Eye Spy E-Book

Mercedes Lackey

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In this new series, set in the bestselling world of Valdemar, Heralds Mags and Amily must continue to protect the realm of Valdemar while raising their children and preparing them to follow in their footsteps.Mags, Herald Spy of Valdemar, and his wife, Amily, the King's Own Herald, are happily married with three kids. The oldest, Peregrine, has the Gift of Animal Mindspeech—he can talk to animals and persuade them to act as he wishes. Perry's dream is to follow in his father's footsteps as a Herald Spy, but he has yet to be Chosen by a Companion.Mags is more than happy to teach Perry all he knows. He regularly trains his children, including Perry, with tests and exercises, preparing them for the complicated and dangerous lives they will likely lead. Perry has already held positions in the Royal Palace as a runner and in the kitchen, useful places where he can learn to listen and collect information.But there is growing rural unrest in a community on the border of Valdemar. A report filled with tales of strange disappearances and missing peddlers is sent to Haven by a Herald from the Pelagirs. To let Perry experience life away from home and out in the world, Mags proposes that his son accompany him on an expedition to discover what is really going on.During their travels, Perry's Animal Mindspeech allows him to communicate with the local wildlife of the Pelagirs, whose connection to the land aids in their investigation. But the details he gleans from the creatures only deepen the mystery. As Perry, Mags, and their animal companions draw closer to the heart of the danger, they must discover the truth behind the disappearances at the border—before those disappearances turn deadly.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Mercedes Lackey and available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Epilogue

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Also by Mercedes Lackey and available from Titan Books

THE HERALD SPY

Closer to Home

Closer to the Heart

Closer to the Chest

FAMILY SPIES

The Hills Have Spies

Eye Spy

THE COLLEGIUM CHRONICLES

Foundation

Intrigues

Changes

Redoubt

Bastion

VALDEMAR OMNIBUSES

The Heralds of Valdemar

The Mage Winds

The Mage Storms

The Mage Wars

The Last Herald Mage

Vows & Honor

Exiles of Valdemar

THE ELEMENTAL MASTERS

The Serpent’s Shadow

The Gates of Sleep

Phoenix and Ashes

The Wizard of London

Reserved for the Cat

Unnatural Issue

Home from the Sea

Steadfast

Blood Red

From a High Tower

A Study in Sable

A Scandal in Battersea

The Bartered Brides

TITAN BOOKS

Family Spies Book II: Eye Spy

Print edition ISBN: 9781785653469

E-book edition ISBN: 9781785653476

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First Titan edition July 2019

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Mercedes Lackey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

© 2019 by Mercedes R. Lackey. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Dedication:

To the memory of Vonda McIntyre.

“Remind me again why we came out in this weather,” Abi grumbled, as the cold rain found the seam in the hood of her waterproof gray cloak and dripped onto her neck. A dismal gray sky poured down water that was just short of being ice. It was not raining hard enough that Abi had even a prayer of persuading Kat to turn back, but it was raining hard enough to give Abi, at least, a miserable ride. She so envied the people in the expensive mansions they were riding past right now . . . not because of the expensive mansions, but because of the simple fact that they were in there and not out here.

“Because Mama is pregnant and feeling horrid, she has a craving for Ma Sendle’s tart apple jelly, and the old lady won’t give the Palace cook the recipe,” Kat said agreeably. “And we’re both going so we can buy the old girl out and won’t have to go down into Haven again for it until after the baby’s born.”

“Hopefully,” Abi groaned.

“Hopefully,” Kat agreed.

Abi glanced over at her best friend, riding easily on her Companion, Dylia, and grimaced. “I am never getting pregnant.” Personally, she was not a big fan of marriage right now either, but it didn’t do to ever say that out loud. As one of her father’s agents in and around the Court, she reckoned that for every one happy marriage there were a dozen that ranged from “distantly friendly” to “armed truce.” While the King and Queen and Mama and Papa were definitely in happy marriages, with few exceptions, the rest of the courtiers were not exactly an advertisement for matrimony.

Princess Katiana, known as “Kat,” or now, “Herald Trainee Kat,” answered her with a wry smile. Kat didn’t seem at all bothered by the rain. Then again, Kat didn’t seem at all bothered by much anymore, now that she’d been Chosen. Of all of the Royal siblings, she was the most even-tempered, and she didn’t look like either of her parents. In fact, Abi would have said, if she’d been asked, that if the Palace portraits were accurate, she looked like an exact copy of her great-grandmother: medium brown hair the color of autumn leaves, dark eyes, oval face. Kat’s expression was generally cheerful though, and the old Queen’s had been sad and sober, at least in the painting.

One advantage of being a Princess rather than just a regular Trainee was that Kat’s uniforms had been custom-made for her, so maybe her cloak was a bit more waterproof than the one Abi had purloined from the storage room. Actually, now that Abi thought about it, Kat’s cloak not only was probably quite waterproof, but she knew for a fact it had a woolen lining, something Abi’s lacked. No wonder Kat looked unfazed by the rain.

So unfair . . .

Abi wasn’t a Herald Trainee, but Rolan, her mama’s Companion, had offered to carry her on this errand because the weather was so bad, and she wasn’t going to turn that down. So she’d dressed in gray and swiped a Trainee cloak from the spares, figuring in weather like this no one was going to look too hard and realize one of the Trainees—wasn’t. That might have been a bad miscalculation. I probably should have asked to borrow Trey’s cloak instead. He certainly isn’t going anywhere outside today. The last she’d seen of Trey, he’d been firmly ensconced in front of the fire in the Royal Suite, deep in a history lesson, and not about to be shaken out of it by anything less important than dinner.

My own fault for trying to pose as a Trainee without thinking things through.

That’s not to say that Abi wasn’t training in something. She was training, at least in the sense that she was learning a lot of things, all the time. Her papa, Herald Mags, was the King’s Spy, and all three of his children had been learning the craft from the time they were able to understand what that was. Partly, that had been to keep them out of mischief. But that had also been because they played with and fundamentally lived with the royal children, and Papa and Mama counted on them to help keep the royals safe—and to notice what went on and was said around them. And finally, it was to impress on them how important it was that no one else should know that “good old solid Mags,” whose glory days of being a Kirball champion were long past, and who mostly did boring work in the law courts, was in fact the King’s Spy and thanks to the rigors of the job could probably run every current Kirball champion into the ground and dance on them afterward.

Actually, the training now had gone far past that. Once they were old enough to understand exactly why they were getting this sort of training, Papa had asked them if they actually wanted to help him.

Her older brother Peregrine had said “yes,” and after a fantastic adventure in the Pelagirs that had turned out to be way more exciting than anyone had guessed it would be, had settled right in as one of Papa’s regular agents. She had said “yes” but had yet to do anything to come close to Perry’s adventure; mostly she was just collecting Court gossip. Tory was still too young to be asked, but she was pretty sure he would say “yes” too.

To be absolutely honest, right now there really wasn’t anything else she did want to do with her life, though how long she was going to be useful as Kat’s best friend was debatable, and how else she could serve as a spy was unknown. Unless, perhaps, she could take over Aunty Minda’s brood of orphaned and abandoned street younglings and oversee that part of her father’s “business.”

But almost anyone could do that. She just wished she could think of something that would suit her uniquely.

She was only sure of one thing. She absolutely, positively, did not want to have babies. The poor Queen looked absolutely miserable, as if someone had grafted a melon to the front of her. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, her feet and back hurt all the time, the first part of her pregnancy had involved a lot of throwing up, there were still foods she could not stand to have around, and Abi wouldn’t have been in her shoes for all the crowns of all the Kingdoms she could name—and she could name quite a lot.

So she did little things for Papa, and she spent the rest of the time learning things. She took classes at all three of the Collegia. She trained in weapons-work with the Collegia Weaponsmaster and with Master Leandro, who had trained her father. Her father trained her in spycraft, her mother in statecraft—in the latter case, mostly by allowing her to observe what went on in Council meetings and other business of the King. She did that by serving as a page—a heavily armed page. In effect, as the sort of guard that an attacker would probably overlook, should anyone be stupid enough to try anything in a Council meeting. And she had about as much leisure time as any of the Trainees, which was to say, quite a bit more than most girls her age, who were already hard at work every waking hour either as servants or working on a farm. And she made a point of enjoying every minute of that leisure, because she had the feeling that when she figured out what it was she wanted to do with the rest of her life, most of that leisure time would vanish like snow in a fire.

Today, however, she was not enjoying her “leisure.” Then again, this wasn’t so much leisure as it was a chore.

At the moment, they were riding on a cobblestoned street that ran past all the fine mansions of the merely rich (as opposed to the rich and highborn). The road was practically deserted; there wasn’t a soul in sight who didn’t have to be out in this weather. But from the windows of these varied manses came warm, golden light that looked very inviting right now, and Abi wished she were inside, toasting her toes in front of a nice fire, preferably with a book.

She didn’t envy the people her age who were in those houses though; the ones who weren’t already apprentices in the businesses that had made their families wealthy were involved in a complicated and sometimes cutthroat social dance to acquire the perfect spouse, and that brought her right back to marriage and babies and . . . ugh.

She really envied Perry right now. He was snug in the pawn shop, and if he wanted anything, he could send one of the littles from Aunty Minda’s next door out after it; they were either runners or runners-in-training (also in Papa’s employ) and completely expected to be asked to do things like that. He probably wouldn’t do that, though. He’d go fetch it himself rather than make a child trudge around Haven in miserable weather.

Which, really, was why she and Kat were out here. The Queen wouldn’t make a page go out in this muck, no matter how urgent her cravings were. But Kat knew how badly she wanted that fruit jelly—Kat had Mindspeech and a touch of Empathy—so Kat had volunteered, and the Queen wasn’t about to let Kat go down there alone, even on her Companion. So it had to be at least one bodyguard from the Royal Guard or Abi, and Abi would be a lot less conspicuous. Having a Trainee accompanied by a Guard pretty much shouted Oh, look, the Princess! Having Abi along looked as if two Trainees had been sent on an errand down into Haven.

Kat was armed, and perfectly capable of using those arms . . . but Abi was armed to the teeth, and before Kat, for all her training, noticed that something was not quite right, Abi would already have decided what weapon to use, whether to be lethal or nonlethal, and dealt with the problem.

Another trickle of cold water made it inside her hood, sending a shudder down her body. I should have let the Guard come after all. Or borrowed Trey’s cloak.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Kat said, giving Abi a sidelong glance. Abi gritted her teeth, and shook her head.

“No, we promised your mother her jelly, and by the gods she’ll get her jelly,” she replied stoutly. “It’s just a leak in my hood, it’s not going to kill me.”

“Yes, but I’d rather it didn’t make you sick,” Kat protested. Kat’s Companion Dylia nodded her head in emphatic agreement.

“If Rolan thought I was going to be sick from this, he’d have already said something.” As the Companion to the King’s Own, Rolan was able to make anyone hear him, even those, like Abi, without Mindspeech. And he hadn’t said a peep. “He hasn’t said anything to you, has he?”

Rolan cocked his head back at her a little and snorted. Kat smothered a laugh.

“What?”

“Rolan says you are nowhere near sweet enough to melt in the rain,” Kat choked.

Abi stared at the Companion’s one blue eye looking at her. Was he smirking? He’s smirking, she decided. “No pocket pies for you, horse,” she told him. He snorted again, knowing very well that he could cozen all the pocket pies he wanted out of virtually anyone in the stable. After all, he was the King’s Own’s Companion, and what he wanted, he usually got.

He made a noise that sounded exactly like a smirky laugh. Kat laughed too. Abi decided not to ask what Rolan had said.

The mansions and stately homes of the highborn behind them had each been set in their own expanse of gardens and lawns behind their fences and walls. In this part of the road, the slightly less impressive homes of the very wealthy were closer together and had a lot less in the way of greenspace. A few lengths more and they had passed another unspoken but very visible divide. These two-and three-story houses were owned by the “merely” wealthy, and were separated by just enough space for a wall between them, and room between the wall and the houses on either side for a human to walk. And ahead of them, where the houses of the well-off rather than wealthy were, the homes were packed so closely together that neighbors could pass things from the window of one to the window of another without straining. And ahead of that—

Was her least favorite bridge in all of Haven.

If you asked anyone else, they’d probably tell you that it was a very fine bridge indeed, a good, stout stone bridge big enough and strong enough that two lanes of large drays could use it, bringing up oversized goods to the wealthier parts of Haven and even the Palace itself. The parapets at either side were barely knee high, and she never liked crossing it even in the best of weather. This was the only bridge like it in the entire city and the only place where the river could be crossed by such oversized vehicles. The river was on a downhill slope at this point in town, one of the places where the water ran really fast when it was high, and looking at the foaming water from the roadbed of stone always made her feel as if she were likely to topple into it. Given the choice, she’d go halfway across town to avoid crossing it.

Partly that was because this was where her grandfather, Herald Nikolas, had died. He’d come back to life again, thanks to her father, but he had died for a few moments. Papa’s good friend Bear had taught Mags what to do with a drowning victim, or he would have stayed dead.

That was when Rolan had Chosen his daughter, Kat’s mother; then a new Companion had Chosen Grandpapa, and for the first time ever, the former King’s Own and the new King’s Own had been alive at the same time. And that near-death was what people told her was the reason for her unease. But she knew the truth; all that really had very little to do with how she felt about the bridge. If anything, she would have felt pretty good about the whole thing; after all it was a story with a very happy ending.

No, she hated this bridge for a different reason altogether.

Even in the best of weather, when the river flowed smoothly under it, the bridge had always felt wrong to Abi. As if it were sick. It made her a little nauseated to cross it, as if it were moving under her when of course it wasn’t. And in weather like this, when the river raged beneath it? It felt to her as if it were shaking itself to bits, even when other people would just remark it was vibrating a bit.

And yet, anyone she talked to about her feelings assured her that the bridge had been constructed perfectly, there was nothing wrong with it, it had stood for two hundred years and would stand for another two hundred. And if it vibrated a little when the water roared around its supports? Well, that was to be expected.

This was of no help whatsoever. And if she had had any choice at all, she wouldn’t go within a mile of this cursed thing.

But Ma Sendle’s little fruit shop, where she sold mostly preserves, jams, and jellies along with her small store of the finest of offerings from the orchards around Haven, was just on the other side of that bridge. And it would be stupid, especially in this weather, to go halfway across Haven to get to it.

So she was going to grit her teeth, and cross the bridge with Kat, and endure the sensation that the thing was about to fall to pieces at any moment.

They turned a corner, and there it was, in the middle distance. At this time of the day—and in this awful weather—there weren’t too many people crossing it. No heavy drays, thank goodness—those usually waited until most of the traffic had cleared out of Haven anyway, making their deliveries at night or in the very early morning. But there were some carts, a few horses, and several people carefully making their way on foot alongside the parapet.

The thundering of the river was audible even from here. She shivered. Kat cast her a sympathetic glance. Kat’s touch of Empathy meant that Kat knew quite well how she felt.

But this time was vastly different from every other time she had neared this bridge. With every step Rolan took nearer the bridge, the worse she felt. And then, as he actually set his forehoof on the bridge, it struck her, like a blow to the stomach—

—this time was no false alarm. The bridge had stopped merely warning. Now it was about to crumble.

She didn’t need to say anything to Kat; Kat picked it up from her. “We have to get people off the bridge!” Kat shouted as those nearest them turned and stared at her. “Go to the middle and split, I’ll go south, you go north!”

She couldn’t answer for a moment around the swelling nausea, the actual pain she felt. But Rolan followed Dylia out onto the bridge as they cantered to the center of it, turned and faced the opposite ways. She shook off her pain and nausea, knowing deep inside her that this moment was critical, that this time it wasn’t just a bad feeling, that this time, unless they did something, people were going to die.

The next few moments were a blur. She knew she was shouting but not what she was shouting, but at least people reacted the way she wanted them to and fled in the direction of safety. Rolan backed up her orders with stamping hooves and, when needed, snaps of his jaws. Everything was a confusion of screams, people running for the river bank, nausea, the feeling that her bones were about to snap, her voice growing hoarse.

And then it all suddenly cleared. There was only one person left on her side of the bridge, an old man on a cart, who was stubbornly trying to force his way past her, shouting at her. The bridge shuddered in warning, and she didn’t even think; she reached over and grabbed the front of his tunic and with superhuman strength dragged him over the front of her saddle.

And behind Rolan, a roar of stone and water. She felt the bridge giving way behind them and cried out, clutching the old man and the saddle. She sensed the rocks falling away under Rolan’s hind hooves, felt the impossible strength of his legs as he scrabbled for purchase on the disintegrating stone, the slip and the catch, and, finally, the muscle-straining leap that took them to safety as the cart and screaming horse plunged into the river behind them.

The nausea and pain vanished as if they had never been there at all. She shook her head clear and passed the old man down into the hands of those on the bank. And then remembered who else had been on that bridge.

KAT!

She whirled in Rolan’s saddle, peering frantically through the mist thrown up by the collapse of the bridge, and with a sob of relief, spotted Kat on the other side, waving vigorously to her.

“Rolan,” she said aloud. “We need Guards and Heralds on the other side, and we need them now.” Because now Kat was all by herself over there. . . .

Wearily, Rolan nodded his head, and she realized that he must be hurt—muscles torn and tendons strained from that death-defying leap carrying her and the stranger to the bank. Hastily she dismounted and turned again, just in time to see four of the City Watch shoving their way through the crowd up to Kat’s side. And shortly after that, a pair of Guardsmen and a Herald. From here, she couldn’t tell who the Herald was, but it was clear the Princess was in good hands.

“Let’s get you back up the hill before your injuries stiffen,” she said to Rolan, just as another of the Watch turned up on her side of the river. She let the bystanders babble out whatever explanations they wanted to; Kat would give an accurate report, and right now, the most important thing she could do would be to get Rolan back to the stable and into the hands of the Healers.

*   *   *

There was an entire group waiting for her at the front gate of the Palace/ Collegium complex. She’d expected a Healer or two and a crew from the stable—after all, Rolan was in need of tender care. She hadn’t expected to be descended on by Heralds herself. Before she could object, or even say anything at all, they’d bustled her into an empty classroom at Heralds’ Collegium and began a methodical interrogation.

It was definitely an interrogation; she’d been a witness to a few of those conducted by her father.

They did make sure she wasn’t hurt, of course, got her hot tea and a blanket to wrap around her, even got a cushion for the hard bench seat. But it was very clear once they knew that she was fine that they weren’t letting her go anywhere until they got some answers.

The classroom was oddly quiet. It wasn’t on a side of the building where the rain was hitting the windows, so weather sounds were all muted. It smelled of chalk dust and ink. She’d never noticed that before, probably because when she was actually in a classroom she was too busy taking notes or listening to pay any attention to how it smelled. The three Heralds who had brought her here sat in a semicircle in front of her. She answered each question, carefully, in detail, and just as methodically as they asked them. Being Mags’ daughter certainly helped in a case like this.

When they’d ascertained exactly what had happened today, they paused for a moment, which gave her a chance to get more of that hot tea into herself. She didn’t recognize any of the three Heralds, which meant they probably taught the use of Gifts. She’d have had no reason to be in contact with them or in any of their classes, since up until now, no one had ever thought she’d had a Gift. Two, both males, were brown-haired. One was short and slender, the other had gray in his hair. The third, a woman, looked as if she had been a weaver at one time; she had that kind of upper-body strength and large, strong hands. She had hair of a color between red and brown.

“Have you ever felt that way about a place before?” the woman asked.

“Well, I always felt that way about that bridge, just not as strongly as I did today,” Abi replied. “I’ve always hated it, always hated crossing it. It always felt . . .” she thought about her feelings for a long time, trying to pick the best words. “. . . like there was something wrong about it. That it was sick in some way. Or like an instrument that was out-of-tune, except that the consequences of being out-of-tune were going to be much worse than a horrible rendition of a song.”

“You mean you heard things?” the graying man asked. She shook her head.

“No, it was definitely a feeling, inside. I never heard anything but the same things other people heard. This was something I felt, except I always knew it wasn’t me feeling it, it was the bridge. The bridge was wrong. I don’t know if it was built wrong, or grew wrong over the years, but by the time I was old enough to cross it, it had gotten to that point.”

The three of them locked eyes, and she was pretty sure they were Mindspeaking. Good, I’d rather they did that than talked in front of me as if I wasn’t there. The tea was very good; something with a lot of rose hips in it, and a little mint, and a generous dollop of honey. Now that she was warm, she didn’t mind being here. Mind? It was far better than being out in that miserable rain. From the sound of the drops outside the window, in fact, it was getting worse. If they’d gotten to the shop, even Kat would have been drenched by the time they got back. Did she make the Herald go with her to the shop? I bet she did. So she’s drenched. Poor Kat.

No one had died, that was the important thing. She actually felt very good about how things had worked out. No one had died, Kat was safe, and she’d personally been responsible for all of that! Not that she wanted a medal or anything, but it did feel really good to know she’d saved peoples’ lives. This is probably how Papa feels when he does the same thing. If so, she wouldn’t mind doing it again. Only maybe without bridges collapsing.

The Heralds interrupted her thoughts. “Are there any other places where you’ve felt like you felt about the bridge?” the woman asked.

“Not nearly that strongly,” she replied. “There are a couple of places in some highborn houses I’ve been in where I felt that faintly, but not to the point where I’d avoid going to a party there. One is the minstrel’s gallery at Lord Corveau’s house, and the other is the balcony over the back terrace at Lord Spenaker’s. And I feel that way all the time down in Haven, in the impoverished districts where the houses are just about ready to fall apart.”

The woman nodded with satisfaction. “So it’s always buildings?” asked the graying man.

“I don’t know. I’ve never been outside Haven to find out,” she pointed out. “I’m pretty sure after what just happened that what I’ve been sensing is stress or strain, but the city is built on pretty stable land, so I wouldn’t know if I can sense the same thing in natural locations—like maybe a spot that was likely to have an avalanche. I know for a fact Rolan probably strained tendons and muscles, maybe tore them, and I didn’t feel anything from him, I just knew like anyone would know that he must have been hurt.”

The woman seemed extremely pleased with her answer. “I agree with you, Abi—can I call you Abi?” At Abi’s nod, she continued. “I think you’ve made the right deduction. We weren’t sure if what you have is Foresight or something else, but it seems very clear that you’re right. You sense the physical strain in things that are not living. And we Heralds are the wrong people to try to teach you, since that’s what it appears to be. If you want to learn how to use this thing, that is.”

She snorted. “Of course I do. A fat lot of good it’s going to do me or anyone else if all I can do is sense vaguely that something’s under stress. Right? I mean, think of the potential if I can tell something’s in need of repair before it’s obvious! Or better still, if I can tell how and where to fix it!”

The woman grinned. “Quite so. I’m fairly certain the closest Gifts we have to yours are going to be among the Healers, but I’ll ask around to be sure. When I know, you and I will make arrangements for lessons. I’m Herald Stela, by the way.” She held out her hand, and Abi shook it, very much liking the firm handshake she got. “But there’s something else I’d like to ask you to do, and that’s to join the Artificers, the Unaffiliated students who are learning things like building, construction, and the making of things.”

“I can do that?” she exclaimed. “I thought places in the Artificers were only open to people who got recommendations because they were good at math and things like that!”

“You’re getting a recommendation from me, and that’s all it takes,” Stela replied. “They’ll open up a place for you. You can become good at math with practice, but it isn’t every day when someone comes along who can intuit that a bridge is about to collapse. As you yourself pointed out, it would be good to have someone out there who can tell us the points of weakness before something collapses and it would be even better to have someone who knows how to fix those points of weakness before the weaknesses become an issue.” She stood up, and the other two followed her example. “I’ll come talk to you and your parents in the next couple of days, as soon as I can make the arrangements. I’ll see you then. Meanwhile you can go join your family and be the hero of the hour.”

Abi stood up, holding the blanket around her, and clutching her mug of tea. The gray-haired Herald held open the door for all of them, and she made her way back into the Palace and the suite of rooms her family lived in feeling both excited and bemused.

But the moment she got into the corridor leading to their suite, her brother Perry charged down it and enveloped her in a hug. “Holy fire, Abi!” he exclaimed into her hair. “You’re a hero!”

She oofed, the wind knocked out of her for a second. “Is Kat back?” she asked, more concerned about her friend than anything else.

“Yes, and she made Herald Seth go with her to get the apple jelly, so the Queen has every speck of it that there was in the shop.” He hugged her again. “She got soaked, and so did he, but it was worth it, she says. Everyone’s in our great room, so come on.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along behind him, too impatient to put up with her sedate walk.

The suite of rooms that Mags and Amily’s family lived in was a bit peculiar, even for the Palace. It was several small rooms surrounding one big one, and the big one was where everyone gathered most of the time. The whole family and all the Royal offspring were there now, most of them clustered around Kat, who by her gestures, was describing the bridge collapse. Her mother, Amily, intercepted her before her siblings could co-opt her; she was still in the semiformal Herald’s Whites that she wore when she was serving at King Stefan’s side. She must have come straight here from the Throne Room.

“How wet are you?” Amily demanded.

“Damp,” Abi admitted. “They gave me this blanket, though, and the classroom where they took me was pretty warm.”

“Then not another word out of you until you get changed into something dry and comfortable,” her mother ordered. Abi was not at all reluctant to do so; damp clothing was somehow even less appealing than fully wet clothing.

She emerged from her room in her favorite old, worn, long-sleeved canvas tunic and trews, both soft enough with hard wear to feel like lambswool. Gray again; this was part of the camouflage she and her brothers took on to protect the Royals. They all wore gray or brown, so anyone charging into this room wouldn’t know which of the children were the King’s—until one of the three who were not, eliminated him, one way or another. I have a very strange family, she thought, not for the first time.

By this time, her mother was pouring out hot, spiced cider for everyone, and she was very happy to get her share. She sat down with the rest of them on the old rug between the hearth and the huge table on one side of the room, a table they all used for eating and everything else. She did wonder a little why her mother was here, and not attending the King . . . but maybe the King figured that she needed to be a mother right now, not the King’s Own. Besides, he had Mags with him, and everyone in the King’s inner circle knew that what Amily knew, Mags knew, and vice versa; if anything important was happening in the Throne Room, Amily was getting a full description.

“We got Kat’s version, and Mama told us Rolan’s version, so we don’t need to hear about the bridge,” Perry proclaimed, before anyone could pelt her with questions. “So what did the Heralds say?”

“First I want to know if Rolan is all right,” she interjected, looking over their heads to her mother.

“He strained his back legs and hips and sprained his back, but you did the right thing by keeping him moving at a slow pace and getting off of him immediately,” her mother told her. “He’ll be just fine in a couple of days at most.”

Well, that’s a relief. Mama entrusts me with him . . . and I go and get him hurt. Although I don’t know how we could have avoided that situation except by not being out there at all. And if they hadn’t been there, people certainly would have died. At least Rolan’s injuries were minor.

“Well, I guess I’ve got a Gift, but it isn’t one they’ve ever seen before,” she said. “They said the closest thing to it is how a Healer can sense when you’ve got a muscle or bone that’s under stress and damaged, except my version works with things that aren’t alive. Built things, as far as I know, but I’ve never been out of Haven, so I don’t know if I could tell if there was a hillside that might have an avalanche or something.”

Her little brother Tory’s mouth made a little “o” shape, though he didn’t say anything. Perry asked the important question.

“You’re going to train in it, right?” He grinned. His Gift was unusual, but not unheard of: an exceptionally strong version of Animal Mindspeech. That might have been what allowed him to bond to his partner, the giant kyree currently acting as a back-brace for him. The kyree nodded sagely.

“Rood rain,” he mouthed, meaning “should train,” of course. All of them understood Larral the kyree as easily as they understood each other.

“They seem to think the Healers can come up with something,” she said, and accepted a slice of bread and cheese from her mother. Then, once it was in her hands, she realized she was starving, and she ate it so fast it was gone before Amily had gotten done passing out the snack to the rest of the group. “They also want to put me in the Artificers,” she continued, feeling suddenly gleeful as Perry whistled.

“You mean they’re going to make a slot for you?” he asked. “I’ve never heard of them doing that before!”

“I have, but it isn’t done often,” Mama replied. “You have to have something quite special to bypass the queue to get in, but I suppose a Gift that allows you to tell when a bridge is dangerous would certainly qualify.”

“That’s a lot of math,” Trey said doubtfully. Kat hit his shoulder.

“You trying to say you think she can’t do it?” Kat demanded, as her oldest brother rubbed his shoulder.

“Not so hard!” he protested. “I’m just saying I couldn’t do it, is all!”

“I’m not bad at math,” Abi said slowly. “I just didn’t see much use for it before. It’s not as if anyone was going to invite me into the Artificers.”

“Well, now they have,” Niko pointed out. “Do you think you can do it?”

She pondered that a while. “They said math is a matter of practice. So if you idiots can manage to practice hard enough in six months to hit the bull’s-eye nine out of ten, I expect I can practice enough to do math well.”

Niko smirked; the fact that he and Trey had brought their archery skills up from abysmal to top of their group in half a year was a point of pride for both of them. They hadn’t cared enough to bother about it, pointing out that it wasn’t as if the Heir and the Spare were ever going to be allowed out of Haven where they’d need archery, until Kat had shamed them both by being good enough to be made an instructor.

“But is it what you want to do?” asked Tory, simply.

She thought about the question a moment, then shrugged. “Don’t know yet, because I haven’t tried it. I guess I’m going to find out!”

Her mother nodded. “Meanwhile, being in classes is going to keep people from wanting to trot you around the kingdom like a living flaw-detector,” she pointed out. “And that includes Heralds, because every one of them in the field is going to want your help. Perry had enough adventure at a young age for the entire family, and I’d much rather you didn’t emulate him, at least until you are much older.”

She nodded, although she had mixed feelings about that statement. On the one hand—Perry’d had an amazing time, and he’d seen and experienced things that likely no one else would, ever. Including real magic. On the other hand, he’d almost died. She was not sure even the most amazing adventure was worth that kind of risk. Today she had come much too close to death to ever want to feel that terror again.

Her mother was watching her closely, as if she could read Abi’s mind—which she couldn’t, since her Gift, like Perry’s, was Animal Mindspeech. But she was awfully good at reading faces, and what she saw in Abi’s made her lips relax and curve up again.

“Well, on that note, who’s going to volunteer to run down and get the pocket pies from the Heralds’ Collegium kitchen?” she asked, and looked at the four Royals. “Your mother’s given permission for you to have supper with us.”

“She can’t even look at anything but fruit and vegetables and bread and jelly,” Kat said wisely. “Father will have dinner with the Court, and he’s not mean enough to make us do that with him on pocket pie night. I’ll go. Trey, Niko, Perry, you can go with me.”

“You can use Larral as a backrest,” Perry said generously to Abi, as the kyree got to his feet, padded around to Abi, and flopped down behind her. She relaxed into the curve of his body. He was lovely and warm and didn’t smell at all “doggy,” more like a bed of pine needles and ferns. “We’ll be back as fast as lightning!”

All things considered, Abi thought contentedly, life is awfully good.

Herald Trainees wore gray. Healer Trainees wore a light green. Bardic Trainees wore a sort of dark reddish orange. But there were people who attended classes here at the three Collegia who weren’t Trainees at all. And this particular classroom was full of them, so there wasn’t a trace of any of those colors to be seen here. Abi had taken a desk at the back of the room, the only place that was open, and what she saw was a lot of blue-clad backs that matched her own brand new blue tunic and trews.

Abi was used to the Collegia classrooms; they all looked pretty much alike, whether they were in the Heralds’, Healers’ or Bardic Collegium buildings. Each room held about twenty bench seats and simple slanted wooden desks for the students, a larger desk and actual chair for the instructor, with a slateboard at the front of the room, another at the back, and one on the side facing the wall. The remaining side was all windows. There was a door at the front of the room with a transom over it, so on hot days there was a breeze coming through the open windows and the transoms. The floor was polished wood, the ceiling whitewashed plaster. The room smelled of wood polish, chalk dust, and ink. Abi had been taking lessons in rooms like these since she’d been about six, just like her older and younger brothers and Kat and her siblings.

Most of the young people taking classes here who weren’t Trainees were the offspring of those highborn or wealthy families that didn’t want to bother with personal tutors for them. That was a smaller number than people might think, as Abi well knew. If you were highborn, and especially if you were wealthy, you didn’t want people to think you couldn’t afford private tutors for your sons. So generally the only highborn or wealthy boys taking classes at the Collegium were those whose abilities had outstripped most tutors . . . or, of course, whose parents actually couldn’t afford private tutors. There were very few girls among the highborn coterie of the Unaffiliated students; the vast majority of highborn girls were here at their parents’ manors or living at the Palace itself solely for the Serious Business of getting husbands, and they were expected to invest all of their time in activities that would bring them to the attention of eligible males or the mothers of eligible males. Taking academic classes was not on the approved list of such activities, unless it was dancing lessons, or etiquette, or a little rudimentary lute or harp playing.

Abi had heard that there were a couple of highborn girls studying seriously here, but she hadn’t met them yet. She might never, if they weren’t associated with the classes that the Artificers took.

All the Unaffiliated students were supposed to wear uniforms in a blue that was about two shades lighter than Guard blue and tailored to match the Trainee uniforms. That was something more often seen in the breech than the observance with the highborns or moneyed. Yes, their expensive outfits were blue . . . and they might on occasion be in the correct shade. But mostly, they weren’t, and they definitely did not match the simple tunics and trews of the three sets of Trainees. And there were always a few who wore whatever they wanted to.

That accounted for a small number of the so-called “Blues.”

But the Unaffiliated students were much more than a place to put an academically inclined younger son because you didn’t want him to sit idle and get into mischief. Almost all of the girls, and a great many of the boys, were not from highborn or moneyed families at all. They were here on their own merit, and since most of them couldn’t afford uniforms, the appropriate uniforms in the right color were supplied to them by the Crown.

They came from all over the Kingdom and had generally been sponsored by some temple or other in their home towns and villages, since most formal schooling was supplied by temples large and small. And the majority of the boys were in the Artificers—the students who would, at the conclusion of their studies, go out and do things with their knowledge. Build. Invent. Improve. Granted, you didn’t have to graduate from the Artificers to learn how to do the same things—there were apprenticeships available in all the Trades that did that sort of work, such as the Building Trades. But apprenticeships were expensive, and even when the student’s parents could afford such a thing, apprenticeships were limited by the scope and interest of the master and did not encourage innovation. Everyone knew that if you were going to go out and do new things, you had to come to the Collegia to learn the tools to let you do that.

There were more Unaffiliated students with interests outside the Artificers and the highborn, who were also in the blue uniforms and also sponsored here by various temples. But they were fewer than the Artificers, and were pure scholars, studying history, literature, the arts. It wasn’t likely that Abi would ever run into any of them.

Right now she was sitting in her first Artificers class, at the back of a classroom full of boys mostly in those standard blue uniforms. In this class at least, there were no girls. Some of the boys were ignoring her. Some, surreptitiously watching her. Some watched with curiosity, some with resentment. She completely understood the resentment. There was a waiting list to get in here, and a special place had been made for her, jumping her ahead of others who had been waiting, sometimes for years. Probably most of these boys assumed she’d gotten that place because her mother was King’s Own and both her parents were Heralds. The story of the collapsing bridge that had swept through Haven and Hill like wildfire had featured Kat as the heroine, not her.

People like things simple, and Kat is a Princess as well as a Herald Trainee, she thought, as she and the others waited for their instructor to arrive. They don’t like stories with two heroes or that involve a Gift no one has ever heard of.

And it wasn’t as if Kat hadn’t actually been a hero. She could have been killed out there; she’d done half of the saving and done it well. And it wasn’t as if Abi begrudged her the attention—it was attention that she hadn’t wanted for herself, and the story was doing good things for the popularity of the Royal children.

But it would have been useful if these boys had known why she’d gotten this special place before she turned up here.

That’s all right. Dealing with a lot of resentful lads is a whole lot easier than infiltrating a magic city taken over by a crazy cannibalistic magician. I’d rather be doing this than dealing with that.

The instructor, Master Morell, entered and immediately commanded the attention of the room. He was a short, balding man with a prominent nose and piercing green eyes. He had with him, curiously enough, a box that seemed to contain pieces of wood. “I assume that all of you are aware of the new student, Abidela. I also assume that all of you are making the assumption that she is here because her mother is the King’s Own.”

He waited for a moment, and some quiet murmurs made it clear that his assumption was correct.

“Rather than simply tell you why you are all wrong, I’m going to have Abidela demonstrate,” he said, as he began taking the pieces of wood out of the box and assembled them into what was apparently a bridge model. “You all already know the answer to this particular problem, but she does not. Abidela, come show me the weak spot on this model.”

She got up from her desk and moved to the front of the class. This wasn’t as easy as it looked—the model was small, all the pieces were painted the same dun color to hide what they were made of, and the strain in it wasn’t anywhere near as obvious as it had been every other time her Gift had been at work. In fact, she had to slowly move her hand over and around the model before she sensed it, as a very faint unease, so faint she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been concentrating. “Here,” she said, pointing to one of the under-supports. “That can’t take more than the weight it’s already carrying.”

Murmurs arose again, this time of surprise, as she went to sit down at her desk again.

The instructor swept all the pieces back into their box. “You all know about the bridge collapse, of course. What isn’t common knowledge is that Abidela was not only there, she is the one that sensed the bridge was about to collapse and helped Herald Trainee Princess Katiana get people off the bridge before it fell. And that is why a place was made for her here, among us.”

Now every one of those boys turned in their seats to stare at her. She licked her lips nervously. She’d never faced this much scrutiny before.

The instructor wasn’t helping; in fact, he stood there with his arms crossed as if he was waiting for her to say something. She swallowed and gave it her best.