All the Paths of Shadow Read Free

he said. “Nothing to all those old stories. Nothing at all.”
    Meralda snatched up her cloak and stamped out of the kitchen. Mug listened to her wash her face, brush her teeth, and change her clothes. Then the living room door closed softly, and Mug was all alone.
     
     
    Meralda settled into her cab. The driver snapped the reins, and the carriage pulled onto Fairlane Street with the steady clop-clop of Phendelit carriage horse hooves.
    Carriages and coaches hurried past, most bound for the shady lanes and quiet neighborhoods that lay to the west, beyond the college and the park. The sidewalks were crowded as well, as bakers and hat makers and shopkeepers closed their doors and shuttered their windows and turned eager faces toward home.
    Meralda’s driver, a short, bald, retired army sergeant named Angis Kert, bit back a curse as a slow moving lumber wagon pulled out of the alley by Fleet’s Boots. Meralda grinned. She’d heard Angis let loose before, and was always reminded of her grandfather, who cursed at his swine with exactly the same words and tone.
    “S’cuse me, milady,” said Angis from his perch above. “Bloody lumber wain like to drove us into Old Pafget’s pastry shop.”
    Meralda laughed. “No apology is necessary, Sergeant,” she said. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
    Angis laughed. “I must not be as loud as I once was, then,” he said. “How late you reckon you’ll be, Sorceress? Late enough for old Angis to nip into Raggot’s and have a pint and a game of checkers?”
    Meralda sighed. “Have three pints and ten games,” she said. “In fact, don’t wait. I’ll catch a public cab. It’ll be midnight, or worse.”
    Angis spoke to his ponies and the carriage surged suddenly ahead, passing the lumber wain.
    “I’ll wait for you,” said Angis, after a moment. “You’ll not find a public cab without a fight, these days, what with half of Erya camped out in the Green Wing.”
    Meralda frowned. “Eryans? Here already?”
    Angis guffawed. “You got to stick your head out of that lab-ra-tory every now and then, milady,” he said. “Eryans got here yesterday, king and queen and soldiers and all.”
    “I’ve been busy.”
    “You always are,” said Angis. “Work all day an’ work all night. It ain’t my place to say, Sorceress, but if you don’t slow down a mite you’re gonna be stooped and grey-headed before me.” Angis snapped his reins. “But I reckon I’ve said enough.”
    Meralda looked at her reflection in the carriage window glass. “You’re right, Angis,” she said, leaning closer to the window. “You’re right.”
    Was he?
    My hair is a fright, thought Meralda. But that can be fixed. She looked into her eyes, surprised by the dark circles beneath them and the weariness within them.
    Angis stopped at an intersection and bellowed at the white-gloved traffic master until he waved them through. Meralda watched as a pair of shabby gas-lighter boys darted past, magefire lighters held high and leaving persistent glowing wakes drifting down the sidewalk as they rushed to light their appointed street-lamps. Meralda shook her head. She’d proposed a simple method to automate the lighting and extinguishing of the street-lamps in her first month as Mage, but the Guilds has raised such a fuss the king had refused to even consider it.
    The gas-lighters vanished around a corner, leaving Meralda’s reflection alone in the glass. Meralda turned away. No wonder the papers stopped chasing me, she thought. I don’t look eighteen anymore.
    She certainly didn’t feel eighteen. Whisked off to college at thirteen, after enchanting Mug into sarcastic life. Graduating in a mere four years, when most mages take eight, if they manage it at all. A year spent as Fromarch’s apprentice, before his abrupt retirement and unwavering insistence that Meralda be named royal Thaumaturge despite her youth and gender. All that, thought Meralda, to wind up spending three-quarters of my time doing