“Our army? The last time we were together, we were running from ‘our army.’ When exactly did the mansa make you his heir?”

“After the battle of Lemovis, a month ago. He saw that no one else had enough imagination to realize what was going on, much less the discipline and intelligence to discover ways to counter it. Furthermore, I am the only cold mage in Four Moons House besides the mansa who can truly build and hold a thorough illusion. There are other forms of cold magic that take more reach, but for illusion you must marry intense skill and discipline with the ability to reach deep into the ice.”

“You are the only one besides the mansa? Even including the women?”

To his credit he paused, forehead wrinkling. “I suppose I don’t know about the women. Although honestly, Catherine, to hear that anyone besides the mansa could best me in this would surprise me.”

I leaned across the table to give him a kiss. “Of course it would surprise you. My point is that the mansa may yet sire more sons and choose to replace you with one of them. Furthermore, you said Five Mirrors House in Noviomagus is ruled by a mansa who is not as powerful as the magister who tested you. She happened to be a woman, and thus according to House custom ineligible. So let us say the mansa truly wishes for you to become mansa after him. If you do not have the support of the elders of Four Moons House, what is to stop them from demanding a more eligible if less powerful man once the mansa has passed on? Then you would have waited for all that time, perhaps for decades, only to find yourself just as powerless as you were the day you came to Four Moons House. All that time when you might have been working for a greater cause. It is the perfect means to keep you in harness.”

An eddy of cold air pooled around us. “Do you suppose I am too uneducated and common-born to have thought of exactly these sorts of complications?”

“Of course I don’t! I will thank you not to pretend that I do so you can wallow in your wounded feelings! You have just bested the rivals who tormented you for so long. You have raised your mother to a position of honor beyond anything she can ever have thought to expect. And you have been proven in the starkest way possible as exactly the rare and uncommonly potent cold mage you have always known you are. All laudable things. I want to know if you have forgotten your promise to Kofi.”

Ice crackled as frost across the surface of the cream as he pushed back his chair and rose with a curl of his lip. “I think that is enough! Do not believe you understand my promise to Kofi.”