Exhausted, Magdala sloughed off her winter cloak and slumped into a chair in Sanford’s dining room. Another day, another failure. When Dwayne had been taken, Magdala had tried to find the one person best able to find him, but even after questioning Mrs. Schofeld in the Bilges, talking to the murdered Juanelo’s family in the Vanurian Quarter, and checking out every restaurant on the Brad, all Magdala learned was that Mei had been an exemplary tenant, the Vanurians loved her, any restaurant she’d visited even just once remembered her well, and no one had seen her for weeks. Today, Magdala had tramped through the woods, hoping she’d just run into the hunter somehow.

  When Magdala’s cloak was collected and food and utensils placed in front of her, she shook her head. “No.”

  “Eat.” Lady Pol took the seat across from her. “I know you’re hungry.”

  “Galkin.” Magdala tried to hand her food back to Dwayne’s steward. “You can save this for later.”

  “He will do no such thing,” Lady Pol dismissed Galkin with a wave of her hand, “and you will eat. I will not train you on an empty stomach.”

  Magdala shrugged. “It might be an interesting challenge.”

  “I assure you. It would not.”

  Magdala sighed then speared a chunk of tuber with a fork.

  “Good.” Lady Pol waited until food was in Magdala’s mouth before saying, “High Judge Koenig finally condescended to meet with me today.”

  Magdala made a noise through her mouthful.

  “No, she has no idea where Dwayne is. I met with her to see if his…detainment by Sen Jerome’s was done with her approval, and she, extremely reluctantly, said that that wasn’t so. I also collected the scrytives’ report on the explosion. Their conclusion? They’ll defer to the Magisterium as to what happened.”

  Still eating, Magdala rolled her eyes.

  “I know. So helpful. Before I left however, I had a lovely conversation with a Scrytive Wagner, who asked after Mei.”

  Magdala slumped. That had been her next idea.

  “Yes, my thoughts exactly.” Lady Pol rubbed the bridge of her nose. “We can conclude that the Chamber doesn’t have Dwayne secreted away in their dungeons though. Wagner assured me of that.”

  Magdala swallowed. “So, we’re back to Sen Jerome’s holding him somewhere?”

  “Unfortunately.” Lady Pol held her hand up and Galkin put a wine goblet in it. “Getting into that fortress without Her Majesty’s seal or a writ from the Archbishop will be impossible. The Throne won’t act without evidence, and the Church won’t even consider it until they know it won’t make them look like uncoordinated idiots.” She gulped down half her wine. “At this rate, Dwayne will have to save himself.”

  Magdala glanced at the mantelpiece where she’d placed the remains of Mei’s rifle. “She could find him.”

  Lady Pol sighed. “Perhaps she just wanted out.”

  “But we need her.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Then she can tell me so herself.”

  “You know,” Lady Pol swirled the wine in her goblet, “it’s all right to feel anxious.”

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  Magdala’s eyes sank to her half-eaten meal. “I…I don’t know what to do. All I can think is that it’s been too long and that all we’ll find now is his dead body.”

  “Oh, he’s not dead.”

  Magdala looked up. “He’s not?”

  “No, he’s not.” Lady Pol slammed her goblet down. “Because he has a responsibility to tell me how he contained that bomb. I’m his master. I have to know.”

  And he’d promised Magdala they’d spend time together, just the two of them. Serves her right for not specifying a time or place or else he’d be here. She smiled.

  “Milady.” Rodion appeared at Magdala’s elbow. “There’s someone waiting for you in the foyer.”

  “Thank you.” Magdala stood up. “Here’s the plan. We find Mei. She finds Dwayne. I punch Dean Bruce in the face.”

  Lady Pol grinned. “Get in line.”

  When Magdala arrived in the foyer, a tall young woman in a quilted shawl was there, biting her nails.

  Magdala frowned. “Nicole? What are you doing here?”

  Nicole sniffed. “Ch- Miss Gordon has left the Club.”

  “What? Why? When?”

  “There was a Club meeting, it was supposed to be a small one to discuss upcoming schedule, but Chloe brought friends and then…she… she tried to remove Dwayne as Chair.”

  “She-” Magdala wrestled her anger down. Nicole was only the messenger. “It’s his Club. Why would she do that?”

  “She said she wouldn’t support anyone who tried to kill her grandfather.”

  After taking witness testimony and gathering evidence, the Magisterium’s report on what had happened in the Latia Arena, which Magdala had memorized, had concluded that no single Qe mage could have contained the explosion, which was as much as stating plainly Dwayne was Ri. However, it had not said why there’d been a bomb for Dwayne to contain in the first place or countered any of the various conspiracy theories that had spread since that day. Some thought Dwayne had created the bomb to make himself look good, while others argued that Dwayne’s fumbled parroting of Qe magic, Wesens couldn’t cast real magic after all, had nearly killed hundreds of people.

  “Is that what you think?” Magdala asked.

  Nicole shook her head. “I’m only upset he didn’t tell me he was Ri. There’s so much more we could have done, up to and including making a Ri core.” She glared at Magdala. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  Magdala fought back her well-trained urge to lie. “Yes.”

  “Does Lady Pol?”

  “Yes.”

  Nicole looked down. “Was I ever going to?”

  Magdala wasn’t the right person to ask. “I… I don’t know. Maybe?” She cleared her throat. “Who went with Chloe?”

  Nicole rattled off a list of names of people Magdala kind of, sort of, knew.

  “Not Auer or Torben then?”

  “Auer wasn’t there, he’s not Chloe’s friend, but Torben was going to punch her before Miss Lucchesi-”

  “Fran was there?” Magdala hadn’t seen her roommate since Dwayne’s examination.

  Nicole nodded. “She’d suggested the meeting in the first place.”

  Was Fran’s mother keeping her away? Magdala’s stomach clenched. “Was she…on Chloe’s side?”

  “No.” Nicole winced. “I think she shouted ‘Dwayne’s no idiot’ and drenched everyone with punch.”

  Good to know. “Are you still Vice-Chair?”

  “I am, but…” Nicole sighed. “The Club’s lost half its members.”

  “We’ll survive.” Magdala frowned. “Why did you come here this late at night? You didn’t need… Oh.”

  Nicole watched Magdala’s shoulders droop. “So, you still don’t know where he is.”

  “No.”

  “Okay, then.” Nicole slapped her cheeks. “Back to my experiments.”

  “Experiments?”

  “To find a way to make the cores more efficient. Considering the eighty to ninety percent wastage Deveraux and I have been seeing, it’s amazing Dwayne had the stamina to stop the bomb.” Nicole opened the front door. “Find him. Give him your love.”

  “I will…” Magdala frowned. “Wait, What?”

  “Bye!” Nicole closed the door.

  “Hey, wait!” Magdala crossed the foyer, but when she opened the front door, she found her father’s personal windsong, Lieutenant Mia Hill, standing on the threshold in frosty windsong leathers.

  “Young Gallus.” Hill brandished an envelope. “This is for you.”

  “Uh, thank you.” Magdala accepted it.

  “Whatever. ‘lia.” Hill rocketed into the air.

  With Nicole gone, Magdala closed the door and opened the envelope. The letter inside had familiar, blocky handwriting.

  “Who was it?” asked Lady Pol.

  “That was Fletcher. She… Oh.” Magdala grinned.

  “What?”

  “Looks like tomorrow, I’ll have a new sparring partner.”