Shien Ficus rolling his stupid steak knife between his fingers suddenly had me wishing I could puppet him to fumble and slice one off.
I knew from the get-go this dinner would be awkward, given the guest list. Danver, Ginko, Lear, the Shien brothers, Wist, and of course me, plus the doctor and Tempus, but those two had dropped out due to other commitments. The residual tension sapped away what appetite I still had, and even the Void felt twitchy behind my eye. It had been easy enough to cope during my first visit to the estate, since you could bank I'd be the only target, but now three of us were fair game, and I couldn't handle the uncertainty.
Nerium made idle chit chat with Wist. She responded in clipped sentences, as if anything she said would be used against her in a court of law. Lear arched her chair back to talk with Ficus, while Danver and Ginko huddled together, picking at their food. Rabbits trapped in a fox's den.
Wist, as expected, had left her plate empty, and I forced myself to chew on a piece of fish. I couldn't stop watching that knife. I still didn't like it when objects came too close to my eye, and I wouldn't put it past Ficus to suddenly fling it in my face. Wist would never let it come near me, if it came to that, but that presumed I was the target of his amusement.
I glanced to Ginko. She looked like a frightened vole, never lifting her head to make eye contact, taking a leaf out of Wist's book to slouch and make herself look smaller. Though it must have been a weight off her mind after Miyu's death, I felt incredibly bad for her.
I also felt a little guilty. In my effort to get atonement for her predecessor by turning Miyu berserk, I'd given the late Shien more leeway to take it out on her healer. I hadn't even learned her name at the time, despite showing her how to neutralize her bondmate. On top of that, I'd exposed her as a liar. Healer solidarity was hard enough to come by as it was, but I might as well have dug her grave and hit her with the shovel on the way down.
There had to be some way I could make it up to her.
Ficus still hadn't stopped fidgeting with that damn knife, and his words made my skin rankle.
"At least wait until the funeral," Nerium said.
"Hard to hold one without a body."
"Tempus means to conduct his investigation thoroughly, I'm sure he'll leave no stone unturned."
I stopped listening, swallowing back a brittle, rising anger. Wist touched my leg, and I clamped down on the bond, the way you'd bite down on a piece of leather when undergoing a painful procedure in the dark ages. I'd thought I could handle talk like this, given my failure to champion a single healer's right, but my guilt over Ginko and all that old hatred towards the Shien brothers was a toxic brew. I didn't care what they might do to me (Wist's protections aside), but Ginko didn't deserve any of it.
"Asa." Nerium addressed me, and I reluctantly turned to him. "Tell me more about your excursion to Manglesea."
"That's the country with no mages, right?" Lear perked up, righting her chair and leaning her elbows on the table.
"Yup." I swirled the water in my glass. "No magical tech whatsoever, they use beast-drawn carriages and everything. You could say it feels like stepping back in time."
Wist's amusement trickled through our bond, but nothing cracked over her face.
"Fascinating," Lear said. "Are mages still born there?"
"Far less than before, or so we were told. Most of them move out on scholarships."
"We didn't come across any," I shrugged.
As Lear continued to ask question after question, Wist leaned back in her chair. All trace of humour from earlier vanished, replaced with a heightened wariness. Similar to when we'd first encountered the Void's cavern.
Ficus. I can't sense him.
The moment she spoke her brother's name, I realised he'd vanished. Not excused himself to attend the bathroom, but actually vanished under our noses.
I also noticed Nerium's cane had also disappeared with him. That didn't bode well.
I tried falling back on magic perception, but nothing stood out. His five branch core was missing, nor were there any telltale signs of porting.
Nerium groped for his cane, seemingly surprised to find it missing. The tint in his glasses made it hard for me to know where he was looking, but the glare from the lights altered just enough I could discern he was looking behind me, close to Ginko.
Here's hoping I wasn't about to make a fool of myself.
Blindly, I groped for a magic branch, and when it briefly flared to life, I hijacked it, deactivating the skill that had been imprinted onto it.
At once Ficus re-appeared, poised with the cane to hit Ginko in the face. He startled, and I quickly hobbled him before he decided to use that trick again. His lip curled in silent fury, and then without decorum he smashed the cane into Ginko's side.
The cane became a bunch of tulips, and petals fell harmlessly about Ginko's lap.
Make him thirsty, I suggested. Moreso than he's ever been in his life.
Wist obliged, and Ficus grasped his throat. He seized Ginko's glass, downing it, then grabbed Danver's, then Lear's, then mine. Eventually he snatched the ceramic jug, guzzling the whole thing straight down. When that didn't slake him, he skulked out of the dining room, though not without shooting me a strange look.
I wasn't sure if we'd averted disaster or made headway for a much worse one later.
"Very impressive, Asa." Nerium suddenly addressed me, and I tensed. "I'd heard the rumours, but to exert such influence without even physical touch…"
"Sounds to me like someone can't hold their liquor like they used to," I said, deflective. "Not my fault Ficus doesn't have a handle on his new skill."
"It seems you really did earn your nickname," Nerium went on.
"What nickname?" Lear asked, though something in her tone told me she already knew.
"I'll let her regale you. I must say I'm getting too old for all this excitement." Nerium stood up. "Any chance you could restore my cane, Wisteria?"
Wist rolled her eyes, and the tulip stems reformed into their original form. Danver passed it over, and Nerium bade his goodnights, limping out of the dining room.
"Magebreaker," Ginko whispered.
I stiffened, and Wist draped a protective arm over me. Of all people, she was probably the last I'd have thought to have heard of my prison title.
"I'm flattered, but that's not me," I said. "I hear she's still serving a life sentence."
"You undid his skill." Danver was speaking now, caught between awe and anger. "If that doesn't make you her…"
"Now you're just trying to inflate my ego," I said, though I was slightly worried she'd seen as much. Hijacking was not a skill I wanted to make public. "No healer can control another mage's magic. I'm not even his bondmate."
Danver wasn't even remotely buying it, but before she could go on, Lear cut in.
"Don't give her ideas, Danny," she said. "We'll all be in trouble if she learns to puppet the Kraken."
Danver grumbled something. It was probably just as well I didn't catch it.
"Steer clear of Ficus," Wist warned. I wasn't sure if it was to me or Ginko.
We decided to leave dinner at that and went our separate ways. Wist ported us to the corridor outside our room, and she tilted her head at me.
"You shouldn't have done that," she said.
"They'll forget about it soon enough," I shrugged. "I put Ginko in enough of a bind. I owed her."
"You've given Ficus time to plot something worse."
I poked her chest. "Think you could come up with a skill to counter his little invisible act, then?"
"Not without knowing how it works first."
"Pity." I pushed open the door to our room. "Let's push Tempus to wrap up his investigation, then. The sooner we get out of here, the better."
