Page 2 of Elemental Affections

Whatever discomfort he’d felt upon first finding her with his envelope, Brint was quick to replace it with his usual condescension. Anadae bit the inside of her cheek to keep her temper in check. “Brint, give it back.”

“A scholarship for nontraditional students?” Brint said, reading the heading. “You’ll never qualify. Even without my name.”

“It’s a conditional stipend amount.”

“Yes, but why don’t you just apply—Oh.”Irritated confusion switched to malicious glee in a heartbeat. “You haven’t told your family. Not just keeping this from me, are you?”

She flushed, lips pinching together.

Anadae’s parents were living a dream life, her father elected to Central District’s Council of Standards in the Transportation division, and her mother taking to being a politician’s wife like a duck to water.

And Anadae … she had been young and foolish. So eager to make her parents happy. So easily dazzled by Brint’s charm and good looks. So damned naïve, thinking she would be his partner, that they would represent a merger of Helm Naval Engineering and his family’s security firm, Avenor Guard. She’d thought that she would still have a life and career of her own.

She’d been wrong. Their personal relationship had guttered out almost from the start, though Brint was careful to seem attentive when they were in public. She’d been discouraged—gently at first, then in increasingly blunt terms—from pursuing any work that didn’t directly support Brint’s career in the capital.

She was told to be patient. Meanwhile, everyone else was moving on, up, happy in their lives. Brint was considering going back to Grae University for his Adept Two. Calya steadily acquired more responsibility at HNE; her life track hadn’t wavered, her place in the family company known and secure. She was the younger sister, yet she’d always been the one with her goals defined and aggressively sought.

Ana had been stuck, drifting without a rudder to steer her life from its depressing downward spiral. Stuck, until she’d seen the scholarship notice posted at the docks. An opportunity for people looking to return to school with a focus on magic. It had felt written just for her.

She may not get accepted, but the notion of Brint, with his “Sweetheart, this is embarrassing” and his amusement of what he saw as her debasement—if those were the reasons she’d never know, never eventry…

Something in her finally cracked.

Anadae had shelved many of her career ambitions, but perhaps so many years managing accounts for HNE and AG projects, of memorizing business partnerships and social circles and having to keep abreast of the constant changes inherent to both realms, would finally work in her favor.

“Doesn’t Avenor Guard use that company from South District for cleanup work?” she said. “The Moroe family’s business, isn’t it?”

Brint stiffened for a moment before turning toward her, a flash of teeth visible through his full beard. He raked a hand through his dark blond hair, his manner easy and oozing congeniality. “We do. This is just a second opinion.” He nodded toward the report he had tucked under his arm. “Didn’t want the boys at work to know I was scouting cheaper options. It’s for future reference, that’s all.”

“That’s good. Reneging on a contract with the Moroes would be…” Anadae cleared her throat.

Brint’s smile turned to a frown, his air of charm souring. “What are you getting at, Ana?”

“I’ll keep your secret.” She reached for her application. “You keep mine.”

At first, Brint didn’t let go, eyes searching her face. Perhaps he sensed that she’d reached the end of her patience, was teetering on the edge of no longer being meek, tractable Ana. He smirked, releasing the papers with a little wave of his fingers.

“Fine. ButSylveren,Ana? You don’t know anything about magic.”

“I took an elective at Grae U. And I had … I had a tutor. Back in primary.” She wouldn’t think abouthimnow.

Brint mistook the reason for her embarrassment. “You’re almost thirty. Little late to start over now, isn’t it? You want to go freeze up in the Valley, surrounded by a bunch of children who know more about magic than you?”

Her stomach clenched. “They aren’t—I’m going for my Adept levels. There’s plenty of graduate students at—”

“The Initiate Ones areteenagersAna, and the magic-born ones will be able to do more than you on the first day.”

“If you’re so worried about how my academic ambitions will look, don’t go blabbing about it to your friends at Grae Port News, hmm?”

Light flared around Brint’s hands as he waggled them in her direction. “Do you even remember how to call light?”

She crossed her arms, refusing to be baited even as a spark of magic zipped beneath her fingers. A puff of light spurred on by a fit of temper didn’t speak well to her control. It was nothing new, his sneering. She’d been asking herself the same things, been fretting over the same fears. It was why the application was still here, hidden away at home, unfinished. Yet, something about the way it sounded coming from Brint and his patronizing mouth put Anadae on edge.

“What do you care?” she snapped.

“You don’t have any magic schooling. You’re going to be rejected, and once it gets out, it’ll reflect poorly on me, and I—”

“I’m applying,” Anadae said. “And if I get in, you’re going to support me—”

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