“If I need help swimming, I’ll let you know.”

Kaldar opened his mouth as if to say something else and snapped it shut.

“Is there more?” Richard asked. “Out with it.”

“If you marry her, you would become a member of the al Ran family. Lady Augustine al Ran, the woman who adopted her, must grant her approval.” Kaldar pulled a small clear imager cube out of his pocket and handed it to him. “Watch this before you do anything else.”

He walked away.

“Kaldar!”

His brother turned and looked at him. Kaldar was genuinely worried for him. His brother wore his jokes and humor as armor. That he’d dropped it for his sake spoke volumes. When Declan had first approached him with his proposition to hunt down the slavers, Richard never considered what might happen to Kaldar if he failed. Seeing families torn apart had taught him to pay better attention to those who mattered most to him. His brother had a wife who loved him and the support of what remained of their family, but if something happened to him, Kaldar wouldn’t take it well. At the very least, he could give Kaldar the satisfaction of knowing he did everything he could to save Richard from himself.

“We’ll watch it together.”

Kaldar grimaced, turned on his heel, and joined him. They walked to the house side by side. Richard had considered the possibility that Charlotte might leave him, stolen away by the glamour of blueblood society. Her adoption into the first ten made it even more likely.

The cube was cold in his hand. He entered the house and approached the imager. It sat to the left of the couches, a tall, round table about a foot and a half in diameter, with ornate metalwork decorating its single leg. A brown-and-gold carapace of polished metal guarded the top of the table. He touched it, and it split down the middle, the two halves of the carapace sliding down the table’s sides, revealing a delicate surface inlaid with strange designs. A pale blue glow shimmered along the surface, bathing the designs in its gentle radiance. At the center, three metal prongs rose in the semblance of an inverted bird leg armed with wicked talons.

He looked at the cube. Something told him he really didn’t want to know what was on it. The Mirror was the realm’s magpie: it gathered bits of information, some precious, some useless, and dragged them to its archives, like a foolish bird dragged baubles that caught its eye to its nest. There was no telling what he would see.

The talons waited.

He would rather know. Richard dropped the cube into the claws. The prongs closed about it. A dim blue light ignited within the cube, and an image of Charlotte formed above it. She was sitting on a balcony, somewhere high above. She looked younger, softer somehow. Her hair was gathered into a roll like a crown on her head, and her dress, a pale green, spilled on the floor. She truly did look like a princess.

A man stood next to her. He was slender, his hair a light brown. He wore a light jacket, fitted with crisp precision to his frame, matching pants, soft boots. The clothes announced money and a good tailor.

“You look very nice, Elvei,” Charlotte said.

“Thank you. You look divine, as usual.”

Elvei. Her ex-husband. Richard peered at the man’s face, assessing him as one fighter would assess another. Unless the man was an incredibly gifted flasher, Richard was reasonably sure he could take him. He could find no resemblance between himself and Elvei. They looked nothing alike. Perhaps that was part of the attraction. A selfish part of him said it didn’t matter why she liked him, but still, he wanted her to be with him because of who he was, not because of how he compared to the man she’d chosen before.

Elvei sat in a chair near the bench. “I hope you don’t mind if I pry.”

“I can’t say that I will until you ask me the question.”

“Then I will just come out and ask it plainly. Why is it necessary for Lady Augustine al Ran to approve our union?”

Charlotte leaned back. “I’ve told you the story of how I came to be at the College. I was taken from my family when I was very young. Over the years, I’ve come to think of Lady Augustine as my mentor. Her opinion is very important to me. Why is this troubling to you?”

Elvei smiled. “It appears today is my day to be blunt. I commend you for your devotion to your mentor, but the extent of the Lady al Ran’s inquiries into my background has been exceptionally . . . comprehensive. She requested the files on the first seven generations of my ancestors.”

“Do you have something to hide?” Charlotte asked.

“Of course not.”

“Then don’t trouble yourself.” She smiled and reached out to caress his face. The muscles in Richard’s arms tightened.

“You worry too much, Elvei.”

“Charlotte, you are of age and have been for quite some time. You don’t really need her permission to marry.”

“Elvei, I would never consider a long-term relationship, let alone marriage, with any man who hadn’t met with Lady Augustine’s approval. She’s like a mother to me, and her view is vital.”

“And if she disapproved of me?”

“I would break our engagement. I’m afraid that’s the price you have to pay for being with me.”

“Then I will gladly pay it.”

Charlotte smiled. The image melted.

“There you have it,” Kaldar said. “If you want a life with Charlotte, you’ll have to battle Lady Augustine, and that’s not a war you can win. When she asks about your background, what will you tell her?”

“That I’m a Mire rat.” Richard grinned. “That my father was a Mire rat, his father before him, and on and on, all the way to the beginning of our family when the ancient Legionnaires first settling the continent got trapped in the Mire and mixed with the natives.”

“Yeah, you should mention Vernard while you’re at it.” Kaldar shook his head.

“Yes, how could I forget. Dear Lady, my granduncle-in-law was an exile, one of my uncles was a changeling, and a few of my cousins aren’t even human. I have a tiny slice of land and very little money, and the only reason I’m allowed in Adrianglia at all is because my cousin Cerise married a changeling, who promised the Mirror ten years of service in exchange for asylum and citizenship for the Mar family. Did I miss anything?”

“You should have Charlotte there when you tell her that, or the noble lady might suffer an apoplexy. You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”

“That’s rich, coming form a man who never took anything seriously.”

“I take the safety of my wife and my family very seriously. What has gotten into you? Is any of this penetrating that thick skull of yours?”

“I’m not worried about the bluebloods stealing Charlotte away. She has seen them before, and she chose me instead. We also have bigger problems than Lady Augustine.” Richard crossed the room to the bookcase and pulled a heavy, embossed volume from the top of the shelf. He’d moved it there so Charlotte wouldn’t find it.

“Like what?”

“Charlotte can kill with her magic.”

Kaldar stared at him. “She’s a fallen healer. Richard, they’ll kill her if they find out.”

“That’s part of the problem.”

“What’s the other part?”

The book felt heavy, like a chunk of solid rock. Richard flipped through the pages, turning the thick paper sheets to a particular article, and offered the book to his brother. He had read it so many times, he had committed the words to memory. He kept hoping it would say something different. It didn’t.

The act of draining another’s magic to fuel oneself is colloquially known as life-force drain, a term which originated from the first-person accounts of the rare few who had experienced it. They describe this phenomenon as draining or stealing the target’s life. In reality, the user and the target form a magic feedback loop, and it is the target’s magic energy, not some mysterious life force, that is being drained. However, since a human body is unable to sustain life without this magic energy, when a target’s magic is depleted, the target dies, so the term isn’t as inaccurate as it may seem at first glance.

In the event of life-force drain, the user attracts the magic of the target, pulling it to himself and absorbing this energy. The user quickly becomes overwhelmed with the influx of incoming magic, and his body begins to radiate it out in whatever form feels most natural to the user. The user then invariably sends out more magic than he takes in, which in turn, causes him to absorb more magic in a greater volume, which he again must disperse. This essential cycle of absorbing and dispersing is ever expanding; the longer it continues, the harder it is to stop. Consider a snowball rolling down the hill: the longer it rolls, the bigger it grows. The longer the duration of the feedback loop, the greater the amount of magic that passes through the user, until eventually the user becomes a mindless conduit for the flow of magical energy.

There are known instances of interrupted feedback loops, where the user had begun the draw of energy but engaged in it for only a few brief moments. These users report feelings of euphoria and extreme pleasure associated with the absorption of magic. No doubt, this contributes to the difficulty of feedback-loop interruption. In plain terms: stealing magic produces pleasure and is self-rewarding, so much so that many users do not want to stop, and, after a few minutes, they find they cannot.

For the purposes of this study, eleven confirmed instances of interrupted feedback loop were examined, and in nine out of eleven cases, the users reattempted the feedback loop at a later date. All nine lost their humanity and had to be destroyed, as they presented an imminent threat to others. It is this author’s opinion that surviving one interrupted loop is possible; however, interrupting such a loop for a second time is beyond the limits of human will.

Kaldar looked up from the page. “What does that mean?”

“How much did George tell you?”

“I know that you were injured, ran into the Edge, she healed you, then the slavers came, killed the boys’ grandmother, set the house on fire, and threw you in the cage. Charlotte saved you.”