Chapter 13

“Get it off!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Caleb told me, trying to look sympathetic. He failed miserably.

“Then get me someone who damn well can!”

“I don’t know why you’re upset,” he said, flicking a finger at the tiny beast currently roasting my elbow. “That’s an expensive ward you’ve acquired.”

“I haven’t acquired it! I don’t even know why it’s working again! It cut out on me last night, just when I needed the damn thing, and now—”

“It’s a talisman, Lia. It expended most of its store of magic energy and needed to recharge.”

“That doesn’t explain why it won’t leave!”

“It appears that stunning it caused it to reset. It now believes you to be its owner. That’s probably why it fought for you as long as its power lasted.”

“If it thinks I’m its master, why won’t it turn loose when I tell it to?”

He shrugged. “How would I know? It’s your ward.”

The door flew open and Hargrove bustled in with his usual air of having ten other places he needed to be. I really wished he’d find one of them. I so didn’t feel up to this today.

Caleb, the coward, slipped out behind the boss’s back as he picked up my chart. He let the silence drag out while he stared at it. “The good news is that the docs say the battle used up my excess magic,” I told him, not able to take the suspense. “So, uh, no more flying staffs. Or anything.”

“Sanjay is running a pool in the pharmacy,” Hargrove said after a moment. “They’re taking bets on which bones you’ll break in a given week.”

“Really? What’s the pot?” He looked up, eyes narrowing. I should have remembered; the guy had no sense of humor. “Look, I know I disobeyed your orders,” I began, fully prepared to grovel. But I didn’t get the chance.

“Which orders would those be?”

“The ones about not leaving the base?”

“That was between you and the doctor. The only command I gave was for you to report if any of this had to do with the Corps. Did it?”

“Uh, no.”

“That is what Sebastian Arnou said, when he called on me this morning. As I informed him, Were politics are of little concern to me. I have enough trouble keeping up with our own.”

I blinked. “Um. Sir? It almost sounds like maybe I’m not being fired?”

Hargrove rubbed his eyes. “I knew your father when he was in the service,” he said abruptly. “He was impetuous, headstrong and occasionally reckless. He was also the best commanding officer I ever had. It would be well for the Corps if you managed to survive long enough to emulate him.”

“Yes, sir.” I tried really hard to keep the silly grin trying to break out over my face under control. I couldn’t believe I was getting off this easy.

“Oh, and by the way,” Hargrove paused halfway out the door. “Mage Beckett has requested to be reassigned to combat duty.”

I frowned. “Why would he do that? He was one of our best instructors.”

“He said he needed the rest.” Hargrove smiled, and it was vicious. “You’ll be taking over his trainees as soon as you recover.”

Cyrus limped in a few moments later, while I was still reeling from the shock. He’d brought flowers, which I took as a good sign. He usually forgets stuff like that, although oil changes on my Harley are done like clockwork.

“So I guess I’m forgiven?” I asked, as he leaned over for a kiss.

“It will be at least a week until that happens. This is merely an injury-related time-out in my being pissed off at you.” He settled himself gingerly in a chair, his own injured leg stretched out in front of him.

“Come to think of it,” I told him, “I don’t know what I have to apologize for.”

“How about knocking me unconscious? Again?”

“I didn’t have a lot of time for a discussion.”

“And to think I used to dislike arguing with my girlfriends. Of course, that was before I encountered your method of ending a conversation.”

I sighed. “Fine. No more numb sticks.” Caleb had taken mine anyway.

“And as long as we’re on the subject, what about taking on Grayshadow on your own and almost giving me a stroke?” Cyrus’s words were light, but his expression was anything but.

“To be fair, you didn’t know about that until later.”

“I had a front-row seat courtesy of our bond. And without knowing you planned to sic his own wards on him!”

“About that bond thing—”

Cyrus shook his head. “That’s not going to work. For once, we’re going to finish one argument before we start the next.”

“Fine,” I said, giving him a look. “Although it should be pretty obvious that I couldn’t tell anyone my plans. Not even Sebastian. You know what wolf ears are, and Grayshadow was right there! He might have overheard.”

“And if he hadn’t used the wards?” Cyrus demanded. “If he’d assumed he could beat you on his own? What then?”

“He didn’t know my tat had run out of juice,” I pointed out. “And it had already hurt him once. He had no way of knowing that wouldn’t happen again.”

“And you had no way of knowing if that would be enough to convince him! Or that you’d guessed right about what his wards would do. They could have fought with him!”

“I took a calculated risk.”

“Based on what?”

“Jamie’s knowledge of the maker, for one thing. Some of the surviving gang members were rounded up and questioned last night. They’d been trading Wilkinson Fey wine now and again in return for protection wards, so they thought nothing of taking him the wolf pelts. He initially refused to have anything to do with them, but after they knocked him around a little, he agreed to give them what they wanted: weapons. What they didn’t know was that he’d ensured that those weapons would only work against them.”

“But if the interrogation was last night, you didn’t know any of that when you challenged!”

“No, but I knew that a guy who’d had his only child killed by a gang wasn’t likely to bow to pressure from another one. And he had to know he’d be killed as soon as he did what they wanted. He’d seen the wolf pelts and therefore was in a position to identify the ones who had taken them. It was the same reason his daughter was killed six years ago. So if he was going to die anyway, I thought there was a good chance he’d like to take a few of the gang with him.”

“A good chance?” Cyrus looked like he was swallowing something sour. “If you’d been wrong you’d be dead!”

“If it had to be me or Sebastian, better that it was me,” I told him, struggling for calm. Arguing with Cyrus was usually fun, adding frisson to whatever we were doing. But not when he got on this subject.

“Sebastian knew the risks when he assumed his position—”

“As did I. I’m a war mage trained to do exactly this kind of thing.”

“I think if other mages went around fighting duels to the death in front of the Council, I might have heard.”

“Maybe not in front of the Council,” I agreed, “but just about everywhere else. And with the war on, it’s likely to happen again. Particularly with my new job.”

Cyrus looked up from glaring at the rug. “What new job?”

“Hargrove has stuck me with the worst group of trainees you’ve ever seen. They scare me. I may be in here for a while, considering I have zero incentive to get well.”

“You love teaching.”

“They blew up the gym, Cyrus! Within a day of arrival! And I’m supposed to have them combat ready in six months!”

“Sounds like they already are.” He looked much cheerier suddenly. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, in the Corps, teaching was considered one of the more dangerous activities. “But at least you weren’t fired. By the way, why weren’t you fired?”

“The same reason Caleb and Jamie weren’t. Hargrove prefers to keep us around to torture.”

He grinned. “I thought Sedgewick was the problem.”

“He was, until he decided to autopsy a certain off-limits corpse. Caleb dropped by with the news a few minutes ago. Sebastian noticed the difference when the body was delivered and made it sound like it was going to cause a major diplomatic incident. In reality we don’t even know for certain who the Were was.”