I straightened my spine and held myself rigid while the Empress of Bonhemm smiled as though she had a secret. Ebony curls crowned her head, and a sparkling comb pinned her complicated coiffure in place. A faint olive tint relieved the paleness of her creamy complexion, and her eyes were dark but bright. “Welcome, Lady Thunder.” Her melodious voice revealed undercurrents of a Bonhemmish accent even thicker than Otokar’s. Everything about her was lovely, petite, and perfect. “I have been so anxious to meet you, although I suspect you will not say the same about me.”
“Your Highness, you have me at a disadvantage. I wasn’t aware you knew of me.”
She rose from her chair, a golden padded settee, and approached. Her blue gown captured the color of the clear sky outside, and I half expected her to sprout wings and flutter away like a dragonfly. “Please call me Tereza. I did not bring you here for such formalities. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
I swallowed an expression of surprise and nodded. “Then please call me Evelyn—Evie. It’s difficult to accept a title when I have no throne.”
Tereza snorted and rolled her eyes in an exceedingly unroyal expression. “You may be a long way from your homeland, but that does not change who you are, or what you are.”
I paused and contemplated her meaning. “What I am, Highness?”
She scowled. “I told you not to call me that. Come.” She motioned to a table and chairs nearby, all pale wood inlaid with mother of pearl accents. “I have ordered luncheon.”
Otokar pulled out a chair for the empress then for me. “May I take your cloak?”
I fingered my Thunder Cloak’s lapel and shifted my feet “I’d, um—I’d rather keep it with me.”
The Magician’s eyebrow twitched, but he backed away and drew out his own seat. Servants scurried, bringing trays laden with roasted hen, potatoes, and a tureen of soup. “Let us not pretend,” Tereza said. “I know your father was the Lord of Thunder, that he was one of the last elementals gods who still had any claim to power. I also know what you have been trying to do in that field outside the city. Otokar can sense you.” She flapped her hand at our imposing companion and pointed at herself. “Even I can sense you.”
I blinked at her, wide-eyed. “You can sense me?”
She removed a napkin from the table, shook it out, and laid it in her lap. A servant leaned in and poured wine from a shimmering bottle the color of a sunrise. He made his way around the table, filling my goblet and Otokar’s as well. “We may not have the god’s ways in Bonhemm anymore,” she said, “but we are still their descendants. My great-great-grandfather was Lord of Ore. Iron, lead, copper, silver, gold—he could...what is the word?” She glanced at Otokar and waggled her fingers.
He grinned. “Manipulate, I think.”
“Yes, yes.” The empress rolled her eyes again. She plucked a roll from her plate and tore it open. “Man-ip-u-late. He could find these metals anywhere, and he could make them into anything.” She snapped her fingers. “Simple as that. Very useful.”
“But you don’t have those ways anymore?” I nearly bit my tongue for asking something so gauche.
She flicked an eyebrow in the way an annoyed horse flicks an ear. “I do not. Although I would say I am still very...em...sensitive.” Her gaze flashed to Otokar. “Sensitive?”
Otokar flipped an affirmative wave and forked up a slice of meat. Someone had filled my plate with a quarter of roasted bird and several small potatoes gleaming in butter. For propriety’s sake, I picked up my fork and stabbed a potato that smelled of rosemary. My formerly absent appetite stirred and pronounced its interest.
“So,” I said. “You’re sensitive to metals. What does that mean, exactly?”
Tereza scooted to the edge of her seat. “If you were to hide a bit of iron in this room, I could find it, perhaps, the way a hunting dog finds a pheasant in the tall grass.”
“You smell it?”
“No, do not be ridiculous. I sense it, as if I have an...em, an itch. When I come close to the iron, or the copper, the itch becomes stronger.” She peered at the ceiling, and her gaze lost its focus. “Otokar, you are wearing your silver dagger today. Am I correct?”
The Magician gulped the bite he’d been chewing and brushed his napkin over his lips. “Yes, m’lady.”
Tereza’s gaze dropped to me. “My ancestor could have turned his dagger into a cuff, or a necklace, or a useless lump simply by thinking about it.”
“But not you?”
Her lips thinned. “No. Not me.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, it’s only that I’ve never met anyone remotely like me—someone descended from the old gods. I’ve come to realize I lived a very sheltered life before my father’s death.”
“Hmm....” She arched a sleek black eyebrow. “Indeed. Whereas the history of the gods was a mandatory part of my education, as well as the study of their ancestry and the state of their powers today. The Lord of Thunder was truly one of the last. The people of Inselgrau must have been very...em....”
“Devout,” Otokar offered for her. “They must have had substantial faith.”
“‘Had’ being the pivotal word,” I said. “Whatever regard our people had for my father failed upon his death. I was unceremoniously ousted.”
Tereza motioned for a servant to refill her wine goblet. “We know about that. Our Inselgrish diplomat gave us a report. But that was not a homegrown, em, revolution, after all. Or am I misunderstanding?”
She had the gist of it. It wasn’t the people of Inselgrau who had chased me from my home, but rather a plot born in Dreutch, in the castle of Aeolus Daeg, a cousin so far removed I couldn’t possibly account for our familial connection. Somewhere along the way, though, Daeg and I had shared blood, and he’d wanted the power still running through it. “You’re correct, m’lady.”
Tereza blotted her napkin against her lips. “So, why are you hiding in a Prigha slum?”
Heat rose in my cheeks, and I dropped my gaze to the tabletop, staring hard enough to burn holes through the wood. “Because my powers are unreliable, my allies are few, and I have good reason to believe I’m being chased by a group of powerful and malevolent Magicians. It’s not safe for me to go home yet.”
Otokar gasped beside me and sat up straighter. “Indeed? Who are these Magicians of which you speak?”
The thought of naming Jackie and his cohorts put a bitter flavor in my mouth. “Have you ever heard of Le Poing Fermé?”
His brows arched to his hairline, and his mouth fell open. He quickly recovered his composure and cleared his throat. “Le Poing Fermé, you say? Are you certain?”
“Yes. Quite.”
“What do they want with you?”
I glanced away and toyed with the edge of my napkin. If simply naming the cabal had brought me so much distress, how could I bear repeating the details of their terrible scheme? No. Refusing to speak of it only gives my fear more power.
“They wanted a child.” I stopped. Otokar cocked his head to the side and arched an eyebrow, his gaze intent on me as he waited for my reply. I closed my eyes and spit out the rest of their conspiracy. “They wanted my child—one born from the blood of both god and Magician. They wanted me to marry one of their virtuosos and bear him an heir, of sorts.”
Both Tereza and Otokar gasped.
“But that...” The Magician pushed away from the table and stood. He strode toward one of the windows, paused, and turned to face me. The harsh set of his jaw and the lines on his brow clearly demonstrated his outrage. “That would be an abomination.”
“My words exactly.” I explained the dominion Ruelle Thibodaux, leader of that Magical cabal, had maintained over me. How he kept me bound in his home, and how he turned me into a quivering mound of jelly whenever I attempted to escape.
“If I could sense you reaching for the Thunder, Le Poing Fermé could as well. They might already be here, searching for you.”
My fledgling appetite retreated, and I pushed away my plate. “I know. I wasn’t planning on staying in Prigha much longer. I was hoping to obtain information about the location of a certain band of Fantazikes before I left, though.”
“Fantazikes?” Tereza’s dark eyes sparkled. She paused with her wineglass halfway to her lips. If I had to guess, the fantastical nomads mesmerized her as much as anyone who had ever met them. “Why are you looking for them?”
How much could I tell her? Revealing secrets to this girl I barely knew and certainly couldn’t afford to trust would be imprudent and risky. “They made me a promise, and I want to collect on it.”
Otokar’s eyebrows arched high, and he glanced at the empress. The two aristocrats had received a month’s worth of amusement from me in the span of one afternoon. Suddenly I’ve become their court jester. “The Fantazikes owe you a favor?” he asked.
“Not a favor so much as an agreement of sorts. I have friends among them. Allies.”
The two glanced at each other again, and amazement shone plainly on their faces. Tereza’s attention returned to me. “Instead of running away, Evie, why do you not stay in the castle with us? No one would dare to threaten you here. I will provide whatever resources you need to help you find your friends.”
