“I’m not lying,” she said, then gasped as his fingers crushed tighter. “Not this time. Let go.”

He leaned so close she could have counted his eyelashes. “Tell me what you did to my father or I will visit such pain upon you that—”

Had he gone mad? “I’ve done nothing to your father! If there’s magework behind Lord Danfey’s strife, it’s not mine.”

Head thrown back, he stared down at her. “And why should I believe you? A mage who can break both binding and ward. A mage who should not exist… and does.”

“Because I’m telling the truth.”

He said nothing to that. His eyes, still furious, were narrowed to slits. But the pressure of his fingers eased.

And then he released her.

“So,” she said, touching the bruised places on her skin. “You do believe me.”

“Yes,” he whispered at last. He sounded almost… defeated.

Letting her hand fall, Barl watched him walk to his workbench and return the notebook she’d been reading to its place on top of the others. His fingers weren’t steady.

“Is Lord Danfey very ill?”

He tensed. “Lord Danfey is dying.”

Oh, the desolation in his voice. I don’t care for his pain. I don’t. But even so, she felt something. She wasn’t carved from stone. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Savagely he swung around. “Mage Lindin, why—”

“I lost both my parents, Councillor, while I was still young. I’m no stranger to grief.”

Whatever he’d been expecting, she thought it wasn’t that. His jaw tightened, muscle leaping, and for a moment his breathing hitched. “You think to disarm me with sad tales of your youth?”

“No! I simply wanted to—”

“You wanted,” he said, scathing. “Must the world always spin to your wanting, Mage Lindin? As far as I can see, your wanting has caused nothing but trouble!”

He sounded like Remmie. “That is unfair.”

“Is it?” His hand slapped the workbench. “Does that mean you don’t expect me to hold my tongue on what’s happened here? You don’t expect me to pretend you didn’t break my binding and the ward on that door? When both should be impossible?”

She felt her skin crawl with rewoken fright. “If you tell the Council—”

“If? If?” Morgan Danfey slapped the bench again, and then started pacing. “Mage Lindin, it is my duty to tell the Council what you’ve done. What you are.”

“And if you tell them, who can say what they’ll do? Are you so resentful of my unusual talent you’d live the rest of your life with my blood on your hands?”

He swung round as though she’d struck him. “I do not resent your talent!”