Chapter 4

Etorsiye. A realm divided into regions centered on castles overseen by warrior-nobles, who apparently still have to learn how to wear ceremonial plate armor even though it's fallen out of use. The climate isn't the polar opposite of Serenthuar's, but it's close. People tend to be very pink, which reminds me unpleasantly of Ormbtai renderings.

But I'll always have a soft spot for the place where I tasted hope for the first time in my adult life.

They returned to the castle long enough for Lord Vhannor to send a report ahead and to arrange for Etorsiye to send and station troops able not just to patrol, but to hold off demons. The swamp Gate wasn't big enough for a sizable force to invade through, as long as someone was watching.

Meanwhile Liris stared down Tenoti, who'd gathered and fetched all her notes on Thyrasel for her. He apologized for giving away her secrets and asked if he could keep the non-Thyrasel notes from the language she'd been teaching him.

"Yes," she finally said, "but you'll have no more help from me."

He looked disappointed but not all that sorry—presumably because he thought Lord Vhannor would reward him. Until the man in question appeared and said, "I will arrange to send you language study materials, but that is all you receive from me until you prove yourself capable of more than self-interest. Ambition is admirable, but not at others' expense."

Only then did he look stricken, and Liris felt better leaving him behind.

It also made her like Lord Vhannor better, which was dangerous. A person who appreciated what she was capable of and was apparently going to help her instead of limiting her... Liris wanted that so badly that she needed to be cautious.

She had to make sure to remember this was going to benefit him and his goals. He wasn't doing this because he just wanted to help her.

That was a dream. And she'd wasted too much of her life believing her dreams were reality.

Never again.

Yet another cart took them the first leg of their journey. Liris had an impossible number of questions to ask but fell asleep instead.

She woke up when it let them off, and Lord Vhannor pressed a package of dried meat into her hands with instructions to eat while he set up camp. Liris wanted to help but also hadn't eaten since breakfast, so she shoved it in her face so she could be more useful lest he leave her behind—and then she fell asleep again.

When she woke up next, it was wrapped in a blanket, to the sound of birds chirping and a pen scrawling on paper.

"Ah, she moves at last," Lord Vhannor said. "Good morning. Food is ready."

Liris sat up, scented soup, and nearly fell over, startled at the loud growl that emerged from her stomach.

Lord Vhannor's lips twitched.

Was that almost a smile from the Lord of Never Showing Emotions?

So maybe it was at her expense, but Liris was too hungry to bring herself to be embarrassed. She slid the blanket off of her, sucked in a breath at the unexpected cold, bundled back up in it and made her way over to the pot sitting on the ground.

"You'll have to eat out of the pot," he said. "I'm not carrying extra bowls. Just use the ladle for the soup."

Liris removed the iron lid and inhaled the aroma of soup with a spicy broth.

"Where were you hiding this yesterday?" She lifted the spoon and blew gently to cool it.

"Pockets."

Liris' eyes widened. "Wait. You shrunk the pot? How—"

"It's an extremely complicated spell for even a small item," he cut her off.

It must be, or else everyone would use it all the time.

Serenthuar most of all, to fit more goods through its main Gate.

Guessing the direction of her thoughts, he said, "There's no way to make it work at scale. You'd need huge numbers of advanced spellcrafters and the infrastructure to support them, and—"

"At a certain point adding more bodies to the problem only complicates it further, yes, I understand the concept of the complexity horizon, thank you."

He eyed me. "You are upset."

She shrugged. "A little, yeah. More that I didn't even know a spell like this existed, which seems like it should have come up in my training. But I get it, the lighter you travel, the less you have to worry about your gear getting lost in demon battles."

She was still mad about it, though.

Liris gulped down the whole ladle of soup to keep her mouth shut.

She knew what happened when she started questioning the ways of her elders and why people accepted the world as it was rather than trying to change the paradigm.

Still watching her closely, Lord Vhannor said, "The rest is all yours, but go slow. We have a long day ahead of us."

"Is that why you let me sleep in?" He didn't seem like a man who was content to sit around.

"That," he said, "and you needed to recover from your first spell. The first magic we work always takes a lot out of us. By tomorrow you won't keep dropping off without warning, and it won't hit you like this again."

That was a relief—though if she did, how long before he decided she was dead weight, slowing him down, or too much to be worth carrying? Liris tried not to inhale the soup and didn't entirely succeed. "Where are we?"

"Still Etorsiye, into the mountains a bit. We have a hike ahead of us today."

Liris looked at him over the ladle. "The way to the nearest Gate in Etorsiye—other than the one in the swamp—is not through the mountains."

Lord Vhannor arched his eyebrows—come on, the locations of Gates at least was very much covered in Serenthuar ambassador training—and nodded shortly. "As long as I'm here, there's another report I want to look into personally, given how the last one turned out. I'll prepare more spells while you finish up."

So, she needed to hurry after all, despite what he'd said. Familiar frustration flashed through her, though she consoled herself that her training had ultimately been good for this too, figuring out when people didn't mean what they said. If she'd understood those nuances younger, she'd have saved herself a lot of trouble, but at least it would serve her now.

Lord Vhannor did seem to actually need to replenish spells, though, so she'd have to keep from being a burden he didn't want to bear in other ways. Liris hadn't had etiquette training applicable to camping, but since he was occupied she could help clean—though of course this took more of his directions, since neither camping nor indeed cleaning were particularly in her repertoire.

But Lord Vhannor seemed like the kind of man who enjoyed providing directions.

So once that was done, and he wasn't, she figured it couldn't hurt to ask, "Now can I help copy the spells?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "For someone who accused me of never taking breaks, you are no better."

Lord Vhannor did actually look relaxed now, or near to. In fact, with the strong lines of his jaw bathed in the soft morning light as he leaned casually back and confidently prepared magic, he looked impossibly attractive.

She focused on the microexpressions that still left his demeanor looking remote, but she was beginning to read as his version of faint, hidden amusement—which unfortunately did not make her feel less warm. "Clearly I have the experience to recognize the signs, then."

He rolled his eyes and waved her over. "Fine. Try this one. The important thing is to start with the outermost circle and make sure you don't close it."

She took the pen he offered her. "That can't be all."

"No," Lord Vhannor agreed dryly. "I want to see what you'll do without further instruction. If you err in a way that could become dangerous, I'll stop you."

Ah. A test. She could handle that.

Liris sketched the outer circle and paused to study the spell. She could discern different patterns, but not why anything was arranged the way it was—the order, the length of the equation, why that notation and not a different one, why so many additional nonverbal patterns at all. She could read the words but had no idea what anything meant—a poetic form, a spell grammar completely outside her knowledge.

She filled it in the way she'd expect to perform it, working her way around one section at a time, all the layers mixed together.

"If all it takes to write a spell is closing some text in a circle, surely anyone could do it," Liris noted as she got into the rhythm of copying each glyph out identically.

"Anyone can. Fortunately, a spell without both clear parameters and without sufficient power simply doesn't work. Have you seen love charms?"

Liris blinked, pausing in her work to look at him. "What?"

He waved off her appalled look. "No, obviously they don't work. No one expects them to. They're popular trinkets—take something circular, like a wood cutout, write that two people will be in love forever, decorate with something trite from a basic spell language, give it as a gift."

"Oh." She turned back to the paper. "Yes, Serenthuar makes versions of those—glass ornaments and small hanging tapestries. I didn't realize that was the most common use—or that people would memorialize commitment so frivolously."

"My point is that they invoke the idea of magic, not that they actually do anything." He paused. "You may wish to warn any future friends or partners that you feel so strongly on the matter before they accidentally offend you. They really are a common gift."

There had never been a reason for anyone to give her gifts, so that was a nonissue. "Thank you. Now I will know not to take offense. Here—is this right?"

A rhetorical question. As long as there was nothing more he expected than an accurate copy, she was certain it was.

His eyes flicked to her work. "Impressive. Fast and precise. Let's get moving."

Liris blinked again. "Didn't you need to replenish your stock of spells?"

"Yes. Now I have plenty."

She frowned. "Then you were just humoring me?"

Lord Vhannor shrugged. "You wanted to, and it's an easy request for me to grant. So if you want to put it that way, yes. If it makes you feel better, I was also curious how much you learned yesterday."

It did make her feel better, though that in turn made her wonder if it was wrong that she trusted being tested more than a favor that came without expectation of repayment. "And?"

"And as I said, you're impressive," Lord Vhannor said. No amusement or admiration in his tone, just matter-of-fact assessment, and somehow that made it hit harder. "Yesterday it was clear you had no training in spell construction, but after one complicated spell, you correctly reverse-constructed how this one would be dispelled. Of course, that isn't actually how we write spells—what you've just done in one try is actually more complicated. You won't get much of that beyond theory until you have a third-tier license."

Oh. He could make an exception and show her—while supervising—because he ran the university. But of course there were more limits she'd have to clear. Of course it was reasonable that she'd experienced what she was instantly certain she wanted to devote herself to and that she would be held back from doing it.

Still passing tests, still more talented than anyone expected, still not able to actually do what she wanted, which was to say, anything that mattered.

"I see," Liris finally managed. She held the pen out. "I suppose we should go, then."

He didn't take it—he looked away from her. "There might be ways to speed up the process," he muttered.

Liris' hand tightened on the pen. Was he stringing her along for something, or did he mean to help?

Lord Vhannor glanced back at her, then scowled and shoved to his feet. "But it will have to wait until you're at the university. Let's get moving."

No promises, but a dash of hope.

Liris had survived on less for longer.

They started in silence. Lord Vhannor thought nothing of doing one nice thing for her when there was self-interest involved, but lacking a plausible excuse made him uneasy, apparently. It made her uncomfortable too, so she couldn't really blame him, and she was plenty occupied taking in their surroundings.

In fact, that was an understatement. She was trained to take in everything at a glance, but then she'd spent most of her twenty-three years of life in exactly the same space. Hopefully she'd acclimate quickly, or she'd be overwhelmed observing and processing every stray detail.

When they emerged out of a patch of trees, though, she sucked in a stunned breath, unable to take in the full magnitude of the view in just an instant. Surely, no one could blame her for pausing.

Liris stepped away from Lord Vhannor's shadow toward the edge of the cliff, gazing into the distance. Etorsiye's haze was still out there, but in clumps like soft gray pillows. She could see through them, beyond and above them: the rolling green hills that seemed to extend forever, speckled with settlements and sheep; the cool, crisp freshness in the air; the sun shining behind them and illuminating it all like a gift.

Before, in the swamp, she'd been struck by the difference from Serenthuar. Now she saw that on another scale: the breadth of the world, the worlds. It was one thing to read about vast, rich landscapes, to memorize facts and see them evoked in art, and it was another to stand on a high edge and feel as though she could gaze out over an entire realm teeming with life.

Lord Vhannor made no sound, but she felt her skin prickle like an icy wind had picked up and knew he'd followed her. "It is remarkable, isn't it?" he murmured, and the hairs on her arms stood at attention at the sound of his voice.

He asked almost like the idea had surprised him, like he wasn't used to just pausing to look, but Liris' eyes pricked with tears. It might have been the brisk wind. It might have been the tangible knowing, that she might finally get to be a part of the enormity of possibilities out there.

"Yes," she whispered; swallowed. Pointed. "Is that—?"

"Yes," he echoed bitterly. "The swamp will take generations to recover. But it will."

A gray patch in the midst of all the green—like someone had sucked all the color out of a painting at just one point.

Any slower, and the whole realm would have been consumed.

Liris took a deep breath, committing this to memory, and then turned. "I'm ready now."

Lord Vhannor nodded shortly, his expression back to its usual equanimity.

Assuming that meant he'd resolved whatever internal conflict he'd been wrestling with, as they started walking again Liris judged it safe to ask, "What are we looking for up here?"

"I'm going to keep that to myself to avoid biasing you."

Liris frowned. "I don't know anything about spells. How could I be biased?"

"I can't explain without biasing you," Lord Vhannor said dryly over his shoulder.

She rolled her eyes. "If you want to know what Jadrhun showed me, you're going to be disappointed, because the answer is nothing."

"Nonetheless."

Fine. "Can you tell me what I should prepare for at the university, then?"

"Sure. " He faced forward again, and although the word was clipped, his shoulders relaxed a fraction.

Liris felt a glimmer of satisfaction that she'd read him right—he did like to give instruction.

Which dissipated when he said, "But there are too many ways to answer that question. Do you know why casters study languages?"

Now it was Liris' turn to scowl; fortunately she was behind him where he couldn't see.

Another test? Fine.

"The more complex the language, the more powerful magic it can work."

"And?"

"And Serenthuar ambassadors don't train in spellcasting."

He frowned at her over his shoulder. "You know this. Power is one factor. The other—"

Oh. "Direction. Specifying what the spell is to do."

"Yes." He turned back, and Liris took a breath.

That was a closer brush with failure than she preferred.

"Invented languages don't have the power of dead languages for spellcasting, but they have an advantage on clearly defined rulesets," Lord Vhannor said. "If you can't effectively communicate your intention in the language's parameters, the spell won't work. The magic can't interpret it correctly."

Now Liris frowned. "That implies human consensus on meaning affects whether magic works."

An almost imperceptible hitch in his step before Lord Vhannor nodded. Ha, recovered. "Exactly. We may use a dead language differently than people who once spoke or wrote it, but as long as those who use it do so in a consistent way, the spell works."

So that accounted for why any proposed reinterpretation of a language was so contentious—and why thorough dictionaries and grammars were so valuable. Serenthuar had libraries full of treatises arguing about words' historical usage and contemporary understandings, though since ambassadors couldn't cast spells, she'd always thought that was a strange choice for how to use their space.

Lord Vhannor's next statement scattered that thought as he said, "The theory is that magic derives meaning through human understanding."

Liris stopped and stared for a second. He heard the lack of sound and paused too, looking back inquiringly at her as if to say, Was there something?

And yeah, there sure was. "But then if the human caster understands their intention, why should it matter if they write the spell correctly?"

He snorted and started walking again, and she scrambled to catch up. "Fortunately for us all, magic doesn't change based on feelings. We can feel hate in our hearts and still choose to build a bridge rather than tear it down. So to your question—"

"What I should expect is to learn a mix of dead and invented languages." Liris didn't know any invented languages, since they were only used for spellcasting, so at least that would be a new challenge.

At first. She knew enough organic languages that it wouldn't last.

"Yes."

Abruptly he whirled and glared at her, his ice-lavender eyes hard. Like he somehow knew she was internally sighing and didn't approve.

Liris was reasonably sure that wasn't possible, even with magic, or else the danger signs would have been part of her training, but it was hard to keep her limbs from freezing with the long-honed instinct of bracing for judgment.

"You start with invented languages, because they are easy to teach and to apply consistently," Lord Vhannor told her reprovingly, as though she'd argued with him. "You can get a first-tier license and work as a caster without any knowledge of dead languages—your spells just aren't likely to be very powerful unless you've also specialized in enough other subjects to introduce more layers of complexity to generate that power. The second-tier license is harder to earn."

Oh! He wasn't just telling her about the university. He was telling her how to become a caster, and why the steps mattered. His tone wasn't because he was mad at her; he was still wrestling with how and whether to help her. And yet:

"This sounds like a lot of language learning and not a lot of arranging patterns for spells."

Lord Vhannor snorted. "You don't say. Despite the... popular imagination of ‘demon hunters', it's why many lose patience well before they ever qualify for consideration at Special Operations."

Oh.It clicked. "The original caster only has to have in-depth knowledge of a few specific disciplines. But someone who needs to be prepared to dispel any spell has to have an enormous background of knowledge readily available. So: either lots of personal experience like you, or a team with distributed knowledge."

And Liris' training did give her an enormous pool of knowledge about languages and cultural patterns to pull from. That was why the Lord of Embhullor could justify the resources it would take to train her as a spellcaster: she was starting behind on knowledge of magic, but way ahead in what took most people the longer time to acquire.

Apparently satisfied that Liris understood his point now without punctuation from his icy visage, he started walking again. And despite the subject, he sounded utterly confident.

Because he wasn't just any demon hunter; he was the lead demon hunter.

For someone else, that might be a lot of pressure. To be on your own and unable to fail.

Maybe that was what he saw in Liris.

"Exactly," he said. "Our enemies—specifically, those who create portals to allow demons entry into the realms—have an advantage over us from the start. Any individual caster can learn enough to create a demon portal with much greater ease than an individual caster can dispel any demon portal quickly—"

Then again. Liris interrupted with a sinking heart, "Or else call on a group with a wide enough pool of knowledge to do so. That's what the university is ultimately for, then: a stable resource of expertise on any possible pattern a demon servant could use."

He just wanted her as a resource to call on. Just like Serenthuar had, before the elders decided to sacrifice her.

So more studying, and maybe she could be useful enough that they would never sacrifice her. Gods, was that it?

Liris looked down at her feet out of habit, then deliberately into the wild unknown around her.

No more keeping her head down. She would look brazenly into the future.

Lord Vhannor had already told her he wanted her knowledge readily to hand, hadn't he? At least studying was a thing she knew how to do, and she could at least actually be useful with it this time.

And once she had her bearings in the realms outside Serenthuar, she could get out.

Liris was beginning to wonder if now that she'd started running, she'd ever be able to stop.

"That's one thing the university is for," Lord Vhannor said, his cool confidence unchanged.

Strange that her internal cosmic shift hadn't been noticeable on the outside.

"You asked what to expect," he said. "Before enrolling at Embhullor students have typically spent years preparing, and you'll be tested when you arrive to place you in appropriate courses. I know Serenthuar ambassadors don't have identical expertise, but given your lack of spellcraft education I'm guessing you'll need to spend more time on the... logistical side of how SRSA operates."

"If you're referring to the politics of how you're able to operate, I doubt it," Liris said. "I know which realms have fewer portals and worry more about infiltration with stationed garrisons, and which realms have more and keep a standing military to deploy as needed. I know which realms are more hostile to any external intervention including from SRSA, or don't have formal agreements with SRSA but will deal with you unofficially, and how Gates are connected and defended and the way a visiting diplomat can visit. The permissions for demon hunters and diplomats are generally written in contrast to each other, and I can extrapolate."

This time it was Lord Vhannor's turn to pause, though he didn't look at her. "I thought you hadn't specialized."

Hmm. Maybe it was her turn to lecture, for a change. "I haven't. I finished learning all that years ago, and I received updates to memorize when terms changed. That sort of information is very basic for any ambassadorial candidate in Serenthuar. I could greet you formally in the standards for any government in the Sundered Realms, recognize enough of their languages' roots to adapt to specific vocabularies and grammars as needed, and rattle off the bedrock of their economies.

"Without specialization, what I can't tell you is, for instance, what a partner in one realm gifts another, or what they wear to parties or talk about with their friends."

Lord Vhannor turned all the way around. "So you can be polite to anyone, but you can't relate to anyone on a personal level without more training?"

That about summed it up. Liris nodded. "The ways of doing that vary by culture, so that waits until we specialize. Avoiding giving official offense to anyone we may meet is necessary for all ambassadors."

His purple eyes searched hers. "That is a deeply strange way of approaching the world."

Liris raised her eyebrows. "Says the man whose realm still supports a fundamentally barbaric government system, Lord Vhannor?"

Lord Vhannor flashed an absolutely devastating grin at her, and wow, that had been worth waiting for. "I can't deny aristocracy and inherited power have plenty of problems, but I admit in my case I'm grateful to not have to worry about running for reelection like some of my colleagues. The continuity guarantees we can keep the university and Special Operations funded."

"Until an inbred successor goes mad, of course."

He cocked his head to one side, looking at her oddly. "That's a thing of the past in Isendhor." The realm where Embhullor was located. "We choose our partners, now."

Liris' heart thumped. Completely ridiculous, that's not in any way the kind of alliance they'd been discussing, but why was he looking at her like that?

At her silence he shrugged. "And you can't tell me populists aren't at risk of madness either."

True. "Or elders," Liris murmured.

They were supposed to have the most accumulated wisdom.

But what kind of wisdom didn't leave space for new ideas, and jailed or sacrificed its youth on the altar of never evolving?

"No perfect system, though some are worse than others," Lord Vhannor agreed. "In my case I can focus on doing my work—"

"Without interruptions from a pesky council you actually have to listen to?"

He rolled his eyes and drawled, "I assure you, they are quite capable of interrupting me despite my cousin's best efforts. Somehow especially when it's not important rather than when it actually is."

"Democracy, so pesky."

"But"—he shot her a look—"since you've mentioned arbitrary class barriers, you might as well drop the ‘Lord'. If I'm not addressing you by title, you ought to call me Vhannor."

That startled her. Permission to use given names was more freely given in some realms and cultures, but Isendhor wasn't one of them to the best of her knowledge.

And since this was a matter of not offending strangers, she did know.

"I don't have any titles," Liris said uncomfortably.

Not ambassador.

Not even candidate anymore.

"All the more reason," the Lord of Embhullor said coolly. "It is unbalanced for one of us to bestow honorifics on the other when it took us both to dispel that portal."

Oh, well, in that case.

Gods, she'd have been moved if he'd claimed a desire to treat her like just another person—that alone would have mattered. If he'd claimed friendship, she might have been flattered, but suspicious. But this reasoning?

This was about what she'd done, and Liris had no defense against that acknowledgment.

He bowed shallowly at her and threw like a challenge, "Vhannor."

Liris' lips quirked, and she bowed in kind. "Vhannor, then."

They started walking again, the silence between them different this time—friendlier? But since Liris had no idea how to not talk about work, she was less comfortable.

Then silver light flared on their left—like glare on a window that didn't exist.

Vhannor's whole body focused, a pillar of ice unwavering in its stare. "This way."

"What was that?"

"Later."

The tension in his voice persuaded her to drop the matter—for now.

Because whatever they were looking for, he'd found it.

It took a few more minutes of hiking through the trees before Liris recognized the signs: the gradual graying. She shivered.

Another demon lay ahead of them.

Except when they stopped a minute later... there was no demon?

Vhannor kicked a pile of fallen leaves with his boot to reveal the radiating black spellcraft lines, and the circle itself was... small. The trees around were obviously dying, but nowhere near the degree of decay in the swamp.

"Has a demon escaped?" Liris asked doubtfully.

"No," Vhannor said, snapping back once more to what Liris was coming to think of as his default no-feelings-only-all-hyper-competent-business-all-the-time mode. "You can see the difference, can't you?"

Obviously. She nodded without rolling her eyes.

"This portal hasn't been active long enough for a demon to have come through," he said. "The ambient magic in the realms is painful to them—what the portals really do is drain magic into the void, and once enough is cleared away, it becomes safe for the demons to enter. A portal this small would take months to drain enough to be a problem."

"Oh, is that how demon hunting teams keep up? When a drop in ambient magic registers, you investigate first to determine how fast it needs to be dealt with."

"Exactly. We never catch up, but we prioritize. A portal going from zero to demon-ready in less than a month never happens—the reason I was here is because two portals pinged close together in Etorsiye where I wouldn't have expected one."

"Jadrhun," Liris began, then shook her head. "Wait, no. I'm confused."

Vhannor nodded sharply. "Come look at the spell."

Liris approached, trying to match Vhannor's calm confidence, reminding herself she couldn't get caught in the spell without trying. Even if she felt a becoming-distressingly-familiar cold, this wasn't even close to being like the demon swamp.

Except it was still a spell to open a demon portal.

She frowned down at it. "Five patterns. I recognize the geometry, the embroidery directions, the Talpathian dirge notation, the—" She tilted her head, walking around the circle. "I think I've seen these marks on maps—near bodies of water."

Vhannor glanced at her sidelong. Was he impressed or disappointed? "They're an archaic way of recording wind and tide movements. And the language?"

She shook her head, heart sinking. Maybe her knowledge wasn't as encompassing as she'd thought. "Nothing I've seen before."

"Unsurprising, since it's invented."

Okay, so that... wasn't a failing grade then, right?

Vhannor passed her a pad of paper. "Copy the spell out while I work on the dispelling preparations—this is small enough that I can handle it without a team, but we'll need a record for the report."

Maybe not. Liris narrowed her eyes. "Is this a trap? Should you be trusting me to copy demon portals? Just because I don't know what it means doesn't mean I can't write it."

Vhannor raised his eyebrows. "And then I'd have a pretty good guess who was responsible and where to find her."

At the university.

Where he could keep her in jail if he wanted, because he was the Lord of Embhullor and they had a voiding autocracy even if there was technically a council and he could make whatever exceptions he wanted.

After a moment Vhannor swore under his breath. "You don't have to. I meant that to demonstrate trust, not—"

Liris accepted the paper.

She'd already committed the spell to memory anyway, and she suspected Vhannor knew that. The trap had sprung before she'd seen it. "I'm happy to help."

He narrowed his eyes at that—how could he know her so well after she'd been unconscious for most of their time together?—but with his nod, they both got to work.

As she sketched, Liris noted, "This spell has more layers than the one from the swamp. It's because the invented language needs more power, right?"

"Yes." His expression hardened. "Notice anything else similar, aside from their purpose?"

Liris frowned for a minute but finally had to admit, "No."

He blew out a breath. "Yeah. Because there isn't."

Okay, so she hadn't failed that test. "And that's... bad?"

"The whole style of spellcasting is completely different."

She got it then. "You mean it's not related to Jadrhun? So, what, it's a completely separate demon servant that just happened to pop up at the same time?"

"The logical conclusion is that Etorsiye is badly infiltrated," he bit out, "except that makes no sense. If Jadrhun didn't know it was here, he must not be in close communication with other demon servants."

Vhannor's grip on his pen tightened, but his strokes remained smooth, smooth.

"Except that spell of his in the swamp was voiding elegant, the mark of someone experienced. Whereas this one is technically passable but a blunt instrument, a hammer compared to a stiletto."

Liris watched—okay, stared at—his hands. So controlled, and so much strength, even when he was ticked off.

"But if Jadrhun knew this was here," he continued, "why open a second portal close by? He must have known that would catch attention—unless he thought all operatives would be too busy and no one would investigate in time."

After a moment, Liris decided that was the full rant and asked, "If you have no reports that would merit that kind of action, could you have missed something?"

Vhannor snorted. "Of course. The question is what. I can't think what we could have missed so badly to require that kind of response, however."

He looked at her expectantly, but what in the world did he expect?

Liris shook her head. She had no better answers.

"Think on it and let me know if you come up with anything," he said gruffly.

Oh. This was a test, and she might not have failed yet, but she was close.

Lord Vhannor was not a person who would bother asking for opinions if he didn't need them. And he had asked her.

And she had nothing.

It was different to fail a test when someone else needed her to succeed.

Vhannor cast a glance over her copying work, nodded briskly in approval as if he hadn't just tried to open up to her and treat her as an equal, and stepped into the circle.

Jadrhun's plans would have to wait. Liris hadn't had a chance to watch Vhannor work before, so now she did so carefully. His assurance, every movement economical and placed exactly as it needed, his deep voice as he spoke the words to destroy this portal to the void were mesmerizing.

But her mind never stopped working, and when the spell had vanished and he looked out at her with bright eyes she said, "You never said how you knew where the portal would be."

"Detection spell," Vhannor answered without pause, taking the pad of paper back from her. "I had it surrounding us while we walked. It's like a transparent shield that flashes if there's a notable drop in ambient magic. We use them when going into suspected hostile territory; they're too complicated to just use all the time."

"So I was trapped inside the whole time?"

"Not trapped," he said.

"Could I have gotten out of it on my own?"

Vhannor paused. "No."

"If I don't know how to get out," Liris said flatly, "it's a trap."

He nodded slowly. "Then let's teach you how to get out of them."