Bound by Magic (4 page)

B
y the time
I skidded to a halt outside the manicured grounds of the Palace, I’d worked myself up into a fit of righteous indignation. The sun blazing high above my head seemed to champion my thoughts, and I marched up the walkway with my shoulders back and my head held high, determined not to look like I was crawling back to my master with my tail tucked between my legs.

I took the steps of the wide staircase two at a time, the white stone edifice of the Palace looming up above me, majestic as ever with its red-tiled roofs and proud turrets that speared the gorgeous blue sky. The large, elegant foyer I stepped into was equally impressive, the sun shining in through the tall, stained glass windows splashing colorful patterns onto the walls, the oil paintings, the parquet floor and the thick, expensive rugs that covered it. Canter, the old, grizzled mage who manned the reception desk, gave me a disapproving glare from behind his hooked nose.

“You’re late.”

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious.” I rolled my eyes at the supercilious look on his wizened face – Canter hated me, and no doubt his shriveled little heart was bouncing up and down with glee at the idea that I was about to get a scolding from the Chief Mage. Ignoring him, I made my way up the right side of the double staircase that curved around both sides of the foyer, and down the carpeted hallway towards the West Wing, where the Chief Mage’s study was.

It wasn’t too long before I found myself in front of the familiar carved mahogany door, and I sighed, tracing the elegant patterns carved into the wood with my eyes. It seemed that every time I came to this room, it was always so that I could get into a fight with the Chief Mage. And even though it was in my nature to balk and fight, there was a part of me that wished that for once he would summon me to his study for a pleasant reason, like telling me that I was doing such a good job shuffling papers around, or that he was going to take off the restrictions he’d placed on my power level so I would have full access to my magic.

If wishes were steambikes,
I thought, and pushed open the door.

The Chief Mage looked up from the report he was studying, his violet eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I see you’ve forgotten the art of knocking.”

“Yeah, well you don’t wear pants, so I figured there was no chance of catching you with them down or anything,” I quipped, shutting the door behind me. “Would you like me to go back out into the hallway and try again?”

Something suspiciously like humor flickered in Iannis’s eyes, but his stony expression didn’t budge. “Sit down,” he ordered, gesturing to one of the two chairs in front of his desk.

I did as he asked – if we were going to fight, I might as well make myself comfortable. Settling myself into the low, cloth-covered scoop chair, I crossed my right ankle over my left knee and clasped my hands in my lap, then looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to make the first move.

“Well?” he finally demanded. “Where have you been all morning?”

“I’ve been working on an investigation,” I said evenly, determined to hold onto my temper for as long as possible. “You know, because that’s what Enforcers do.”

His iridescent eyes turned glacial. “You’re my apprentice first and foremost. I expect you to act like one.”

“I
do
act like one, ninety-nine percent of the time,” I snapped, digging my fingers into the arms of my chair. “Don’t pretend like I haven’t been working my ass off every day at the Mages Guild, because I have. But there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to work on this investigation, no matter
what
you say my schedule is.”

“I see.” The Chief Mage’s icy expression didn’t change one iota, and I sighed, wondering if he really
did
see. There were times when he showed glimpses of compassion, but for the most part he was like a rock wall – completely impenetrable without the assistance of explosive devices. Which probably explained why I blew up at him so often.

“What is this investigation that was so burningly urgent?”

“Oh, you don’t know?” I asked mockingly. “I figured you’d know what I was doing, since you magically seemed to know exactly where to have your secretary call this morning.”

Iannis gave me an impatient look. “I put a tracking spell on you after you were kidnapped by Yantz, so that I could find you again should you end up in a similar situation.”

“You
what?
” I jumped to my feet, anger pumping hard through my veins.

“The last time we were incredibly lucky that someone had seen Yantz and Talcon carrying you into his house, or we never would have gotten to you in time,” Iannis snapped. “Since you insist on gallivanting around the city and sticking your nose into trouble instead of staying at the Palace where it is safe, I put the tracking spell on you.”

“You have no right.” I forced the words out through gritted teeth, my hands trembling with the shock and anger of his betrayal of my privacy. “I’m not your property,
Lord
Iannis, to do whatever you like with. You can’t just go putting spells on me like that, especially without even telling me!”

Iannis slowly rose to his full height, his violet eyes gleaming dangerously down at me. “Might makes right,” he said softly. “I am the Chief Mage of this state, and I am also your master. Your life is my responsibility –”

“Bullshit!” I slapped my hand down on the desk, and a triangular paperweight jumped under the force of the blow. “You can’t go throwing around the master-apprentice card, not when you’ve been such a crappy master to begin with!”

Iannis’s expression froze. “Excuse me?”

A shock of fear rippled through my nerves as the energy in the room shifted, but it wasn’t enough to make me back down – I was tired of this one-sided relationship, and damned if I was going to be silent about it any longer.

“You’re probably the worst master in the entire Mages Guild!” I shouted. “You saddle me with all this grunt work because I’m supposed to be paying for my ‘training’, and yet we only have three lessons a week, lessons that you constantly cut short or cancel on! And then you have the nerve to tell me that I’m not improving enough!” My nails lengthened into claws that bit into the flesh of my palm, claws that I wanted to rake across his face. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, and you know it!”

“That is
enough
.” The Chief Mage’s voice darkened, and magic began to crackle in the air around him, raw power sizzling in the shape of tiny blue sparks. If I’d been in beast form, the hair along my spine would have shot straight up – the Chief Mage only got like this when he was truly furious. It took everything in me to stand my ground – my instincts were screaming at me to lower my eyes and back away before he smote me with a bolt of energy.

But I knew the Chief Mage wasn’t going to kill me. After all, as he kept reminding me, I was his
apprentice.

“I assure you Miss Baine, if you think I have been lacking as a teacher, you will change your mind after tonight. I will push you harder than you’ve ever been pushed in your life, until you
beg
me to let you out early.” His tone was arctic, a direct contrast to the violet blaze in his eyes, and a chill of foreboding raced down my spine as he held my gaze in silence.

“Get out of my sight and report to the Mages Guild,” he finally said. “If I find out that you’ve been anywhere else, I will close the seal your father placed on your magic.
Permanently.
”

I
spent
the rest of the afternoon stewing at the Mages Guild, which was a series of offices located in the South Wing of the Palace. Sitting in a cramped chair at a small table, I wasted the hours away prepping form letters from the Secretary of Agricultural Magic to go out to all the farms in the state. Stamp, stamp, stuff, lick.

Clerical work. Day in, day out, I was fucking doing clerical work. Yeah, sometimes they switched it up, sending me out into the city to pick up supplies, or pastries for a meeting or event, but mostly it was just mind-numbing paperwork. You’d think that as the Chief Mage’s apprentice I’d be afforded some status, but Iannis must’ve told them to treat me like any other low-level apprentice. Worse, even. The other apprentices actually got to go out with maintenance crews every once in a while to reinforce the wards on the city or other magic-related tasks, but I’d yet to be chosen to do anything like that.

Probably because you suck at spellcasting.

I ground my teeth. I wouldn’t suck at spellcasting if I had a teacher who spent more than three hours a week with me. Just because I wasn’t raised in a mage family didn’t mean I was stupid. In fact, for someone who’d been forced to suppress their magic for the last twenty-four years, I thought I was actually doing okay. I’d used my magic to conjure fireballs, breach wards, and create illusions. How many apprentices of my level could say
that
?

The hours dragged on, and yet by the time the pinkish-orange light of sunset began to filter in through the window on my left, I felt none of the usual relief or elation at finally being allowed to leave. Instead, a sense of foreboding filled me at the thought of my lesson with the Chief Mage tonight. I’m sure Magorah, the shifter god, was shaking His head at me from above for my foolishness – I’d wanted the Chief Mage to pay attention to me and I’d achieved that, but I’d also gotten more than I bargained for.

Gee, what else is new?

I thought about dawdling at the Mages Guild a little bit longer – a sure indication of just how much I was dreading tonight’s lesson – but I knew that being late would only make things worse. So instead I carted myself down to the kitchen to grab some food so I would have something in my belly before my training started.

The scent of roasted lamb and freshly baked bread hit my nostrils long before I reached the staircase leading from the foyer down to the kitchen, and my stomach grumbled, redirecting my worries toward a more immediate need – nourishment. Shifters have a higher metabolism than humans and mages, and though that metabolism gives us stronger muscles and faster healing powers, it also means we have to eat a lot. I always kept food in one of the small pouches strapped across my body in case I needed an energy boost, and with the magic lessons on top of everything I was eating more than ever.

My monstrous appetite might have had something to do with why the head cook gave me a dirty look when I walked into the kitchen. I grinned at her, and she shook her head, then ordered one of her juniors to get me some food. A few minutes later, I was sitting at a small table in the corner, wolfing down a whole roasted chicken and a pile of herbed potatoes. I moaned quietly as the juicy flavors saturated my tongue – by Magorah, but the Palace had excellent food.

I could have gone to sit in the dining hall and eat, of course, but I didn’t want to risk running into the Chief Mage yet, and I also wasn’t totally comfortable sitting and talking with the other mages. They all had mixed feelings about me ranging from ambivalent to downright hateful, but there was one thing they all agreed on – I was not one of them. And no matter how good I got as a mage, I never would be. My shifter eyes and emotional attitude would always set me apart from them, even if I did put on a set of mage robes.

As I ate my food, my eyes wandered around the wide, open space of the kitchen, watching the chefs hard at work chopping, sautéing and stewing. The glint of a kitchen knife being raised in the air sent me flashing back to the time I’d snuck down here to grab some food in the middle of the night – my first night in the Palace, actually. A group of guards had found me down here, and had decided to make easy sport of me. I’d managed to defeat most of them, but I’d been starving and depleted of energy, unable to shift, so in the end they’d gotten the upper hand. If Fenris hadn’t intervened, I might have died that night. He’d chased off the guards, then brought me straight to Iannis, who’d healed me.

A hazy image of Iannis’s face looming above me, tight with concern, drifted into my mind, and guilt stabbed me in the chest. I’d never thanked Iannis for his help that night – I rarely thanked him at all, in fact, because I’d been so angry at the injustice of being held captive and threatened with execution for the simple crime of being born. I’d held him personally responsible for all that was wrong in our society, and sometimes I still thought like that. After all, he might not have created the framework in which we functioned, but he was still our ruler, and there were a lot of things wrong that he needed to fix.

All of which takes time.

Sighing, I handed my finished plate to one of the kitchen staff, then headed back up the steps and toward the West Wing. I knew that the Chief Mage had been busy wading through the administrative mess Argon Chartis, the former Director of the Mage’s Guild, had left behind, and that he was strapped for time. Yes, it wasn’t right that he was neglecting my tutelage as a mage, but I couldn’t have it both ways if I wanted him to fix what was wrong in the city.

Maybe, but that’s no reason he can’t give you some time off to go and hunt bounties for the Guild.