Blinking back another sting of tears, she folded her arms. “Very well. I’m a complication. Perhaps you’re right, and I’m dangerous. So what?”

Instead of answering, he crossed to his workbench, picked up an empty crucible and with his back to her wrapped it in a heavy ward. Even distressed she could feel the stirring of his power, feel the binding threads he wrapped about the heavy stone. When he was finished, he turned.

“Break this,” he said, and threw the crucible at her.

Startled, she caught it, gasping as its weight sang a pained protest through her wrists and forearms. As his convoluted warding prickled over her skin.

His eyes were glinting. “Break it, Mage Lindin. And then I’ll decide.”

She tried to ignore him as he prowled his attic, but it was impossible. In the confined space she found his woken power overwhelming.

“Well?” he demanded. “Can you do it?”

“I can, yes, provided you stand still and hold your tongue!”

When was the last time an unranked mage had dared speak to him like that? From the look on his face, she suspected never.

Too bad, Morgan Danfey. It’s long past time you were spoken to like an ordinary man. And if you make a fuss, well, I’ll keep to myself what I can tell you about your reworking of Hartigan’s incant.

And she could tell him a great deal. For where he was stumbling, she could see a clear path.

Still staring, he shook his head. “Your impertinent arrogance knows no bounds.”

But he stopped prowling, as she’d known he would.

The weight of the warded crucible was making her arms ache, so she lugged it to the end of his workbench and let it drop with a thud.

Break the ward. Break the ward. Of course I can break the ward.

It was difficult to believe that this cold, uncompromising man was the mage who’d created a purring toy cat and a tea set to delight little girls.

Because I broke his binding I thought that I knew him. I think I don’t understand him at all.

But she couldn’t dwell on that. She couldn’t let fear rule her. She had to protect Remmie. Nothing else could matter.

Closing her eyes, she sank into Morgan Danfey’s magic.

Watching Barl Lindin closely, Morgan wrestled his howling disbelief into submission. However ludicrous her claims might appear, there was no arguing with the evidence of his own eyes and senses. The ward protecting his workroom was undone. And the mage he’d bound so carefully stood before him now, unbound.