His iridescent eyes turned glacial. “You’re my apprentice first and foremost. I expect you to act like one.”
“I do act like one, ninety-nine percent of the time,” I snapped, digging my fingers into the arms of my chair. “Don’t pretend like I haven’t been working my ass off every day at the Mages Guild, because I have. But there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to work on this investigation, no matter what you say my schedule is.”
“I see.” The Chief Mage’s icy expression didn’t change one iota, and I sighed, wondering if he really did see. There were times when he showed glimpses of compassion, but for the most part he was like a rock wall – completely impenetrable without the assistance of explosive devices. Which probably explained why I blew up at him so often.
“What is this investigation that was so burningly urgent?”
“Oh, you don’t know?” I asked mockingly. “I figured you’d know what I was doing, since you magically seemed to know exactly where to have your secretary call this morning.”
Iannis gave me an impatient look. “I put a tracking spell on you after you were kidnapped by Yantz, so that I could find you again should you end up in a similar situation.”
“You what?” I jumped to my feet, anger pumping hard through my veins.
“The last time we were incredibly lucky that someone had seen Yantz and Talcon carrying you into his house, or we never would have gotten to you in time,” Iannis snapped. “Since you insist on gallivanting around the city and sticking your nose into trouble instead of staying at the Palace where it is safe, I put the tracking spell on you.”
“You have no right.” I forced the words out through gritted teeth, my hands trembling with the shock and anger of his betrayal of my privacy. “I’m not your property, Lord Iannis, to do whatever you like with. You can’t just go putting spells on me like that, especially without even telling me!”
Iannis slowly rose to his full height, his violet eyes gleaming dangerously down at me. “Might makes right,” he said softly. “I am the Chief Mage of this state, and I am also your master. Your life is my responsibility –”
“Bullshit!” I slapped my hand down on the desk, and a triangular paperweight jumped under the force of the blow. “You can’t go throwing around the master-apprentice card, not when you’ve been such a crappy master to begin with!”
Iannis’s expression froze. “Excuse me?”
A shock of fear rippled through my nerves as the energy in the room shifted, but it wasn’t enough to make me back down – I was tired of this one-sided relationship, and damned if I was going to be silent about it any longer.
“You’re probably the worst master in the entire Mages Guild!” I shouted. “You saddle me with all this grunt work because I’m supposed to be paying for my ‘training’, and yet we only have three lessons a week, lessons that you constantly cut short or cancel on! And then you have the nerve to tell me that I’m not improving enough!” My nails lengthened into claws that bit into the flesh of my palm, claws that I wanted to rake across his face. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, and you know it!”
“That is enough.” The Chief Mage’s voice darkened, and magic began to crackle in the air around him, raw power sizzling in the shape of tiny blue sparks. If I’d been in beast form, the hair along my spine would have shot straight up – the Chief Mage only got like this when he was truly furious. It took everything in me to stand my ground – my instincts were screaming at me to lower my eyes and back away before he smote me with a bolt of energy.
But I knew the Chief Mage wasn’t going to kill me. After all, as he kept reminding me, I was his apprentice.
“I assure you Miss Baine, if you think I have been lacking as a teacher, you will change your mind after tonight. I will push you harder than you’ve ever been pushed in your life, until you beg me to let you out early.” His tone was arctic, a direct contrast to the violet blaze in his eyes, and a chill of foreboding raced down my spine as he held my gaze in silence.
“Get out of my sight and report to the Mages Guild,” he finally said. “If I find out that you’ve been anywhere else, I will close the seal your father placed on your magic. Permanently.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon stewing at the Mages Guild, which was a series of offices located in the South Wing of the Palace. Sitting in a cramped chair at a small table, I wasted the hours away prepping form letters from the Secretary of Agricultural Magic to go out to all the farms in the state. Stamp, stamp, stuff, lick.
Clerical work. Day in, day out, I was fucking doing clerical work. Yeah, sometimes they switched it up, sending me out into the city to pick up supplies, or pastries for a meeting or event, but mostly it was just mind-numbing paperwork. You’d think that as the Chief Mage’s apprentice I’d be afforded some status, but Iannis must’ve told them to treat me like any other low-level apprentice. Worse, even. The other apprentices actually got to go out with maintenance crews every once in a while to reinforce the wards on the city or other magic-related tasks, but I’d yet to be chosen to do anything like that.
Probably because you suck at spellcasting.
I ground my teeth. I wouldn’t suck at spellcasting if I had a teacher who spent more than three hours a week with me. Just because I wasn’t raised in a mage family didn’t mean I was stupid. In fact, for someone who’d been forced to suppress their magic for the last twenty-four years, I thought I was actually doing okay. I’d used my magic to conjure fireballs, breach wards, and create illusions. How many apprentices of my level could say that?