Telmaine

There was no curiosity. They were shown into a room in a part of the house she had never stayed in before when she had attended events as an eligible ducal cousin. The stairway came off the side entrance but was placed so as not to be immediately evident, and the rooms were secluded to the rear, beside a closed and walled garden. Compared to the rooms kept for noble guests, they were plainly decorated and furnished, the furniture well kept but softened with age.

Olivede Hearne rose from an armchair to greet them with an expression of such naked relief that Telmaine could not help feeling an impulse of sympathy for her. Intimidating as it was for Telmaine to find herself arriving here unprepared, it must have been much more intimidating for the healer mage, who had shared Bal’s modest upbringing and had probably never even been past the servants’ entrance in a house so grand.

Regaining her composure, Olivede followed the footmen carrying Bal into the main bedroom, and stepped forward to supervise his settling into bed. The footmen tried to deflect her, insisting that doctors had been summoned, but she ignored them, bending to examine her brother gently. She made no overt magical gestures, but Telmaine recognized the sensation of lightness that she was forced to associate with magic being worked nearby. She could not protest, knowing how much it eased Bal. He was resting comfortably amongst an abundance of pillows when the archduke’s physicians descended, both impeccably groomed, elegantly dressed, and so elevated in manner that they barely acknowledged the wife and completely ignored the sister. Olivede did not protest her dismissal from the august presences; Telmaine did object, though little good it did her. She found herself banished to the sitting room with her daughter and the door shut firmly against her.

“Arrogant sons of . . .” Olivede muttered, before Telmaine shushed her.

“My apologies,” the other woman said stiffly.

“Oh, I quite agree,” Telmaine murmured. “But the children do not need to hear it.” She heard, too late, the plural, and clenched inside.

Olivede put a careful hand on her sleeve. Telmaine made an effort not to pull away. “They will find her,” the mage said. “You have to believe that.”

Telmaine swallowed. “Where is Baron Strumheller?”

“Making a report to Lord Vladimer’s lieutenant.” She shook her head in wonder. “What an extraordinary man Strumheller is. I’d heard about him—one of the healers I work with trained with him—but I never met him until now.”

Telmaine found herself suddenly, inappropriately jealous. “Is he all right?”

“I’ve done what I can with the lungs and the worst of the burns. The stimulant’s going to wear off, and the effects on his mind . . . I don’t doubt he’s personally experienced worse, though I doubt he’s known anything on this scale—I don’t think he was in the city during the influenza epidemic, and I don’t think it touched the Borders. But you have no idea how terrible the touch-sense makes these kinds of events for a mage.” She tilted her head back, loosening her neck. “I have to get back to the Rivermarch. It was bad enough to feel it from half a city away—I hardly want to think of the effect it had on mages who were there. I’ll want Bal’s help, as soon as he’s well enough; he’s very good at helping people who’ve survived terrible events.”

“I don’t think you can go back to the Rivermarch, not while we’re in danger,” Telmaine said, horrified at the thought of either Bal or Ishmael returning to the Rivermarch. She, too, could still feel it, like an oozing sore in her mind.

Olivede sighed. “We’ll be rebuilding for a long, long time, Telmaine, long after whatever was behind this is sorted, and you have gone back to your parties.”

“That’s not fair,” Telmaine said tightly.

Olivede passed an unsteady hand down her face. “No, I suppose it’s not. Sweet Imogene, I’m so tired. I hope those buffoons take care with my brother. I don’t think I have the strength left to undo any harm they do.”

“They are the archduke’s own physicians,” Telmaine reminded her. “I’m going to put Amerdale down to sleep. I suggest you go back to your rooms and rest, with my gratitude.”

“Dismissed, am I?” said Olivede, with a smile so very like Bal’s that it drew all the acid from the comment.

“You are Bal’s sister. One does not dismiss family.”

Olivede’s smile was ironic. “If Bal needs me, or if you need me, call me. I am in the rooms next door. Baron Strumheller has the rooms beyond those—the ones nearest the stairs. He insisted on that.” She made her way out.

Putting Amerdale down to sleep in the cozy and well-appointed nursery off the sitting room proved impossible, though eventually Amerdale agreed to rest on the sitting room couch, as long as Telmaine herself lay beside her. Telmaine did, stroking her daughter’s head and back, trying to use touch to soothe her rather than magic. She listened to the murmur of voices coming from the bedroom, including the occasional distinct phrase from Bal. Presently, the physicians emerged, and the elder of the illustrious two paused to reassure her in orotund and mellifluous tones that her husband was very weak, but would recover with care and time. He did not refer to the magical healings Bal had undergone. She thanked him demurely, reassured him that neither she nor her daughter needed anything besides quiet and rest, and asked him if he would now attend Baron Strumheller. Rather frostily, the archduke’s physician indicated that the baron had declined their attentions.

Balthasar’s fists released their half clench of his pillows as he sonned Telmaine in the doorway. She could smell the physicians’ colognes and the odor of their nostrums in the room, and taste the flavors on Bal’s breath as she bent to kiss him. His lips were dry and sticky. She filled a glass with cold water and helped him drink it.

He said irritably, “They accept no efficacy in magical healing, but fortunately they were persuaded that I did not need surgery now.” He turned his head and sonned the night table, where four bottles of differing sizes stood in a row. “Could you please take that second bottle on the left and pour it down the sink?”

She opened her mouth to object, but she knew that tone: Bal in a rare uncompromising mood. She did as bidden, returning from the bathroom with the rinsed and empty bottle, running her finger over the soaked label, which meant nothing to her.

Bal sonned the gesture and said, “It contained marcas extract. Works well for nervous agitation, but I’ve treated too many people unable to break the dependency to risk it. Telmaine, I’m going to need to send word to my patients that I’m laid up. The Rivermarch clinic will know through Olivede, but my other patients won’t.” She murmured agreement, deciding not to renew the argument about his getting a secretary. He held out his hand for her to take, and she did, settling down on the bed beside him. “I am sorry that this has been your homecoming.”

“Bal,” she said weakly, and managed to smile. “I must say it’s been unlike any other.”

“And I hope will remain so.” He sighed. “Telmaine, have you heard anything about Flori?”

“No,” she said. “But I’m going to ask if Baron Strumheller has.”

“Good,” he breathed. “I don’t like the idea of him refusing to have the physicians attend him. I know from personal experience that when that stimulant wears off, he will feel like death. We should keep aware of him.”

“Personal experience?” Telmaine said. Bal seldom drank and never indulged in stimulants.

She read his memory of crouching over the twins with letter opener in hand, the keen, edgy violence, the unwelcome insights. He said, “Something I used to keep myself on my feet after Tercelle drugged me. She slipped me something so I’d sleep through her exposing the twins.”

“He didn’t tell me that,” Telmaine said of Ishmael. She marked one more stroke against Tercelle’s account, for all the good it did her or the ill it did the dead woman. Then it occurred to her to wonder where her abstemious husband would come by a stimulant that strong. She did not ask; she knew the answer.

Maybe, after this, she would finally persuade him to let that house—and Floria White Hand—go.