“I’ll be upstairs, Rumm,” he added. “And I don’t wish to be disturbed.”

“No, sir,” said Rumm. “But I’m asked to ask you to stop by his lordship’s room upon your return.”

Hand on the staircase’s carved banister, he hesitated. “It’s late. I’ll see him in the morning, and be sure to let him know you passed on his request.”

“Less a request, sir, than a command,” said Rumm, taking a step after him. “If you’ll forgive my plain speaking.”

Morgan watched his fingers tighten on the polished wood. “Of course.”

His father should have long since been sleeping, but instead he was sitting up against a raft of pillows, reading a book.

“My lord, it’s late. You shouldn’t stint your sleep.”

Setting the book aside, his father looked him up and down. “So, Morgan. I’m to learn of your whereabouts from a servant, am I? That’s how I taught you to show proper respect?”

Oh, Father. Waving the door closed, he approached the vast, high bed. “You were resting when I returned from Elvado. Venette’s invitation was last minute. I had no time to wait.”

“And resting’s the same as dead, is it, that you couldn’t bestir me and let me know you’d be out for the night?”

“Without you get your proper rest you will be dead,” he snapped. “And what then? You’d prefer I make haste for the crypt to tell you of my business?”

“You take a tone with me?” said his father, slapping the bedspread. “I’ll have no tone taken beneath my own roof, Morgan. And I’ll know what you’re doing. As Lord Danfey, that’s my right. Your business is my business.”

“No, my lord,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “A man’s business is his own.”

Another slap to the bedspread. A thread of spittle on the lips. “You’re not a man, you’re my son! You’re not a man until you’ve bred a son. Turn your buttocks to leather sitting in a Council seat, Morgan, and you still won’t be a man until there’s a boy calling you father.”

Morgan stared at him, any thought of mentioning Maris Garrick killed stone dead. He’d die himself before giving the old man such satisfaction.

“Enjoy your book, sir,” he said at last, cool and impersonal. “If you’re stirring by the time I take breakfast, perhaps if you’ve the appetite we can eat together. Otherwise I shall doubtless see you in between my Council duties, which resume now with some urgency. Good evening.”

“You’re walking out?” said his father, incredulous. “I’ll not have it! Stand where you are and give an account of your night’s doings. Morgan! Do you hear me? Morgan—”

He closed the chamber door on his father’s hoarse fury. Made his way to the attic with his own burden of temper, which he could not drive out no matter how hard his heels thudded on the stairs.

You’re not a man, you’re my son.

Close to weeping his rage and frustration, he summoned glimfire then raggedly paced his workroom floor. The air trapped inside the attic still reeked of burned azafris. It stank of his failure. His heart ached as it drubbed his ribs. One incant ratified, two more to come, and it wasn’t enough. A seat on the revered Council of Mages, and it wasn’t enough.