Read Online Delusion by Laura L. Sullivan - Free Book Online Page A

least, rehearsing for the grand decapitation scene the Albions so often used for their finale.
    “Now,” she said in her most thrilling stage voice, “tell me what the bloody hell is going on here!”
    Arden wished with all his heart he’d managed to kill her after all, even if it meant his demotion back to journeyman or, worse yet, his expulsion from the College of Drycraeft, the English school of magic.

Chapter 5
    I don’t fear death!” Arden said, lifting his chin to expose his throat more fully to the blade. All the same, his neck was tight with tension, its sinews standing out. In the saltcellar hollows above his collarbone where his white shirt gaped, Phil could see his pulse beating, swift and strong.
    “Of course you don’t,” Phil said sweetly. “But you do fear pain. Or you’ll soon learn to.” She pushed the tip a fraction harder against his skin. “Tell me why they tied me up. What is this place?”
    She fervently hoped he’d say something, because she really had no idea what to do next. On the stage, this was her cue to swing the blade back dramatically, angling it to catch the blue light aimed by a hidden stagehand, and then with a ululating battle cry chop off his head. Well, not his head, exactly, but a waxwork simulacrum with a balloon full of viscous blood-red syrup that was substituted at the last instant. And of course the sword was flimsy foil that would hardly cut a blancmange. She knew in her heart she was all show. There was no way she’d hurt someone who was tied up, not even this arrogant nutcake who’d blathered on about magic and killing and...Oh! That must be it. He was crazy, just like Uncle Walter. Well, that explained him.
What a shame,
she thought, pulling her blade back and cocking her head to study him. He was rather good-looking, if you liked that black-haired, arrogant, surly sort . . .
    Perhaps it explained the others, too. Yes, this must be an insane asylum. Because the things the other men had talked about, things she’d barely heard at the time, lost as she was in her own dreams of guns and arms, were now slowly coming back to her. And they only made sense if this was a house of lunatics.
    What Arden said next confirmed it.
    “We are magicians in the College of Drycraeft, servants of the earth and ministers of the Essence that flows through her. And you, whoever you are, are an unnatural aberration who will no doubt be killed as soon as the masters have time to confer.”
    Privately, he hoped they would not confer too long, though given the glacial pace of most of the college’s decisions, the girl’s ridiculously red hair would go gray before they came to any conclusion. It was one of many things that irked him about the college, but now that he was a master, he hoped to institute certain reforms.
    “If you’re a magician, why don’t you get out of those ropes? Or don’t you do escapism?”
    Arden glared at her. “I’ve given my word not to draw from the Essence. I can do no magic until the Conclave of Masters decides my punishment.”
    “Hmm. Convenient, isn’t it?” She lowered the tulwar and went to the door, listening intently. “Tell me how to get out of this place. Is this an official asylum, then, or does your family just have an unfortunate gene?”
    “You think I’m insane?”
    “They say if you have wit enough to ask, you aren’t. I’d supposed that’s why you aren’t at the front. If you aren’t crazy, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, a big hale fellow like you. You should be fighting for your country instead of playing children’s games. Magicians, indeed! You should have picked your shill a little more carefully. I’m one of the Albions, and what I don’t know about magic you could fit on the head of a pin.” She tossed her hair and made a
humph
sound. Arden, against his will, liked the one but not the other.
    Albion? Albion! Godric Albion, the Traitor! Realization upon realization rushed at him, overwhelmed him, and