First Apprentice

Chapter 27 Part 2

Eyeing me like I was a snake coiled up to strike, Amit gingerly picked up the contract and flipped through it, stopping on the glowing paragraph above the signature line. "This is blackmail," he whispered.

No, the magical signature Linas recorded from his office wards was potential blackmail. This was just business.

"No, it is simple cause and effect," I replied, quoting Grandfather's words when he explained our family policies. "The Dracon currently purchase your used pipes for nonpotable water and use caravans for the rest. The reason: two separate bribery attempts. The first time magic cancels your contract as a warning. The second we terminate the business relationship. That is company policy enforced by my family's magic and has been for over four thousand years. Bribery's bad for business.

"Unfortunately for everyone involved in this debacle, the first apprentice and Iver share a brain. As an apprentice, I have no choice but to appeal this to the Seven then abide by their decision. As Iver, I must uphold my family's values. I don't want to cancel the order, but my magic and family oaths leave me no choice."

Maybe. My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all suppressed when they swore their family oaths at the traditional age of twelve. No one knew if the family magics could still pass through the bloodline when their magic was so separated from them Uncle Manfred claimed they were the only individuals he'd ever met who didn't have an aura. He said they looked like walking, talking corpses. I wouldn't risk my magic on the off chance the suppression negated my ancestor's oaths, which I hadn't sworn and wouldn't unless magic left me no choice.

"You presently have an unknown party forging orders bearing the Office of the First Sealer Apprentice's official stamp. A stamp said apprentice had no idea existed until she saw an order that supposedly came from her. This calls into question the legitimacy of every order issued by a sealer from Terry-dae down. Your refusal to investigate the matter makes the Seven complicit in fraud, Amit-dae. Under the charter, the Seven are the Border Guard. Therefore, the Border Guard is corrupt. Iver Copper does not deal with corrupt organizations. Therefore, Iver Copper will no longer conduct business with the Border Guard."

"Fine," Amit bit out.

He snatched a dip pen from a coiled wire rack on the corner of his desk. It rattled, rungs swaying back and forth, as he dipped the pen in ink and scrawled his signature across Kevin's complaint. Then he flipped the page over, skimmed the next complaint, and signed it. The next ten minutes passed in silence interrupted only by rustling paper and Amit's grinding teeth.

White slashes clashed with red in his aura as his shock warred with rage. Not fear, I noted. Fear has a yellow tint around the edges. Fear also indicated intelligence, which I doubted Amit possessed.

"Anything else?" Amit growled.

"Blood and magic," I replied, nodding towards a walnut table pushed against the far wall. Seals worked in gold leaf glittered in the morning sun pouring through a window. It was a pretty piece that complemented the matching desk, bookcases littered with expensive knickknacks, and cabinets.

Amit clenched his fists, inhaled noisily, held it for five seconds, then exhaled. "You're a green apprentice. Terry doesn't even speak to you. How?" he demanded as red slashes consumed the white.

"My grandfather Mitchel taught me well. If you will file the documents and give me my copies, I'll be on my way."

Muttering under his breath, Amit pushed his chair back, snatched the documents off his desk, and stalked to the table. He dropped them inside a circle in the bottom right-hand corner, pricked his finger with a claw, and activated the guardian copy press.

The air hummed with magic as paper and ink flew. The ink stretched and twisted itself into letters, dropping onto the paper. My amulet warmed as Helen's magic pulsed twice – our prearranged signal that Amit had activated the duplicate press in the archives. Investigations didn't officially begin until the archives received their copy.

Back turned to me, Amit glared down at the table as if its very existence offended him. My fingers dipped inside my left sleeve, found the two thread-covered buttons held in place with a single thread, and tugged. The basted on buttons pulled free and fell into my waiting fingers. I palmed them with my left hand, keeping them out of sight.

My family knew about my tool chest. Endellion rifled through it when I left it on the sidelines during my sessions with Aunt Sumati, Uncle Manfred slipped in additional balancers and often refilled my alcohol and glycerin, and Grandfather pinned notes inside the lid whenever he noticed I was running low on pre-made healing seals. They knew its contents backward and forward. They also knew my seals. Catching them unaware required a bit more than a few coins stuffed in my pockets, which Grandfather always made me empty outside his study, so I commissioned silver button forms by the gross and senteris ones by the dozens. Silver worked well enough for temporary seals but lacked sentirus's longevity.

After over three hundred failed attempts, making this my most expensive seal to date, I created a working seal by writing around the inside and outside edges of the washer-shaped button form and both sides. To a half-trained eye, it screamed seal, but it was a button form. Once covered with a scrap of black fabric and woven with a simple death's head design worked in black linen thread, it looked just like the other buttons on Grandfather's cloak, which he still wore daily, and his old uniform. Luckily for me, the Seven hadn't changed their formal uniforms in living memory and Amit wore his, death's head buttons and all. No one would look at these twice, a useful tool in a dangerous game.

Papers shuffled in the background as I casually bent, tightened my left shoelace, and slipped the two buttons underneath my foot. I sidled my foot against the nearest mahogany bookcase, aiming for the gap between the bottom trim and the floor. With a well-practiced curl and flick of my toes, I deposited the buttons underneath the bookcase and turned my attention back to Kevin, who was watching the guardian press in silent fascination, and Amit, who still faced the press his anger written in every tense line of his body.

The gold runes flashed blue. The press stopped.

Snarling, Amit snatched the sheaf of papers off the press and tossed them at my head. They fluttered around me. A twist of my fingers they hovered in mid-air as I pushed the stack back together and tapped the edges. The neat pile settled gently in my outstretched hand. I levitated my contract off Amit's desk and tucked the works into my expanding file, not bothering to sort it.

"Will that be all?"

I stood, brushing lint off my tunic — a winter weight, wool gaberdine Uncle Manfred gave me for my last birthday. The burnt orange tunic and brown drawstring pants matched the tooled leather belt carved with my true sealer rating from Endellion. Rugged and warm, it was the traditional clothing of a working sealer. Worn publicly for the first time, it both showed my standing and further separated me from Terry. As a bonus, it further illustrated the difference between my position and Amit's.

After straightening my sleeves, I headed for the open door with Kevin at my heels.

I paused in the doorway. "One last thing, Amit-dae. Articles nine, fourteen, and twenty-seven. You came perilously close to placing my gates and their primary maintainers at risk. This time, I stopped you out of respect for Diane. Next time"—I shrugged—"I will follow the charter. If after refreshing your memory you still wish to flirt with treason, please do it in front of someone else."