off his offer. “We spent last night in Paris. Lovely city. Hasn’t changed as much as I would have expected in five centuries.” He paused and made a face. “Well, at least they’ve stopped fighting with Italy. But we are rested and ready to speak about mages.”
The formal receiving room had comfortable chairs for this sort of visit, all of them situated around a large oval, with a long coffee table in the center for snacks. Alric took his usual chair, Cameron at his right, as he should be, while Dieter sat on Alric’s left, Baldewin beside him.
Rodrigo had brought three bodyguards with him, but after showing them that the room was perfectly safe for the king, they were taken on a tour of the castle with Ravi and Warin. There was no way he was leaving Ravi alone with the Valerii. Warin would help to temper Ravi’s tongue. But then, if the bodyguards were anything like their king, they would be quite comfortable with Ravi.
For the Valerii side, Rodrigo was accompanied by Thiago and their head mage Evora. They all chose seats, with Rodrigo sitting directly across from Alric.
“Cameron,” Rodrigo greeted in that gravelly voice of his, “I want to thank you for all the information you’ve compiled and sent to us. It’s helped us get a better picture of what’s happening over here. And that spell you detailed for us, of how to break Jaeggi trapping spells. My mages were over the moon with that, weren’t you, Evora?”
Evora’s narrow face normally looked sharp enough to hack a man to death. She was pretty, certainly, but a femme fatale in search of a noir movie. In this moment, she unbent enough to give Cameron a slight smile. “We are always glad to have a spell in our repertoire that helps us protect our dragons. Especially one tried and true. I do wish to speak with you more on it.”
“Of course,” Cameron encouraged with a smile. “Just go easy on me. I’m still learning magic.”
Rodrigo leaned forward in his chair, concern writing itself into the lines of his face. “But it concerns me we even need this spell. Why are the Jaeggi so intent on being our enemies, even now? What are they trying to accomplish by kidnapping our mages? Do we still only have a half-guessed answer to these questions?”
“I’m afraid so,” Alric sighed. “Our recent run-in with them gave us some information, as you know. Tori—our new mage—believes their magic is somehow dysfunctional. Or warped. He said their auras are unlike a normal mage’s, and certainly, they don’t operate the same. Every time they encounter a mage, they either try to abscond with them or, in this latest attempt, try to drain them of magic on the spot. It speaks of a dark, underlying problem.”
Cameron picked up the tale smoothly, his hand coming to cover Alric’s and grip it on the chair’s arm. “All of us here have been throwing this theory back and forth, and I have little to substantiate it, but I think it’s plausible. I think when Kaiser Jaeggi enacted the spell that wiped out the mage clans, it backfired.”
“An anti-spell,” Evora murmured thoughtfully. “It’s true. A spell that powerful, it must have been an anti-spell. I think none of us really sat and considered it at the time. We were too busy trying to hold our clans together. But I can’t think of how else he was able to do it.”
“We’ve had time to think about it now and still can’t,” Cameron agreed with an unhappy frown. “The man abruptly died in the middle of the war, and I’ll bet you that was the reason. The anti-spell blew up in his face, killing him, and possibly damaging all of his clan members.”
“And now they are, what? Exacting revenge?” Rodrigo put his cup on the table before sitting back, staring hard at the floor in thought. “Or trying to reclaim what they’ve lost?”
“Possibly both.” Alric didn’t look any happier, and his eyes kept darting to Cameron in open worry. It didn’t take a genius to guess why. Every time Cameron left the security of the castle, he ran the risk of being kidnapped again.
Cameron lifted their joined hands to kiss Alric’s palm, eyes gentle. “Chill, love. I’m not leaving the castle today.”
“It’s all your future days that concern me,” Alric sighed.
Rodrigo cleared his throat and looked at them with a sort of wistful sadness. But then, Rodrigo himself was still unmated. Baldewin’s heart ached for