The Wizard Heir (38 page)

Seph didn't honor that question with an answer.

Longbranch tch'ed. “Are you going to waste your
life as a nursemaid to the servant guilds or learn to navigate the world of
wizards, where the real power lies? Think about it.”

“I don't have to think about it,” Seph said,
but Longbranch had already turned away.

Jack and Ellen were looking curiously at Jason. With
the death of Gregory Leicester, some of Jason's intensity and spirit seemed to
have drained away. He leaned against a stone pillar, looking tired and thin,
almost ill. It reminded Seph of his first day in Trinity, when he was the
outsider. “Jack Swift and Ellen Stephenson, this is Jason Haley,”
Seph said. “He's a friend from the Havens. He saved my life.”
Leicester still lay on the floor where he had fallen. Seph felt no joy at the
way he had died, only intense relief and the conviction that the death of the
wizard was a matter of survival for him and the people he cared about.

Up in the gallery, the newly freed Warren Barber
looked down on the survivors of the battle in the conference room. He felt an
incredible joy. He was on his own again, no longer answerable to any authority.
Up until a short while ago, Leicester had seemed like the horse to back. But
he'd died like anyone else. The rest of the alumni lay on the floor like so
many carcasses. They deserved to be ruled, he thought. But not Warren Barber.
He would not let that happen, ever again.

He thought of McCauley's girl, and his breath came
quicker. First, there was the episode at the river, when she'd put King down on
his back. Then Warren had tried to spell her in the garden, and had gone down
like a rock. Leicester and the alumni had done no better. Was she a wizard with
a powerful stone, or was she carrying an amulet of some kind? Warren was no
scholar, but he figured he could find out.

He couldn't resist sliding his hand inside his shirt,
feeling the parchment that lay next to his skin. It had been easy enough to
nick it from the desk where Hanlon had hidden it. He knew all the hiding places
at Second Sister.

He hadn't decided what he would do with it, but he
knew it represented power. D'Orsay would give anything to get his hands on it.
So would anyone on the council. Then again, why shouldn't Warren Barber be
king?

Trinity
and Cumbria

“As you can see, we have a large family in Britain,
Seph.” Hastings gestured, taking in the tumbled gravestones that broke
through the wind-blasted heather. “Unfortunately, they're all
underground.”

Seph stooped and picked up a broken piece of granite.
He scraped away at the moss that obscured the inscription on the nearest marker
until it was revealed. HASTYNGS. He traced the letters with his fingers and
looked back toward the great stone house. It brooded in boreal grandeur amid
the frowning fells, set in a valley stitched over with stone walls. The light
was decaying, although it was only late afternoon. Dusk came early this far
north. Cumbria. Home of his ancestors. Hastings—his father—said the house had
been in the family for generations.

As he watched, Jason emerged from the house, waved to
get their attention, and disappeared back inside. “I guess dinner is ready,”
Seph said. He stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets.

“I feel like I've found a family and a home, and
Jason lost his,” he said.

Hastings stared off toward Scotland, his face bleak
and still as the weathered hills. “I promised Jason that if he stayed in
Trinity and finished school, I would get him involved in wizard politics.”
Without shifting his gaze, he answered Seph's unspoken objection. “Believe
me, I know all about the cost of holding on to anger, yet I can't talk him out
of it. He still wants to go after D'Orsay.”

The political future of the Weirguilds was still
cloudy. The council that had met at Second Sister had signed off on the
Hastings-Downey constitution before they disbanded, but it was unclear how to
get the document consecrated. The whereabouts of the Leicester-D'Orsay
constitution was unknown. And, for the first time in more than five hundred
years, the wizards were officially at war.

Linda and Hastings often held strategy sessions at the
house that lasted late into the night. Sometimes Hastings was still there in
the morning.

The role of family man did not come easily to
Hastings. Much of Hastings and Seph's time together was spent in training:
reviews of charms and countercharms, tutorials on the Old Magic. Seph realized
his father was doing his best to hone his skills in wizardry for his own
protection. That was love, delivered in Hastings's relentless fashion.

Madison was still working at the Legends and attending
classes at Trinity. Despite her apprehension, she melded well with the upscale,
grunge, art-student culture. Her work was even featured by one of the galleries
close to campus.

She'd been wary of Seph since the episode at Second Sister.
She held back, kept secrets as if she saw a new risk in their relationship that
hadn't been there before. She was friendly enough, but he almost had the sense
she was avoiding being alone with him. Linda had offered to fly her to Britain
for Christmas, but she'd gone home to Coalton County instead.

Seph had chosen a present for her, four framed
sketches of cathedrals he'd found in a gallery in London.

Hastings broke into his reverie. “We'd better go
back. It won't do to be late to dinner on Christmas Eve.”

Dinner was served by candlelight in the great hall,
roast beef and vegetables and Yorkshire puddings: a feast for three people, and
they'd all had a hand in it. Afterward, they ate Stilton and pears and drank
wine by the fire while the snow came down outside. Later, they would brave the
weather to attend midnight mass at the Catholic church down in the village.
Seph hoped it would keep snowing. Hastings had promised to bring out the
sleigh.

Brightly wrapped packages of intriguing possibility
waited under the towering Douglas fir in the hearth corner.

Hastings went first. For Seph, there were two books of
spellcraft from Hastings's private collection. For Jason, a pair of English
climbing boots, suitable for winter hikes in the fells. For Linda, a pendant
with the flat-gray color of a sorcerer's piece, set with garnet.

Linda had a barn coat for Hastings, a heavy Scots-wool
sweater for Jason. And a mysterious package for Seph. When she put it into his
hands and he felt the weight of it, he knew what it was before he tore the
paper away. It was his Weirbook, his history between his hands.

When Seph looked back at the events of the summer and
fall, he realized his personal philosophy had changed. “Don't expect much,
and you won't be disappointed,” he'd always said, a kind of charm of
self-protection.

He had never planned on or expected parents, let alone
a complicated pair like Linda Downey and Leander Hastings. As a family, they
were still just a collection of strangers. Who knows what will happen? But
he couldn't help but be optimistic.

Madison was still a mystery to him, but a mystery he
hoped to solve. He would find a way to make it work, because he finally
understood that sometimes you have to raise your expectations. And sometimes
you need to make a claim on the world and the people you love to get what you
most desire.