“I don’t!” he retorted. “I’m not blind, I can see where Dorana could do with some changing. But you can’t make people change, Barl. Not when the change you want means upsetting the way they live. You have to be careful. You have to be tactful.”

She leapt to her feet. “How can you be so staid, so prosaic? Careful. Tactful. Next you’ll be saying I should apologise for being angry!”

“I’d never say that,” he snapped. “But this isn’t about what you feel, Barl, it’s about—”

“I’ll tell you what it’s about!” she said, riding roughshod, because give him half a chance and he’d prose on at her like a teacher until first light had every cockerel in the lane crowing. “Dorana is hidebound, Remmie, that’s what this is about. And the mages on the Council are keeping it hidebound, for no better reason than to protect their own precious superiority! It’s wicked, you know it is. If there’s you and there’s me with our true potential unexplored, how many other mages are there who could make the most amazing discoveries, but who’ll never get the chance because the First Families keep them in their place?”

Remmie rarely lost his temper, but when he did his face went pale. It was milk-white now. He shoved away from the sink, hands fisted by his sides.

“You call me staid and prosaic, and maybe I am,” he said. His voice was coldly distant, hardly sounding like Remmie at all. “But when was the last time a staid, prosaic mage hurt someone? Barl, you’re so arrogant. And it’s the arrogant mages who do the damage.”

“No, Remmie. It’s the cowards who hurt us,” she said, desperate for him to see things her way. “They see what’s wrong in the world, they see its injustices and they do nothing to fight them because they’re afraid of being noticed and losing what precious little importance they might have.”

“So by your lights I’m a staid, prosaic coward?” He looked away, as though the sight of her pained him. “That’s quite a list of accomplishments.”

“Remmie, no… wait…” she said, as he headed for the kitchen door. “I didn’t mean you’re a coward, I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he said, over his shoulder, not pausing. “You meant every word. And now I know what you really think of me.”

Staring after him, she felt a wave of furious grief crash over her. Oh, Remmie. If only he’d be reasonable, if only he’d climb down off his high horse and admit she was right. Then they wouldn’t have to argue and say hurtful things to each other.