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Chapter 2: A Scarf and a Quill
Sitting on the grassy northern hillside behind airy white marble, boots off and toes buried in the dirt, watched by four out of six mage-students, Garrett said, “Most of what we do here is knowing the world. Feeling it. Understanding it, inside and out. You’re here because you have some sense of how to feel it—the sense we call magic, that most people don’t have. Or they have tiny amounts. A sixth sense for where to dig a well, which berries to eat. That sort of thing. For you it’ll be stronger. Whatever talent you have.”
“Rock,” Quen said, neatly cross-legged, regarding Garrett with an uncomfortable amount of hero-worship. “Stones. The earth.”
“For me, yes. For you, water. I can’t do what you can. I might do something else—but that’s important. We’re not all-powerful.”
Jennet traded raised eyebrows with thin quiet Tamlyn, beside her, and then said, “Lorre.” It was a question; the rest of them shared it.
Garrett had been expecting that, and only sighed internally. “Lorre is complicated. You know the folk tales. The jealous baron and the river-maiden. The wind-spirit who made love to the young adventurer. The Lady of the Wood and her paramours. I promise you none of us are stories out of myth. We’re human. Lorre is the Grand Sorcerer because he knows magic in a way we can’t.” Regardless, he added mentally, of how human he is. Or isn’t. Or how little time he spends planning what and how we might teach students. So I’m here making it up. “Don’t expect to be able to turn into a firebird or a rowan tree. Not like that, at least.”
“Not like that?”
“There are things you can do. We’ll…work up to that. For the moment—” He stopped. A sense shivered, a pebble disturbed. A presence, warm as sun-ruffled velvet, on the unfinished road. Familiar, and also not.
He said, getting up, “Stay here. Think about your own gifts. Water, dreams, music, bones. I’ll be right back.”
Jennet murmured, to curious sparrow-quick Karis, “Prince Alexandre.”
“It might not be,” Garrett said, with no authority at all in the face of Jen’s predictive skills, and tried and failed to brush grass from his trousers. “Meditate. Not about princes.”
He had rolled-up sleeves, a pencil in one pocket, no boots; at least he’d put on a decent shirt, indigo-dyed, with unexpected crimson at sleeves, lining, throat. He’d had it for a few years, a fabric he’d fallen in love with amid the family storehouses. His mother had set it aside back then, knowing he’d like it.
He ran a hand through his hair, wondered what it looked like, let it go. Magicians. Eccentric. And he wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
He discovered the youngest prince of Averene at the same open arched doorway as yesterday, haloed by sun. Alex was tall and darkly beautiful and dressed in green, today: springtime leather, emerald brocade, boots less polished after walking up the hill. He was also not alone. Garrett, not expecting that, had to sort out mental space for the new arrival.
“Good morning,” Alex announced, unbothered. “I’ve brought you a goatherd.”
The young man, enthusiastically pleasant, stuck out a hand. “Connor Ewan. Sir. I know about goats.” He possessed enormous red hair, a Mountain Marches accent, and a complete lack of fear about greeting a magician.
Garrett, bewildered by acceptance, accepted the handshake. Connor beamed.
“Connor’s brother Jamie,” explained Alex, “is one of the royal grooms. Brilliant with horses. He mentioned his younger brother might be looking for work.” What looked like a market-basket dangled from one arm, and did not interfere with decadent casual beauty at all, as if princes of Averene carried their own shopping every day, utterly natural.
Garrett stared at the basket. Alex, he noticed, had not worn jewelry today, other than his signet ring. No silver collar-pins. No pearl-drop earrings. “We needed a goatherd?”
“You said you did.”
“Did I?”
Connor was now looking faintly concerned.
“After the cabbage incident,” Alex clarified. “I know you can solve problems. Build a fence. Talk to goats—”
“I can’t personally talk to—”
“—but this is one problem you cannot worry about.”
Garrett took a step closer to Alex, under sun; tried to whisper and to shout simultaneously. “I’m not certain we can pay him!”
“I don’t expect you to,” Alex said, not bothering to whisper. “I am.”
“From your allowance? Your royal allowance? From your father?”
“No.”
“Then what—”
