This is what the College would’ve been. This is what Arndel and Hahren and the Council deny me.

She smothered the familiar surge of resentment. All the roads she could’ve travelled, all the great work she could’ve done had she even once been encouraged instead of pushed aside as unworthy.

I’m going to read this Mage Cylte’s book of learning. And when I’ve read it, I’ll read every other book in Morgan Danfey’s library. I’ll make this mansion my college. I’ll take for myself what they think they’ve kept from me.

And then she’d teach what she’d learned to Remmie, and he’d teach his precious pupils, and the ranked mages’ guarded secrets would spread until every unranked mage in Dorana knew what those selfish men and women had tried to keep for themselves.

“Mage Lindin?”

Halted, Morgan Danfey was staring, his lips pinched with impatience. Beneath that, he looked tired. His eyes were shadowed with grief.

His dying father.

Crushing unwanted sympathy, she pushed Rubin Cylte’s rules aside and shuffled through the councillor’s notebook of preliminary calculations until she found the page where he’d scribbled the shape of the sigil he needed. A moment’s careful perusal gave her the answer she sought.

“Come and look,” she said, beckoning. “And don’t feel so fretted. What’s gone wrong is as much Rubin Cylte’s fault as yours.”

That made him laugh. “You criticise Cylte now? Mage Lindin—”

“He didn’t think far enough ahead,” she said. “And neither did you.”

Joining her at the workbench, Morgan Danfey stood discomfortingly close. Even while it was sleeping, the power in him roiled her. Set her skin atingle and heated her blood.

She crushed awareness of that, too. Crushed awareness of him.

“Where is the final mapping of your sigils? I can’t find it.”

A hesitation, then he shrugged. “You won’t. I did not commit the successful sigils to paper.”

“Really? I believe in making thorough notes, Councillor. What if you forget something?”

He looked down his nose at her. “I won’t.”

Ha. And he called her arrogant. “If you say so.” She pulled an empty crucible toward them. “Conjure the second sigil of your incant.”

He conjured it, then saw it caught safe in the crucible. Deeply impressed, though she’d rather cut her hand off than let him see it, Barl took a deep breath then opened herself to the sigil’s volatile energies. Something sourly acrid caught the back of her throat.

“What’s that?” she said, recoiling. “It’s disgusting.”

Councillor Danfey laughed again. “So there is something you don’t know? I count myself amazed.”

Let him scoff all he liked. He still needed her, whether he’d ever admit the truth or not. As fascinated as she was alarmed, she leaned a little closer to the sigil.

“What is it?”