And that was a monstrously unfair thing to say.

“My lord, you wrong me. Did I care for you as little as you seem to think, would I have remained on this estate these past weeks of your confinement? Would I have abandoned the Council duties so recently placed upon me, risking censure? Risking worse?”

His father plucked a kerchief from his sleeve and dabbed his loosened lips dry of spittle. “No.”

“Indeed, no. And you’re peevish to say otherwise.”

“Peevish?” His father’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a word for a dutiful son to use against his father, is it?”

Of course not, but of a sudden he was in a mood to be contrary. “It is when a dutiful son is smarting.”

Instead of answering that, his father picked up the nearest emptied crucible and trailed a fingertip through its blue smear of wasted power. After a long silence, he put it down and frowned at his stained skin.

“Why do you want to create a new transmutation incant, Morgan?”

He answered readily, but not entirely honestly. He had to. Presented with the whole truth, Greve Danfey would mock and scold.

“To see if I can.”

“To see if you can,” his father murmured, looking up. Not even the after effects of recent illness could dull the sharpness of his regard. “And what manner of difference would it make, did you succeed?”

It wasn’t only mockery and criticism that concerned him. His father was weakened, wandering in purpose, and might easily betray a confidence. That would likely see him ruined.

“I don’t know, my lord. I won’t, until I’ve succeeded.”

And I will succeed, you may be sure of that.

Harsh glare softening, his father wiped his finger free of blue residue then tucked the stained kerchief back into his sleeve. “Even as a child, Morgan, you were never satisfied. You were born hungry, not for the wetnurse’s milk but for every experience to be wrung from the world.”

He couldn’t fathom if that was compliment or complaint. Wary, he made sure to remain dutifully deferential.

“Do you say that is a fault, my lord?”

“I say what I said before,” his father replied. “A prudent man is not to be despised. You may run to your destination, or you may walk. Running is faster but in walking one has time to see the journey’s pitfalls. To notice those traps laid for the unwary.”

Morgan hid his growing irritation behind a smile. “True. But will you accuse me of arrogance if I say I can avoid pitfalls and leap traps as I run?”

“Accuse?” His father laughed, the sound slurred with weariness. “No. To accuse implies the chance of innocence. In this case I must declare it, for you are guilty through and through.”

“And is that a fault?”

Another slurred laugh. “Show me a modest mage and I’ll show you a charlatan. Arrogance a fault? Never. Without arrogance no mage would cast his first incantation.”

“And yet you are displeased with me.”