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Verol exhaled audibly. “In your case, given your age and the fact your innate control of your ability is already strong, the guild has opted for the minimum one-year apprenticeship with a test of your control at the end of the one year. Should you pass that, the apprenticeship will be dissolved. Should you fail, it will extend another year.”
“And what are the terms?”
“I am responsible for providing you with food, clothing, and living accommodations for the duration of the apprenticeship, as well as adequate instruction of your talent.”
“And in return?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Verol had already paid the guild the back payment she owed. He was now to provide all the basic necessities of her life and spend his time teaching her, and that was to come for free? Perhaps he might do it for her—but the rest of the mage population could not possibly be so altruistic.
“Under a typical contract,” Marquin said, “a master has complete control over the apprentice’s schedule, including any projects the apprentice hires out for. Eighty-percent of an apprentice’s income during the apprenticeship goes directly to the master. Additionally, once the apprentice passes guild certification, ten percent of their earnings return to their previous master for the next fifteen winters, or twice the length of their apprenticeship, whichever is shorter.”
“That’s hardly nothing.”
“That’s a typical contract. Yours is modified.” He rose and returned a minute later with the roll of papers he’d tried to hand her in the carriage last night. “Read it for yourself.”
She waved the papers away. “Just tell me.” Maybe she could force the Song to give her an identity that would let her read what was written there. But she still wouldn’t know how to read at the end of it. Not unless she held on to the identity after.
She was loath to give the Song a temporary ingress to her mind simply to read a piece of paper. Because if she couldn’t trust Marquin and Verol to tell her the truth about what was on it, she couldn’t trust them at all.
“There is no financial obligation on your end. Either during or after your apprenticeship ends. You may choose to work or not, and any income you receive will remain yours.
“Your schedule, likewise, is your own to determine. All apprenticeships require at least five hours a week of dedicated instruction. You may decide when you wish those to occur, though of course they will have to work around Verol’s schedule as well.”
“You’re telling me the obligation—the entirety of the obligation—is on Verol’s side.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Verol said, speaking up again, “it’s the only way you’ll stay.”
As if they knew the only leash that could hold her was one so thin she hardly felt it. She had a choice: leave their house and leave Veralna too—because no other mage would offer her so favorable an apprenticeship—and spend the rest of her life hiding from the repercussions of that action. Or, accept the offer, and have a stable place to live. Food to eat. Clothes to wear. The protection that came from being apprenticed to a lord of Veralna.
It wasn’t a choice, it was a godsend. She trusted it all the less for it.
“There are two more things you should know before you make a decision,” Marquin said. “One is that Verol and I are not loved by this city.”
She glanced between them, but neither offered further elaboration, so she hazarded a guess. “Is it because of your relationship?”
Verol laughed. “No. I’m sure that doesn’t help matters, but believe it or not, our marriage is probably the least controversial thing about us.”
“Then why?”
He sighed. “A long time ago we had to make a decision. We made the best one we could at the time, one most people will likely never understand and others will never forgive us for. We would make it again—but we have done terrible things in the name of that choice. We…are not good men.”
It was Clare’s turn to laugh. “If you think I am a good woman, then you will be sorely disappointed in me.” It all came down to what a person thought of as good, she supposed. Whether you thought all choices carried the same weight even when you were boxed into a corner and forced to make them. “What’s the other thing I should know?”
Marquin answered, this time. “The king requires the members of his court to live in palace quarters five days of each week for half of each year. We have just begun that half of our year. All mage apprenticeships require the apprentice to live under whichever roof the master happens to reside under. You will have to stay at the palace when we do.”
She could only think of one reason why Marquin might feel the need to point this out to her, and humiliation made heat rise in her cheeks. “I am capable of conducting myself in the court’s company without embarrassing you.”
“Embarrassment is not our concern,” Marquin said. “There is a reason the king forces the living requirement on the proconsuls and nobility of every province. There is a reason even his most sycophantic courtiers watch how loudly they tread in his presence. The Jackal King’s court is not a safe place.”
Years of training had her opening her mouth to pacify his concerns. To tell him that she could bend and bow and go beneath notice. The words stuck in her throat. Because she hadn’t come here to live the same way she had before. Her life had been a contortionist’s act of fitting herself into a mold small enough so that she wouldn’t be a threat or an embarrassment or an inconvenience. But she had taken herself out of the mold, had grown into a different form and could never fit herself back into the old one without cutting off the pieces of herself that no longer fit it.
So she told the truth. “If life has taught me anything, it is that there is no such thing as a safe place, and I have lived in the farthest thing from one I can imagine. I do not fear your king’s court.”
