Page 26 of Silvercloak

“Save it.” Nissa rolled her eyes. “I overheard your conversation with Aspar. You’re going undercover? Into theBloodmoons?”

“No.” A vehement head shake. “You misunderstood.”

Furious thunder broke across Nissa’s face. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Why would Aspar let me go undercover?” Saff argued. “The trial was true. I am a fraud. I forged my Enchanter certificate.”

Nissa mimicked, in an alarmingly accurate impression of the captain’s northern accent, “Bide your time. Root yourself in the order of things. Then plot means of gathering evidence.”

Saff sighed, breath gusting out like her lungs were bellows. “Fine. I’m going undercover. Happy?”

Nissa simply stared at her, as though it were a stranger standing before her in a shabby black cloak.

Saffron averted her gaze, looking instead at a rack of garish pulp magazines. On one cover, King Quintan lay beheaded at the foot of an ogre-faced Bloodmoon. Piles of ascens lay discarded around them, as though the monarch had been shaken loose prior to his execution. The pulps always reflected public opinion, and public opinion of House Arollan had soured of late, thanks to the Crown’s lack of action against the Bloodmoons.

“But you did lie your way into the Academy.” Nissa refused to drop her glare. “You’re not an accredited Enchanter, are you?”

Saffron shook her head. “Just a lowly Mage Practer. I can cast enchantments—damn well, in fact—but magic doesn’t have an effect on me. I couldn’t enchant myself, so I fell short of specialization standard in mage school. I forged my certificate, then got through the Academy with illusionwork.”

Nissa’s expression darkened. “So when I used dragonbreath charms on you in bed … you faked it?”

Saff laughed roughly. “That’s where your mind goes first? Anyway, this quirk of mine means I’ll be immune to the sick and twisted loyalty measures inflicted by the Bloodmoons. Great silver lining, I know.”

Something fierce and protective passed over Nissa’s face, those golden eyes shining like lit torches in a dungeon. For a moment, Saff felt as though she had won the breakup—she might have been left, but here Nissa was, a year later, stillcaring.

“What are they going to do to you?”

Nissa clenched her fist so tightly that her claws appeared. Long, sharp, obsidian talons that only paid credence to the rumor of Nissa’s dragonesque heritage. Saffron had asked Nissa about her fabled ancestry a handful of times—her favorite book,The Lost Dragonborn,centered on a boy with dragonblood who was critical to a devastating war between mages and dragonkind—but her questions had always ended the same way: with Nissa giving her the cold shoulder for several days, and nothing even resembling an answer. Not wanting her lover to feellike a zoo exhibit, Saffron had eventually stopped asking. But she never stopped wondering.

Blinking away the memory of those claws digging into the arched round of her hip, Saff grimaced. “I’m sure whatever your imagination can come up with is only the half of it.”

“Hells, Killor.” Nissa tucked a lock of sleek black hair behind her gold-studded ear, displaying the column of runes Saff had so often ran her tongue down. “Do youwantto do this? Or was your hand forced?”

“I want to do this. I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Nissa’s jaw hardened as she drew again on her achullah. “Because they killed your parents.”

A memory rolled into Saff’s mind, clear and glistening as a marble. She and Nissa talking in low voices, late at night by the fire in the common room, her head in Nissa’s lap. Nissa sipping flamebrandy while Saff recounted, in painful detail, what happened the evening her parents died. Nissa hadn’t said much, only stroked Saff’s silver-blond hair absently as she stared into the flames, but that night had been some of the best sex they’d had. No longer just hands and lips and flicking tongues, but hearts and minds too. No longer just a careless fling, but somethingdeeper,more urgent, a new texture to their relationship.

Nissa ended things less than a week later. Saffron understood why she’d done it—self-preservation, or perhaps cowardice—but it still stung more than she cared to admit.

“They killed my parents,” Saff confirmed. “But Nissa, you can’t tell a soul, do you understand? If this secret leaks, then—”

“You’ll be dead. Got it.” A hard pause. “Are you scared?”

“No,” answered Saffron, and it was at least partly true. She’d always possessed a kind of nihilistic fearlessness, a bravery born not from heroism or gallantry but from the fact the worst had already happened. Yet she couldn’t deny the churn in her stomach when she thought of what might be about to happen to her—body and mind. “Are you angry? That I lied?”

“No. I’m jealous as all hells.” Nissa gave a grudgingly admiring smile as her claws receded. “Goodbye, Killor.”

“Wait. The captain told me there’s a Compeller in our cohort. Ididn’t think it could be you, since your wielding is so strong. Do you have any idea …?”

Nissa’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t seem wholly surprised. Perhaps she’d felt the guiding hand at her shoulder during the final assessment, the almost imperceptible voice in the back of her head sayingNo, do this instead. “I don’t know. Gaian is in Pons Aelii and Sebran’s in Carduban, but I’ll keep an eye on the other two—we’re meeting for drinks at the Jaded Saint later.” Loneliness panged in Saff’s chest. “Frankly I’ve always found Auria a little suspicious.”

“Well, yes, but only because she’s always on time.”

Nissa nodded sagely. “Exactly. Suspicious.”

Something else occurred to Saff. “Oh, and back in the final assessment … what was the alternative information you received? I’ve always wondered.”

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