Free The High Lord by Trudi Canavan Page B

than he had thought.
    She knew too much. He ought to send his best knife to despatch her. Or kill her himself. Now.
    Even as he thought it, he knew he wouldn’t.
And it’s not just because I find her interesting,
he told himself.
I need to know how she learned so much about the arrangement. I’ll wait, have her watched, and see where this leads.
    “Have you told him about me?” she asked.
    “Why don’t you want him to know about you?”
    Her expression darkened. “Two reasons. These slaves know only one enemy hunts them. It will be easier for me to help you if they do not know I am here. And there are people in my country who would suffer if the slaves’ masters learned I was here.”
    “And you think that these slaves would find out about you if my ‘master,’ as you call him, knew?”
    “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’d rather not take the risk.”
    “You are only asking this now. I might have told my customer about you already.”
    “Did you?”
    He shook his head. She smiled, clearly relieved. “I didn’t think you would. Not until you knew I could do what I said I could. So, do we have a deal, as you Thieves say?”
    Cery opened the drawer of his desk and drew out her knife. He heard her indrawn breath. The jewels in the handle glittered in the lamplight. He slid it across the table.
    “Tonight you’ll tag this man for us. That’s all. No killing. I want to be sure he is who you say he is before he’s done in. In return, I keep my mug shut about you. For now.”
    She smiled, her eyes bright with eagerness. “I will go back to my room until then.”
    Watching her saunter to the door, Cery felt his heartbeat quicken.
How many men have lost their wits over that walk
—
or that smile?
he wondered.
Ah, but I’d wager some of them lost more than their wits.
    Not me,
he thought.
I’ll be watching her
very
closely.
    Sonea closed the book she had been trying to read and looked around the library. It was too difficult to concentrate. Her mind kept returning to Akkarin and the records.
    It had been a week since he’d given them to her, and he hadn’t yet returned to collect them. The thought of what was lying on her desk in her room, hidden under a pile of notes, was like an itch no amount of scratching could ease. She wouldn’t be able to relax until he took them back.
    But she dreaded facing Akkarin again. She dreaded the conversation that would follow. Would he bring more books? What would they contain? So far, he had only shown her pieces of forgotten history. There had been no instructions on how to use black magic, yet the secret trunk that the record-keeper had buried—probably the same trunk that the architect Lord Coren had discovered and reburied—must contain enough information about the “secret weapon” of black magic for a magician to learn it. What would she do if Akkarin gave her one of
those
books to read?
    To learn about black magic was to break a Guild law. If she found herself reading instructions on its use, she would stop and refuse to read any more.
    “Look, there’s Lord Larkin!”
    The voice was female and close by. Looking around, Sonea saw a movement at the end of a bookshelf. A girl was just visible, standing by one of the Novices’ Library windows.
    “The Building and Construction teacher?” another girlish voice replied. “I never considered him before, but he is fairly good-looking, I suppose.”
    “And still unmarried.”
    “Not showing much interest in getting married, from what I hear.”
    There was a giggle. Leaning out from her chair, Sonea recognized the first girl as one of the fifth-year novices.
    “Oh, look! There’s Lord Darlen. He’s nice.”
    The other girl made an appreciative noise. “Pity he’s married.”
    “Mmm,” the first agreed. “What do you think of Lord Vorel?”
    “Vorel! You’re kidding!”
    “Not one for strong Warrior types, are you?”
    Sonea guessed the girls were watching magicians heading toward the Night Room. She listened,