Cold Fire by Kate Elliott Page A

them was striking. He was muscular, blond, and white-skinned, with the look of a man used to waiting until he had to explode into action. Small-framed, she was fidgety, touching each unsliced parsnip as if her hands needed something to do while her mind worked; her skin was black, and she wore her long black hair in locks.
    “We need to talk.” She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose.
    “I didn’t say anything to him about the general being here!”
    “Sit, please.” Kehinde spoke without force or anger. I sank onto the bench, all energy drained. “Why did you come? To seek our help to return to the Hassi Barahal motherhouse in Gadir?”
    “No,” said Bee, with a glance at me. I let her talk. “We’re not returning there.”
    “Why not? They are your community. What are we, if we have no community and no family?”
    “‘ We ’ are left to fend for ourselves,” said Bee. “Let me just say that our family betrayed us and we no longer trust them. We hoped to find refuge with radicals. We thought you of all people would understand why we don’t want to be bound into clientage, practically legal slavery, to a mage House or a prince’s court…or some patrician household from Rome.” Her voice fell to a whisper, but she recovered. “We can be useful to the cause. We are not without skills.”
    “The Hassi Barahal house is known to be employed in the business of selling information,” said Kehinde. “You might be spying on us. After all, after you came, the cold mage arrived.”
    I was getting annoyed. “Turn that around! Why would Chartji make an appointment for a cold mage to come to your office at the same time the most wanted man in Europe is to be here?”
    Brennan laughed. “An unfortunate case of bad timing, and close calls. Rather exciting, don’t you think?”
    “For you it will always be a game, Du,” said Kehinde, measuring him with a frown. “The more you skate onto the thin ice, as you say here in the north, the better you like it.”
    He shook his head, watching her closely. “Oh, no, Professora, you know it is not a game to me. Risks must be taken if we mean to get what we want.” He flashed his enchanting smile at Bee, and then at me. “I think the girls are a risk worth taking.”
    “Maybe we’re the ones who should be asking if we can trust you ,” said Bee. “Like Cat said, you’re the ones meeting with the general. And the cold mage!”
    “She’s got us at knife’s point there,” said Brennan, still looking amused.
    Bee’s brow furrowed and her gaze darkened as if storm clouds had swept down. We were in for a blow. “It’s easy for you to laugh. You’re a man. Maybe you’re entirely legally free, or maybe your northern village is entangled in some kind of clientage to a mage House. I don’t know. But you, Professora, surely you as a legal scholar will understand our situation. Even though my cousin and I are twenty and legally adults, the Hassi Barahal elders in Gadir can dispose of us however they wish simply because we are female and unmarried.” She flashed me a glance to remind me to keep my mouth closed about the unfortunate fact that I was already married. As if I wanted to brag about it! “So you can see that radicals who speak of overturning an oppressive legal code might interest us.”
    “I understand perfectly.” Kehinde glanced at Brennan. To my surprise, he looked away, biting his lower lip. She toyed with the ends of several of her locks. “We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. Of which marriage is one. Yet we still have a problem. It appears you are being pursued by the same mage Houses and princes who wish to capture the general. Until Camjiata leaves Adurnam, you cannot stay here.”
    “You’re turning us away,” said Bee wearily.
    “Not at all. I have been