Jaw tight, temper freshly woken, Morgan summoned his will and whispered an incant. The soup stain on his sleeve vanished. With another harshly breathed incant he translocated soup bowl and spoon to the kitchens. That left the stains on tablecloth, wall, floor and Feenish rug. He raised a hand to banish them, but his father snatched at his forearm.

“Leave be!” he said, savage. “Am I a tit-sucking babe, that I can’t attend to my own mess?”

Morgan folded his hands on the dining table. It was a matter of pride that they did not clench to show white knuckles.

“No, my lord.”

“No,” his father echoed, bitter. “Then keep your incants to yourself.”

Greve Danfey had never been a robust man. In his childhood there were fevers. His prime had lasted but four years and after that had come a slow descent into bouts of haggard ill-health. For many years he’d managed to keep his weakness at bay, but no longer. Twice in the past year he’d flirted with dying and twice Ranmer had pulled him back from the brink. Morgan was loath to admit it, but the truth could no longer be denied: a third reprieve seemed unlikely.

Watching his father sweat over a simple cleansing incant hurt him in ways the shouted, intemperate words never could.

“There,” his father said at last, rheumy, tear-filled eyes defiant. “You see? I’m not dead yet.”

He forced a smile. “I know you’re not, my lord.”

“My lord.” Glowering, his father blotted his forehead dry of sweat with the napkin. “A lip-service respect. That’s all you have for me.”

And that hurt, too. “No, my lord. You have from me all the honour due to you.”

“It is so,” his father said, stubbled chin trembling. “One son, I have. One son.” He was staring through the chamber’s windows now, communing with the clouds and the afternoon sun dipping in and out between them. “And in him resides all hope for our proud family. But will he marry? Will he sire a son who’ll carry the Danfey name stitched to a broad and alabaster brow? He will not. He dallies with incants nobody needs, instead of with a woman.”

Morgan slid from the chair to the floor beside his father, bruising his knees even though there was a rug beneath them. “Please, my lord. You mustn’t distress yourself. We can talk of my marriage another time. For now, bend your thoughts toward regaining your strength. How many more days do you want to spend prisoned within this mansion? You must eat, you must rest, you mustn’t fret yourself with my future.”

“Your future?” His father snatched up the crumpled napkin and threw it in his face. “Have a care for your future, should I? When you care naught for the Danfey legacy?”

He was a fool to persist, but the injustice here was untenable. “How can you accuse me of not caring? Am I not the first Danfey to earn a seat on the Council of Mages?”