He could kill me for this. He might kill me for this. At least, he might try. Does he think I won’t defend myself? Does he think I’ll die without raising my hand?

For all that she’d unravelled his magework and read through his notes, she didn’t know him well enough to be certain of the answers.

But I started this, didn’t I? And now I must end it… one way or another.

“The truth, Councillor Danfey? All right. I broke your binding. And I broke your ward.”

“Impossible.”

“You demanded the truth, sir. That’s it.”

“You broke—” Half turning away, he dragged a hand down his face. A faint rasping sound, as his fingers scraped over stubble. Then he turned back. “Why?”

“Why do you care?”

“Answer the question!”

Let him shout and rage at her, she wasn’t going to show him her fear. And she wouldn’t spare him, either, this mage—this man—who had wrapped her in torments no civilised person should embrace.

“I had to,” she snapped. “I did dream again. I did wake your binding. I was in agony, Councillor, and you weren’t here to end it.”

He flinched. In his narrowed eyes, he flinched. “You would make this my fault?”

“I didn’t bind myself, did I?”

“The Council would say so.”

“And are you the Council, sir?”

He flinched again. “And my ward? It was no threat to you. Why break that?”

“I was curious. I wanted to see where you worked.”

“Curious,” he murmured. “Curious. Mage Lindin—” Frowning, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “So, now you are free, with powers even greater than I realised.”

“Free?” She laughed at him. “Only you could think so, a man who was never constrained a day in his life. I am no more free now than I was the day I arrived. For all the good breaking my binding has done me, I might as well not have bothered. For even unbound, you have ways to hurt me. Why do you think I didn’t break this estate’s wardings and run? Until you and your precious Council decree I am punished enough I remain your prisoner. The power here is all yours.”

He was upon her in scant strides, the fingers of his right hand spread and pressing the flesh of her face against its bones, driving her backwards until her head struck the window. On a cry of pain she heard the glass crack.

“And you hate me for it, don’t you?” he said, his voice low and unsteady. “Lord Danfey. Is his collapse your doing? Tell me!”

Sharply hurting, she fought not to tug at his prisoning fingers. “Is what my doing? I don’t understand.”

“No more lies, Mage Lindin! I can rend you flesh from bone and I will, I swear it, if you—”