by the tart berry sweetness, but the question kept tickling through my mind until I decided I might as well ask. “Do your hands get really cold even in July, or…?”
Emeric gave a short, gruff laugh. “That’s about the politest way anyone’s ever asked about these.” He tugged on the ends of the gloves by his elbows, one and then the other, and spun his fork between his fingers. “I lost my hand and most of my forearm in the final standoff between the barons and the scions. The new one’s titanium. With a few physicality spells, it does pretty much everything my old hand could do, but it’d draw a whole lot of attention I don’t want from the fee—from the Naries.”
He’d caught himself just shy of calling the people around us “feebs”—but then, that was what I’d called them just a couple of years ago, what most fearmancers had called them before Rory had started pushing for more respect. I wasn’t going to hold the slip against him, especially after what he’d just revealed about his arm.
“That one?” I ventured, trying not to outright stare at the hand holding his fork—the one that’d manipulated the utensil so deftly. It was a hunk of inanimate metal? Well, animated by magic, not by muscles and nerves. Hell.
“That’s the one. You’d never figure, would you?” He said it easily, as if it didn’t matter all that much. Half an arm torn right off. I still had an illusion over my cheek where the tiny scratch marks from a few days ago hadn’t quite healed, where my one lingering mark from that battle split the pale skin with a sliver of a paler line. I guessed he’d gotten pretty comfortable with the fact over the past two years.
“No. It’s impressive.” I glanced from his gloved hand to his face again, searching for a trace of the emotion I expected behind his light eyes. Maybe that was where the sadness in his smile came from? But he didn’t sound sad about it, only matter-of-fact. “You must have been right in the thick of it.”
I had been, alongside the scions and the rest of their Guard. Mostly I’d been diverting attention and startling our attackers with illusions—the brutal physicality spells of actual combat weren’t my cup of tea—but someone else from my side must have been responsible for that injury. “And you turned to the new barons after all that?” I had to add.
Emeric made a dismissive motion. “None of them personally cut my arm off. It was an explosive spell before the battle even really started. I wouldn’t know who to blame for it if I wanted retribution. And it seems to me there isn’t much point in that now that the dust has settled.” He set down the fork and flexed his fingers. “In some ways this hand is even better than the real one.”
The injury had to give him some cache with the other reaper families, anyway, even if they didn’t respect his family a great deal. It was proof of how he’d fought and what he’d sacrificed for their side.
And here he was switching over to the other. “So, no hard feelings, then?” I said, still watching his face.
The mistiness of his pale eyes darkened to something stormier, but his tone stayed brisk. “Is this the way I pictured my life going? No. But I wouldn’t have been there if the old barons hadn’t gotten caught up in their crazy scheme, if it hadn’t seemed like we needed to support them or they might crush us too. Why shouldn’t they take the blame? And now this bunch in Portland is trying to screw us all over again.” He shook his head with a grimace.
Yeah, we should probably get down to our real business. I popped another bite of pie into my mouth and considered what I needed to know as I chewed. “The local families haven’t let you in on their plans—you’ve just picked up on enough to realize they have one. We’re counting on them being willing to bring me in. Who are the main players here? Is there anything specific that’ll help win them over?”
“Right to the heart of the matter,” Emeric said with a rough chuckle. “I knew you’d be the one for the job.” He pulled out his phone. “I have a few photos with the main people you’ll need to schmooze with. There’s a get-together happening tomorrow that I can bring you to so you