Leicester didn't seem to notice. “What will the rebels do without the Dragon? No one to pull the strings of the spy network. No one to set traps for the unwary.”
“They'll manage, no doubt,” Hastings said, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Let Seph go now.” He took a step forward, and Leicester raised his hand again.
“I'll need to restrain you first.” Leicester nodded to the alumni. They converged on the wizard, but stopped about four feet away, as if hitting a wall, unable to approach.
Leicester sighed and flattened Seph's right hand against the table next to the chair. He isolated the little finger, pulling it away from the others, then picked up a knife from the table, the same as he had used before. Seph watched in horrified fascination, his breathing quick and shallow, his hand pink and vulnerable against the bleached wood of the tabletop.
Hastings saw what Leicester had in mind. “I give,” he said quickly.
“That's better,” said Leicester.
The alumni shackled Hastings's hands with a heavy chain.
“The torc.” Leicester nodded to Martin Hall.
Martin opened a jeweled box on the table and brought out a glittering gold band, etched with runes and studded with jewels. He encircled Hastings's neck with it, being careful not to touch the wizard. Martin's hands were shaking, and it took him several tries to close it. Once fastened, the metal immediately tarnished and the jewels darkened, like stars blinking out.
Hastings ran a finger under the collar. “Now this is a rare piece, Gregory. Who did you steal it from?”
Leicester smiled. “It came from the Hoard, of course. I'll actually miss having the Dragon at large. He always gets the blame for everything that goes missing. The curator assured me it would keep you quite docile for the time you have left.”
Leicester's weight shifted, his grip tightening on the hand on the table. Seph had time to close his eyes before the blade came down. There was a terrible pain in his right hand, and he had to work on it a while, convince himself it was somebody else's hand and somebody else's pain, lose his affection for what had been taken from him.
It took a minute, and several deep breaths, but when he opened his eyes he could look at his hand with some detachment. It was not his little finger, but the tips of his middle and ring finger that had been clipped off, across the nail, even with his forefinger. They were bleeding heavily, blood staining the unfinished wood of the table.
Seph took another deep breath, lifted his chin, and looked straight across the room at Hastings. The wizard held his gaze for a moment. His face was impassive, but Seph could feel his anger, like a beast crouching in the room.
Hastings shifted his eyes to Leicester. “I won't forget this,” he said softly.
“That's the idea,” Leicester said, smiling. “I needed to verify that the restraints are working. You see, I can't release the boy after all. I have plans for him.”
Hastings's eyes flicked from the alumni to Seph, and back to Leicester. “Plans?”
“I've offered Joseph a place in my collaborative. I can be very persuasive.” He wiped the bloody knife on Seph's shirt and carelessly dropped it back onto the table beside him. “Once we come to an agreement, he'll play a special role in the upcoming conference.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I'm going to use him to destroy the conference participants. Beginning with you.”
By the time they reached the cellar, Seph was close to fainting. He remained upright only through the efforts of Martin and Peter, who gripped his elbows. Peter wrapped Seph's shirttail around the bleeding hand, surreptitiously applying pressure.
Hastings surveyed the cellar chamber, frowning like a guest in a substandard hotel: Seph's mattress in one corner, his pile of clothes next to it, Leicester's awful worktable as the centerpiece. The room was cavelike, roughly square, perhaps twenty by twenty feet, with a damp stone floor and a moist, organic odor. One corner of it had been drywalled into a crude enclosure containing a shower and toilet. Electrical conduits had been run across the ceiling to a light fixture in the center sprouting four bare bulbs that shed a harsh light over the center of the room. The corners were shrouded in darkness.
“Let's hope the rest of the inn is a bit more comfortable.” Hastings turned to the half dozen alumni who had escorted them down. “We'll need dressings, bandages, and antiseptic. Bring down some bedding, towels and soap, and a change of clothes for him.” He issued orders as easily as if he were master of the house, welcoming a guest, rather than a prisoner. He turned to Seph. “What would you like to eat?”
Seph shook his head and slid down against the wall until he was sitting against it. He closed his eyes, resting his injured hand over his heart.
“Bring us something anyway,” Hastings directed the alumni. “I'll see if I can persuade him to eat something.”
“Yes, sir.” The alumni practically bowed their way out. Seph heard a bolt sliding into place on the other side of the door.
“Dr. Leicester's students are not used to thinking for themselves,” Hastings said. He knelt next to Seph. “Now let me see the hand.”
Seph kept his hand folded tightly against his chest, ignoring the blood soaking into his shirt. “Is it true?”
Hastings sat back on his heels. “I am your father, yes. I'm sorry our first meeting as father and son has to take place under these circumstances.”
“How long have you known about me?”
“I found out about you three days ago. Unfortunately, from Gregory Leicester.”
“Somebody knew about me.” Seph kept his eyes on Hastings's face, drinking in the detail.“Yes. Somebody did.” The wizard took Seph's hand and unfolded the bleeding fingers, wrapped them in the shirttail, applied gentle pressure.
“Who?”
“Your mother.” The wizard spoke matter-of-factly, with none of the drama warranted by this revelation.
“My mother.” And then, afraid he would die in the instant before he asked the question, he plunged on. “Who?”
“Perhaps it's best to discuss that when you're out of Leicester's hands.” Hastings said it as if rescue was just hours away. “He doesn't appear to know who your mother is, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”
Seph wrenched his hand free. “No. I've waited long enough. Gregory Leicester had to introduce me to my father, but you're going to tell me who my mother is.”
Hastings inclined his head slightly. “All right.” He spun out a gossamer thread from his fingertips, fine as a spiderweb, casting it into a large circle around them on the floor until it enclosed half the room. At Seph's puzzled look, he said only, “Discourages eavesdropping.”
The wizard massaged his forehead with his thumb and forefinger, as if he were a man who found it hard to give up secrets. “It's Linda Downey.”
Linda Downey. Who seemed to know him so well, his habits, his favorite foods. Who'd pretended to be his guardian. Who was building a house for them in Trinity.
Nick Snowbeard's words came back to him. Linda and Hastings were involved, years ago.
Seph scarcely noticed when Hastings picked up his hand again. He felt a slight tingling now, replacing the pain. Hastings pulled a small bottle from a pouch at his belt, uncorked it, and handed it to Seph. Seph took a cautious sip. “Finish it,” Hastings ordered, and Seph drained the bottle. It spread through him, warming him.
Hastings sat down next to Seph, shoulder to shoulder, against the wall, still keeping hold of his hand. The wizard's strength flowed into him, the pain fleeing before it.
Hastings smiled. “I guess I still have a little power in me, despite the torc.”
“What do you mean? What does it do?”
Hastings shrugged. “It drains power.”
“Oh. They gave me Weirsbane.”
“It seems we are a dangerous pair.”
Seph liked the notion of being dangerous, in league with his father.
Hastings returned to the topic of relationships. “Your mother cares for you very much. She's been beside herself these last few days.”
“If you say so.”
“She was only trying to protect you, Seph.”
“Right. It was for my own good. Now I understand why I've been an orphan my whole life.” They'd lied to him. They'd all lied to him. Genevieve. His own mother.
Hastings closed his eyes, as if trying to summon the right words. “She wasn't much older than you when we met. But she'd been through a lot, at the hands of wizards. Have you ever heard of the Trade?”
Seph shook his head.
"It's an underground slave market, run by wizards, dealing in the gifted. Warriors and enchanters, mostly. Linda was ensnared in it, for a time. That's how we met. I was already fighting the Trade. She joined me.
"It was a dangerous business. We were always on the move, working our network of spies, living under assumed names. Linda was especially good at it, because wizards tend to underestimate enchanters
"It's likely we would have been caught, eventually. But when you're young, you think you're immortal. And in wartime, you don't really think about the future.
“Then she disappeared. I was sure she'd been taken back to the Trade. But in fact, she'd discovered she was expecting you.”
Seph tried to imagine a very young Linda Downey, what it must have been like.
“She knew you'd be a target if our enemies ever discovered your existence. So she gave you up.”
“Why didn't she tell you?”
Hastings shrugged. "She didn't trust me to support that decision, and she was right. My family—your family —my father and brother and sister were all murdered by the Roses. No one's left. I would have refused to give up the only family I have. My son.
“She couldn't entirely give you up, either. She watched over you, arranged for your schooling, received progress reports. That's how Leicester and D'Orsay found out about you.”