Stepping softly through the lecture hall’s doors, left ajar, Morgan hid himself in the shadows that blurred the furthest edges of the large room. The tutor’s podium was glimlit, but yet unoccupied. Ranowen’s whispering students, some thirty of them by his rough head-count, prepared themselves to work, tugging ink and pen and paper from their satchels, igniting the tiny balls of glimfire that would illuminate their note-taking. Though these were the College’s senior residents, they were not permitted the use of transcribing incants. It was thought, perhaps not without merit, that the act of putting pen to paper helped ink the lesson into a student’s labouring brain.

A door behind the tutor’s podium opened and Bellamie Ranowen entered the hall. Short for a Doranen, she was more muscular and broader in the frame than most. Not beautiful at all. As she closed the door her students sank into a respectful hush, which spoke well of her discipline if nothing else. Intrigued, Morgan eased sideways until he was fetched up against the wall, where the hall’s deepest shadows lay, and considered his quarry.

She was a rare creature, this Bellamie Ranowen. The only College lecturer to teach here who’d not sprung from a First Family. Her unremarkable appearance was sharply at odds with what had been reported of her, that she swam in dangerously unorthodox and reckless waters. But no mage worth his magic judged another mage by appearance alone.

And if she’s to be condemned, she’ll condemn herself by her own words and actions.

Should Nevin Jordane’s accusation be proven, if this unlikely College tutor did indeed overreach her authority while conducting a vendetta against his daughter, she’d pay the price… and payment would not be pretty. A prominent family, the Jordanes. Sixth-generation Elvadians, and in the first rank of First Families. Nevin’s younger brother had also been considered for the Council seat rendered vacant by Andwin Bellem’s untimely death.

Venette had refused to divulge why it was that Greve Danfey’s son had defeated Arnulf Jordane for the honour, and he’d not pressed her to break silence. Sometimes it was wiser not to question a victory.

But while I question the wisdom of Mage Ranowen’s appointment, and likely would have voted against it had I been on the Council then, what does it say about me that I hope I can prove Sallis Arkley’s friend wrong?

No doubt that he was petty. Incapable of rising above the personal, of leaving his complaints about Sallis to one side.

Fine. Then I’m petty. I don’t intend to lose sleep over that.