Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) by Skye Malone, Megan Joel Peterson

asleep. Closer by, several wizards cleaned up the boxes of food knocked over in the earlier chaos, discarding what was damaged and keeping what could be salvaged.
    “So anything else?” Elias asked.
    She blinked, pulling her gaze back to him. Hesitating, she floundered through the plethora of questions she’d amassed over the past day. “‘Line of authority’?”
    He chuckled. “Hierarchy. Basically how the power goes if one of us falls.”
    She bit her lip. “So Sebastian takes control if Darius dies?”
    “Unfortunately,” he murmured dryly. He glanced at her askance. “Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, eh?”
    She met his gaze. The humor in his eyes strengthened.
    “But how did he end up…?” Her face twisted expressively.
    “Good connections. Knowing the right people.” Elias shrugged. “It’s politics.”
    Ashe grimaced, and then looked back up as another thought occurred to her. “And Katherine outranks you?”
    “Yep.”
    Noticing her watching him, Elias shrugged again. “She’s been at this a bit longer. Seniority matters too.”
    Ashe didn’t say anything.
    Pushing a broom ahead of him, a wizard came by, and the two of them pulled up their feet to stay out of the man’s way. Murmuring an apology, the sweeper bowed as he passed, driving the dirty bandages along. With a twitch of his head, Elias motioned for her to jump down, joining her a moment later. Side by side, they began walking back toward the stairs.
    “That all you wanted to know?” he asked when the sweeper was out of earshot.
    “What are those blue lights on the doors? The ones that appear sometimes near a portal?”
    “Wizard writing,” he answered. “Which is a ridiculously self-important name, if you ask me. Basically, it’s magic writing humans can’t see. There’s some scientific explanation for why it’s blue and not some other color, but that doesn’t really matter. These days, it’s mostly just used for certain types of portals. Some portals can be set up ahead of time and given variable destinations, so the wizard writing really helps distinguish…”
    He fell silent when her hand twitched up.
    Coming to a stop at the base of the stairway, she glanced at him. “ Variable destinations?” she asked, trying to ignore the quiver in her stomach at the words.
    “Right. Sorry, my lady. Variable destinations means–”
    “Elias?”
    One hand on the banister, he looked over at her.
    “Could you just call me Ashe?”
    He paused. “Never going to happen, your majesty,” he said assuredly. “My apologies.”
    Bowing slightly, he gave her a small grin and then started up the stairs.
    “Variable destinations,” he continued as though she hadn’t interrupted, “means that a wizard can attach the portal to more than one endpoint, typically selected by options written on the door itself and accessible through a variant of the basic portal spell. Portals themselves are just a rather unique twist of magic that uses magical resonance to create an effect far stronger than any one wizard could achieve on their own, which means that ultimately, portals possess a tremendous amount of energy and that even a fairly weak wizard can make one…”
    Her brow drawing down, she watched him as he climbed the steps. A mystified look drifted over her face, and she shook her head to drive it away. Gripping the banister, she hurried up the steps. He glanced over as she joined him, barely pausing before continuing his explanation.
    “So, more recently, we’ve managed to connect technology to these variable destination portals, as you might’ve seen with cell phones. It’s all just magic, whether it’s tied to a phone, a doorframe, or some stereotypical staff with a big jewel on top. But regardless, the cell phones and the wizard writing serve the function of confirming the selected destination’s viability…”
    A bemused expression on her face, Ashe followed him away from the factory floor.
     

Chapter