Home > Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(4)

Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(4)
Author: Jasmine Walt

The reception area was deserted as well, but at around four in the morning, that was hardly a surprise. Still, with the city under attack, I’d have expected guards to be around. The complete lack of people made me uneasy, which was saying something since I really didn’t like Privacy Guard employees. They tended to slice first and ask questions later. A few of them had ganged up on me the first night I’d stayed at the Palace, and they’d nearly succeeded in killing me. Strength in numbers and all that.

Shrugging my unease off, I continued past the reception area, heading toward the south wing where the Mages Guild was located. The reception area for the Guild was empty as well, but I found a note pinned to a corkboard just inside the hall that led toward the Guild offices. It announced that by order of Chief Mage Iannis ar’Sannin, all routine apprentice activities were suspended until further notice, and that everyone available needed to report to the Guild Director for special assignments.

Well, well, well. Guess every cloud really did have a silver lining. Not that I was especially looking forward to taking orders from Lalia Chen, the Director of the Mages Guild, and in fact, I was going to go out of my way to make sure those orders came from Iannis instead. But my old apprentice duties had been boring as fuck, and I was glad to be rid of the grueling paper-pushing and mind-numbing grunt work, at least for a while.

Since nobody was around to report to at this hour, and it was too early to get anything done by myself, I made my way down to the kitchens to grab some food. The scent of freshly baked bread teased my nostrils even before I hit the stairwell, and my stomach growled in earnest. Food would give me an energy boost, something I really needed since my sleep was cut short.

“Good morning,” I sang as I sailed into the kitchens. The kitchen staff didn’t like me, mostly because I inhaled so much food every time I came in, so I tried to combat their dark looks and sour mood with extra cheeriness. “You got anything for breakfast?”

“Miss Baine!” I nearly toppled over in shock as the head chef bustled toward me. She was beaming, and the effect made her look like a sweet, middle-aged lady instead of the lemon-sucking matron I knew her to be. “I can see you’re famished. Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll get you something?”

“Uh… sure.” My tone was cautious, and I wondered what kind of alternate reality I’d walked into. I allowed the chef to steer me over to the small wooden table in the corner where I usually ate my meals to avoid the other mages who congregated in the upstairs dining hall for mealtimes.

“Let me get you a glass of orange juice. I’ll be right back.”

I stared after her round figure as she hurried away, watching as she barked an order to one of her juniors. Oranges were plucked from a basket, sliced open, then pressed with a citrus juicer into a tall glass that the head chef herself carried back to my table.

“We’ll have your food out soon,” she promised.

“Wait.” I grabbed her wrist as she was turning away and glowered at her. Maybe not the most appropriate response, but I was severely sleep deprived. “Why are you being so nice to me, Mrs. Tandry?”

A guilty look flashed in her pale blue eyes, and her round cheeks reddened a little. “I’m sorry we misjudged you when you first joined the household,” she said, lowering her voice a little. “After the way you rushed out so fearlessly to save Lord Iannis when he went missing, and all the work you’ve done to help keep the city safe, it’s obvious you’re a true friend of the Palace, and Solantha. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

I caught the glimmer of tears in her eyes as she hurried away, and was surprised to find a lump swelling in my own throat. An odd feeling welled in my chest, one I couldn’t quite describe, and it was threatening to bring tears to my own eyes. Strange that, after mostly holding it together in the face of all kinds of bullshit these past few weeks, this simple act of acceptance from a human woman was enough to make me cry.

You’re just tired, I told myself, shaking my head a little. Tired, and on the verge of heat. I grabbed the glass of orange juice and downed it in one go. The sugar hit my system fast, giving me a tiny burst of energy, and my engines revved, ready for more.

By the time the food came – a mountain of scrambled eggs, fried sausage and potatoes, and toast slathered with butter – I was ravenous. Only the fact that I didn’t want to damage my new friendship with Mrs. Tandry stopped me from throwing myself on it like a starving animal. But I made damn good use of my fork and knife, shoveling as much food into my belly as possible. And when my plate was empty, I asked for seconds.

By the time I was finished with my third helping, I felt much better. Satisfied, I leaned the back of my chair against the wall and considered a nap. It would be another couple of hours before anybody worth speaking to arrived at their offices, so I might as well catch up on sleep.

Before I could get up, the sound of footsteps in the stairwell caught my attention. A moment later, a grey-robed apprentice with carrot-red hair staggered in, soot smeared across his freckled nose and exhaustion rimming his blue eyes.

“Coffee,” he gasped. “I need coffee. Please, Mrs. Tandry,” he begged.

“Coming right up,” the head chef said, not even bothering to turn around. “Go ahead and have a seat.”

I canted my head. I was never down here at the same time as any of the mages, so I’d never seen the head chef interact with them. It was interesting that the head chef treated him as if he were one of the Palace staff, instead of a mage. Yes, he was an apprentice, but he was still a mage, and she was a human.

   
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