The Enchanter Heir (16 page)

“The answer is no,” Gabriel said flatly. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“Lilith warned me that she won’t allow us to kill shades anymore. She threatened to destroy us if we keep at it. She said they will continue to kill mainliners, and we’ll get the blame.” He paused. “Speaking of risk, did the papers mention anything about nightshade?”

“Nightshade?” Gabriel’s head came up. “What do you mean?”

Jonah tossed a handful of crushed herb onto Gabriel’s desk. “They scattered this all around the killing field. It’s part of the plan to eventually link it to us.”

Gabriel poked at the nightshade with his forefinger. “Did anyone see either of you? Could you be identified?”

“I don’t think so,” Jonah said. He looked at Alison, and she shook her head.

“Good,” Gabriel said. “We’ll have to hope nobody makes that connection.”

“Don’t you think they’ll find a way to make that happen?” Alison said. “I mean, we’re wearing Nightshade amulets, and we have the tattoos. Assuming they know that, then . . . ?”

Gabriel sat, very still, for a long moment, then dropped his hands. “If they want a war, we’ll give it to them.”

He looked at Alison and jerked his head toward the door. “Alison, if there’s nothing else, I’d like to speak to Jonah in private for a few minutes.”

Alison stood and slumped out of the room, with many backward looks.

When she had gone, Gabriel leaned back against his desk.

“I’ve been getting a strong vibe of frustration from you for months,” he said. “It seems like you question every decision I make. Do you want to talk about it?”

No
, Jonah thought of saying. But, actually, he did. “It’s a number of things. Beginning with the mission.”

“Go on.”

“I just don’t see why it’s our job to finish what the Black Rose began.”

“Is that how you view what we’re doing?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Gabriel rose, crossed to the refrigerator. “Would you like something to drink? I probably have something that would—”

“No, thank you,” Jonah said, unwilling to make this tiny concession.

Gabriel rummaged in the refrigerator for a few minutes, then returned to his chair empty-handed. “When I established the Anchorage, I committed myself to all of the victims of Thorn Hill—the living and the living dead. For the survivors, a home, an education, and care appropriate to their unique needs. For the others, a pathway to rest, while protecting the public. You’ve been critical to this effort.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Jonah said. Lilith’s words echoed in his head. “It seems to me that the shades want to survive as much as anyone else. Who am I to put them to rest, as you call it?”

“You’re not killing them, Jonah! They’re already dead.”

“What about Safe Passage?”

“Or nearly dead,” Gabriel amended. “If you were them, what would you want?”

“That’s just the thing. I
am
them.”

“Fine. Would you want to spend eternity in a constant quest for somebody to slaughter so you could live in his body for a little while? And when it began to decay, try and find another victim before you were too far gone to hunt? Is that what you would want?” Gabriel’s voice rose as he spoke, until he was practically shouting.

Still, Jonah was getting more fear than anger.

“What I want doesn’t matter. It should be their decision.

How are they a threat to us?”

“You’re all right with slaughtering children?” Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

“Of course not! But why is it our job to prevent it?”

“Because we’re the ones who can do it. If we don’t, then who will?”

“I’d rather take a different approach—by researching what poisoned us and developing effective treatment before it’s too late.”

“I’ve been working on that for ten years,” Gabriel said.

“That’s my area of expertise. Don’t you think that if there were better treatments, I would’ve found them?”

Gabriel paused and, when Jonah didn’t respond, said, “Is there anything I can do to make your life easier?”

“You can find someone else.”

“I know Jeanette’s death must have been tough on you.

She was . . . a very special person.”

“Yes. So special, she didn’t deserve to be murdered.” Tired as he was, Jonah couldn’t stand to sit anymore. He shoved to his feet and crossed the office to the window. Down below, a freighter was threading its way upriver.

“All right, Jonah . . . you win,” Gabriel said to Jonah’s back. “I’m going to pull you from fieldwork.”

Jonah swung around to face him. “What?” Gabriel laughed. “Oh, don’t worry . . . you won’t wriggle off the hook so easily. I have something else in mind for you. I wasn’t going to bring this up so soon, but . . . it’s time that I began thinking about a successor.”

“A successor.” Jonah swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry.

“I was hoping that you might consider taking that on.”

“Me? I’m seventeen!” Jonah blurted. “How would that work?”

“You’re seventeen now, yes, but you’ve literally grown up here. There is no one I trust more, no one who is more knowledgeable about the entire operation. We have adult staff, yes, but nobody with our history. Nobody who has invested so much of himself as you have. My thought is that you could spend the next several years as my apprentice.” Gabriel smiled wryly. “I could use the help.”

“How would that be different from what I’m doing now?”

“You’ll spend more time here at the Anchorage. I could begin introducing you to our patrons, both Weir and Anaweir. You could get to know more about Weir politics, and make the contacts you’ll need as school director. That way, when the time comes, you would be seen as my heir apparent—as school director, for the music business, and so on. Everything but Nightshade.”

“I’d be out of Nightshade?” Ludicrous as it was, regret pinged through Jonah, leaving him feeling hollowed out, without purpose.

“That’s what you want, right? I would ask that you continue your role with Safe Passage—for the benefit of our students. And continue training our most promising candidates in the gym. Otherwise, your role would be more . . . administrative.”

“If I’m out of the field, then who’s going to—”

“We’ll have to work smarter somehow. Use a team approach, develop more weapons, I don’t know. It’s not fair to keep exploiting you just because we can.”

Jonah’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. “You’re not exploiting me, exactly. You’re doing what you feel you have to do. But—as school director—wouldn’t you want someone with a gift other than . . . than killing?”

“You have many gifts, Jonah. We just need to allow you to deploy them. You have considerable charisma and persuasive ability . . . you’ll be brilliant at attracting funding support.”

“Even if you have to go outside of the Keep, it seems like you might want someone with a real education.”

Gabriel lifted an eyebrow.

“No offense, but I’ve been gone more than I’m here. Even when I’m here, I’m distracted. I read a lot, but—”

“I know. We’ve demanded a lot of you. Now, at least, you might have the chance to focus on your education. Anyway, people won’t be beating down the door to take this job. There was a time that I hoped Jeanette might.” He shrugged. “The other reason I hope you’ll say yes is that you’re a musician, like me. I want someone who can manage it all—the club and music-promotion side as well as the foundation. It’s unlikely that I’ll find someone with every asset we’d like to have. But you come the closest.”

“If I do this, will I have a bigger voice in policy?” Jonah asked bluntly. “In how we use resources? In deciding what the mission is?”

Their eyes met for a long, charged moment.

“Eventually, yes,” Gabriel said. Which Jonah read as,
Not anytime soon.

“Then my answer is, eventually maybe,” Jonah said.

Gabriel laughed. “I guess I asked for that.”

“Who’ll run Nightshade, then? After you’re gone?”

“Hopefully, after I’m gone, there won’t be any need for Nightshade anymore,” Gabriel said. “Certainly it will be a chance for someone to take the program in a different direction. Why don’t we give this a try for a while? You can spend more time with the healers and educators here. I’ll begin introducing you to some people. We can meet periodically and you can let me know how you’re doing, and whether you want to continue on.”

“All right,” Jonah said. “We’ll see how it goes.”

“Good,” Gabriel said. He thrust out his hand. “Your Nightshade amulet?”

Jonah drew back, closing his hand over the pendant, oddly reluctant to give it up. “Let’s wait,” he said. “We’ll see how I like sitting behind a desk.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Gabriel dropped his hand. “It’s hardly
that
boring,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Speaking of desk work, I’ve been wondering: Are there any files, archives, records, and like that from Thorn Hill here at school? Or are they kept somewhere else?”

That wary, guarded expression returned. “What is it you’re looking for? Maybe I can help you find it.”

“I’m not sure what exactly I’m looking for,” Jonah said. “I’m just hoping that something will jump out at me that will help me figure out exactly what happened. You mentioned that sorcerers may have conspired with the Wizard Guild to compound the poison. I’m wondering if they might have been working at the commune.”

“I’m afraid that pretty much all of that was destroyed after the massacre,” Gabriel said. “As you can imagine, things were chaotic for weeks afterward. People were worried that wizards would either find or plant incriminating evidence in the records, and so a lot of material was shredded or burned. I was able to find some records from the compounding labs, and of course, I’ve gone over them with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anything that might be helpful to survivors. Some of the treatments we’ve devised have grown from those discoveries. But I think that mine’s played out. You won’t find anything useful here.” He stood, signaling that the meeting was over. “If you have any more ideas, don’t hesitate to share them with me. Sometimes fresh eyes can identify new solutions.”

On his way back to Oxbow, Jonah played their conversation over in his mind. In a way, Gabriel was offering him a promotion. But it didn’t feel that way. To Jonah, it sounded like good-bye. He was getting the message that he was definitely off Gabriel’s A-list.

Or did Gabriel have another reason for wanting to kick him out of Nightshade?

There was one more thing that weighed on Jonah’s mind. When Gabriel said that all of the records from Thorn Hill had been destroyed, Jonah read that as a lie. Which made him wonder what might be in the records that Gabriel didn’t want him to see.

Chapter Seventeen
Trinity Faire

“Are we invited to this event or are we just crashing it?”Jonah asked as they crossed the parking lot toward Trinity Square.

“We weren’t
explicitly
invited,” Gabriel said. “But it’s open to the public. I thought it might be helpful for you to see the seat of the Weir government and meet some mainliners in a nonofficial capacity. It’s always best to get to know people when you’re not asking them for something.”

“What
do
we want from them?” Jonah asked. “Right now we have no representation on the Interguild Council. I’ve been working to change that, but haven’t been able to attract much support.”

“How would it help us to have representation on the council?”

“We need to be at the table when decisions are made that affect us. Especially given the misconceptions people have about the Anchorage. Meeting you . . . interacting with you . . . that should change some minds. This is what we call outreach.”

I’m the poster child again, Jonah thought, with a stab of resentment. Because I’m pretty to look at. Because my disabilities aren’t obvious from the outside.

“Just remember,” Gabriel said, “you’re a diplomat, now. Use that Kinlock charm. Although mainliners are not at risk from us, they may not understand that. They tend to be edgy where savants are concerned.”

“So I should keep that scaly tail tucked inside my jeans?” When Gabriel frowned at him, Jonah raised both hands. “Totally harmless, that’s me.”

They passed under a banner emblazoned with the legend
Trinity Medieval Faire
. Jonah could hear strains of lute and recorder and the cadence of drums.

Jonah took in the crowded square—families, tourists with cameras, many clothed in period dress. “They aren’t all mainliners?” Somehow, he’d expected that they would be.

Gabriel shook his head. “The town is a mix of Weir and Anaweir. Today there’s lots of both. People come from all over to shop and have a good time.”

Tents lined the square, mostly artists and craftpersons selling their wares, with a few armorers and purveyors of medieval clothing. Food stands sold such medieval delicacies as turkey legs, deep-fried Twinkies, and “gyros of the realm.”

“Gabriel!” someone called as they passed by a booth offering handwoven clothing.

Gabriel turned aside and greeted the woman tending the booth. “Mercedes! I haven’t seen you since last year’s concert.” They air-kissed, and then Gabriel put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Mercedes, this is Jonah Kinlock, one of the students I’m mentoring. Jonah, meet Mercedes Foster, sorcerer, healer, and handweaver.”

Foster was all legs and arms and clouds of wiry gray hair—like a bright-eyed bird with handwoven plumage.

“Pleased to meet you,” Jonah said politely, nodding to Mercedes. Thinking, This is a waste of time. Why should we come here and beg these people for acceptance?

“How did Natalie do at the clinic this summer?” Gabriel asked Mercedes.

“That girl is amazing,” Mercedes said. “Especially when it comes to diagnosis. It’s like she can see through a patient’s skin and identify the problem. Send her back to me, please!”

Gabriel laughed. “Oh, no, that was just a loan. I need her at the Anchorage.”

“Gabriel, if you have a minute, I have a question about a medicinal that I’m having trouble sourcing.” The two sorcerers launched into a discussion of tinctures and extractions.