Page 101 of Seducing the Sorcerer
“All right. So how did Squab know where to come? Why’d she bring me to you?”
“Well, because a little bit of my magic went into her two years ago?”
“That’s true. But that wasn’t enough for her to follow you home. How did she find the way to you when I turned up?”
“I...don’t know?”
“Your book says ‘magic attracts magic’. Maybe you can’t do nothing, but you haven’t stopped trying, have you? And I reckon it’s the trying Squab could feel. Maybe you did make a light just now, only it was too weak to see? Come on, you know I’ve got the truth of it. You still got a little bit in there, deep down; it’ll just take time before you can do things with it.”
Morgrim was looking at him with serious eyes, but hope was dawning in them. “But there’s old magic at the tower. What if Squab was only attracted to that?”
“My stars! Then how’d I get here?”
“Oh.” Morgrim smiled. “You’re right.” He sat straighter, suddenly. “My Gods! Yes, you’re right!”
“’Course I am.”
“But, Fenn, what if it takes twenty years? That’s how long it took you.”
“It won’t, I’ll wager. But if it does, I’ll be with you. You need to feel a bit of magic, you come to me.”
“Fenn.” Morgrim brushed away a tear. “But what about Tullivo? And the Lutians?”
“Don’t know,” Fenn said, honestly. “But we got a breathing space. We’ll think of something.”
Morgrim shivered suddenly. “Do you know why they took me?”
“Well. To kill you.”
“Yes. But they were going to do it at the coronation. They were going to cut off my head. There. In front of everyone. In front of Aramella.” Morgrim put his hand to his face as if to wipe the horror from his mind. “Then Tullivo would have crowned himself in her place.”
“Gods.” Fenn leaned forwards and, finally, took Morgrim in his arms again. Fenn buried his face in Morgrim’s neck. Morgrim stank of dust and sweat and sour old desperation: a smell that Fenn knew well. “Well, that ain’t happening. That’s the opposite of what’s happening.”
“I know. I’m all right, really. Just a bit shaken.”
“’Course you’re all right. You’re grand. Bravest bloke I ever met. And the best court sorcerer.” Fenn disengaged, gently. “Now. Bet you’re hungry?” He dug in his pocket and brought out a slightly stale roll and a few olives. “You get yourself outside of that.”
Morgrim took the food, examined it, and began picking things off the olives.
“Bit of cat hair, mainly,” Fenn reassured him. “Clean dirt, that is.”
Morgrim gave him another half-smile and began to eat.
Fenn nodded in approval. “That’s it, get it down you. Then we’ll get back to the tower. That girl of yours is worried sick.”
“You mean the queen?” Morgrim said with his mouth full.
“Who else? Had enough? Good. Feel better, don’t you? Aye, you’ll do, now. Come on, I’ll give you a leg up.”
Chapter 21
Fenn woke the next morning with a silk pillow under his cheek and Morgrim’s naked warmth pressed against his back. Fenn stretched without opening his eyes. He was very comfortable. He’d slept for so long in stables and under hedges and in cheap, flea-ridden lodging houses that he’d almost forgotten how good a proper bed could be.
And a naked man in the bed and all.
And not just any man, but Morgrim himself, the master of the Unket Tower; that clever, dutiful, ruthless, compassionate liar, who schemed for power so he could give it away, who was so hard on himself and so wise and yet sometimes so foolish. A man who could personify grace and elegance and then come over all stiff and awkward. A man who was not what anyone thought, and yet who had moulded himself into the perfect court sorcerer and had remained so, despite having lost his magic. A man at once powerful and powerless, a man of marvellous contradictions and endless surprises: Fenn’s man.
Morgrim shifted. He was waking too.
