Kordas just shrugged. “I’m here now,” he pointed out, as one of the many, many manor cats twined itself around his ankles and threatened to trip him. “And I see the Preserved Nuts are here.” One of the Circle made a very rude gesture in response. Kordas began unbuttoning his Ducal jacket, starting at the top and ending just past his baldric, then tugged the jacket open, to be more comfortable. As usual, Kordas had a dark gray undershirt beneath the jacket, dyed and embroidered with violent stormclouds. “All right, then, what do you need me for, besides as a source of power?”

“What else are you good for?” jibed Ponu.

“It’s not his jokes, that’s for sure,” Dole groused, then snapped his fingers. “Go.” He pointed to an empty circle on one curve of an immensely complicated diagram on the floor. “Go stand there. Let the adults work.”

“Yes, sir,” Kordas said meekly, and took his place, “rooting” himself into the diagram and gathering up all of his magical reserves, ready to pour it into the work at hand. He exhaled and gazed down at the floor patterns. Some of the curves were clearly rebounds from where other lines clashed, and they looped gracefully to rods or glowing crystals firmly set into sockets. Brass and copper calibrators were tapped into their own sockets, marking the optimal timing for this particular spellwork.

Kordas looked up and gazed in admiration at Jonaton, who was truly in his element. Jonaton had his hair up, with three copper hairsticks holding the loops. Copper earrings and necklaces added to the look, which was paired with a black upper, corselet, and deep brown, leaf-patterned, widelegged skirt-trews. “You look great, Jonaton,” Kordas said.

“Oh thank you!” Jonaton replied, whipping around to have a look at Kordas. “It’s good to see you a little more casual for once. But still stormy under it all, huh?”

Kordas tapped at the undershirt. “I am what I am,” was all he said, acknowledging the subtext. Jonaton flashed a brief smile followed by a brief downcast, and turned back to his table.

Mages of the Empire were a highly predictable lot, as he knew from experience. They all studied the same lore, the same spells, and from the same teachers. Once they had reached a certain level of competence, they almost never learned anything new again. They certainly didn’t experiment. The Emperor didn’t much care for innovations in magic. A mage willing to innovate and seek out new ways of doing magic just might become dangerous to the Emperor’s plans, which was one reason Kordas had so many mages just like that hiding here.