Chartji’s crest flared with an emotion I could not interpret, but she took the sealed letter and tucked it inside her jacket. “It will be done. An interesting and important person he must be, this Kofi Osafo. The magister has already sent him six letters via my offices.”

“Has he?” I asked, squinting as at a bright light. When was Vai writing to Kofi?

“I have long been in correspondence with Professora Alhamrai from the university in Expedition, whom you know,” said Kehinde. “Recently we have been discussing the question of the ice shelves and whether they are shrinking or growing and how we might measure their extent. She has written about her theories of the properties of cold magic, which like all things”—here she spared such a jaundiced eye for Brennan that he laughed almost nervously, and she frowned as if she judged him a frivolous fellow—“can be explicated using the principles of science alone.”

“Thus am I scolded,” he said with a lightly mocking smile. “But what I want to know is how any fire mage can survive if he has not been accepted into the guild of blacksmiths. Everyone knows that a person born to the flame will die young in a fire of their own making.”

I said, “James Drake survives by channeling the backlash of his fire magic into living people. An ordinary person will die if so used, but cold mages can absorb most backlash without harm.”

Brennan whistled.

“A fascinating struggle between fire, which many natural historians believe releases energy, and this sort of freezing or locking of energy that it might be said the cold mages do,” said Kehinde. “Where does the fire go when it flows into the cold mage?”

“We believe it disperses into the spirit world. The Coalition will fight by using the presence of cold mages to kill the combustion of Camjiata’s superior weaponry. The general will fight by using Drake to throw the backlash into the cold mages, because when cold mages are acting as catch-fires, they can’t kill combustion or work magic. Not to mention he will burn his enemy’s houses, goods, and camps, and generally terrify the population.”

Brennan considered a spoonful of porridge. “This is valuable information, Cat. If the mages nullify Camjiata’s superior weaponry, then without this fire magic, the general may lose. The Invictus Legion is already here, working in concert with Lord Marius. My spies tell me three more legions are on the march from Rome to join the Coalition.”

“Yes. Vai and the Four Moons mansa were sent to Senones to meet them. Camjiata’s skirmishers have been spotted near the city of Cena.”

“You are indeed an excellent spy, because I have not heard that news,” said Brennan appreciatively. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we can’t risk harming the general’s best weapon.”

“Drake is an unscrupulous criminal! He kills people by burning them alive!”