“You can call me whatever you want. I didn’t know what else to do. Nothing ever changed. I didn’t want to resign—that would’ve felt worse—but I couldn’t…I don’t know.”
“You are,” Nicholas said, in the tone of someone carefully explaining an obvious fact, “the Arch-Mage. Change things.”
“I just got tired. Of paperwork. Of bureaucracy. Of meetings that went around and around. Of being responsible for the welfare of everyone—witches and wizards and magical creatures and interaction with human governments and—and I couldn’t do enough. I couldn’t save everyone enough.”
“You saved me,” Nicholas said, and then glanced away: a penitent bird-quick movement, gaze averted. “You did save me. I shouldn’t—I won’t push.”
“Firebird,” Tom said, with affection, “of course you will, you can’t help it,” a
