The door swung open and the brute I had met at the door walked in. He somehow looked calm and menacing at the same time, like he was headed out to pick up some food at the market and then kill a few people afterward. Iris immediately vanished, but not before the man had caught a glimpse of her.
I was still sitting on the floor, rubbing my shoulders. There was no point in pretending I was still in my shackles, and he didn't seem to be too bothered by that fact, other than slightly furrowing his brow when he saw me.
"Iris."
He said the word like it was a command and she immediately reappeared and came within a few feet of him. He slapped her once, right across the face. Just enough to sting, but not enough to bruise. He was an experienced hitter of people. "I told you to bring water but said nothing about releasing him. We'll discuss this later."
I was not a fan of the way he said the word "discuss." Not one bit. Iris simply stood there, emotionless and unmoving. She was well versed in the art of being hit. Fodyrn then gave the slightest of nods and she was gone. I had no mental energy to spare to try to track her location for I was now expending it all on the man before me.
He grabbed the chair near me like it was a dried twig and set it so the back faced me before straddling it, his eyes never leaving me. "Hello, Warren, you can call me Fodyrn, nice to meet you." Fodyrn, grinned as he spoke.
Sigh.
As much as I loved to read about it, I wasn't really cut out for subterfuge and trickery. It was a good thing my conversation with Iris had been as short as it was. Who knew what else I had been prepared to tell her, and apparently Fodyrn as well? Not that I had that much to hide, other than my origin. I wondered what he would do if he knew I was the son of the Mathias Elusen.
A part of me wondered if my best bet was to come clean about my identity and hope for a ransom. I wasn't sure if my father would even try to get me free, or if he would leave me to my own devices as some sort of object lesson. But I also doubted that this man had the means to prevent my rescue. He looked scary, but next to my father he was like a candle next to the sun. Regardless, I wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. My shoulders ached so much I could barely think straight.
"How can I help you?" I did my best to not sound like I was half his size, on the floor, and and sore from hanging by my wrists.
"For starters you can tell me how you found this place. I know Iris didn't tell you about it. She can't. Who was it? Give me a name and maybe I'll let you live."
Can't. Not wouldn't. I filed that away for later. I also found it odd that a clearly secretive man would be so free with the girl's—with Iris's name. Which either meant that it was of no importance, or he didn't intend to let me leave this room alive.
"I would tell you, but then I would have to kill you." I chuckled at my feeble attempt at bravado.
He ignored my joke and began muttering to himself, "I'm missing something . . . I know of no one alive who would divulge this place to a rat such as yourself. They would have nothing to gain and everything to lose . . . and yet . . . the fact remains that you knew there was a girl who lived here. You haven't begged for release, which tells me you aren't as innocent as you look . . . unless, no. Impossible. Are you, by chance, a mage?" The last part was said with a sudden ferocity that it made me scoot back a few inches without realizing it.
* * *
"And that's how you can tell if someone is a mage," my father was explaining.
"But what if they knew you were looking for the signs? What if they were trying to hide the fact that they were a mage. How could you tell then?"
"Well, what do you think?" It was his favorite response to my questions, and it always drove me crazy. But I knew I wouldn't get anything from him until I gave it my best attempt.
"Um, ah . . ." I thought about it for a minute. "Then it's a matter of who controls their connection to the mana better?"
His eyes twinkled at my response. "Perhaps. What do you think of this?"
Suddenly he was gone . . . except he was still there. It was as if his connection to the world had been completely severed, like I was looking at a statue of my father, or perhaps a corpse.
"Okay, I see. Only a powerful mage could silence their connection to the mana so thoroughly. So I would say here you went too far. All people are connected to the mana of the world in some fashion, whether they are mages or not. You've got to reduce your connection, but only enough to make yourself look like a regular person."
He nodded. "Precisely. It's like holding something heavy in your hand but making it look to someone else that your hand is holding something light. Of course, if someone is a better mage than you, they will likely be able to tell you are a mage regardless of how hard you try to hide it."
* * *
Fodyrn was not a mage.
Or, if he was, he was playing mind games on me that made no sense. I had been doing my best to hide the fact that I was a mage the entire time I was in this room. I had no real reason to do so, except that it felt like too good of an ace card to reveal until I had to. The second he walked in the room I had been trying to ascertain if Fodyrn was a mage.
Either this man was a far better mage than I—someone who could totally mask his abilities from me—or he had no abilities whatsoever. The former seemed unlikely. And, besides, if he was far more powerful than me, than he would already know I was a mage. Which didn't seem to be the case. Either way, it was time to show my hand.
"And if I was . . ."
A bit of fear flickered across his eyes. Or maybe confusion. It was both.
"Impossible. We've killed all the unbound mages. They've been dead for years." His entire body was tense, ready to spring. "Even suggesting such a thing is a death sentence."
Now I was confused. I knew my father, a mage. If mages were being slaughtered so close to our home, how was my father not aware of this? Or, if he was aware, why had he not done something about it? I shook my head—there would be time to figure this out later—for now I needed to focus on making sure there was a later.
Fodyrn appeared to come to a decision of his own, because I saw him start to move out of the chair and begin to lunge toward me, a knife suddenly in his hand. There was killing intent in his eyes.
I should note here that it is much, much harder to manipulate or otherwise affect a person's body against their will—say light them on fire or push them back—compared to something like a chair. Depending on the person it can be done, but you should never assume you'll be able to do it. On the other hand . . . if there's a chair between you and a person you want to push back, well, my father would call it a difference without a distinction.
The look of shock on Fodyrn's face as he flew back, unable to resist the pressure of the chair that was pushing him, told me he was not used to doing battle with a mage. And I wasn't going to let him get comfortable. As soon as he hit the opposing wall, I was ready, a ball of fire larger than his head floating above my hand, illuminating the previously dimly lit room as if the sun had just risen. While people were hard to manipulate, the air was eager to burn.