CHAPTER 26

Lanri and Seeker followed Captain Addler through the corridors of the baronial castle. It was a beautiful place, built with the techniques of western Remere, but to the aesthetic sensibilities of Cerene. White walls accented with finely decorated wooden beams for support lined the halls, and statues and suits of armor from all over the world were spread throughout.

Dense mats covered the floors, and were really pleasant to walk on, even with the crutches. They had just enough spring and firmness to them to put a slight bounce in Lanri’s step, and made her wish the monastery had lined their floors with them, rather than the beautiful but slippery mosaics.

“You married into this?” Seeker asked, quietly. The words disappeared quickly, the mat-covered floor and decorated walls all absorbing echoes like they were in a room made of sponge.

I did. Not that Faron and I had planned to ever come back.

Seeker smiled at her. “One of the Heartwardens, Consort, would be as impressed that you managed that as she would be appalled that you didn’t do it for money.”

“Of course I didn’t do it for money!” Hissed Lanri. Despite the acoustics of the castle, Captain Addler would hear anything louder than that. “I married him because of how he looked at me, and how I caught myself looking at him.”

Seeker rolled her eyes, but smiled. “I know, Dear. You’ve dreamt enough snippets of your courtship that I know how it happened. It’s a very endearing story.”

Lanri blushed a little at that. She’d known Seeker could see into her mind, whether she was awake or not. And she’d known Seeker could see her dreams. But it hadn’t occurred to her that dreams like that would be part of it.

As they walked, Lanri noticed the guards seemed to be fewer and farther between than the last time she’d been here. She hadn’t actually thought about how many there would be, but she realized she would have expected the number to have gone up, not down, especially when she was expected. Wait. Was she expected?

They went on for a while, through ever narrower corridors. Lanri hadn’t been in the castle more than ten times in total, but she knew where they were going from an illicit tour Faron had given her once, while the baron was away on some errand. By now they were following the parallel paths the servants used to keep out of sight, and she suspected it would lead them to an antechamber off the main hall. “Does he know I’m coming?” Lanri quietly asked.

“All the gods, no,” said Addler. “He drafted the warrant while half drunk, because some smooth-talking spy of his, or whatever they were, told him you were staying at the monastery. I already knew you were here, mind you. But I wasn’t going to volunteer that information.”

“You… weren’t? Then, why did you arrest her?” Seeker asked. “How did you even know to find us?”

“I’d like to clarify that I did not arrest you, technically. I stopped Dathan from formally arresting you after the reek of his ambition got to be too much, and I do seem to have forgotten to actually do so myself.”

“But how did you find us?” Lanri wouldn’t have thought to ask that herself, but now that Seeker had brought it up, she wanted to know, too.

“You won’t accept an old guard’s intuition as an answer?” He asked, coyly looking back at them. She fixed him with a skeptical look, and suspected Seeker was doing the same. “Fine. It was stupid luck, Lady Vattens. I heard your sobs from on the city wall, and stuck around for a while. Then, when my…” He trailed off, and rolled his eyes. “My dutiful sergeant decided to abandon his post to fetch you, I decided I’d made the right choice.”

“Thank you,” Lanri quietly said, though she couldn’t help but wonder how much he must have overheard and seen from up there.

________________

The antechamber was a small, cozy place, by the standards of a major castle like this. Padded benches lined the walls, and some less valuable paintings hung in here, where they would be a curiosity for the people waiting. The good captain had asked them to wait here, then slipped through the door opposite the one they came in through, presumably to tell the baron his daughter-in-law was here to see him.

“You’re nervous,” Seeker commented, with a pointed look at Lanri’s slightly bouncing leg. She stopped bouncing it.

“Of course I’m nervous,” agreed Lanri. “I’ve been scared I’d wind up exactly here since we got to Cerene.”

“My Dear, you’re the one who wanted to come here. I wouldn’t have let anyone take you, you know that.”

Lanri tried to imagine Seeker preventing the guards from taking her by force. The mental image she conjured up was gruesome, and she shook her head to dismiss the idea. “It’s the lesser of two evils. I didn’t want to come. But running would have been worse.”

“I suppose,” conceded Seeker, who got on her knees in front of Lanri, and squeezed her hands. “But you have nothing to worry about. I’ll be there with you, and we’re only staying as long as you want to. The very second you say you want to leave, we will.”

Lanri forced a smile, and nodded. She knew Seeker meant every word of what she was saying, and was grateful for it. If she were here alone, she’d probably be cowering at the thought of seeing him, and not just nervous.

“And, once we’re done with him, we can see about leaving,” Seeker continued. “We’ll get the prosthetic, get the wagon… and then we’ll leave.”

“Where will we go?”

“Well, first I want to go north, to see if the Adampora fleshcrafters can fix what I couldn’t. That’ll take about six weeks. And after that, we can go wherever you want. I could take you to ruins nobody’s ever documented before, I–”

“Really?!” asked Lanri, not even letting Seeker list the second option. She couldn’t quite hide her smile at the idea of just exploring together, and Seeker seemed to light up when she saw that.

“Really,” said Seeker, confidently. “There are places I’ve seen where no mortal has been in centuries. Mighty fortresses of dwarven kings corrupted by archdevils, their deeds stricken from all records. Lush and hidden valleys, where a priest of Lady Ishara went mad, and brought ruin on himself and his followers.”

“And you’d just take me there?”

“Yes!” Seeker confidently said. “I promised you a candied life, Dear. Your curiosity is what brought us together, and that mind of yours is what captivates me so. I won’t let it wither on the vine, or sabotage it with baubles. As long as you want to keep learning, I’m going to make sure you thrive.”

Before Lanri could ask her many questions about where these ruins are, and which lineage of the dwarven kings died in the fortress Seeker was talking about, the door leading in from the main hall opened just enough to let Addler slip back in. He closed it behind him, and quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Seeker kneeling.

“His Lordship is – was – occupied,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “And now he’s making himself decent. Or, he will, when he can peel his fawning lady off him.”

Lanri snorted at the mere idea of anyone fawning over Armitage. So insufferable of a man couldn’t have many suitors. How he’d convinced anyone to bear Faron for him was a mystery to her. “How long has he had one of those?”

“The trophy girl?” Addler asked, and he rubbed his chin in thought. “A while now. A cushy place for her, these days. Made herself at home in his bed a few weeks before caravans started to go missing, so she’s escaped all of the hardships he allows to happen.”

Seeker let go of Lanri’s hands, and stood up. She cocked her head at him, and said, “you don’t sound happy you’ve not been mobilized.”

“Of course I’m not. People are going hungry at best, missing at worst, and he refuses to hear any pleas to take action. I would have taken the guard north as soon as the first scared farmers came to us for shelter.”

“Farmers,” Lanri quietly said. “From the villages to the north? From Bodrin?” Seeker and Addler both looked at her in confusion for a moment, but understanding dawned on Seeker’s face quickly, and his soon after. “Were my parents with them?”

Addler solemnly shook his head. “No, but… that’s good news.” Lanri couldn’t stop herself from glaring at him. How could her parents not having escaped from a bandit camp a few miles from their farm be good news? “They… didn’t live there anymore, kid,” he told her. “The baron seized their land on a frivolous technicality within days of hearing about Faron. He evicted them from it almost immediately.”

Relief and indignation rose up, and quickly mixed into a single confusing mess of feelings. “WHAT?!” She asked, raising her voice a little more than she meant to. With some effort, she lowered it again. “H–how? They owned that land. He can’t just… They… they don’t live… then where in the hells are they?”

“I wish I could–” There came a knock on the door leading in from the hall, cutting him off. A second later, it swung open, and a pretty, young thing with tanned skin and black curls smiled at them. She looked vaguely familiar, but Lanri didn’t care to try to figure out where she’d seen her before, not right now. “Really? He’s ready now?!” His voice was thick with exasperation that didn’t even come close to matching Lanri’s stress. She’d tried so hard to ignore the worry about her parents, but now, suddenly, someone actually had information, and he was being cut off.

“He was in a great rush when you told him the Dread Widow was here.”

“I did not call her that,” hissed Addler, before he turned to Lanri with an apologetic look. “I wish I knew where they were. I just know they went west, and that they were gone long before things got hairy.”

That was not enough information, while also being overwhelmingly much of it. From talking about exploring and studying for as long as she wanted, to briefly dreading her parents were slaves or dead, to being told they might not even be in the county anymore. “B–but then my letters–”

Seeker silenced her by taking her chin, and gently but firmly moving her to make her meet her gaze. “He doesn’t know, Dear.” The certainty in that voice was calming, and grounding. “But this baron might. We’ll ask him, okay?”

“He won’t know everything, either,” Lanri complained as Seeker helped her up.

The young woman with the dark curls, who – now that Lanri looked at her – was utterly covered in jewelry, cleared her throat, and impatiently tilted her head at the door. Lanri watched as Seeker glared daggers at her for her impatience, and found herself doing the same. Between calling her Dread Widow, how pretty she was, and the jewelry, Lanri couldn’t stop herself from building up a mental image that this girl was just a spoiled gold-digger, who enjoyed the power that came with the bed she slept in for now.

“He won’t,” Seeker agreed. “But he’ll know more, and we can figure out the rest later.” With that, the Heartwarden followed Captain Addler and the young woman out of the antechamber, and into the main hall with Lanri in tow.

The hall was beautiful. A wooden floor waxed to a shine wrapped around a stone-lined open firepit that ran the length of the place, lined on either side by long tables where the city’s nobility were often invited to eat. At the head of the fireplace stood a smaller table on a podium, with a throne in the middle, and three chairs on either side. The throne was framed by an Astorian style stained-glass window, which shone brightly in the afternoon sun, and outlined Baron Vatens in a grand glow of vibrant yellow and blue that belied his bland and petty character.

Lanri could barely see him, which was likely by design. The fireplace in front of him sparkled from his eyes and the metal clasps of his regal garb, but was dim enough to leave him little more than a silhouette.

“So,” he drawled. “Lanri Vattens sets foot in my city again, after taking my only son from me for a decade. Will he be joining us soon?”

Lanri swallowed. The question, obviously loaded though it was, hung in the air, demanding an answer. She considered it, tried to predict the various snide remarks that might follow every possible answer, so she could earn the gentlest of them. Before she settled on an answer, though, one shadowed hand appeared, and pointed at the three chairs to his right, at the table reserved for his household.

“You should sit, daughter. Join me at my table while we converse.”

There was something profoundly unsettling about the way he spoke. Like he’d grown numb to the hate his letters betrayed. It scared her, and she did not want to get closer to him. Not until she could think about what he might do in this state. She was not his daughter. She might have been, had he not chased her and Faron away. But he had, and now there was neither the will nor the reason to heal the chasm between them.

“You’ve been harmed, I see,” he said with mock concern. “Tell me, Lanri. When you lost your foot, did you also lose your tongue, and the wit to wield a pen? Might that be why I was not told of my son’s death by you, but by a royal courrier?”

“I–”

“So, it is not the tongue. Then, perhaps it was simply your pen hand that failed you. I do pay from my own purse to teach the children of my realm their letters and numbers, and Faron so bragged about your doctorate when he wrote to me.”

Seeker reached out, and squeezed one of Lanri’s wrists. “Just think it, and we’re gone,” she whispered.

“Oh, but he never mentioned her in his letters. I can tell you that in no uncertain terms.” The old man groaned a little as he got up from his throne. “Are you here to seek my approval, perhaps? Of this woman that touches you so intimately, while the corpse of your husband is not yet cold?!”

“He was cold before I caught up to him,” Lanri mumbled.

“What’s that, child?” He demanded, with an exaggerated gesture of putting his hand to his ear. “You say something to me, at last?”

“He was cold before I caught up to him.” Lanri deliberately enunciated every word as she repeated herself. “What would you have had me do, Armitage? Either burden myself by lying to you, or burden you with the truth?”

“And what truth do you think you possess, that I am too frail of an old man to bear?” Asked the baron as he walked around his table, and came close enough to the fireplace to be seen. The dim light cast dark shadows on his sunken eyes, but the pain in them was obvious. “What right did you have to hide the truth from me?”

“I had every right,” hissed Lanri, the hoarseness of her throat after crying during the picnic rearing its obnoxious head. “You made yourself our enemy. You cajoled him in your letters, tried to bully him into leaving his common harlot when he was alive, and tried to steal everything he worked for once he wasn’t.”

“And I was right to call you that! It’s scarcely been three moons, and you dare to limp into my hall into my hall, clutching a new lover. You disgrace him – you disgrace yourself by selling your affections so quickly.”

Lanri stared at him with wide eyes and fists clenched around the grips of her crutches as he came even closer. Behind him, his dame stood by the fire, earrings, bracelets, and necklaces shiny in the fire’s light.

“You spread your legs for my Faron like a common whore, and now you surely do much the same with this–” His string of insults was cut off by Seeker’s fist driving into his gut, which forced him to his knees. The guards at the doors all started to unsheath their swords, but a gesture from him stalled them.

“Whore? WHORE!? She’ll be twenty-nine next week, has only ever been with two people in her entire life, and you dare call her a whore, even as your nitwit stands behind you draped in the gold that should feed your people?”

You know about my birthday?

“The gold’s worthless, anyway,” scoffed the baron through clenched teeth. “That witch captures every messenger or trader I send. I can’t feed a city with money nobody will accept.”

“Then send your troops out! Deal with the problem!”

“Futility. I will not send a dozen knights and a hundred glaives out only to reinforce my enemy.” The baron groaned as he got up, and fixed them both with a look that spoke only of hate. “There is no point. The only sane thing to do is to wait here, until that bitch realizes I’ve stopped feeding her my dwindling rations, and moves on to greener pastures.”

“And let them bleed a different city dry?” Asked Lanri.

“Yes! All the gods, yes. My duty is to my subjects, you stupid girl, not Lavie’s or those of whatever ripe city she chooses next.”

“Not all of them, apparently. Or did you cede Bodrin and half of the barony with it to someone else?” Lanri was gratified to see the man had the decency to look ashamed about Bodrin, and knew fully well she meant her parents. “Where did you chase them off to, huh? Why did you chase them off?”

“Never you mind that,” he grumbled. “It saved their lives. You should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you?!” Scoffed Lanri. “For what? Your fluke? You didn’t mean to save them.”

“OF COURSE I DIDN’T! My son died in some faraway city, and you and your family took him from me! You seduced him away, and those parents of yours whispered counsel that he should just take you and flee, if I wouldn’t allow you to wed.”

“Then you should have allowed it,” said Seeker with contempt in her voice.

“She wasn’t good enough!” Spat Armitage at her. “He was handsome, and the Talented heir to my title! He would have ruled the sixth largest city in Remere before this decade is out! He could have wed into the ducal, perhaps even the royal family, had he had the ambition.”

The old man waddled away, towards a cabinet close to his throne. He opened it, and quickly produced an artifact Lanri recognized almost immediately. A small clipboard with arcane runes inscribed on it, a device Faron had made for Lanri’s parents to read the messages he and Lanri sent with the aid of a similar board – and a lot of exhausting spells.

“Instead of building a dynasty, he married her, and built trinkets for her parents. And now my line is ended.”

Lanri’s eyes were glued to the clipboard Faron had made. He’d taken it from her parents, she knew. He must have. All she could do was look at it and imagine what else he might have stolen, barely paying attention to Seeker continuing the shouting match on her behalf.

“You’re a degenerate old man,” Seeker hissed at him. “She’s not just some man’s broodmare, a device to spawn you an heir!”

“And she didn’t need to be!” The baron spat back. “I don’t care that she never bore his child! He could have married a man for all it matters to me. I care that they never had children! They could have declared a foundling elven babe their own, and I would have had a line of succession every bit as legitimate as a child that came out of her. I cared that she was common! That he raised her in station only a fraction of how far she dragged him down.”

“You stole that from them,” Lanri quietly said, stunned that the man was continuing his tirade after revealing the artifact.

“And what of it? They stole my son from me, never paid the dowry we deserved for you. Taking their petty plot of land and a few trinkets made by my son doesn’t even come close to covering the damages you caused me.”

“She owes you nothing!” Seeker’s voice rose in indignified anger. “You are every bit the grief-addled fool I assumed you to be, Baron Vattens. For some reason, she decided she wanted to allow you to hurl this abuse at her, but make no mistake that I will not allow you to continue like this. Nor will I allow her to appease you in this unilateral vendetta.”

The baron let out a cruel, fake laugh. “And who are you to disallow me or Lanri Vattens anything, in the halls of this family’s castle?”

“What I am to her is no business of yours,” said Seeker as she moved closer to Lanri again. Lanri found herself staring up at those big blue eyes as she added “but think of me as her guardian angel, if you need a label to make sense of it.”

Ostensibly, Seeker had meant that for Armitage. But Lanri found herself nodding, and profoundly agreed with the label.

“A lousy guardian angel, if you let her husband die, and her leg be destroyed.”

A surge of anger flared up in Lanri at the remark, and she pushed past Seeker, closer to him. “A rusted pot lashing out at a gilded kettle. Nothing here flatters you. If everything you say is true, that I’m some seductress who lured Faron away, that still means he cared more for what I could offer him than you. He loved me, he adored me. I have the word of an angel that he spent the rest of his life perfectly faithful to our vows. All you have is a widget you had to steal from my parents.”

Lanri paused, and took a deep breath. She felt triumphant. “I came here thinking I’d have to endure your abuse, but I was wrong. All it is – father –” She laced the title with all of the mockery and contempt it deserved, “is an opportunity to gloat.” She looked up at the curly-haired woman, who had been trying to stay unnoticed as she listened.

Suddenly, it dawned on her. This was a woman she’d seen before, in the tavern, on her date with Seeker. There, she’d been just as lavishly decorated by jewelry, and notably, she’d been straddling the lap of that mage. She couldn’t but smile at the idea of throwing that in Armitage’s face.

In her peripheral vision, Lanri could see Seeker fix the woman with a steely gaze, having picked up on her thoughts. “Come here,” she ordered her, which confused Lanri. She’d just thought of it as another thing she could use to make him feel bad when she placed her. Whatever it was that Seeker saw completely eluded her.

“Stay back, Chana,” ordered the baron, even as Seeker took two steps towards the young woman who looked… scared? Why would she be scared of Seeker? “And you, don’t you lay a hand on her.”

Seeker ignored him, and closed the distance to the woman. Her eyes were filled with a determination that could easily be mistaken for ruthlessness, and judging by the fearful expressions in their eyes, Armitage and this Chana both seemed to be doing exactly that.

The young woman took a step back from Seeker, then another two before she tripped on the two steps leading to the throne and its podium. She winced slightly after she looked to land on her tailbone, then started to scramble away from Seeker.

“She’s such an observant creature, your daughter in law. The things she pays attention to never fail to be of interest to me.” Lanri heard Seeker muse as the Heartwarden grabbed the woman, and quickly pinned her in place. There were a few panicked grunts and struggles from her, which were just starting to unsettle Lanri when she intoned “adoucez.”

Just hearing the spell and feeling the power of it put a satisfied smile on Lanri’s face, even if she wasn’t the target. The young woman went limp, and Lanri quickly rushed to Seeker’s side, faintly curious that the baron didn’t do the same. “Why did you do that?” Lanri asked. Even though she knew better, it looked like Seeker had just attacked this woman at random, and it concerned her.

“So I could get a look at this,” Seeker said, and she very gently rolled the woman’s head to one side and brushed her hair back, revealing a chain running through two holes in her right ear. The woman was shivering, Lanri realized. Petrified in fear. “Let’s get this off of you, shall we?”

Seeker reached down, and grabbed the chain. Chana winced underneath her, yelped at the fear of having her ear torn off. But when Seeker pulled, the chain simply went nowhere, leaving the woman it had been anchored to in place and unharmed. Immediately, the woman’s demeanor changed. Her breathing turned ragged, and tears began to roll from her eyes.

“What did you do?!” demanded the Baron, finally taking note of the situation. He stormed over, and shoved Seeker to the side. “All the gods, I’ll have you hung if you don’t reverse your enchantment!”

“Oh, I imagine you won’t like that very much,” Seeker mused, just before she purred “durcissez,” and crossed her arms. She didn’t seem to particularly care he’d touched her, even though it was all Lanri could do not to inflict worse on him for it.

“Chana, darling, are you well? Is what that fucking bitch did gone?” The young woman rolled onto her side and curled up, ignoring the question as she started to cry. The baron turned to Seeker, then at Addler in the back of the hall. “I want her in a cell. Now. Whatever she–”

“No! She…” Chana started, but trailed off. “She… She didn’t do it. She ended it!”

“What do you mean?” Asked the baron. The gentle concern in his voice was touching, Lanri had to admit to herself. He knelt next to the girl, and gently helped her to sit upright.

“That fucking wizard! The bandit, up north! S–she’s been planning… P–planning this for months. She made me come here. Used t–that earring to…” She broke down into sobs again.

Lanri turned to look at Seeker, just in time to watch her retrieve the earring from nowhere, and offer it to the baron. “This one. It’s enchanted, I assume to compel her obedience to the bandit mage.”

The baron accepted it, a bewildered look on his face. “This was addling her?” He asked, before turning back to the sobbing girl. “But… you’ve been wearing this since the day we met. Chana, is she right?”

The young woman nodded, and swallowed as she tried to collect herself. “It–it made me… Made me lay the charm on. S–she wanted me to seduce you. To make sure you never sent the guards after her. And… And I grew to like you, I really did! But I… I just kept putting bad ideas in your head, kept casting spells to make sure you did what I said, a–and I couldn’t stop myself! N–no matter how badly I wanted to tell you, to ask you for help, I just couldn’t. The thoughts didn’t stick around in my head long enough to voice the.” She threw herself at the baron, clutching him by his tunic. “I’m so sorry!”

The baron’s bewildered expression lingered for a few moments, then hardened into one of hate, even as he wrapped the woman in an embrace. “Addler,” he began with eerie calm. “You were right – of course – to insist that we attack. Take the palace guard, and as many of the city guard as we can spare. I want that wizard’s head on a fucking pike.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the old guard, his voice laced with glee and purpose as he turned to leave the hall.

Slowly, Armitage shooed Chana from his lap so he could stand. He looked at Lanri, then the distraught young woman close to him with a mix of pity and resentment. “You cast spells on me?” He asked, coldly. He waited until the woman nodded, then continued. “Even when I got the news about Faron?”

“I–I c–couldn’t help it!” The young woman swore. Lanri thought it was a heartbreaking plea.

“I know,” promised the baron before he turned to Lanri and Seeker. “It seems I owe you my gratitude for foiling this plot, and… perhaps even an apology for evicting your parents while not in my right mind.”

“Perhaps?!” Demanded Seeker, not hesitating to speak for Lanri.

“Yes. Perhaps. I don’t have the time to spare to dwell on it, nor the clarity to do it justice. I’m not done with you two.” He paused, thought for a moment, then started to march in the same direction Addler went. “Keep them here until I return,” he ordered the guards, just before he disappeared from view. “All three of them.”

“What? Why?!” Lanri demanded. For just the briefest of moments, it had looked like he was coming to his senses. But self-awareness didn’t seem to translate to good manners. She was about to start yelling at him again, eager to make sure he knew she wouldn’t let him hide behind Chana’s spells to excuse his abuse of power if he continued it, when Seeker put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed.

“We’re not staying,” whispered the Heartwarden. “Two guards won’t keep us from our business.” Lanri looked up at Seeker, and was surprised to see her looking at Chana. “Do you want to come with us? You don’t have to stay here, if you don’t want to.”

The young woman looked to consider that, but shook her head. “N–no thank you. But… t–thank you for helping me. Thank you so much.”

Seeker acknowledged the answer with a quiet nod, then turned back to Lanri, and tilted her head towards the doors leading out of the hall. “Come along, Dear,” she said, and Lanri obediently followed.

A guard tried to stop them from leaving, but Seeker fixed him with a cool stare that Lanri hoped she’d never be on the receiving end of. They went through a different door than the one they came in through, which led to a far more opulent antechamber. Seeker crossed it quickly, and Lanri almost did the same, but she froze on the threshold..

A piece of furniture had caught her eye. A felt-lined glass cabinet, holding six wands in a display that looked like a jeweler’s storefront. She approached it, knowing Seeker would pick up on her interest. The wands were all different, made of different kinds of wood carved into unique designs, and with different sets of arcane runes engraved on them glowing various colors.

The one thing they all had in common was Faron’s maker’s mark, just above the hilt.

“What is it, Dear?” Asked Seeker in a whisper, as she approached her from behind. A moment later, Lanri heard a slight gasp that told her she understood. She propped one of her crutches up against the cabinet, and reached across with her now free hand to draw her own wand, comparing the repaired weapon to the pristine ones.

“How did he get these?” She mumbled, as she struggled to resist a primal urge to smash open the cabinet. Those wands were made by her husband, they had his ragira in them. They were rightfully hers.

“I don’t know how he got them,” said Seeker, quietly. “But if you want them, they’re yours.”

Lanri spun around to look at Seeker. Had she misheard her? “Y–you’d let me take them?” She asked.

Seeker gave her a sad smile, then nodded. “I think you’re right, Dear. They’re rightfully yours. If you want them back, you can have them. I won’t let anyone stop you.”

Lanri was stunned. She’d expected to be told she should leave them, that they were not hers. Being enabled, though? She turned back to the cabinet, and looked at the wands. At the runes that shone with his will, in a language she didn’t speak. “Could you read the spells to me, please?”

“Of course,” whispered Seeker, as she pointed at the wand on the far left. It was made of a very dark wood, and had a little hook carved into the wood. “This one is a lot like yours. Leudach Lasag and tàirneanach, which means thunder. I think it’s meant to scare off bandits.”

Seeker moved her finger to the next one, which was almost entirely made of metal, with a small piece of wood laid into it to bear the enchantments, and a triangular cross-sectioned shaft that narrowed into a point. “This one is a soldier’s dagger. Seachad Air Càradh is a spell that deters healing spells from taking hold. It means beyond repair.”

Lanri winced a little. She knew Faron didn’t make a habit of declining commissions, but she was surprised he would have made such a cruel weapon. Seeker’s finger moved again, and flicked between the next two, which both looked like they were made of birch. “These two are clearly a set. Frost magic on the left, and fire on the right.”

“They’re beautiful,” Lanri whispered.

“They all are,” agreed Seeker. “He was a master of his craft.” She moved her finger again, to the second to last one. It was made of very pale wood, waxed to a mirror shine. “Fonn A-Staigh. You can point that at an instrument, and it will start to play whatever music you can imagine.”

“And the last one?” Asked Lanri, pointing at the wand on the left. It was a very simple looking one, crude, and hastily carved. Two rows of runes ran along it, but only one glowed.

“That one has Leudach Lasag laid on it, too. His white flame. I think it must have been one of his first attempts, because one of the carvings has a mistake.”

Lanri looked at the six wands with wide eyes, and greed in her heart. She wanted them all, and she knew they were hers for the taking. Nobody could stop her. She looked down at her wand, the one Faron had made specifically for her, and that Seeker had so beautifully remade. She aimed it at the display case, lining it up with the lock.

All she had to do was say the spell Faron had made her memorize, and a piece of hot slag would let her have at the treasures inside. But she hesitated. This morning, she was certain she would have taken them as eagerly as a miser would take bars of gold. But now? Now that Seeker had restored her own wand to her?

“They’re not for me,” Lanri whispered, clutching her own wand to her chest. Compared to the wand Faron and Seeker had both had a hand in making for her, these looked lesser. She still wanted them, in a way. But she knew they would never be as dear to her as they were to Armitage.

“If you ever change your mind, I’ll come get them for you,” Seeker promised. “No matter when, no matter where we are. All you have to do is ask, and you’ll have them.”

“Thank you. But I think I’d just like to leave now.”

“Of course, Dear.”