"Maybe." Tris realized what he was getting at. "You're seeing the lights, too? And you think it's my magic crossing over?"

"I see glitter all over the house, and I saw a bit on my way back from the Hub," he explained. "Not strong like it is for you. But..." He hesitated, scratching his head.

"Will you make me wait all day?" demanded Tris. "I have reading to do."

He shrugged, and told her about the figure in the stairwell. "I figured it was just one of the students, trying out a new spell. I'd want to play with an invisibility spell, if I had one."

Tris's smile was only a bit sour. "Even you couldn't eat all the food you'd steal from Gorse with a spell like that."

"I don't think I'd get away with it - Gorse knows whenever anybody's in that kitchen, no matter how mad it gets in there. Still, it'd be worth a try." After a moment's thought he added, "It was just weird to be seeing anyone using that kind of spell at all.

At least now I know why."

"Sorry," replied Tris. "How was I to know Niko's spell was catching? Listen - you want to work on reading while you shred that bark?" She had begun to teach him how to read a few days before, and was surprised to find how much she liked it.

Briar's response was good for her vanity: he promptly dragged his stool and his willow bark over, then fetched a big slate and a piece of chalk. "First letter," he said, perching on his stool.

She wrote "A" on the black slate.

"A. Air, all-heal, Astrel, alder, animal. Followed by B."

Tris chalked the letter in.

He grinned. "Briar! Also Bit, berry, balm, bayberry, basil. Next letter's C..."

"Sandry." A cup touched her lips; she drank, tasting water flavoured with lemon peel.

Taking a breath, she tried to blink away the spell-pattern, feeling giddy. She and Lark had eaten at midday, and gone right back to work.

The cup pressed against her lips again. This time she took it in her hands, and drank the water in quick sips. When it was empty, she placed it on the table among heaped billows of thin cloth.

Looking at her work, Sandry frowned. She could see what Lark meant about this kind of weaving. It was too loose in some places, and too thick in others. There were gaps.

She thrust her fingers through two of them, and sighed.

"It won't matter, with bandages." Lark stood beside the girl. It had been she who had called Sandry from her weaving trance. "There's always a layer on top or under, to catch leaks. You need to rest now, though. You're scaring our helpers." Sandry looked around, but the novices were missing. "They just took a load to the storerooms."

Sandry's blue eyes met Lark's smiling brown ones. "Do I scare them?" she whispered, rusty-voiced.

"A little. It's not that important - novices always need toughening up before they take their vows. They have to get used to powerful workings sometime. And you have company." She pointed to the open door.

A man in a sombre brown tunic and breeches stood there, stripping off riding gloves.

The sun gleamed on his shaved head, throwing his fleshy face partly into shadow. His brown eyes were set deep over a hawk-like nose and wide, firm mouth. Broad- shouldered, heavily muscled, he wore command like a cloak. Meeting Sandry's eyes, he moved into the room and smiled. The shadow was gone; from a powerful and threatening figure, he changed into a pleasant, middle-aged man.

Half-stumbling - how long had she been working? she curtsied, and smiled back.

"Uncle, I'm sorry!" she greeted Duke Vedris, ruler of Emelan. "I didn't know you were here."

He walked over and kissed her cheeks, as she kissed his. "A brief visit only, to meet with Honoured Moonstream about the watchtowers that exploded." His voice was soft and elegant, the kind that people would strain to hear. He nodded towards the heaps of linen. "You've been very busy."

"I'm helping Lark." She offered him a chair. "We have tea, or fruit juice, if you'd like some."

Smiling, he shook his head. "I'm full of tea from the Hub. In any case, I can only stay briefly -I must return home by dark. Dedicate, please, sit," he told Lark.

"Actually, I'm going to let you and Sandry visit in private," Lark said, going to the door. "I hope you don't mind."

The Duke nodded. Lark bowed - dedicates weren't required to kneel or curtsy to n.o.bles - and left them.

Vedris reached over, and tugged one of Sandry's braids lightly, teasing her. "I'm glad to see you've recovered from your experiences during the earthquake. From what you and Niko said in your letters, it was quite dramatic."

"It was dramatic enough, I suppose." Sandry shuddered. "I'm lucky my friends were with me."

"As they were fortunate that you were there," pointed out the Duke. "And what kind of work is this you're doing?"

She explained, showing him the finished rolls of cloth waiting for transportation to a storeroom. The sheer amount still in the room startled her - and she knew that more had already been taken to storage. A little awed, she stared at her fingers. It was so easy. That didn't seem right; since she was new to this, shouldn't it cost more, to order thread to weave itself? She glanced at Lark's work. Even done this way, Lark's cloth was tighter and finer than hers.

"What strange turns life takes," the Duke murmured, rubbing his naked scalp as he examined Sandry's bandages. "My nephew and his wife were sweet, but I cannot deny they were totally useless." He held up a hand to cut off her protest. "My dear, they lived for their own pleasure, doing nothing to help those whose work gave them the money to do so. You, on the other hand - I have a feeling that you may achieve enough in your lifetime to make up for the emptiness of theirs."

She agreed - that was the worst part. She just couldn't bring herself to say as much aloud. "Aren't you being awfully hard on them?"

"Of course I am," he replied, brown eyes gleaming with amus.e.m.e.nt. "I'm a mean old pirate chaser whose life's work is to be hard on others." He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I'm getting too old for this, Sandrilene."

She stared at him. Since she was little, she'd viewed her father's favourite uncle as a marble man who never aged or tired. It was a surprise to hear him admit to weariness.

"Is everything all right? Apart from pulling things together after the quake?"

"We have more pirates about than usual. I'd have thought the merchants' screams would be audible all the way up here."

She smiled, and was glad to see that he smiled back. "Have they reason to scream?"

"Only if they hear the same news as I do. The worst of the Battle Islands' raiders, Pauha - she calls herself Queen Pauha - has talked a number of the lesser chiefs into sailing under her command. That's bad enough - she can muster quite a fleet that way.

Worse, her brother Enahar has joined her. He is a mage, educated at the university where Niko studied. Enahar might complicate things, if Pauha turns her eyes our way."

"Is she going to?" The thought of a pirate fleet - not just a handful of ships - with a really good mage along made her skin p.r.i.c.kle.

"I hope not." He got to his feet and stretched. Sandry also rose. "I'm doing my best to make them go elsewhere. Most of Emelan's fleet is at sea, guarding the coast." He gave her a strong hug. "Not that you need to worry. Winding Circle has its own way to discourage unwelcome visitors - no one has breached these walls in four hundred years."

"And Summersea?" she asked, walking with him to the door. Outside, a mounted company of the Duke's Guard waited under some shady trees.

His eyes glinted frostily. "They'd do better to swallow a crested porcupine. That's why our port is the most popular in the Pebbled Sea - we are the safest of all." He kissed her cheeks. "Be well, Sandrilene. Once things calm down, we'll have you and your friends up to Duke's Citadel, and you can show them around."

She caught his sleeve as a young Guardsman brought over his horse. "Take care of yourself, Uncle. Let your merchants scream in a courtyard where you can't hear them.

The exercise will keep them young."

He threw back his head and laughed. "That's my favourite niece!"

His Guardsmen grinned as the Duke mounted up. He saluted her, and led the company up the spiral road. Sandry waved for as long as she could see him.

"I'm impressed," Lark said quietly. She came up to put a comforting arm around Sandry's shoulders. "The word is that he doesn't really like many people, and I can see he loves you."

"He works so hard," whispered Sandry. "I wonder if they appreciate him." She sighed, and looked into Lark's kind face. "And are we back to work?"

"For a while longer," the dedicate replied. "We'll stop at suppertime. You don't feel the effect of spending all this magic now, but you will tomorrow."

Five minutes later, as they were about to start their magical weaving again, a winded novice half-fell through the door.

"Excuse me," she gasped, "but has Duke Vedris come here yet? Moonstream wants him back right away!"

Lark frowned. "He's gone - he may be through the North Gate by now."

"Oh, cowpox!" cried the runner. She raced off.

Sandry fiddled uneasily with her spools of linen thread.

"It may be nothing," Lark said. "If it's bad news, we'll hear soon enough."

She was right. Taking a breath, Sandry eased into her magic, and the weaving resumed.

By suppertime, Sandry and Tris were half-asleep, worn out. Briar focused on eating, silently going over the letters Tris had taught him. Daja was restless, thinking of that hidden ship, and what it could mean; her clan had lost people and ships to pirates.

Lark, Niko and Rosethorn, together at supper for the first time since the earthquake, discussed the gossip that Rosethorn had picked up while working at the Water temple.

-"Niko, this spell is giving me a headache," Tris complained when the adults fell silent. "Do I need to see magic all the time? Doesn't it give you a headache?"

For a moment Niko caught her eyes with his, and held them. Tris's vision doubled, then tripled as her teacher glowed, then blazed. "Ow!" she cried, breaking free to cover her eyes with her arm. "Stop it! That's worse than the flicker!"

"That is what I see," he explained, smoothing his moustache as he often did when thinking. "You're adapting to the spell quite nicely. It's not just the edges of your vision any more, is it? You're starting to see magic when you look directly at it."

"You almost blinded me," she grumbled, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

"If you don't like it, alter the spell. Try to change the intensity of what you see. Dim the magic's glow." The edges of his eyes crinkled in a hidden smile.

"But I don't know what you did to my specs," she argued. "I have to know what you did to fool with your spell."

"Probe it with magic. You have to start learning how to pick apart the spells cast by strangers anyway - think of this as a necessary exercise."

"Something in your eyes is flickering?" asked Daja.

"At the edges," Briar said, a spoonful of rice halfway to his mouth. "Like ghosts, only when-"

"Or azigazis" murmured Daja. When they all looked at her, she told them not just what the word meant, but what she had seen that afternoon.

"They're sniffing around," Rosethorn said grimly when Daja finished. "Scavengers.

Parasites."

"At least we'll be safe," Lark replied. "Better they should blunt their teeth on us, or on Summersea - again - than go after a village still digging itself out."

"The Duke's got patrols all up and down the coasts," Sandry pointed out. "They'll run off any pirates."

The dedicates, Sandry and Tris made the G.o.ds-circle on their chests, to ward off trouble. Daja placed one fist on top of the other as if she climbed a rope, the way to ask help of the Trader-G.o.d. Briar, about to spit on the floor to scare off luck-eaters, caught Rosethorn's eye on him, and cleared his throat instead.

They were about to get up from the table when Little Bear started to bark. Someone knocked on the door-frame as the pup ran forward to challenge him.

Rosethorn shaded her eyes, trying to see the visitor's face through the open door.

With the light just beginning to fade, he was only a shadow. "Not Frostpine - too short," she muttered, and got up to greet the stranger. Briar grabbed Little Bear, who was sometimes over-enthusiastic in his greetings.

"I'm sorry - I was told I might find the mage Niklaren Goldeye here?" The polite voice was male and young. Tris frowned; it seemed familiar.

"You found him," Rosethorn said, ushering the newcomer across the main room.

"Would you like something to drink? We're just finishing supper."

"Thank you, no," he said with a half-smile. "I ate at the main dining hall."

As the visitor came near, they could see he was a good-looking young man, with tumbled brown hair and lively, smiling eyes of the same colour. His nose was long and arched, his mouth and chin determined. He wore the styles that Niko preferred, though Sandry could tell that this man was more interested in fashion. His red shirt was embroidered in white around the neck and down the front; his pale grey over-robe had very full sleeves. Niko's embroideries, when he had them, were often the same colour as the material they were st.i.tched on, while the sleeves of his robe only reached to his elbow, a style popular ten years before. The young man's loose breeches were a slightly darker grey than his robe, with a satin stripe along the outer leg-seams. He wore calf-high boots with a design of tiny mirrors set into the tops, and a gold hoop earring in one ear.

"Master Goldeye?" he asked Niko. "I come from Lights-bridge. Adelghani Smokewind asked me to bring you a letter." He offered a folded and sealed parchment to Niko. Briar released Little Bear, now that he was calmer. The pup would have jumped up to paw at the visitor's chest, but instead the man half-knelt, and turned the dog into his motionless friend by scratching his rump.

"Smokewind?" asked Niko, breaking the seal on the parchment. "How was he? Does arthritis still trouble him?"

The visitor had a boy's open smile. "It makes him cross on damp days, sir. He tells students that if he's in pain, they must suffer with him."

Niko smiled. "Smokewind has always been good at sharing his moods."

Lark whispered to Daja,"Let's clear..." She glanced at Tris, and frowned.

Tris stared at the newcomer as if he had two heads. Her face had gone white and pinched; her eyes were huge behind her spectacles. "C-cousin Aymeryl" she whispered.

The young man looked at her. "Yes, Aymery's my name." To the adults he added, "I'm Aymery Gla.s.sfire, I should have said before - Gla.s.sfire is my mage name. But you, little girl..." He stopped speaking, and blinked several times. At last he cleared his throat and said, "It's Darra and Valden's girl, isn't it? The - the one who likes to read? Treze - Troi -Trisana, that's it."

She looked down, blushing. "Yes."

Now he frowned, puzzled. "The last time I was in Ninver -how long ago?"

"Two years," she whispered.

"That's right. And they'd sent you to live with Uncle Murris and Aunt Emmine. No one would tell me why."

Tris nodded.

Aymery looked from her to Niko. "I-I don't know what to say." There was an odd light in his eyes. "I never thought to find relatives here. I just promised Smokewind I'd give you that letter, since I was coming to Winding Circle."

Lark got up, and beckoned to her chair. "Sit down, please. I think you really must stay awhile, don't you? I'm Dedicate Lark, by the way."