad who was trying too hard to fit into a world where he was not welcome but could not be turned away.



Impatient with these niggling thoughts which like bad-mannered visitors simply would not leave, I ran downstairs. That idiot Bee had not left, although she had put on her coat. Seeing me, she opened her mouth, perhaps to comment on the way my eyes were red from unshed tears or that I had been parading around in my unkempt bodice and skirts like an overworked scullery maid. Then she closed her mouth and instead handed me my riding jacket. Rory was lounging by the fire as might a cat sunning itself on a rock.



We were not alone.



Kehinde sat in a chair opposite Bee, holding a parsnip. Brennan leaned against the wall beside the door, so perfectly at ease it took a moment to realize how quickly he could block the door. The contrast between them was striking. He was muscular, blond, and white-skinned, with the look of a man used to waiting until he had to explode into action. Small-framed, she was fidgety, touching each unsliced parsnip as if her hands needed something to do while her mind worked; her skin was black, and she wore her long black hair in locks.



“We need to talk.” She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.



“I didn’t say anything to him about the general being here!”



“Sit, please.” Kehinde spoke without force or anger. I sank onto the bench, all energy drained. “Why did you come? To seek our help to return to the Hassi Barahal motherhouse in Gadir?”



“No,” said Bee, with a glance at me. I let her talk. “We’re not returning there.”



“Why not? They are your community. What are we, if we have no community and no family?”



“‘We’ are left to fend for ourselves,” said Bee. “Let me just say that our family betrayed us and we no longer trust them. We hoped to find refuge with radicals. We thought you of all people would understand why we don’t want to be bound into clientage, practically legal slavery, to a mage House or a prince’s court…or some patrician household from Rome.” Her voice fell to a whisper, but she recovered. “We can be useful to the cause. We are not without skills.”



“The Hassi Barahal house is known to be employed in the business of selling information,” said Kehinde. “You might be spying on us. After all, after you came, the cold mage arrived.”



I was getting annoyed. “Turn that around! Why would Chartji make an appointment for a cold mage to come to your office at the same time the most wanted man in Europe is to be here?”



Brennan laughed. “An unfortunate case of bad timing, and close calls. Rather exciting, don’t you think?”



“For you it will always be a game, Du,” said Kehinde, measuring him with a frown. “The more you skate onto the thin ice, as you say here in the north, the better you like it.”