Seiren couldn't believe Bellamy Southwark, who had appeared so collected and regal, doubted her.

"You admitted you yourself created the things that rampaged through Acrise and have escaped south. Is it just coincidental you aren't caught up in the slaughter? One would even think you released them of your own will and escaped to safety."

"How dare you!" Seiren shouted, leaping to her feet, fire raging through her body. Ashworth and Relish both stiffened. She wanted to slap Southwark's calm face. His eyes bore into her own. Spit flew from her mouth and her voice rose several octaves. "I helped those Acrisians for days to get them through the winter freeze and tried to get them out of Acrise when bloody Butterworth made that order. Do you know how hard it is to lie to his face when he knows I smuggled the lot of them out? He would have murdered them all if I hadn't gotten them away. How dare you suggest it was my plan to release those abominations?"

A warm hand gripped her wrist. She made to yank it away and bent her knee to jam her foot in the belly of whoever was idiotic enough to touch her when she was so mad. She halted and lowered her leg. Rowan's mouth was turned down at the corners in a deep frown. He shook his head, once.

"Ha... ha..."

Disbelief replacing her fury, Seiren looked up to Southwark, who held a hand to his face, chuckles vibrating off his shoulders.

He's... laughing? Even Madeleine sounded flummoxed.

"I'm glad this amuses you so much," Seiren said, frosty.

"For a moment, I saw Kristen Harred."

Seiren froze.

He knew Mother?

"Kristen was a terrible liar as well, and she had quite a temper during her time at King's."

Seiren had never heard of anyone speaking of her mother when she was younger. After she died, people would avoid the topic out of either courtesy or awkwardness -- not that many even spoke to her at King's anyway. And whenever her name had come up, it was always reverence for her talents and personable affect. It somehow made Seiren's memories of her more human, knowing she, too, had her flaws.

You can't be naive enough to think Mother was perfect, can you? Madeleine sounded amused.

No, but it's been so long since I've seen her or heard her voice, all I remember are the good parts.

Well, here's a less good part: remember when she'd taken off to Benover for mage duties that one week when Father was away to retrieve that old book from Cliffe? And he'd told her weeks before he would be away that week. She forgot about us. They had a huge argument when he came back and he realised we'd spent that week at the Feblands' because we had no food.

"You knew my mother?"

"We were in the same year at King's. She was quite a stellar student, popular, a strong sense of justice. We were neck and neck on all the subjects: runes, scribing, accuracy, sportsmanship, history, theory... you name it. She was just a tad more talented than me at burst magic and could progress to flash by the time we graduated." He shook his head. "You are just like her. She was also incapable of lies and believed wholeheartedly in any cause she invested in. If she believed in you, she would take a rune to the chest for you."

Seiren couldn't help but smile, feeling warm to her core. Her smile dropped when she knew what would be next: no doubt Southwark, like everyone she'd met so far, would then express his condolences about her death and lament a waste of a good life. After realising how easily he could read through her lies, she wasn't sure if she could keep the suspicion her mother was alive to herself if Southwark started to probe her for it.

As if sensing her unease -- or even feeling the same -- Rowan piped up, "Did you know of Connor Nithercott, then?"

Seiren's chest tightened at the mention of her father's name. Southwark turned back to the front and shook the reins, urging the horses on again.

"No, I didn't," he said over his shoulder, facing ahead. "Kristen met Connor not long after graduation, I believe? There was a spot of trouble around graduation time because she got kicked off the Young Mage's Council and there was a lot of fuss around her eligibility to be a mage. I think Connor was one of those managing her paperwork. We drifted apart after graduation, but I heard she'd gotten married to him and had twins about three or four years after we graduated. She was well into getting close to the king's mages' group at that point. She ascended very quickly -- not unexpected, given her tenacity once she's invested."

Dad used to tell us about how he met Mother, don't you remember?

Memory's a bit faint, I have to admit, thought Seiren.

She kicked his door down when he was doing her paperwork and she bullied him into telling her something confidential. He never told us it was around her certification, but he said he was taken by how fired up she was for someone so small.

"What was the issue with her certification?" said Seiren, her interest piqued. This was something her parents had never spoken about.

"She argued with the counsellors at King's, saying it was unfair to expect full servitude from mages just for enrolling at King's. Morally, all mages would be glad to help their fellow countrymen, and she accepted that, but she didn't feel it should be an obligation, just because it was a path they chose."

"And what did the counsellors say?"

"They said it was the expectation of the people, and the rules were not made by them. If she didn't want to play by the rules, she should not be a mage. She should have known what she signed up for. They didn't feel it appropriate to certify her despite scoring one of the highest in King's history at the graduation exam. They felt she didn't have the right capacity to be a state mage."

They're careful about control because an out of control mage is collateral damage. Once again, Maura Woodbead's scathing words returned to Seiren's head. This must be what she meant. Her mother couldn't be controlled; the Council of Mages didn't want her. They didn't want to risk her being collateral damage. It was ironic Mother later made it as a king's mage with all this against her before she even got her provisional licence.

"Mages aren't the toys of the country," muttered Ashworth, scowling. "I agree with Harred. Just because we swore to protect our men and we wished to learn magic, it doesn't mean we are their weapons to use at their whim."

"Evidently that train of thought didn't translate to the king's mages now," said Rowan. "They were perfectly happy asking us to execute Acrisians."

The silence was tense.

"Kristen Harred held a long, respected post as a king's mage. It's quite surprising so little of her beliefs remained, even if it has been six years."

Rowan and Seiren exchanged a look.

"I believe you, Nithercott," said Southwark after a pause. "You're a terrible liar. I don't know what the Council of Mages and the king's mages have in mind but it's obvious they have no qualms about misusing research. Halen here -- she developed the distant activation of runes with her throwing knives. They took that from her not long after they realised the potential. You've seen the altered cannonballs at Acrise, right? The ones that explode on contact? Those are the result of another five years' development on top of Halen's and then they started dishing it out to the military mages to use in battle."

Seiren glanced at Ashworth, who stared ahead, fire blazing in her previously ice-cold eyes.

"I developed one-way silencing runes that meant secretive meetings could take place without outsiders hearing, but the insiders could still hear from their rooms. Those were taken to be used in torture. They found Hannans are quite good at keeping secrets despite torture on themselves, but are less so once they hear their loved ones screaming. They are quite obsessed with using all potential magic sources as weapons of war. You can't blame them: the Tophalis family of Hanna is a major war threat."

Seiren felt sick.

"So let's test these weapons of war on our own people. How logical," said Ashworth in a scathing voice, turning up her nose. "I hope this fancy healing hands of yours aren't known to them, Nithercott, or they'll have you on the battlefield running after the soldiers, too."

Seiren swallowed and shook her head. She didn't want to face more questions about the origin of Loren's chaos magic.

"Am I right in thinking Acrise has now fallen, then, because those things made it down?"

"Not necessarily," said Rowan. "There were so many of them there, but they're powered by magic. Kommora Haigh has installed a nullifying rune that covers the entirety of Acrise in case enemy forces somehow overwhelm Acrise with magic. It should be just pure luck that those things escaped the activation; the majority should be dead."

"Ah, so that's why you escaped."

"Us and all the mages. We would be nothing but collateral damage had we stayed."

"I see." Southwark pondered for a moment and then chuckled. "Of course it would be Kommora Haigh who foresaw something like that."

"You know that old bag?" said Seiren. Ashworth let out a guffaw.

"Know? Everyone knows that woman." She swept a few loose strands of blonde hair behind her ear and rested a leg on the seat beside her, legs spread wide ungracefully like a man's. "She's another justice warrior. She thrives on knowing everything that happens and sticking her nose in where she doesn't belong."

"She has an agenda, that one," said Relish in a low voice. "Her connections are wide. Nobody dares to cross her."

"That's a good thing," Southwark said. "With the Council and the king's mage's circle being so corrupt as it is, we need a powerhouse on the outside. Edgard Woodbead was our best bet three years ago, but he's long been disposed."

Rowan's face darkened at the mention of his father's name. Seiren wondered if he still felt the guilt every day from his failed mission the same way she felt about her family's death.

"I hope she's one of your 'connections' in Benover, Woodbead, or we don't stand a chance."

Rowan didn't respond. Seiren watched him out of the corner of her eyes. He seemed engaged in some inner turmoil. Knowing how the king's mages had swooped in uninvited so many times and twisted successes to suit their means, she wouldn't be surprised if Edgard Woodbead's fall was just another one of their tricks, too.

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