There was a brightness in Rodrigo’s eyes that had nothing to do with the light pouring in through the windows. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll teach you the Noh seeking spells to help you find more mages,” Cameron promised them both. “I think we can all agree we need to find them before the Jaeggi do.”
Evora actually smiled. A full-blown smile. And her face didn’t crack. “Bless you, consort. We need those just as much. Our own seeking spells have no real range to them.”
“Ours can go hundreds of miles.” Cameron winked at her. “Works better in situations like this. After this meeting, why don’t you follow me to Lisette’s workshop? We can start teaching each other things, get all our mages in on this. Our new mage, Tori, might have some interesting input as well. He tends to know things the rest of us have forgotten.”
“Yes, talk to me of this new clan.” Rodrigo was back to being perky. “And your new mage; Tori, is it?”
Baldewin grimaced, unable to contain the expression fully. Just thinking about Tori’s clan gave him heartburn, and he still wanted to go up there and do a little dragon-smash, maybe burn a few buildings.
Catching his reaction, Rodrigo pointed to him. “Is there an issue?”
Alric turned mild eyes on him. “Baldewin, why don’t you answer this question?”
“I’m not sure if I can without a lot of inappropriate language. King Rodrigo, the clan in question is not a kind one. Tori had to escape it.”
“Escape…? I don’t understand.” But Rodrigo’s expression indicated he had a sense where this was going, and he wasn’t happy about it already.
“They were allies of the Jaeggi during the war,” Baldewin sought to explain without losing his temper and punching things. “After the loss of many mages during the war, they went into hiding in the northern tip of Finland. They have serious glamours over their town to keep it hidden. From what Tori tells me, the culture became…toxic. They created set standards for everyone to adhere by, and there’s no tolerance for going outside of those expectations. They’re extremely homophobic. They didn’t take it well that he’s a male mage—there’s a stigma about a mage not being female. A belief that females are the most valuable because only they can mate with dragons and are the ultimate source of new mages. And they truly didn’t take it well that he’s gay. He finally made a break for freedom this past month.”
“Which is how we found him,” Cameron tacked on. “Because he left the glamour and traveled closer, our seeking spells were able to pick up on him.”
“The glamour is that intensive?” Evora didn’t sound happy about that. “But what of his magic?”
“Tori’s exceptional,” Cameron reported with a hint of pride. As he should, since Tori was now a Burkhard mage. “His knowledge of herbology is incredibly extensive. Lisette’s made that comment more than once. He’s also very versatile. He can make substitutions on the fly and adapt spells with limited or even the wrong elements. And it works, every time. I sat with him yesterday and picked his brain. Felt stupid after the conversation, too. That’s how educated in magic he is.”
The door to the room abruptly banged open, Lisette stomping in like a herd of rampaging elephants. “Alric! We’re raining dragon fire on that shitty—oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you’d started the meeting.”
Baldewin was half out of his chair on instinct. Whenever Lisette lost her temper, it was never a good thing, and he wanted to curtail the problem as much as he could.
Alric turned so he could see her, as his back was to the door. Alarmed, he demanded, “What’s happened?”
Lisette took in the occupants of the room, and her expression firmed up again. “You know what, you need to know this, too. King Rodrigo, Evora, Thiago, forgive my intrusion. Have you spoken about the new clan of mages yet?”
“We were just touching on it,” Rodrigo answered. He sighed gustily. “And nothing good has been said about them yet.”
“I’m about to add to the bad,” she announced, marching to the nearest chair. She didn’t sit in it, clearly too agitated to do so. “This morning, I reviewed with Tori all he knows, as I still haven’t quite grasped what all he was taught. The Taavi, his old clan, have their own specialties, I’m sure. But what came out of the conversation is absolutely appalling. The teaching methods of the Taavi Clan are perfectly reprehensible. Tori explained that they are very exacting with their magic. You have to measure the precise weight and power level of each element and do a formula to double check the power level of the spell before you can enact it.”
Evora’s jaw dropped. “That’s insane. Each element will vary a little; that’s to be expected of natural elements. Doing that kind of math every time for a simple spell? Have they lost their minds?”