Gwin tilted her glass in my sister’s direction. “Do you know what helps with control? Combat training. It’s about time you joined us, snowflake. Your sister seems like she's already given up.”
“I realised I’ll never be good at it,” I said, nudging the food around my plate.
Joy turned in my direction. “Why did you want to learn combat?”
Because it seemed like a useful skill to have. The only one I could use.
I shrugged. “In case I ever had to punch a Strzyga.”
“There are many reasons to learn,” Gwin said. “The more control you have over your body, the better wielder you become.”
“A lot of things help with control,” Finn cut in. “For example—"
I missed the rest of Finn’s words when Reagan spoke quietly.
“How was your tutoring?”
He’d been schooling his expression for days now. I had begun to wonder if he was hiding any disappointment about my lack of progress.
“Seraphyn tried siphoning today,” I said, catching the quick crease on his forehead. “It didn’t work.”
He nodded and returned to his meal. No reaction.
“Reagan,” Gwinifer said, “Finn told me you’re leaving again.”
Reagan dipped his chin. “Finnegan and I are leaving for Banfgaard soon. We sent a letter requesting a visit. We leave as soon as they send us an invitation.”
“What are you doing in Banfgaard?” Gwin asked.
“With the investigation into the Order, we need more sources of information,” Cerridwen replied. Her gaze settled on Finn, whose eyes seemed a bit wary. “I hope your uncles can assist.”
“That is the question,” Finn said sceptically. “They won’t grant their assistance just because we ask. Especially ifIask.”
“That’s why we’ll propose an alliance,” Reagan said, lifting his gaze to Finn. “We offer them something in exchange for their spies.”
Finn muttered a curse under his breath.
“Alliance?” Gwin echoed. “Since when are you rallying the country against the Order?”
“Since we have many reasons to think they’re up to no good,” Reagan said evenly, meeting the questioning eyes around the table. “I already wanted to ally with Banfgaard to have their spies find out if the Order is plotting anything else against me. But in the past two weeks, Cerridwen and I found yet another reason to worry.
“I was thinking about Jane’s abduction and how nothing was done. Varian only has a sentence because he glamoured as me, and one of the Scions because he used a hex that day. But the others were taken because they tried to harmme.” Reagan shrugged one shoulder, his expression steely. “Not her. No justice was done for her, a hybrid-born. That reminded me why there were people advocating for the hybrid cause once. Do you remember? They used to have articles all over the papers, public rallies. All of that.
“I wanted to contact someone leading the cause here, to check for similar cases. But we couldn’t find any information about the previous groups that used to petition for hybrids. It’s been nearly impossible to get information on them. The more we searched, the more we discovered that there aren’t petitions or supporters anywhere, in any estate.”
Cerridwen spoke next, her expression stoic. “Most people we talked to—from the papers and the courts—said that those advocates have given up. The last information we found was an article from four years ago. It included commentary from an advocate saying it had become dangerous to speak for the cause or the disappearances. Humanandhybrid disappearances. They talked about going into human territory and checking what they called police stations. So recently, Barracus assigned a few battle mages to visit human towns and they found an alarming number of humans who disappeared.”
The whole table had gone silent. This was likely what they’d been working on during the staff meetings I’d missed.
Once, Reagan had told me how the Order had been known to take humans in secret. It was just after I’d been attacked in Erisea by Scions, and I remembered how they had tried to take me too, for reasons I was grateful never to know.
Gwin folded her arms over her chest. “It’s been years since we had tips about human sightings in Mountheim.” Her eyes glanced to Joy and me. “Humans who were abducted at least.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Reagan said, facing her fully. “You’ve just been worrying about Wraiths for seven years. But there were other problems slipping under our noses.”
“Disappearances can happen for several reasons,” Cerridwen said, shaking her head. “But when we noticed that the number of humans and hybrids disappearing is considerably higher than that of mageborn, then we need to pay closer attention.”
“Why not send battle mages to investigate?" Gwinifer asked. “I can get back to doing that.”
