“Mage Lindin! Is that clear?”

“Quite clear, Master Rumm.”

Climbing the three flights of stairs up to Lord Danfey’s domain, she couldn’t help but appreciate the mansion’s perfect proportions and genteel beauty. Masterful oil paintings marched up the wall beside her, a few landscapes, some faces, each gilt-framed canvas cracked by the passage of time. There was a stained-glass skylight, high overhead. The coloured sunlight filtered down to her, splashing the silver tea tray crimson, azure and gold.

Her insides squeezed tight. It wasn’t that she begrudged the likes of Lady Grie and Lord Danfey and those mages on the Council their luxuries. But why did it matter so much, that they make sure the rest of Dorana was denied them?

Upon reaching the doors at the end of the third floor corridor, she followed Rumm’s instructions precisely.

“So. Girl. Don’t skulk in the shadows,” Lord Danfey barked. “Let me get a good look at you!”

Barl tightened her hold on the tea tray and took another step into his lordship’s privy parlour. “I wasn’t skulking. I was closing the doors.”

Folded into a shabby, wingbacked armchair, the old man snorted. “And no sass!” His thin hand beckoned, impatient. “Come in, I said! Did my son send you deaf when he bound you?”

“No.”

“No, my lord. Dragged up by the scruff of your neck in a cow byre, were you?”

Her fingers tightened again, painful now. “No. My lord.”

“Then bring me my tea, girl, before it’s stone cold. If it’s stone cold I’ll throw it at you.”

She thought he would. Lord Danfey had that kind of face, austere and intolerant. It wasn’t just the grooved lines of long sickness that made Morgan Danfey’s father look harsh. Though his blue eyes were clouded, their colour almost obscured, they possessed a hard gleam, searching for a fault to criticise as she approached.

He kicked the leg of the low occasional table beside him. “Put the tray there.”

She settled the tray safely and waited. He’d been handsome once, she thought. Possibly as handsome as his powerful son. But time and fever had robbed him of all but the vestiges of good looks. Everything about him was sunken now: eyes, cheeks, chest, belly. As though the only thing stopping him from collapsing in on himself was his ample supply of bile and temper.

“Stir up the fire, girl,” the old man said. “Or are you hoping I’ll freeze solid while you stand there and watch?”

A sharp retort burned her tongue, but she swallowed it. “My lord,” she said, stiffly courteous, no need to give him reason to complain of her, and tended to the fire. As she poked about in the embers then added a fresh, sweetly scented log, she heard the chink and rattle of teaspoon and cup, the soft slosh of tea pouring from pot into cup.