Page 21 of Tempest

Levi frowned, crossing his arms. “So if you did have magical training, you don’t remember it.”

“Exactly.” Iason sighed. “But Mislia’s a hub of magical knowledge. There are libraries here—possibly even ones known only to the mage circle or the secret army. Former army, I suppose. And we happen to be in thecenterof that army right now, for all that they’ll kill me if they learn who I am.”

“Politics.” Levi shrugged. “It will change in a few years, and then everyone will forget this.”

“In the meantime, if you’re following me around like a stray cat—”

“Excuse me.”

“A stray god,” Iason said, rolling his eyes. “Then we need an excuse for you to be here, and a new identity. You can be… not a cousin, that wouldn’t work. A debt collector, possibly.”

“An employer,” Levi said.

Iason narrowed his eyes. “A menace.”

“A husband?”

Lazaros pushed a pair of spectacles up his nose as Iason, a still-half-naked Levi, and a much calmer Sophie stood in his makeshift office an hour later. There were papers all over Lazaros’s desk, and his demon was moving them about while he frowned at them all, his gaze lingering on Levi’s unnatural hair and odd bearing.

“That’s right.” Sophie had come back from her walk with a steely glint to her eye that worried Iason. “Iason left Levi behind when he ran off to Staria, even though they had two cats together and everything.”

“Sophie.” Iason had warned her not to embellish their story. In fact, he’d told her not to speak at all, but he should have known that would be impossible. “Regardless of how many cats we may or may not have had, this is… where we are.”

“Yes, I’m very displeased with him,” Levi said, looking amused to find Iason the focus of scrutiny. Of course he would. Lazaros noted something on his paper.

“But your husband—Levi. You aren’t Mislian.”

“No.” Levi didn’t bother trying to make their story believable. He just stood there, one hand on his hip, watching Iason. “I am not.”

“But you found him here? How? Through magic? We have wards,” he said. “If someone can break them so easily…”

“We had a homing spell,” Iason said, and Lazaros sighed.

“Ah. One made before we cast the wardscouldbypass them. All right, but the Archivist willwant to see you.”

A young mage came running into the tent, and Lazaros ushered her outside to talk, gesturing for the rest of them to wait. The mage kept her voice low, but Iason heard the wordsbreachandexpected to strike. When Lazaros returned, his demon was whirling through the air, fetching scraps of paper and slipping them into his pockets.

“Is something wrong?” Sophie asked.

“Just the usual business of restructuring a government while a group of loyalists try to shackle you,” Lazaros said. “No matter. I’ll let my people know who you are, so they don’t think you’re intruders.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

Iason turned to look at Sophie, who smiled back with such a carefully affected look of innocence that he had to stifle a groan.

“I was always told guests should help out, you know. It’s polite.”

Lazaros smiled at her. “That’s kind of you. If you’d like, we’re teaching the younger mages how to make protective spell nets—you don’t need magic to do the weaving. Or there’s fishing near the tide pools, but I’m not certain that would be wise, given what happened to you yesterday. We wouldn’t want the dragon to come back.”

“He won’t make an appearance,” Levi said, a little too ominously.

“He came upon us in the deep water,” Iason added. “Perhaps he was just being a territorial, single-minded animal.”

“Hardly single-minded,” Levi said. “From what you told me, he sounds exceedingly clever.”

“If you’d been there, you’d know he probably has a brain the size of a thumb.”

“Fishing sounds wonderful, thank you,” Sophie said, a little too loudly.

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