Page 59 of Unrivaled
I’ve considered our position.How would you feel about casting a Mindslock on any potential future mages who get access to the Glow secrets?—in a letter from High Magelord, Bearer of All, Gautier the First, to the First Guidelord, Luis
1stDay of Spring’s One Moon,
Age of the Locways, Year 272
La’Angi City
She wouldn’t tell me why she wouldn’t go after the children.I didn’t push.Isolde wasn’t the sort of person you could encourage to open up.
I walked through a big block of apartments with Ettie.Every now and then she’d take her walking stick and whack a sagging wall or soft segment of floor, grunting in disgust.“I’m glad whichever bastard owned this is fertilizing the orchard,” she said, by the end.“You’d do better to knock it down and start over.”
Looking up at it from the street, though, made me worried.There were more houses crowding close on all sides.Most of them were now mine.
I didn’t have time to level every less-than-ideal building.But I also couldn’t put people into something that could come down on top of them.
“I need someone who’s spent time building,” I told Ettie.“Do you know anyone?”
She sucked on her teeth, thinking about it.“Could do.Depends if he’s alive.”
That she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead meant he wasn’t local.“Where does he hail?”
“Ange’s Pass.”She rapped her walking stick on the ground.“He does the maintenance there.There’s plenty of it, I hear.”
It was another point of good news.Yasmine was heading my way from Ange’s Pass in just a few weeks to help review the orchard around the tourney grounds and help me figure out how I could best expand it to allow for the glut of people I was anticipating would be brought to La’Angi for the faire.I wasn’t above seeing if Ettie’s fixer might want a holiday.
“Know anyone else?”I asked her.“I don’t like the look of that.”
“People’ve been living in it.Or they were.”
But what damage might’ve happened over the winter months while it sat empty?Had the disrepair been so extensive, or could the damp and cold, going unchecked, have had a serious impact?I didn’t know.Ididknow I didn’t want anyone to live in those conditions.
We were raising the expectations, not lowering them, after all.
I spent a few more hours touring the housing options.None of them looked great.But if I didn’t step in and make those homes publicly accessible, I’d still need to deal with those issues.They shouldn’t have been allowed to get to that point.
“Can you remind me I need to review laws around building safety?”I asked Isolde as we veered toward the docks.
She considered it.“I might recall that.”
“I’ll accept that.”I pretended to ignore the two bored guards who followed behind us.“How long do you think these buildings can stand empty before they take real damage from the damp?”
“On the docks?”she glanced around.“Not long.Nothing down here stays dry.”The crew of the Ally saw us, and she sighed as shouts rippled through the people who looked to be loading supplies.“You’re staying on solid ground, aren’t you, my lady?”It wasn’t a question.
“Sure.”I lifted a hand to the rapidly approaching captain, glancing towards the nearby inn.“I might duck in here out of the weather,” I told the two guards.“Could I get you two to watch the door?”
The Captain, hearing this, looped their hands into their belt and strolled along beside me.“Ports this quiet are eerie,” Elnyta said, glancing around.“Can’t wait for this place to liven up a little.”
“Agreed.”I opened the door.It stuck, swollen from the damp.During that moment I was back in the orchard, looking for the innkeep who’d maintained the tavern on the main road south as long as I could recall.Then the door gave way.The tavern smelt musty, but not of death.Tension I hadn’t noticed I held eased from my muscles.
Isolde came inside with us, moving through the dark.With her in the shadows, I had naught to fear.
“Nice place you’ve got here, princess,” the Captain drawled.
A moment later, Isolde lit the light and set the lamp down.“I’m checking the neighboring buildings,” she told me.“You’ve got a half-hour.”
The Captain’s brows rose.“If you’re planning on killing me, it might take you a little longer’n that,” they told me, resting a hip against the table.“Shame.You’ve got such nice hands.”
“My hands can do a lot of things other than killing you.”I realized I’d walked into their attempt to flirt and felt the discomfort to my core, but tried to disguise it by pulling out the map.My response was in kind, wasn’t it?I hadn’tintendedfor the extra meaning, but they didn’t know I’d been thinking of stamping official documents.I didn’t dare look at them.“We’ll mark this one up.I’m going to send some of the watch.”
