“People will fear the prospect of cold mages and fire mages acting in concert. They’ll fear they will set themselves up as princes and lord it over all the people of the land.”
“People do that anyway.”
“I did feel sorry for those young fire mages. Imagine thinking that the best choice you have is to believe what James Drake is telling you! You’ll have to answer people’s fears, though. Naturally some magisters will abuse the knowledge and power they gain. I suppose that’s what you talked about with the blacksmith in that little village when we were escaping down the river.”
He smiled to let me know that no word of the conversation he had had with the blacksmith would pass his lips. “I also remember what the cacica told me. She said that the Taino believe every person is born with a kernel of power. Some waken it, and some never do. You were right to say that every child should have a chance to learn. Do you know, love, Beatrice and I are talking all the time about the things we want to do. All this work is going on for what she and I are hoping and planning for. But you never talk about what you’re thinking about. You must want something, Catherine. You can’t be happy merely to go along with our schemes.”
“I do want something.” I smiled, for I loved him and Bee so much, and all the rest of them, too. “Just don’t let Wasa get up to mischief. She has such a rascal spirit. I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow night.”
It was almost twilight as we reached the gates of troll town. The mirrors and shards of glass that surrounded the district flashed so agonizingly that I turned my back before the pain ripped through me. I kissed him and sent him on his way. The drums called him. They were already dancing, the strangest rhythm I had ever heard, for it was shot through with the whistling and clicking of trolls. It was a new song being born.
I smelled liquor, and the fresh fragrance of the traditional crossing buns filled with plum jam or yam custard. A rollicking party was already under way, as the sailors would have it.
Another sound rose out of the earth like mist and filtered down from the sky like rain: the horn calling the Wild Hunt to ride.
I ran the short distance to the harbor office of Godwik and Clutch, for I had promised Bee and Vai I would sit in a room with four mirrors until the danger had passed. Rory sulked on the stoop, seated on the stairs with a morose eye turned on me as I came up.
“I can’t believe you never told them,” he said. “Even Chartji left for troll town without knowing. How could you, Cat? And making me go along with it, too. It’s not right.”