“Indeed?” Arndel’s eyebrow lifted higher. “Well, Mage Lindin, that is your opinion. My opinion is that you are employed to undertake whatever task I deem suitable. Are you refusing the commission?”

A paltry journey clock. Oh, how she ached to snatch up the inked design, scrunch it into a ball and throw it in his face.

Why would you do this, Arndel? Why would you waste me? You know what I am!

There was an odd look on the Artisan Master’s face, as though he both wanted and dreaded her making even more of a scene. In his eyes, that familiar, curdled resentment. How petty. Whatever she achieved only made him and his artisanry stand higher.

His meanness blinds him. But if I push him any further he’ll find a way to punish me, out of spite.

So she surrendered, the effort nearly breaking something inside her. “I’m sorry, Artisan Master,” she murmured. “I was… taken aback. Of course I’ll make Lady Lassifer her journey clock.”

“How very obliging of you, Mage Lindin,” Arndel sneered. “You render me almost speechless with gratitude. Now get to work. I shall return in due course to see how you progress.”

“Artisan Master,” she said, keeping her gaze pinned to the design on the bench.

As Arndel slammed the workroom door shut behind him, a hissing babble of whispers broke out. Ibbitha actually left her own bench for a scolding confrontation.

“Barl! Are you truly so arrogant you think you can get away with such outrageous behaviour? And that no-one, not even Master Arndel, will call you to account for it?”

There was that ugly word again. Arrogant. First Remmie, now Ibbitha. And from the corner of her eye she saw the other mages nodding, agreeing with her so-called friend’s stringent accusation.

And oh, she was tired of being called that ugly name.

“Why is it, Ibbitha, that confidence is so quickly smeared into something unpleasant?” she demanded. “Why is it wrong for me to believe in myself? Why is it desirable that I apologise for being good?”

“Nobody’s asking you to apologise, Barl,” said Ibbitha, still rankled. “We’d just like you to appreciate that you’re not the only talented mage working here.”

Perhaps not, but I’m the most talented.

Only if she said that, though they all knew it, the fuss would take a week to die down. There might even be a formal complaint lodged, which would be all the excuse Arndel needed to exact a painful revenge for the wrongs he believed she’d done him by simply existing.

“You’re right, Ibbitha. I’m sorry.” She looked around the workroom. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

Ibbitha sniffed. “Perhaps not, Barl, but you do. And I tell you plainly, we’re sick to death of it.”