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“We’re not,” Garrett said tightly, “with you. We’re outside the Isle of Averene. Technically the province of Variennes never surrendered its independence.”
“No. Because the baron’s line simply died out. Which is why the land’s ours.”
“Because your father decided it was?”
“The way Lorre did?”
Garrett, though he tried not to, flinched. “I have ice to deal with.”
“And goats.”
“And goats. And scrolls. And incomplete windows. And two missing apprentices. And a missing Grand Sorcerer. Please leave before I have to turn you into a hedgehog.”
“Could you? I’d be adorable.”
Garrett began walking again. The prince could just keep up. “Hermitages. Caves. Deep woods. Islands. No hedgehogs allowed.”
Alexandre said nothing for a moment, unusually so for someone who’d never stopped trying to convince Garrett to attend a royal supper, a private audience, a hunt, a play. Their footsteps echoed soft over stone; water rippled in the background. Jennet said, “I’ll go and tell Quen you’re on the way, and see how the drying-out is going—” and whisked out of the tension in the corridor, darting ahead.
Garrett kept walking. Alex, with longer legs, kept up perfectly fine, and stayed quiet.
The sun lay warm against Garrett’s arm, the side of his face. Almost too warm; he shut his eyes for a moment, as heat burned red behind his eyelids.
Shade landed. Cool, darker, less fierce. Garrett opened both eyes: Alex had moved to that side, between him and the sun, height transformed into a shield.
Garrett gave way to pure bafflement, at this unexpected gesture. “Why are youhere?”
“Because my father wants to be on good terms,” Alex said, “with the magicians of the Middle Lands, who are consolidating and formalizing their power.” He said it with a hint of an edge, with a line that wasn’t lazy merriment at the side of his mouth: not a threat, but self-mocking, Garrett realized with amazement. “Why else would I be here? WhereisLorre, anyway?”
“Oh,” Garrett said wearily, “who knows?Idon’t. I can barely keep track of our students. And our goats.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here.”
“What?”
“Never mind. You can’t be responsible for every piece of the world.”
“Someone has to be. And I’m the one who’s…well. Here.”
Alex’s mouth did that wry quirk again. “Yes. You are. You always are. So am I.”
“I know you are,” Garrett sighed. “You and your father and politics and every time I say no to your gold, every time I turn around…what?”
“Nothing. It isn’t important.” Alex moved a boot, raised eyebrows at wet stone. “Ah. Ice.”
“It’s water. Unfortunately.” They’d arrived at the stone beehive curve of the ice-house; young Quen, who’d been a mapmaker’s apprentice before admitting to the magic that sparked from his dark eyes and dark fingertips, said, “Master Garrett—sorry, I tried, but it’s a lot of water…” He was generally good with water, currents, quicksilver flowing streams. The rest of the flood—giant ice-blocks having given way under spring warmth and some clearly inadequate construction—puddled across the white marble floor Lorre had wanted, and got into cracks, and seeped into the hillside under the School’s foundations.
“It is a lot of water,” Garrett agreed. It was. It looked exhausting, and Quen looked exhausted. Jennet was hovering over him protectively. “You did exactly the right thing, putting as much as you could into the river. And thank you; I should’ve been here sooner. Did you have breakfast? You’ll need food.”
“Um,” Quen said, pleased at the praise and also guilty about the next question. “Do wehavefood?”
Garrett very badly wanted to rub the spot between his eyes again. “There’s whatever cheese and milk and ice-cream you and Jen managed to save. And some bread in the kitchen. And some blackberry jam. And some mushrooms and wild carrots. And dandelions, probably.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Jen proposed, and steered her fellow apprentice off toward the kitchen space, with the determined hearty cheer of someone looking out for a younger sibling.
“Mushrooms.” Alex explored water with the toe of his polished expensive footwear. “Will he be all right?”
“Quen? He’s very good and very gifted; he’ll be fine if he eats something. Lorre would be a better teacher for that sort of water-magic, though, it’s not my specialty. There might be some figs, for sugar. I did some foraging yesterday.” He’d gone up into the hills behind the School, into the rustling whispering world of the wood, and had shut his eyes and touched deep earth and felt the thrum of growing ripening life. He had asked permission, and had taken only what was offered.
