“Oh come on! I apologised already!” Kelsey complained.

  “Did you mean it, or did you just say some words in the hopes that we’d forget about it?”

  Kelsey looked suspiciously at Suliel. “Something in your tone tells me that you don’t think those are the same thing.”

  “My tone, is it?” Suliel said. Anton noted that her tone had dangerously deteriorated, but chose not to intervene.

  “It really wasn’t a big deal,” Tyla put in diffidently. “It wasn’t bad… I mean, it was—the experience was—” she cut herself off, looking away from Anton.

  Aside from disliking the mortification that Tyla was feeling, Anton didn’t know what to think about having his body copied in order to, as Kelsey put it, “Help Tyla with her sexual hangups.”

  His wives had put it very differently. They both had strong feelings about what had occurred and had spent most of the morning making them known. On balance, Anton had decided that he was better off just supporting them, instead of thinking too deeply on the matter. Despite accepting Suliel as her sovereign, Kelsey reacted much more strongly to Anton’s disapproval than his wife’s.

  “It is a big deal, Tyla,” Suliel said. “And what she hasn’t given us, despite all these apologies, is a promise that she won’t do it again.”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Kelsey interjected. “I didn’t watch Tyla have vigorous, orgasmic sex for my own amusement! I need data, and what was the other thing… Oh yeah! Tyla needs it for her sexual health!”

  “Tyla doesn’t need anything that’s forced on her,” Suliel stated firmly. “That includes when you take advantage of her sense of obligation. And as for your data, find someone else.”

  “There isn’t anyone else!” Kelsey protested, throwing her hands up in the air. "There isn’t anyone else who can enter my brainspace.”

  She paused. “Although I don’t really have a brain, as such. Mindspace? Mental domain? Eh, I like brainspace better.”

  “I don’t know… might not… refuse…” Tyla whispered so inaudibly that Anton could only hear it thanks to his high Perception. Anton stared at her, but she steadfastly refused to look in his direction. Anton decided not to think about that.

  “Mel is already in there,” Aris pointed out. “Can’t she just have sex with you? Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” she said to the air. They couldn’t see Mel, but they were in Kelsey’s lower floors, so it was a fair bet that she was listening.

  “She’s not around,” Suliel said. “And I’m not really sure what her relationship with Kelsey is, so I don’t know if she’s a potential partner or another apology that needs to happen.”

  “I’ll take the fifth on that one,” Kelsey said nonsensically. “And I need to maintain a certain distance from the act if I’m to observe the consequences.”

  She leered at Tyla. “Which is to say, I can’t focus on the fine details of what’s happening in my brain if I’m getting drilled like a guy that needs a root canal.”

  “Kelsey,” Anton reprimanded.

  “Sorry,” she said instantly. “Too sexy? Too flippant?”

  “All of that,” he agreed. “Just… don’t inflame the situation, please?”

  “We’re about there, anyway,” Kelsey said. “Welcome to the new twelfth floor, the Village of the Damned.”

  Kelsey’s secret entrance to the floor was one of the lifting rooms that worked without magic. It rose through more than a yard of rock, right into one of the houses in the village. The people—Revenants—they were there to see were waiting for them. Kelsey barely had a chance to step out of the room before they were throwing themselves at her feet.

  “Mistress! In the flesh! We’re not worthy to bathe in your divine radiance!” one of them said.

  “Can we kiss your feet?” another asked.

  “What in all the hells is going on here?” Suliel asked, looking over the prostate forms around them.

  Anton gave them a going over with Delver’s Discernment.

  Lucian Damaris, Level 23, Revenant, True Caster, Weakness: Fire

  Maristella Corvian, Level 24, Revenant, True Caster, Weakness: Fire

  Cassian Balthazar, Level 24, Revenant, True Caster, Weakness: Earth

  Aurelia Ventaros, Level 24, Revenant, True Caster, Weakness: Earth

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  “My Avatar is a fairly recent development,” Kelsey explained. “And it’s mostly been upstairs with you guys. Revenants don’t often get to see me in the flesh.”

  She smiled fondly down at the babbling petitioners before her.

  “Maybe I should get out of that habit. I could get used to this.”

  “We came down here for a reason,” Anton reminded her.

  “Right, right. On your feet, worthless maggots!” she commanded, and was instantly obeyed. “My friends have some questions about the Wizard guild.”

  The Revenants stared at her expectantly. Kelsey sighed.

  “Which means that I want you to answer them.”

  “I can answer them!” the one called Lucian cried. He tried to step forward but was pulled back by Cassian.

  “I will answer the questions," the older Revanent declared. “Stay down and wait your turn!’

  “Pick me!” Maris declared. “I know so many more secrets than these guys!” She pulled on the robes of Aurelia, who was also stepping forward.

  “I have seniority!” Aurelia declared. “I outrank all of you!” Unable to pull free of Maris’s grip, she turned around and started exchanging slaps with the other Revenant. “Unhand me, junior!”

  “Settle, settle,” Kelsey said, and the fighting stopped instantly. “Everybody, take a seat.” She snapped her fingers, and the lifting room sank back into the floor, revealing that there had been a long table perched on top of it. Chairs were placed around the walls, and the Revenants slunk into the ones indicated. Kelsey grabbed her own chair and placed it at the head of the table.

  “Pull up a chair,” Kelsey said. “Revenants to the right of me, humans to my left, and I will oversee all like the benevolent goddess that I am.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” the Revenants all chorused. The humans sat down at the table without further comment.

  “Aurelia’s right,” Kelsey decided. “You do have seniority. So you answer the questions, and if the rest of you think she’s wrong or you know something relavent that she hasn’t mentioned, you put up your hand.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” they chorused again, though Auriela seemed noticably happier about it this time.

  “Over to you guys,” Kelsey said. The humans all looked at each other uncertainly.

  “Right,” Suliel finally said. “How many dungeons has the Guild enslaved?”

  “The term we use is collared,” Aurelia answered. “We’ve collared the other two dungeons in Zamarra, and the Hungry Depths should be back under our control by now.”

  Lucian’s hand shot up, and Kelsey nodded for him to proceed.

  “That expedition left after us, but it was scheduled to be finished by now,” he said.

  “What do you get from… collaring them?” Suliel asked.

  “For one thing, it keeps the dungeons from becoming truly dangerous,” Auriela replied. “Dungeon development is redirected into reward generation, so the dungeons become less lethal and more popular.”

  Maris put her hand up, but Aurelia wasn’t done. “The main thing, though, is… magical potential.”

  She looked at Tyla. “You’re the Mistress’s pet wizard?”

  “That’s not what she is,” Suliel snapped, but Tyla nodded. Maris nodded back and pulled out her core.

  “Then you know… the spells you can do are limited by your own development, but also by the potential in your core. You can increase your potential by merging your core with another… but there is another way.”

  “Siphoning magic out of a living dungeon core,” Anton said.

  “Yes,” Aurelia confirmed. “It doesn’t seem to harm it. I shudder to think of the process being used on Mistress, though. I think it might weaken the dungeon somehow, but Master—I mean Archmagus Vaust—saw that as a positive.”

  The Revenants all scowled angrily.

  “I get so angry when I think about how Archmagus Vaust wanted to do that to our Mistress,” Aurielia growled.

  “Wasn’t that you, though?” Anton asked.

  Aurelia frowned. “I remember everything about the old Aurelia, but she’s not me. I hate her. I want to eat her brain.”

  She looked over at Kelsey. “You did save it, didn’t you, Mistress? I’ll be able to eat it?”

  “I saved it,” Kelsey confirmed. “You can eat it if you do your job well.”

  “That’s not fair!” Lucian complained. “She gets to answer the questions, so how do we get to do well?”

  “By sitting quietly and making sure she doesn’t forget anything,” Kelsey told him, with just a hint of sharpness. Lucian snapped his mouth shut and stared fixedly at Auriela.

  “So what advantage do you gain from improving your cores this way?” Anton asked.

  “More cores,” Aurelia replied. “Not directly, but we don’t have to merge our cores, which are a very limited resource in Zamarra. The Guild and the King are very resistant to harvesting cores.”

  “There do seem to be more wizards in Bures than I would have expected,” Suliel said. “Are you getting cores from somewhere else?”

  “Mostly from the secret trade with the Elitran Empire,” Aurelia replied. “We trade one powerful core for a few lesser cores. We build all of the lesser cores up, use one to repeat the trade and distribute the others to the junior mages.”

  “That sort of trade…” Suliel mused. “The Kingdom turns a blind eye to independent Elitran traders, but cores are kept under the strict control of the Elitran government.”

  “You can’t buy them with gold,” Aurelia agreed. “Only better cores. I’m not sure if we’re trading with officials or the military, but it’s not in any way legal. That’s why it’s a secret trade.”

  Cassian put his hand up. Kelsey gave him a nod, and he leaned forward.

  “The King knows about the trade,” he said. “And the Tiatian government suspects that it exists.”

  “Is he getting kick-backs or something?” Kelsey asked.

  “I’m not sure of the details, but he profits somehow. Maybe that’s why Archmagus Vaust provides him with all that magical support. All I know is that the trade is the main reason negotiations with the Tiatians have stalled.”

  “Of course,” Suliel said. “Tiatia won’t like any trade that empowers the Elitrans.”

  Cassian nodded. “The Tiatian Empire doesn’t practice harvesting either,” he said. “So they’ve got no lesser cores to trade. They’ll cut Archmagus Vaust off, and he won’t be able to expand the guild anymore.”

  “He can still empower his members,” Anton pointed out.

  Cassian shook his head. “There’s diminishing returns there,” he explained. “The Archmagus has empowered himself and his inner circle to a huge degree, but even taking the lion's share of the potential, he’s not making much in the way of further gains.”

  “How come you know this, Cassian?” Auriela asked indignantly. “No one told me about this!”

  “This knowledge was restricted to those who needed to know it,” Cassian said smugly. “I was involved in an operation, under the orders of the Archmagus. We needed to disrupt the relationship between the two nations. Keep them at odds. The Tiatians were pushing hard, and the King didn’t want to explain why he couldn’t hand the Kingdom over. So the Archmagus had to step in and cool things down.”

  “And how did you do that?” Suliel asked.

  “We killed his son-in-law,” Cassian said. “The Tiatian prince. And just to be clear, the order came from the Archmagus, but the king was in on it.”