Cold Fire

“No!” snarled Rory. I pressed the cane across his chest to check him.



“Kemal,” said the headmaster to his assistant. “If you will.”



The assistant took off his coat and gloves. Bee brought them to Rory.



I said, “Put them on.”



He obeyed, although by the curl of his lip I could tell he was affronted.



“Why do you think you have to kill him, Rory?” I asked, digging for patience.



His tone suggested he was completely disgusted with my callous disregard for his needs. “He’s one of the enemy!”



I could tell from Bee’s busy, bitten expression that she was thinking as wildly and desperately as a runaway coach careens over rugged ground.



“Are you a cold mage, Maester?” she asked. “Perhaps an un-Housed cold mage, making your own way in the world? Hiding your power?”



“I am no cold mage. But I invite you to return to the academy, where I will serve hot tea and we may conduct this conversation in decent warmth.”



Bee delivered her reply with queenly obstinacy. “I mean no offense, Maester, but the last time I took refuge with you, you handed me over to Legate Amadou Barry. I became little better than a prisoner in his exalted house, and I must say—” Her cheeks flamed, and she thought twice about what she must say.



He nodded. “You have my deepest apologies, Maestressa. I was mistaken in believing the Barry house was a suitable refuge for you. The offer of a cup of hot tea comes without price. On my honor as a Napata, I will not reveal your presence in the academy to anyone. No one will know except me, and my servants, who are bound to me.”



“I have to kill him,” said Rory. “Let me go, Cat.”



“No.” I kept the cane pressed to his torso, its hidden cold steel a leash on his straining form. “Maester, will you explain to us what we just saw? If that was not magic, then I surely have no idea what to call it. My cousin and I have had enough of being lied to, betrayed, and kept in ignorance.”



His grave smile made me ashamed of the impetuosity of my speech, and I lowered my gaze so as not to seem to be staring directly at him in a disrespectful way. “These are hard matters, Maestressa, as you correctly comprehend. Did the head of the poet Bran Cof speak to you two months ago?”



Tell no one. I bit my lip. Bee fisted her hands.



“By your expressions, Maestressas, I will take that for a yes. A pity I was not informed at the time. Although I suppose when two young women are waiting in my office, perhaps with a purloined book in their keeping, they may prefer to keep silence rather than be subjected to questions. Might we go? My old bones feel the cold deeply. I note also your companion has bare feet now that his shoes have torn off.”



Rory said, as if he had decided he would have more success with being reasonable, “Just let me kill him, Cat. It will only take a moment.” He tensed, readying to spring.



A tongue of fire licked the wintry cold. The air pulled at me as if I were being drawn into the maw of a fiery furnace. Green flickered in the headmaster’s eyes, but his expression remained impassive as he examined Rory as if seeking beneath the skin to the cat beneath. I had a heart-squeezingly strong premonition—nothing magical about it—that our young, healthy, strong Roderic and the old, frail, fragile-looking headmaster were not remotely evenly matched. With the cane, I pushed Rory behind me. He was trembling, although I could not have said whether with anger, fear, or sheer shaking eagerness to pounce.



Bee’s delicate little hand caught hold of my wrist, tightening as I imagined the coils of a snake might crush the ribs of a larger animal. “Cat, we have to hear what the head of the poet Bran Cof has to say.”



“Ah! Ow! Yes! You go ahead. I’ll come after with Rory.”



She released my wrist and swept a courtesy to the headmaster as I tried to shake the pain out of my wrist while still holding Rory in check.



“Maester,” she said, “we will accompany you out of respect for your age and lineage. But it is likely the Roman legate and his minions are already on their way to the academy.”



“Then there is no time to waste, Maestressa. I give you my word I will not be party to your being taken prisoner by Romans, mage Houses, or princes.”



“Very well.” She nodded at me before accompanying them down the path.



A cold breeze chased up from the east, the last breath of the hailstorm Andevai had called to quell the crowds. It was better than muskets and swords as a weapon against people out on the streets, forcing them to flee inside. But the weakest and most desperate huddling in alleys or unheated hovels would expire in the deadly cold. Yet winter killed the weak anyway, didn’t it?