The Wizard's Daughters: Twin Magic: Book 1 by Michael Dalton Page B

natural tension between mages who wanted to be selective and those who felt they could not be.
    Ariel and Astrid would be some of the most eligible female mages to arrive in Köln in quite some time. And that meant they could not simply be thrown to the wolves.
    So Johannes and Sigrid were trying to decide how best to handle it. Walther had hoped he would arrive in two weeks, as they were coming by wagon and some of the terrain they needed to cross was a bit rugged. They would need some time to get situated (and Johannes needed some time to get Franz alone with the girls before anyone else got a chance with them) so the soonest that he thought they might be able to present Walther’s daughters to magely society would be about a month from now. Unfortunately, that was proving difficult.
    “The most auspicious time would be around St. Martin’s Day,” Sigrid said. “There are a number of events planned.”
    “That is too far off, I am afraid.” So long a delay ran the risk that the bored girls would take the process into their own hands.
    “Yes, I thought it would be. There is the Equinox Ball. Would that be too soon?”
    “When is that, again?”
    “The 21st of September.”
    Johannes groaned. It was an ideal event, except for being barely two weeks away. But there would not be another suitable occasion for at least a month. A month in which word of Ariel and Astrid’s presence would spread around the city and eager mages would come calling on Walther.
    “I suppose that will have to do. Hopefully they will get here in time.” Franz would simply need to work quickly.
    Sigrid nodded. “I will let the staff know. It should not be a problem. We will just need to make room in the evening’s schedule and add some verbiage to the announcement.”
    “Thank you.”
    Their discussion then shifted to matters of spending and staffing, and Sigrid left about half an hour later.
    When she was gone, Johannes whistled and called the weasel over to him. The creature jumped into his lap and poked its head under his hand, seeking attention. Johannes idly scratched behind its ears as he thought. The animal’s proximity would help clear his thoughts.
    Not all mages took familiars, as there were some tradeoffs in doing so, but Johannes on the whole found it beneficial. The right familiar helped a mage better channel the Flow, in addition to being able to perform simple tasks like delivering messages. The process of acquiring one was not unlike getting married, except that animal flows—unlike human flows—were mostly malleable, so a mage who wanted a familiar could essentially force the animal he wanted to match him.
    It was even possible, in extremely rare circumstances, to take a human as a familiar. The problem, of course, was that a human familiar could not be made to match the mage; he or she had to be a match as is. As a result, this sort of thing almost always happened accidentally. It was also not viewed positively; most mages regarded a human familiar as something little better than a slave.
    The only drawback of having a familiar was that the relationship went in both directions: though the animal’s intelligence was increased, the mage’s personality was often affected. Johannes had felt himself becoming more short-tempered since acquiring his weasel, but it was a trade he was willing to make.
    Johannes finally lifted the weasel off his lap. “Fetch Franz.”
    The weasel bounded out of his office and down the stairs. A few minutes later, it returned with his son.
    “Father?”
    Johannes explained what he had worked out with Sigrid.
    “This means you will have only a few days to get to know the girls before the ball. You must be on your best behavior. Get yourself some new robes and a haircut. You will also need formal clothes for the dance. From what Walther has told me, the girls’ talents lean toward elemental magic, which is hardly surprising given their lineage. Between now and then, I want you to do some