“You’d call your own wand a monster?” Sharpe’s grip tightened on Ballathim’s blackthorn hilt.
“I… Thanks.” Peak accepted the iced whiskey that Iseul handed to him. “Don’t get me wrong—Targath is a great wand. But that first time I took it into battle… you’d have thought it’d gotten impatient, waiting for its next wielder. Because when we went up against my first ghast, we didn’t slay it—we obliterated it.”
Peak grinned crookedly at the memory, dimples creasing above his beard. And despite dubbing Peak valiant the night before, a bleak question crept into Domenic’s mind: Was it suspect that Peak had emerged from his battle with Kythion unscathed?
Immediately, he dismissed it. Peak had championed Domenic from the beginning. He was the entire NDC’s symbol of hope. It couldn’t be him. Itcouldn’t.
“If Targath and Kythion are such behemoths…” Glynn swirled his glass thoughtfully. “What caliber of beings must dwell within Valmordion and Iskarius?”
Domenic and Ellery hadn’t confessed their suspicions that their magic and their wands’ magic were one and the same. But to pose their counterpart theory then immediately label themselves as exceptions—it sounded so arrogant, so preposterous as to undermine their theory altogether.
No doubt Sharpe would laugh himself into hysterics at the notion.
“I’m not sure any of us can really imagine,” Domenic answered blandly.
“As disturbing as all these ideas are,” Iseul spoke, “I’m far more disturbed by the idea of a traitor within the Order.”
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not one to question destiny,” Peak said. “But what motive would anyone have to side with Winter?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time in the Order’s history someone tried to take advantage of turmoil,” Hanna said flatly.
“Turmoil?” Peak repeated. “This isn’t some rigged election or bank crisis—this is war. What kind of magician would be corrupt enough to risk the whole damn country?”
Iseul brushed off her hands, dusted in the crumbs of vending machine crackers and jittery from too much caffeine. Her appearance might’ve been pristine—her crisp navy blazer, her polished pearls—but Domenic wondered if she’d ever faced such a catastrophic day in her whole career. Already, only half the whiskey remained in her glass.
“Motive aside,” she said levelly, “a traitor implies a degree of sabotage. How can we investigate the existence of a criminal without even knowing what crimes have been committed? Tenney, did you notice evidence of sabotage at the border?”
“No. Nothing like that,” Peak answered.
“Then could it have occurred here, at the Citadel?”
“There was the scurge in Mercester Square,” Sharpe said. “The first ever recorded in Summer.”
“Scurges are caused by ghasts, not magicians,” Peak pointed out.
“Then, what, we have absolutely nothing to proceed with? Nothing but the words of the prophecy?” As Iseul regarded them all somberly, Domenic forced himself to consider it, that Iseul had honed in so emphatically on finding the traitor to conceal her own wrongdoing. After considering Glynn, it seemed only fair.
Yet the thought didn’t simply nauseate him—it didn’t makesense. Iseul might’ve possessed the cunning, the knowledge of performance, the wand of nearly unrivaled power, but she was the last person he’d accuse of lacking a heart.
“No, we do have something to go on,” Sharpe responded. “Mayes, how quickly could you investigate the Order’s ranks?”
Every gaze swiveled to Hanna. She was the only Councilor who’d maintained the same careful professionalism since the meeting’s beginning. Yet on her lap, she white-knuckled Syarthis. Its tip curled around the crook of her thumb.
“You’d have us, what?” Hanna rasped. “Interrogate every magician in the Order?”
“That’s quite the task for her, sir,” Iseul said nervously.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it,” Hanna said at once.
“Even if you can, to subject every one of our magicians to…” Glynn nodded grimly, though it wasn’t clear if he was nodding at Syarthis, or Hanna, or them both. “There’s the matter of their fortitude.”
“Mayes will be on her best behavior,” Sharpe said pointedly. “Seong, maybe you can do something about her hair. And those boots. You’re a member of the Council. Would it kill you to dress like a lady?”
“Oh sweet fuck,” Hanna muttered, then she ignored Iseul’s disapproving look and tore open a packet of bubble gum. Automatically, she handed a piece to Domenic beside her, and for the thinnest sliver of a second, Domenic hesitated. As Sharpe had just mentioned, Hannawasan equal member of the Council. She could be the traitor, too.
Immediately, he scolded himself.
Don’t be despicable.
