Abaddon's Mark

Chapter Fifty

Graydon glanced at Nendan out the corner of his eye, then allowed his gaze to flow over the dance floor.

"Weren't you supposed to help with setup?" Graydon asked. "Shirking your duties already?"

"I was entertaining the prince," Nendan murmured.

Graydon didn't stiffen because he was already stiff. Everything about collecting mages together was putting him at unease. The tingle down the back of his spine, a constant nagging reminder that he couldn't quite place wasn't helping matters.

There was a chill to the ballroom that day, one that no amount of tinkering could change.

So, no, he didn't stiffen when Nendan used the code word the pair of them had decided to use in case Jasor ever developed magic or a work around or anything else.

The man had been, well, evil Naena of the previous generation. It was publicly recognized that he had sired the bastard that was Naena and, well... A smart man, let alone a stupid Seven, could put it together and make plans for codes and secret messages.

If she were male, she might very well have done the same, behaved the same, been just as magical, and it would have been completely explained by the fact that she was her father's child. It would have been an easy, simple answer.

"Really?" he asked, turning to Nendan as if the lord had just shared a bit of juicy gossip. "Does he plan to visit?"

"Apparently, he's already here," was the muttered response, though the tone was very much that of a scandalized man.

Which usually meant that the mages around them thought they were actually gossiping about foreigners. Who the mages believed were the only ones the Seven ever gossiped about. Mage secrets weren't worth the effort of gossip.

When in fact, Nendan was telling him that Jasor was already involved. As in, likely planning things from the second Naena appeared in the school and altering his plans as new information came out.

"Here?"

He asked, meaning active and on the campus. Graydon's mind, naturally, went to Nillon. Jasor's nephew and about to break under Lugh's control from the catty gossip Graydon had sternly warned two first year Seven members from talking about in public.

"Yes, here," Nendan said. "Seems he paid visit to a prisoner of ours. The poor man was scared enough as it was, I wasn't about to explain what he actually saw."

Meaning Nillion had talked. He had recognized something dangerous about Jasor but it was an obvious danger. Meanwhile something Nillon said to Nendan told Lord Lugh that there was a problem.

"Saw the prince?" Graydon asked.

The term, just like that, being their code word for 'oh fuck, Jasor's back, the world is ending, oh fuck.'

Neither knew Jasor personally, but they knew the well documented history the Seven taught their heirs—the man was still alive and therefore still a threat—as well as the personal stories their fathers told of the issues. It was one thing to learn the history, but to know that their fathers had gone through it, and so, with his return, they would go through the same thing from a man who would make fewer mistakes? The ones Jasor did make, he never made again, closing off gaps in his defences.

They had both agreed that it was best to have a code word for that.

"Saw the prince," Nendan echoed back.

Graydon just stared back at Nendan, unable to hide his surprise.

The bare facts were, what Nendan said in code was that Jasor had used magic around someone who then reported suspicious behaviour to Nendan but told him about something else entirely. When Nendan pressed for more details, he saw the magic use in the way things were said.