Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,235

you mean an analogy?”

“No, asshole! As you just pointed out, it’s not actually the same. It’s more symbolic, so it’s a goddamn metaphor!”

“Ahh,” said Will. “I keep getting them mixed up.”

“Mister Cartwright?” It was Elizabeth. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said immediately, dismissing the limnthal.

She turned to the others. “Get ready. We’re about to begin.”

And just like that, a moment of enlightenment hit him like a bolt of lightning. All the tiny things that bothered him seemed to resolve into a single question. He wasn’t sure of its significance, but he had to know. “Wait.”

Elizabeth held up her hand, a questioning look on her face as Will stepped out of the circle and went to Laina Nerrow. “Who was it that stole the money?”

His sister blinked. “Pardon?”

“From the charity. You said you wanted Selene’s help to pressure the person, but you didn’t say who it was.”

“Aaron Tintabel.”

Things began falling into place. Tintabel’s home was close to the Nerrow house, and the first vampires he had seen had leapt from its roof. Of course, that didn’t mean much, but with later context it made sense, especially now that the family was dead, and the only apparent survivor was Lord Tintabel himself. It didn’t matter much, but Will asked anyway, “Was he involved in the wool trade?”

She nodded. “His estates produce much of the wool in Terabinia.”

Jorn Slidden, the trader who had bought the white phosphorous, had dealt primarily in wool, meaning the man had probably been a close associate of Lord Tintabel’s. Will began walking away from everyone, in the direction of the main entrance. He couldn’t guess whether Slidden had been a willing or unwilling participant; in fact, the same might be true of Tintabel. If the lord had been involved, why would he kill his own family? Were they being used against him? Had he defied someone’s orders?

And why had he stolen the money? Lord Tintabel was presumably a very rich man, certainly rich enough to have afforded the white phosphorous without resorting to petty theft—unless for some reason he had been unable to access his own accounts. A chill ran down Will’s spine. Since marrying Selene, he had apparently become wealthy, but until Blake had informed him he’d had no idea. He still had no idea how to access the money on his own. Tintabel might be the same. If the man calling himself Lord Tintabel was an imposter who had no idea how to access the real Tintabel’s funds.

He activated the limnthal again. “Could a wizard disguise himself as someone else?”

Arrogan sensed his urgency. “Of course.”

“How?”

“There’s plenty of ways. Illusion, flesh shaping, mental enchantments, you get the idea.”

“Do you think a wizard could fool King Lognion that way?”

“There’s always signs. A practitioner will notice an illusion, and mental tricks are much more difficult, but physical transformation might do the trick. You’ve said the king is very adept at noticing deception though, and his sense of turyn is well honed if he saw Aislinn’s mark on your forehead that time. For a wizard to fool someone like him, they’d have to be extremely experienced.”

“How experienced?”

“Centuries of practice probably, although it’s funny. When you’re dealing with someone like Lognion, who has such absolute certainty regarding his ability to detect falsehoods, if you can fool him a little, then you can easily fool him a lot. Someone like that never expects that someone could actually lie to him, so if you can trick his intuition, he’d probably believe anything you said, even if you said the moon was purple. See what I mean?”

“Do you think Androv has that sort of skill?”

“How do you think he’s survived until now? He’s been walking under the sun and disguising himself as a living person since before I was born. I doubt there’s anyone Androv couldn’t fool.”

“Thanks.” Will dismissed the limnthal. From the corner of his eye he could see that everyone was watching him, but he didn’t care. While they were isolated, in the center of the city, Lord Tintabel was beside the king, and most of the