He twinkled at me in that grandfatherly way normally reserved for Sorcha, and my Flame may have glowed just a little bit brighter. Ididhave a knack for it. I’d always loved decorating for Yule.
Tanner turned back to the bar, and I let the gentle droneof his voice lull me like a familiar melody as I worked. He was telling Sorcha about “bad, bad business” in Kingsborough. Gossip from his city-dwelling brother, a trusted source of indisputable information among Tanner and his ilk. The young King was as bad as his father before him, Tanner had heard. Worse, Roy interjected with rare venom. Aye, worse, Tanner agreed. The coronation was just months away, and we could all expect every freedom we enjoyed to be yanked out from under us, just mark Tanner’s words.
“Sure, we all got the letter,” he said darkly. “ThatRoyal Decree.”
He wiggled his fingers, slipping into a haughty nasal tone that I could only assume was an impression of a Kingsborough noble. With a non-commital hum, I continued my ministrations on the tree; out of the corner of my eye, I noted Sorcha’s diffident shrug. We had seen the decree, of course. I doubted whether there was a magic user in all of Qyelles who hadn’t. I wasn’t worried, truth be told, but the lull of Tanner’s monologue sharpened all the same, my ears perking as though someone had spoken my name.
“It’sregistrationthey’re wanting now,” Tanner went on. “By the end of next year, I’ve heard. Not enough to classify the folk like a herd of animals, now they want tobrandthem like cattle?”
Roy gave a quiet snort of outrage, and Tanner drew himself up, fortified by the attention. He sat taller in his seat as righteous ire overtook him.
“His father started the very same way. Grand declarations, all for thegood of the people. And aren’t the magic folk people, too? What good does it do, dividing us against our own?”
“Not about us at all,” said Roy evenly.
Tanner pounded his fist on the bar in hearty agreement.
“Not about usat all,” he echoed, then gave a great huff. “They’re classified by their threat to the Crown and the Crown alone. When you’ve got tasters paid well to die for you, what’s a little bit of poison? There you have it, Herbalists; Class A. But an army of the dead? A Serpent spy, with the face of a nobleman? They could bring the Crown to its knees. Necromancers, Serpents; Class X, and off with their heads.”
“And their skin,” said Roy.
Tanner shuddered.
“Poor souls. You watch how this new King treats his magical subjects, and mark my words, Sorcha, love – we’ll get a small forecast for the rest of us. Aye, the magic folk will see the worst of it. They always do.”
I glanced up at that, seeking Sorcha’s face, and was relieved to find her nodding, polite and unmoved. She was a sensible girl. Life had never been easy formagic folk, but we’d survived thus far, and despite what Tanner and Roy and even my own brother might believe, we would endure whatever restrictions this new King placed upon us.
As we always did.
Tanner went on grumbling about the new King, cursing over the taxes he was rumoured to be bringing in for land owners in our borough. I half-listened and watched Sorcha for a time until, satisfied that she was unmoved by our resident doomsayer, I turned my attention back to more festive thoughts.
By lunchtime,The Mage and Rosewas transformed. The tree was my best yet, twisting lengths of red ribbon bright against the fresh green pine needles. Little gold trinkets and bells hung from every branch, twinkling where they caught the light. I’d strung ribbon and garlands from other surfaces too; across the front of the bar, over the hearth’s mantel, and around the doorway. I’d even dusted off a dozen old glass baubles and – when Tanner and Roy weren’t watching – let my magic leap into them in tiny sparks, lighting them up from the inside so that they glowed like golden embers. Those, I strung from the rafters; they looked like brightly burning stars above our heads.
“Roz,” Sorcha said in a hush. Her blue eyes were ringed with gold as she stared up at the twinkling ceiling.
Roy gave a soft, low whistle and Tanner said; “I’ll be eating my words now, no need for lunch.”
I beamed at them all, then turned my attention back to the tree. All that was left was to place the star on top. That had always been my job, as the youngest in our family of four. Myfather would lift me on his shoulders when I was too small to reach, both of us glowing from the Flame outward with the soft, simple joy of the moment. I hugged the star tight to my chest at the memory. I was just trying to find a way to get the heavy gold base to sit atop the thin little branch jutting out of the tree’s crown, when footsteps crunched up the snowy pathway outside.Lotsof footsteps.
I froze.
A glance over my shoulder told me the others had frozen too, and my magic swooped uneasily in my ribcage. I hugged the star tighter to my chest, a shield to my nervous Flame as the door swung open –
– and a cluster of Kingsmen marched wordlessly inside.
I forgot to breathe. My lungs and magic burned in tandem, and the panicked swell of heat in my ribs shocked me into clenching down hard, so hard I imagined I could hear my Flame squeal as I locked it down. My chest went painfully cold, a cavern of ice at the centre of my being.
“Can we help you?”
My voice came out in a shiver and much more timid than I would have liked, but none of the dozen or so men seemed to have heard me anyway. They filed to either side of the door, shoulder to shoulder in their shining bronze armour and bloodred cloaks. The soldiers formed two neat lines before their hands moved in eerie unison to their foreheads, a rigid salute.
Sorcha wrung her hands. Roy’s gaze flitted from soldier to soldier, his frail shoulders curving in on themselves bit by bit. To my surprise, Tanner had gone entirely still, stiff as a hunted animal. He was barely even breathing.
And when I finally inched forward to follow Tanner’s gaze, peering around the line of Kingsmen closest to me, I could see why.
The man in my doorway was too large. There was no other way of putting it; he didn’t fit through the entry made for our short and stocky Stormsby farmers. The door cut him off midbrow, and my first impression was nothing but broad shoulders inshining steel, and a vicious scar above a thick beard. Then he ducked through the entryway, and the edges of the gold star dug into my fingers as I clutched it tighter.
He could have stepped from the pages of a storybook.
