Changespell Legacy by Doranna Durgin Read Free Book Online Page B

away from her face. "They shut down the whole burnin' system ?"
    His wry grin looked a little predatory. "Now you're hearing me. The Council is dead , Suliya. And they died between here and Second Siccawei ."
    Definitely predatory. As if he'd let herself follow her ambition right into a job she might have otherwise refused. He'd drive her to the limit, too. . . .
    But it might truly be the chance she'd been looking for. If she did well, Carey would know. He'd depend on her again, and she'd have the start she'd been looking for. And then she wouldn't need her family's good will at all— Carey looked at her with suddenly narrowed eyes. "Jess was right, wasn't she? You did put her in the wrong stall on purpose."
    "What?" Suliya said, totally taken off guard. "Why—"
    "Never mind." He cut her off with a sharp gesture, though his lean features had hardened. He eased a little closer; despite herself, Suliya took a step back, and therefore a step down. "Never mind that," he said again, this time as though more to convince himself than her. "You handle yourself with this run, and I'll forget it. But let that kind of thing happen on this run—even a whisper of it—and you're through here."
    He looked at her, at the dismay she was unable to conceal. "Or didn't it ever occur to you that I have to be able to count on you in all ways, whether that means mucking out the stalls on an off day, or being someone my other couriers can trust—just like you can always trust Jess to take the runs no one else can manage safely."
    She hadn't thought at all, actually. Not at the moment she'd acted. She hadn't thought about anything more than her resentment, and how unfair it was that Jess had walked in and taken away her rides. At the time—and now she did look down, down at her clenched hands and the worn stone step at her toe—the farthest thing from her mind was that Jess had taken that ride to protect her. Now it suddenly seemed obvious—Lady's assignments were often the fast, hard runs; the other couriers always seemed grateful.
    And this time she'd handled the mudslide for Suliya.
    Not that Suliya was the least convinced it would have been necessary, but— "I won't let you down," she said.
    "No," Carey said. "Don't."
    Jaime didn't believe it. Couldn't. Just as when she'd been a girl. "Your mother's dead," they'd said, and she never believed it. Had waited for years for her mother's return.
    She'd been wrong, then. She wouldn't be wrong now.

Chapter 5
    J ess came down from Arlen's rooms, barefooted and silent on the stairs; dim late-night glows invoked by the housekeeping staff made quiet light in the corners.
    She heard no one else. They'd all retreated, like Jaime, to their nighttime quarters. To their families and friends, to huddle and worry and bolster each others' belief that it really wasn't true after all.
    Jess believed it. And Jaime didn't, not truly—and didn't want to—so she threw herself into the chore of keeping the practical aspects of the hold functioning even though the housekeepers—wizards and physical workers alike—were long used to functioning on their own. It was thanks to Stenna, the evening maintenance warder, that Jaime was finally asleep; it was she who had mildly spelled Jaime's spiced wine, a thoughtfulness she was well prepared to offer after years of evening rounds to discover overexcited or fretful staff children and their frustrated families. "It only works if you're already truly tired," she'd told Jess when Jess had reacted with alarm at the thought of spelling children to sleep on a whim, and since Jaime had been exhausted . . .
    Now, finally, she slept.
    While Jess, wide awake, thought of tomorrow's ride and what she might find at the end of it, fully aware that she'd be responsible for reporting every nuance to Carey and Jaime. And Natt and Cesna, of course, but despite her casual fondness for them, it was not they whom she worried about.
    Arlen.
    She quite abruptly sat on the steps and