“Here, my love,” she said, returned to the library. “Drink this. You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

He took the cup and drained it. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” she said, soothing, and perched on the sofa’s edge beside him. “Now, my love, can you tell me what you were trying to do?”

His eyelids were already drooping. “Armoured beasts won’t be enough to protect us. We need true warriors, that can stand against the warriors of Feen and Trindek and the rest.”

“Warriors.” She shifted a little beside him, cold again. Couldn’t help glancing at the ceiling, seeing again that ruined man on the floor. “Morgan… do you mean people? You think we should be transmuting people?”

“We have to,” he said, his voice slurring. “But not mages, of course. The magickless. They serve little other purpose. And we have enough cripples in Dorana that the few we’d take won’t be missed.”

Cripples. Turning away from that word, for she couldn’t bear to look at it, not now, Barl smoothed Morgan’s tangled hair. It felt like straw, not spun silk.

“Morgan, we don’t need to do that. All we need do is destroy the mage-mist. Restore Dorana’s balance. Then the other nations will leave us alone. You and I, we are Dorana’s greatest mages. We can do that. Let’s do that. All right?”

Morgan smiled at her, slowly. Even exhausted, he was beautiful. Even so dreadfully misguided, she loved him.

“My love… it’s too late.”

She felt the tears come. Felt them spill to her cheeks. “Don’t say that. You could be mistaken. It might not be too late.”

But it was, and she knew it.

“Oh, Morgan,” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

His hand fumbled, trying to stroke her face. The herbs were working on him now, swiftly. “We’re going to make Dorana safe, my love. We’re going to give it an army. Rumm did not die in vain. He was but the first to give his life for the country he loved.”

She could argue, but she knew he’d not listen. He wasn’t ready to hear that he was wrong. Heartbroken, she sat beside him and watched him slide into sleep. When she was sure he wouldn’t stir she settled him on the sofa, with a pillow and a blanket. The herbs and his own exhaustion would keep him unstirring here for hours. Enough time for her to do what she had to, though the thought of his hurt and anger made her weep anew.

To make certain of him she warded the library’s windows and door. Felt a wrenching flood of gratitude that he’d never learned to break her magework. Then she changed into fresh clothing and went to find the only person she could trust.

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-two