been so inclined in the first place.
He had been to the Mageguild and found his treatment there even less pleasant.
Get rid of the globe; get rid of the demon; get rid of the witches, his
colleagues had told him-and don’t come home again until you do. So he’d come
back to the palace to be tended by Jinan and to fret over the way fate was
unfolding for him.
“You tried,” Jihan assured him, setting the bowl aside. “You did your best.”
“I failed. I knew what happened and I let her trick me. Niko would have
understood; I knew that Niko would have understood why we had him down here. But
I listened to her instead.” He shook his head in misery; a lock of hair fell
down to cover his eyes. Jihan leaned forward to brush it back, moving carefully
to avoid the shiny, less severe bums on his face or the singed, almost bald,
portion of his scalp that still smelled of the fire.
“We’ve all made more than our share of mistakes in this,” Tempus commiserated
from the doorway. He unfastened his cloak, letting it drop to the floor as he
strode across the room. The hypocaust fires had been banked for two days but the
room was still the warmest, by far, in the palace. “How is he?” he asked when he
stood beside Niko.
The young man’s body showed few traces of his ordeal. The swellings and bruises
had all but disappeared; his face, in sleep, was serene and almost smiling.
“Better than he should be,” Jihan said sadly. She laid her hand lightly on
Niko’s forehead. The half-smile vanished and the hell-haunted mercenary strained