4.36: Disposeable

Max’s facial journey during Kylie’s explanation was pretty interesting. He almost immediately put on his sociable, unruffled mask, which I’d expected; I’d seen him put that on under stress many times. But I’d never seen his face slowly get redder and redder through an explanation before, until he looked like he’d just run a marathon. By the time Kylie got to the part where I’d threatened to tell everyone about the nature of curses, he’d dropped the composed facade entirely, and he was practically snarling while she explained the geas.

“No,” he said. “They can’t do that. They can’t do any of that.”

“I think they can,” I said. “I mean, they’re in charge, right?”

“There are rules! Laws! Precedents! None of this is right! I’m not going to let them get away with this.” He made for the door, but Kylie stopped him.

“You need to calm down!” she said. “This isn’t helping!”

“Calm down? They don’t deserve calm! How are you two not furious?!”

I took a deep breath and let it out. I’d been doing a good job at not freaking out about all this, but Max’s reaction really wasn’t helping. “I agree with you,” I said. “Throwing Kylie out like this just isn’t okay. But I tried the impulsive, angry reaction, and it didn’t go so great, so if we want to keep her in school we’re going to need to be smarter than that. And I’ve just proven that I’m not so great at clever political plans, so you’re going to need to be smarter for her. Okay?”

“And what about you?”

“Technically, they’re not throwing me out. If Kylie goes I kind of have to ‘choose’ to go with her, but if she stays – ”

“I meant the geas!”

“Not much we can do about that. One thing at a time, yeah?”

Max huffed. “Fine. The not-technically-groundless-expulsion easy to deal with, anyway. Their whole rationalisation and ruling is complete garbage, and they obviously know that, or they wouldn’t have hustled you in on short notice with no legal support to quietly announce it. Their decision to honour Fionnrath’s law on spell ownership is against all precedent and needs a hell of a lot more justification than convenience, but never mind that because it’s completely irrelevant besides. They can argue about spell ownership and legacy duties until the cows come home and it’s completely irrelevant, it’s a distraction; you made a contract with Refujeyo, Kylie, and that contract goes two ways. They can’t just decide to terminate it like this. Did they quote you specific contractual clauses when they explained the termination, or just kind of vaguely hint that they had the right to do it?”

“Um. The second one.”

“Right, so their justifications have to be rice paper thin. My family has full-time lawyers; we’ll put them on this.”

“I don’t think your family lawyers would want to help,” I said.

“Of course they will. That’s what they’re for. Anyway, if that doesn’t work, you can use your contacts to escalate, Kayden.”

I blinked. “What? I don’t have contacts.”

“Of course you do. Have Saina and Hammond contact their people; I’m sure neither of them want to see you go to Fionnrath. Politikala Refujeyo have jurisdiction over law and ruling disputes; if Skolala won’t play nice, we escalate. But I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Everything about their behaviour suggests that they know their argument is weak; the Acanthos lawyers shouldn’t have a problem.”

“Kayden’s right, though,” Kylie said. “They won’t want to get involved.”

“Of course they will. It’s their jobs; it’s an easy case. They have permanent jobs, it’s not like they need to care about pussyfooting around the Council.”

Kylie and I exchanged a glance. She’d figured out the same thing I had, but how were we supposed to gently explain ‘you family would definitely back up the Council on this, actually’?

“So,” he said, “I’ll contact the right people. Now. You.” He pointed at me. “What happened to you was ridiculous. Far beyond the pale. We’re going to get it undone. They can’t do that.”

“They clearly can,” I said.

“Well, they shouldn’t. That was massively disproportionate! I threatened them far worse than you did with the whole Labyrinth of Dreams thing and I never saw any consequences beyond some toothless threats! I’m an actual murderer – ”

“That was a legitimate act of defense – ”

“ – and they’re dragging their feet on even addressing it. So we know that this nonsense is well beyond the pale. This obviously isn’t normal.”

“I think maybe your treatment is the abnorm – ”

“I’ll have guys look into it, but at the very least, you’re owed a trial.”

“No,” I said. “No, we absolutely can’t force them to put me on trial.”

Max waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I know, you’re technically guilty. But the severity of the sentence is ridiculous. A trial would emeliorate this, reduce the sentence to a slap on the wrist or something, and they’re likely to back off rather than have to publically admit they put you under – ”

“A trial,” I said, “would endanger everyone else. This already came up and I made my decision. After Lyd – after the whole thing at Refujeyo, right after I switched surveyanti, I asked the coven to set this up. I asked them to gather evidence and find people to interview and get what we needed to show – nng – ugh, fuck. Anyway. This was my plan, but everyone except Kylie was involved. If this goes to trial, they all get punished for my mistake. And the Council have got it into their head that Kylie’s our ringleader, so they’d probably find a way to make her guilty, too. My plan, my consequences. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine! How are you so calm about this?!”

“Because I have a lot of practice at not freaking out about stuff, but I admit that you’re making it kind of difficult!”

“You should be freaking out! They put you under a geas! For the rest of your life – ”

“This isn’t new to me, Max!” He didn’t get it, he was never going to get it. “You keep forgetting, I was cursed at six months. I spent my whole childhood under all kinds of ridiculous restrictions in the hopes that they’d stop the thing in my heart from waking up and killing everyone I loved. This geas is easy mode – I know exactly what to avoid and if I fuck up, the geas stops me, with no risk of death or destruction. It was nice to have a year or so of freedom, but this is business as usual, and it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!”

“Well, no, it isn’t, but it’s going to have to be. I can live with it.”

“You shouldn’t have to – ”

“We’re a little past should and shouldn’t here! I’ve got this restriction to deal with now, and Kylie’s leaving in seven months and I have to follow her, and that’s just how things are. We lost that battle.”

“No, we haven’t! Legally, it’s a total farce! Our lawyers – ”

“You don’t have lawyers, Max. Your family has lawyers. You could hire some, but I doubt too many out there want to tackle a job like this, and I think it’s a little outside Casey’s field of expertise.”

“My family’s lawyers – ”

“Won’t help,” Kylie said quietly, trying for the gentleness that I’d completely neglected to go for. Too little, too late, probably. “Think about it for a minute. You understand why they’re doing this, right?”

“Yeah, to appease some tiny Scottish town who tried to kill – ”

“They’re protecting you,” I snapped, impatient. Then I remembered how much Max tended to take responsibility for stuff, realised he’d probably blame himself, and rethought my approach. “No, I mean – I didn’t mean – okay, look. Right after you went to the kuracar last time, he had a talk with me. He thinks Kylie and I are a bad influence on you.”

Max blinked. “He thinks you’re a bad influence on me?”

I shrugged. “You’re a devastatingly intelligent and promising young scientist who was very studious and responsible until you got here and started hanging out with a couple of feral witches who nearly died from disobeying the rules on the very first day. Easy mistake to make; they don’t know you’re the insane one. Point is, he warned me off. Said we were endangering your future.”

Fury clouded Max’s expression. “You’re saying Malas organised – ?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he knew about the Council’s decision. He offered me an apprenticeship; I don’t think he’d do that if he knew I wouldn’t be sticking around.”

“He offered you an apprenticeship?!”

“Wait, that was real?” Kylie broke in. “I thought you made that part up!”

I waved a hand. “Not important. What matters is. I don’t think he’s alone. It’s reasonable to assume that the Council’s attitudes are similar. They don’t want the Nonus Acanthos and probable future colleague from getting his life ruined by his friends with bad influences, and I’m certain your family feels the same way. They’ll see this as a boon. They might even be in on it.” I closed my eyes, remembering something, and groaned. “Oh, man, I was such a dick to your old tutor! I bet he reported that back to your family.”

“Max,” Kylie said, “do you remember that conversation we had, after the whole Duniyasar thing? Where you suggested that Fionnrath might try to use you as leverage to convince Kayden and me to move?”

“Oh,” I said, “he tried that on you, too?”

Kylie ignored me. “You tried to make me promise I wouldn’t take a deal like that. Well. I think that decision was never in our hands. My guess would be that Fionnrath and the High Council worked that little exchange out among themselves.”

Max’s shoulders slumped. “So it is my fault.”

“No! Saving my life isn’t your fault, you lunatic! I’m just saying, I don’t think we’re going to get any support from anyone else here. To everyone in charge, this decision is a solution to several problems.”

Max shook his head. “The numbers don’t work out. Why would they sacrifice two mages to save one?”

Kylie and I exchanged another, rather more exasperated glance. I opened my mouth to say, ‘are you honestly this fucking naive?’, then decided against it; being a dick to Max for no reason wasn’t exactly going to help. I tried a different approach.

“Max,” I said, “how many high-ranking, powerful positions in Refujeyo go to legacy mages?” Stupid question, way too broad. I clarified. “I mean, how many of the Council, for example, are from mage families?”

“Uh… let’s see. Six? Seven, depending on how strict your definitions are, but…”

“Okay, so at least two thirds. And what proportion of Refujeyo students are from mage families?”

“Um. I don’t know?”

“Three to five per cent,” Kylie said, “depending on how strict your definitions are. Talbot ran the numbers awhile ago.”

Max shook his head. “That can’t be right. It has to be more than that. Almost everyone I know – ”

“Almost everyone in your legacy mage social circle, developed when your legacy mage families got together when you were kids, and reinforced at legacy mage parties, is a legacy mage?” I asked, raising a brow. “Shocking.”

“The numbers are bigger if you count rich commonfolk families who are sending like, their second or third mage here,” Kylie said, “but proper legacy families, with Refujeyo history and magical traditions; the Acanthos’, Cottinglys, all that? Yeah. Three to five per cent.”

“And the Council is two thirds,” I said. “What about the people in charge of Sekura and Politikala Refujeyo? About the same?”

“The Inquisition of Sekura Refujeyo has a lot more from commonfolk families,” Max said.

“But Sekura Refujeyo are mostly cops and soldiers. What about Politikala’s Council?”

Max didn’t say anything.

“Max,” Kylie said, “I know you don’t like being the Nonus Acanthos, but – ”

“I’m not – ”

“To them, you are! Kayden and I are interesting for our familiarity link, but that’s just as evidence of your success. Individually, we’re politically a hassle, especially me. Trading us to keep you safe, and getting rid of the ‘bad influence’ on you at the same time? That’s a fantastic deal.”

“This place is supposed to be a meritocracy,” Max grumbled.

I stared. “You cannot possibly believe that.”

“There’s no such thing as meritocracy,” Kylie said, “and Refujeyo isn’t even trying for one. We can fight this, sure. But we’re just going to waste time, and lose. And bring a lot more attention down on ourselves, attention we can’t afford, because, as I’m sure you both remember, we’re kind of trying to save the world here. You guys remember that?”

Oh, right. That.

Max sighed. “I guess all of this will be redundant if we pull that off, anyway.”

“When,” I said.

“When we pull that off. So. We have a new time limit.” He gathered himself enough to put his implacable social mask back on. “Seven months to save the world.”