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  It was different, adjusting to my friends in one of their other forms.

  Rory sat at one end of a leather sofa. Tineke and Lajos shared it with him.

  I’d thanked Tineke for her advice regarding my clothing needs and discussed my choices—huntress style, black—at dinner. I had complained a bit, though, about the prolonged process; my complaints supported by Nils. What I hadn’t mentioned was how informative Pavel’s list of items I required was. By telling me what clothes I needed, he’d given me an insight into Faerene culture and my role as Istvan’s familiar.

  Emil’s stories of magistrates would tell me more.

  I introduced him to everyone.

  “You’re from the Memphis seethe?” Nils asked. “How will that work with you being based here?”

  “I’ll return every weekend.” Emil waited till I’d sat down beside Nils on an overstuffed sofa before sitting down himself, fussily hitching up the knees of his pressed trousers as he did so. He ducked his head, peering sideways. “Blood feeding on Saturday and again on Sunday will suffice me.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so ignored the statement. I could learn about vampires via the slate or by asking some discreet questions when Emil was absent. One question did pop up. Where would he sleep? In the hall’s dungeons? In someone else’s basement?

  “Istvan’s asked Emil to tell me how the hall will operate and stories about Elysium magistrates. Do you mind if he does that here or we can sit at a window seat where we won’t disturb you?”

  “Stay,” Rory said lazily.

  Oscar looked up from the slate he was studying to smile and nod. He was busy—he was always busy—but I wasn’t disturbing him.

  I liked that everyone had gathered in the family room. Only Istvan was missing.

  And my family back in Apfall Hill.

  I smiled resolutely at Emil. “Tell me about the hall. What can I expect?”

  From Emil’s description I could expect a twenty four hour operation that monitored and responded to magical threats in the North American Territory, and which mediated or outright ruled on magical disputes. Istvan was the big bad of the territory; capable of imposing his judgment on the Faerene under his care. And Rory and the rest of the guard unit would support him.

  The guard unit didn’t so much guard Istvan as extend his reach as magistrate. They could respond to magical crises, catch perpetrators, collect evidence, and at the end of the process, execute Istvan’s judgement. But they weren’t magistrates. Istvan, alone, could judge a case.

  If he’d had a junior magistrate, he or she would have also filled that role.

  Emil coughed apologetically. “Magistrate Istvan was notorious on Elysium for his refusal to develop a junior magistrate. The North American Territory is challenging enough that one could be employed here. Instead, Guard Master and Pack Leader Rory—”

  “Just Rory,” Rory corrected the night clerk.

  Emil fidgeted with his collar. “Rory has the magical ability required of a magistrate.”

  “But not the legal training nor the desire to serve justice that is required of a magistrate,” Rory finished.

  From my purely selfish perspective, the information which was immediately pertinent was that when the hall officially opened in three days’ time, petitioners would arrive twice daily at ten o’clock in the morning and ten o’clock at night. Plus the number of staff at the hall would increase. Emil wouldn’t be the lone night clerk, just the chief one; a fact he admitted with bashful pride.

  I found the vampire endearing.

  Some of the information he shared, however, was disturbing. “You mean Istvan will be away for two thirds of the year?”

  “Yes?” Emil said cautiously.

  “There are four circuits,” Rory explained. “Two months for each with a month back here in-between.”

  Oscar put aside his slate. He sat in a low armchair with his feet on an ottoman. He yawned and stretched. “Sorry.” Belatedly, he covered his mouth. “The fact that a magistrate is away more often than he’s at the hall is why the guard unit, clerks and my role as steward are so important. We handle routine magical crises. A magistrate hall functions even in the absence of a magistrate.”

  Lajos rose and stepped over Berre to add a log to the fire. “The notion of distance is deceptive. Istvan can open a portal and return here in seconds.”

  “But that uses a lot of magic,” I objected. I still had to investigate how magic was used and rationed, if rationed was the right word. Nevertheless, splurging on its use didn’t fit with what I’d observed of the Faerene.

  Lajos nodded. “Istvan won’t return on a whim, but knowing he can be here in seconds helps keep the hall functioning. Plus, Rory will be based here. Guard masters always are.”

  Rory had known that fact when he’d volunteered for the position.

  “Faerene society is so orderly,” I said.

  Yana whined in amusement, while Tineke laughed. The rest of them grinned. In his wolf form, Berre showed his lolling tongue as well as his teeth. Only Emil’s forehead crinkled with concern.

  “Miss Amy,” he began earnestly. “Please, don’t be misled. We’re not yet a year into the Migration and everyone remains locked into training and promises from our preparation. There is grumbling and manipulating behind the scenes. Schemes and kickbacks. This orderliness that you see is real, but it’s based on our bedrock understanding that so early in our settlement on Earth if we don’t stand together, we’ll fall.”

  Tineke picked up the explanation. “A Migration is meticulously planned from who is chosen to what we must deliver in the first year, first five years, and first three decades. The constraints on us will lessen as our society develops. For now, the broad-brush of what we must do is laid out. That’s why the town of Justice is going up so fast. People know what they must do to establish a town, and they do it while positioning themselves for personal gain.”

  “And who polices everything?” I asked. “Istvan said his remit is magical.”

  Nils answered quietly from beside me on the sofa. “There are people watching. The Fae Council is our global ruling body. Fae King Harold can issue punishment decrees.”

  “Which won’t be necessary,” Tineke interrupted sharply. “The members of the Migration were selected carefully.”

  Nils’s lack of response was a response in itself. He disagreed with her contention. Possibly his experience as an assassin had convinced him of how badly people can behave, and how a small thing can send them careening into moral failure.

  Lajos intervened. “It’s remarkable how well communities can police themselves in the absence of a controlling authority. Incipient trouble will be cut off at the grassroots level, at least for the first couple of years. Once people feel settled and ready to expand their horizons—physically, mentally and emotionally—then things will change.”

  Emil wriggled in the armchair he’d chosen to sit in, the one furthest from where Yana and Berre sprawled as wolves.

  I jerked to awareness that we were getting off-track, and that wasn’t fair to the small vampire. This was his first night on duty and Istvan had requested that he brief me on magistrates and their halls. He’d want to do his job.

  I smiled at Lajos to thank him for his explanation, and asked Emil to share some of the history of Elysium magistrates.

  He tugged at his vest as he launched into stories of legendary magistrates who’d resolved feuds, countered blights, and held back tsunamis.

  I listened with half an ear as I mulled over Migration society. I’d forgotten, or perhaps it had never truly sunk in, how much the Faerene on Earth had given up to come here. They couldn’t return to their home world of Faerene. Travel between worlds was only possible when a rift opened, and no sane world risked a rift given the threat of marauding Kstvm. The Faerene here had left behind friends and family. Sometimes whole families and packs had joined the Migration, but for people like Rory, his family were lost to him on Elysium. The Faerene on Earth had to m
ake their new society work. It was all they had. No second chances, no takebacks.

  Emil’s story of a magical rain of tadpoles ended.

  Tadpoles? Either I’d missed the point of the story or tadpoles meant something else to the Faerene. “Thank you, Emil.”

  “You are most welcome. Sharing stories is a joy.” The night clerk patted his combed over hair before trotting off, shoes clattering on the stone floor, to complete his other duties.

  His departure seemed to be a signal for everyone to stand and stretch and wander off.

  Finally, it was just Rory and me. He raked the coals of the fire apart and put the fireguard in front of it.

  “The circuits are important, aren’t they?” I said quietly. “Especially these first ones. Seeing Magistrate Istvan,” I used his title on purpose, “will reassure people that one of the pillars of their society is sturdy and indestructible.”

  “Incorruptible and all things admirable.” Rory grinned before sobering. “Yes. The circuits matter.”

  I pressed my lips together. Istvan’s work mattered far more than I did, but tonight I’d finally worked out why I, and the other human familiars, were so important. We were the biggest single anomaly that the Faerene Migration hadn’t prepared for. Humans hadn’t been expected to suddenly access magic. After all, we hadn’t discovered its force in thousands of years. However, somehow here were a rare handful of us using it. The Faerene had bound us to magician partners, imprisoned (to heal those hurt during the trials) or executed us.

  It was eerie to think of myself as an unknown danger.

  “Goodnight, Rory.”

  He bent and kissed my cheek. “’Night, Amy.”

  In my room, I closed the double doors behind me and discovered that they sported new hardware. There was a key in the lock and a bolt to secure the doors while I was inside. After the arrangements Istvan had put in place for the family room, I doubted that he’d left my bedroom unwarded, but someone had added details that would reassure a human. I could imagine that in certain moods I would appreciate the ability to physically lock out the world.

  Through the kitchen windows I watched Rory in his eight feet tall half-man, half-wolf form grapple with another werewolf in their half-form.

  “Training,” Peggy said. “Rory’s been beating on potential recruits for an hour now. Grunts and growls while I’m mixing up my waffle batter.”

  “They’re delicious waffles.”

  She smiled. “It’s the buttermilk. Third cousins of my Arthur’s have a dairy farm upriver. When the Magistrate chose this site for his hall…” She described the uproar and excitement, changed plans and opportunities, that had flashed across the goblin settlements in North America.

  I watched Rory haul his fallen opponent up and push him toward Berre for rough and ready medical treatment before taking on the next contender. I guessed that this was some kind of job interview to join the guard unit, but possibly also to be considered as a Hope Fang pack member. Berre had said there’d be petitioners.

  Afterwards I carried a cup of tea to Oscar in his office, and received my salary and a quick but thorough explanation of the Faerene monetary and financial systems. Then I took my slate and settled at the desk in my room to answer some of the many questions I had from yesterday.

  The town map was fascinating. I located the site for the bank, diagonally across from the all-faiths temple. I saw how residential buildings were mixed with small shops at street level, some of which would sell groceries, others open as restaurants, and still others hold apothecaries, healers, notaries, and specialist stores such as booksellers and music shops. The police station occupied a corner near the magistrate hall and with direct access to the docks.

  Carrying the slate with me to the window, I spent a few minutes checking the plan against the reality outside. It matched. A saloon was being painted red and white near the riverfront and close to the major warehouses.

  Across the river, the progress was less about the buildings—there were far more tents—and more about the land that ringed the west bank of Justice. Clearly it wasn’t just Lajos who’d hurried to claim land for agriculture. With winter approaching, I wasn’t sure what crops they intended to grow, but by the tiny figures scurrying in the distance, they had definite ideas and a tight timeframe.

  We each had our responsibilities. I returned to my desk and put the slate down. A few yoga poses stretched my muscles and refocused my determination. Researching the town map was the easy task. Now I had to learn how life was lived in each of the buildings.

  What laws did the police uphold?

  What was the etiquette of buying a drink in the saloon? Did you have to “shout” a round for everyone, like Australians did?

  Who ran the all-faiths temple?

  Until I understood Faerene culture, my friends who accompanied me around town were as much babysitters as bodyguards.

  Chapter 9

  Istvan stood with Nora on the roof of the magistrate hall. Night hid some of the details of the fast-growing town of Justice and its noise level was thankfully much lower than during the day, but the extent of its progress was clear.

  “You chose an excellent site,” Nora declared. “Atlanta, Yelena’s choice, would have worked. But the Mississippi River is the greatest river in your territory. Justice will encourage development along it.”

  “Flooding will be a risk.” At her dubious head tilt, he added. “For humans. It won’t just be Faerene whom Justice encourages to settle and trade with the town. They won’t have the resources for flood defenses for a few years yet.”

  Nora ruffled her wings. “So they’ll build high or rebuild after disasters. Humans have a right to their choices.”

  He clacked his beak. Being alone with another griffin was a rare relaxation. The tiny hints of body language and sound were familiar from his nestling years onward. Still he didn’t need Nora chiding him. He believed in autonomy. He’d never trample someone’s right to be foolish or to risk everything on a slim chance.

  His family had considered his decision to join the Migration to be the height of foolishness.

  Nora flicked him with her tail. “Don’t get tetchy. We have a serious issue to discuss.”

  Since her research was on the inexplicable emergence of magic in humans, the issue would have to involve his familiar bond with Amy.

  The smaller, golden griffin began carefully. “It’s been less than a week since the familiar trials ended with fifty four of the human candidates bonding with a Faerene magician partner. This isn’t sufficient time in which to draw unchallengeable conclusions, however, there are signs of an unexpected development. Or perhaps, devolution is the apposite term.”

  Her tail coiled around her hind legs, revealing her anxiety. “Of the fifty four human familiars, all but two of them have decreased in the amount of magic pooling in them.”

  “What?! But they’re all adults, much older than Amy. Their magic levels should be stable.”

  “Amy’s is. Chen, the closest to her in age and bonded with the goblin healer Viola, has actually increased the amount of magic he can channel. Then, again, Viola has been practicing casting spells with his magic.”

  Unconsciously, Istvan ruffled his feathers. “Nora, I’ve been immersed in magisterial duties.”

  Her answer was a placatory head bob. “I know. However, the early signs are worrying. My hypothesis is that the familiars’ lack of trust in their bonded magician partner is reducing their magic load. If it continues to drop, they’ll end up mundane. The exceptions are Amy and Chen. Chen trusts Viola and believes in the work she does. I’m assuming that Amy trusts you.”

  He recalled Amy’s hugs and pats. Even other Faerene weren’t that confident with griffins. “I believe so.”

  “And given that you haven’t practiced spellcasting using Amy’s magic, it must be trust that is the decisive factor. Although there is an argument that Chen and Amy adapted best because of their youth. They are the youngest of the familiars.”

/>   Istvan paced the rooftop. “What of the other human mages? The strongest one hundred were selected for the familiar candidate trials. How many more are there and are their magic loads decreasing?”

  “There are four hundred and thirty one other human mages. None are as powerful as the hundred selected for the trials. But their magic loads are stable. We’ve checked this with elygraphs and feisameters. We’ve triple-checked everything.”

  He halted, although the tip of his tail continued to twitch. “Political consequences?”

  “And that is the issue. Some will argue that if bonding a human mage with a Faerene magician reduces the human’s magic load to zero or near zero, then that’s what we should do.”

  “Not steal their magic, but kill it,” Istvan clarified.

  Nora clacked her beak. “You are granting magic a vital existence it does not possess.”

  “Ignore my phrasing. The point remains, bonding with a human for the purpose of eliminating their magic is morally abhorrent.”

  “To you, and to me, but others would disagree.” Her chest feathers fluttered with the depth of her inhalation. “Either way, we need to prove that having a bond with a human familiar can be positive for a Faerene magician, and healthy for the human.”

  He scraped at the stone roof with his left front paw. “Bonding with a human mage solely to eliminate their magic could have disastrous effects for the Faerene magician. The oath requires the mage to accept and honor their familiar’s service in placing their magic at the magician’s command.”

  She answered briskly, evidently having had a similar discussion with others. “The wriggle room there is if the Faerene magician believes that the familiar’s magic’s best service is to disappear.”

  Istvan clattered his beak in scorn. “Sophistry.”

  “It still may be adopted as policy by the Fae Council. Istvan, you need to channel Amy’s magic so that we can prove that her magic level remains stable or, like Chen’s, increases. We need success stories to counter the disappointment of the fifty two other decreasing magic loads.”