The Mage's Maid by Finley Fenn

Author:Finley Fenn [Fenn, Finley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-26T23:00:00+00:00

7

If Mik had expected Ilsa to keep quiet about their breakup, the next morning proved him disastrously wrong.

It began the instant he stepped out of his bedroom, with a few side-eyed glances and whispers from the other mages passing by. His colleagues, in fact, Njall and Tomik, who didn’t so much as say good morning, but kept right on walking, with a murmur of furtive discomfort trailing behind them.

Mik briefly considered using an air-spell to eavesdrop on what was being said, but after another similar encounter on the next floor down, it became irrevocably clear what the fuss was about. Not so much about him and Ilsa — nasty breakups were regular rumour fodder in a place like this — but about his estate, and his title. Or the so-called lack thereof.

And clearly, Mik hadn’t quite realized the extent to which his lands and his title had affected the way the people around him regarded him. Because in addition to the looks and the whispers, there were even a few actual jeers and snickers — not from people Mik cared about, or had ever been close to, but still, it stung more than he would have liked to admit.

His seminar that morning, which should have been a straightforward review of key weather spells for some less-weather-inclined air-mages, was a particularly sobering experience. All five of the mages were younger, and newer to Coven Manor, all of them wealthy, and several with lands and titles themselves. And suddenly, it seemed that learning magic from an old, disgraced has-been was something of an affront, and their response to Mik’s demonstrations varied from sidelong glances to outright dissension.

“Are you sure that’s how hot the air has to be?” countered one of them, a scrawny bloke named Kass, who happened to also be the eldest son of the Earl of Levis, and who had once, Mik clearly remembered, hit on Lea at a dinner party. “That’s not what they taught at the Academy.”

“Well, then they're wrong,” Mik replied flatly. “Because this is how it's done. Unless you want your storm to fall in on itself in two minutes.”

Kass eyed Mik with open disbelief, and leaned over to elbow at his friend. “He didn’t even go to the Air Academy,” he said, in a whisper that was fully audible to all the surrounding mages. “How’s he supposed to know?”

Mik was very rapidly losing his temper, with everything and everyone, and stalked over to Kass, leaning far too close. “Then why don’t you show us,” he snapped. “Right here, right now. What’s a proper Academy storm look like.”

It was a shit way to teach, putting someone on the spot like that with all his buddies watching, but apparently Mik was just a shitty human being, because he waved the clouds over with a hard flick of his hand. “I’ll even get it started for you,” he said. “Now prove me wrong.”

Thus began a deeply unpleasant two hours, during which Mik was grimly and thoroughly proven correct, and in the process made permanent enemies of all five of his students.

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