Shade & Sorceress (The Last Days of Tian Di, #1)(6)

Eliza cried, “Nothing! I didnay do anything!” but she couldn’t hear her own voice over the siren. The sound stopped all at once and the silence was like a great muffling blanket. Eliza was still on her knees, shaking. Anargul yanked her to her feet and without another word pulled her out into the hallway. Eliza had to half-run to keep up with the long, swift strides of the Mancer. The hallway was broad and tall enough that a Giant would be able to walk down it quite comfortably, which gave Eliza the unsettling feeling that this place was not designed for beings like her at all. Anargul led – or rather, pulled – Eliza down a staircase and along yet another hallway that seemed to stretch on towards the end of the worlds. There were no doors, no windows, no pictures, just the white marble of the walls and ceiling and a thick red carpet underfoot that swallowed the sound of their footsteps. Anargul stopped suddenly and knocked on the wall. Where she knocked, the marble seemed to ripple and then a door appeared. Eliza blinked, trying to take this in. But there was no time to wonder at it. Anargul opened the door and firmly directed Eliza through it. Then she shut the door behind her, leaving Eliza alone with the formidable being within.

~

“Eliza Tok,” said a voice like a great bell. “I have waited too long to meet you.”

They were in a spacious, wood-paneled study lined with bookshelves on two sides. Blank scrolls hung on the far wall, around a stone fireplace. There were two chairs facing the broad marble desk in the centre of the room, and behind the desk sat a Mancer. The brilliance of his eyes lit the room like sunlight bursting through cloud, and so she could not look closely at his face. What she saw of him, at first, were simply his powerful gold hands folded before him on the desk.

“Sit, won’t you?” His voice reverberated in her very bones and at the roots of her hair. “Are you hungry?”

“Nay,” she said. She didn’t want to sit, but her fear was greater than her anger now and she obeyed. The chair was much too large for her and her feet dangled foolishly off the ground.

“But you had better eat, I think,” said the Mancer, and he smiled. Squinting at his face through the brightness, she glimpsed a row of gleaming white teeth. The smile was brief, crumbling almost as soon as it began. “I am Kyreth, Eliza Tok.”

“What do you want with me?” she demanded. Her voice sounded small and weak to her but it was comforting, somehow, just to hear herself.

It was difficult to make out his expression, but she could have sworn he looked puzzled. At that moment, the door behind her opened again and a small woman with grey streaks in her dark hair came bustling in with a tray of food. She very efficiently unfolded four long legs from the tray, so that it became a little table, and placed it in front of Eliza. It contained a plate of steaming waffles smothered in berries and whipped cream, as well as sausages and eggs and fried tomatoes and a big mug of hot chocolate.

“Missus Ash,” Kyreth intoned, by way of introduction. “She will take care of you, Eliza Tok.”

“Oh,” said Eliza, at a loss for words. Seeing such an ordinary-looking woman in a place like this was almost more surprising than being surrounded by Mancers, or doors appearing in walls, or sirens going off. Missus Ash gave Eliza a quick, friendly smile and then said cheerfully to Kyreth, “Let me know if she needs anything else, aye,” almost as if he were just a man and not this terrifying being with blazing eyes. Kyreth gave a single nod and Missus Ash left them alone again. The archipelegan aye had startled Eliza and she stared after the woman a moment, wishing she had stayed.

Reluctantly, she forced her gaze back towards the Mancer.

“Why am I here?” she asked again, more forcefully.

“Has it not been explained to you?” The Supreme Mancer sounded shocked.

Eliza couldn’t remember if it had been or not. What she had heard had not made a great deal of sense.

“There’s been a huge mistake, aye,” she ventured. “They think I can do Magic, and something about my ma, but Ma could nay do any Magic and neither can I.”

“I am sorry,” Kyreth said. “It must seem as if we have kidnapped you. To be accurate, I suppose we have kidnapped you, but believe me when I tell you it was absolutely necessary, that of course you will see your father soon, and that you will come to understand the necessity of our actions.”

Hearing again that she would see her father calmed her slightly. The smell of the hot chocolate got the better of her and she raised the mug to her lips. It wasn’t as if they were likely to try to poison her, after all. It was the perfect temperature, hot and soothing, but not so hot as to burn her tongue. It was the best, richest, most chocolaty hot chocolate she had ever tasted.

“I will answer all of your questions, Eliza, but first we have an urgent matter to take care of. The sound you heard a few minutes ago was the Citadel telling us that Unauthorized Magic was being done on the premises. I suspect...indeed, I hope...that it was something you did. Perhaps accidentally. Before you heard the siren, Eliza, did you try to do something?”

“I’d just...I didnay know where I was,” said Eliza. “I was getting dressed.”

She realized she was terribly hungry after all and began on the waffles. No point starving herself, after all. They were delicious.

The Mancer’s voice was heavy. “It is very important that you be honest with me, Eliza. Did you do any Magic?”