"He'll come after you," Jaguar said. "You, Mirage, are far too distinctive to fight unmasked and not be recognized. Now that he knows you're on his trail, he will be coming for you." The Grandmaster's eyes were unforgiving as he looked at her. "He's your concern. We'll do nothing to help you against him. You knew when you took the commission that it entailed Hunting the Hunter responsible."

"I understand," Mirage said calmly. He may be good, but I nearly had him in Vilardi. He'll not escape again. "We weren't looking for aid there."

Jaguar nodded; he would never have expected another answer. Silverfire Hunters were taught to handle their own problems whenever humanly possible. "To the remainder of the commission, then. What do you plan to do?"

"We'll tell our employer about our suspicions," Eclipse said. "In person, if we can arrange it; I don't like this communication at a distance. I want to see her facea"whichever one of them it isa"when we tell her."

"And then what do you expect?"

"Not sure," Mirage replied. "I get the impression that our employers are few; I don't think they'd look so hunted if they had numbers on their side. Who their opponents are, and how many, and how powerful, we don't know. That'll affect how much trouble we face."

"We're Silverfires, though, and that should count for something," Eclipse added. "Even if there's trouble between our employers and the Wolfstar's, they may acknowledge Hunter neutrality and leave us out of it. We aren't bonded to anyone; we do the job we were hired for, impartially."

Mirage could not have said what it was that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Jaguar's expression gave nothing away. If he reacted, it was with no motion larger than an infinitesimal flicker of an eyelid. But something got her hackles up, and she gave the Grandmaster a hard look.

"We are impartial, aren't we?" she asked him. "Unless there's a reason you picked us."

Jaguar dropped his eyes to his desk. It was as close to looking guilty as she'd ever seen him. After an excruciating pause, he said, "It was Tari-nakana that brought you here."

Mirage carefully unclenched her hands and flexed the tension out of her fingers before replying. "I thought that was arranged by my company leader."

"It was arranged with her. Tari-nakanaa"Tari-nai at the timea"proposed it in the first place, and negotiated with me to accept you here."

Her first thought, irrationally enough, was that it was good no one else at Silverfire had known of that Red hair alone had people whispering about me. If they'd known that, whispers would have been shouts. Everyone would have wanted me thrown out. Or dead.

"I believed when I chose youa"and still believe nowa"that your impartiality isn't endangered," Jaguar continued. "You knew nothing of Tarinakana's involvement. Her tracking of your movements was almost certainly just a continuing interest in your career, and without further evidence, there's no reason to believe it relates to her assassination."

In a moment of spontaneous, unspoken accord, neither Mirage nor Eclipse said anything. They had further evidence, sitting just a short ride away in Elensk. But despite the loyalty Mirage owed to Jaguar, and despite the trust she had in him, she was not readya"not yeta"to tell him about Miryo.

"Do you know why Tari-nakana wanted me here?" she asked.

Jaguar looked her in the eye and shrugged. "For the obvious reasons. You werea"and area"ideally suited to being a Hunter. You were a good Dancer, but your talents wouldn't have been fully used there. She saw that, and for whatever reason took a personal interest in seeing you where you belonged."

And if that's the whole story, I'm a Thornblood.

"One other thing," Mirage said, and again she was not sure why she spoke. "We met Viper on the way in. He said he'd been expecting me. Why? Does he know about this commission?"

She didn't imagine it; Jaguar's eyes widened fractionally. "You haven't heard, then."

Mirage relaxed her hands again. "No." What was I supposed to have heard?

Jaguar didn't answer; he just stood and beckoned for the two of them to follow him.

They left his office through another door, this one opening on a staircase leading upward. It took them to the dovecote, and the balcony around it, which overlooked the salle's outside yard, the archery range, and the mounted combat field.

The practice yard was crowded. At the far end a young man was going through a spear pattern with methodical slowness; the weapon's length had earned him breathing space, but the rest of the yard was packed. A small clump of students, marked as fifteen-year-olds by the stitching on the backs of their jackets, were reviewing knife patterns together. A solitary twelve-year-old was falling, over and over again, plainly trying to learn to do it right. And on the side closest to them, the newest crop of trainees were sparring.

Jaguar directed their attention to the pair on the left edge. "Tell me what you see."

Mirage looked down. The padding they wore masked them thoroughly. She thought they might be girls, but young as they were she couldn't be at all sure. They still moved with the hesitancy of trainees who had not ad-justed to the fact that they were supposed to hit people, but she could see they were beginning to get over it.

"They're not half bad," she said after a moment. "Still a little reluctant to hit each other, but they've learned to keep their guard up, and I can see some of the others haven't. The taller one will be a good kick-fighter if she works at it."

Jaguar nodded, and glanced at Eclipse.

"They move like Mirage," Eclipse said.

Mirage stared at him.

"They've got her reflexes, her agility. They may not be used to hitting each other, but they already understand fighting in a way none of the others do. They're naturals. Like Mirage."

Mirage's eyes were pulled inexorably back to the padded, androgynous figures below. Like me. Warrior's soul. Are theya"

"The shorter one has reddish-brown hair," Jaguar said. "The taller has brown hair, but only because she dyes it. There's another at Windblade, and one at Thornblood."

Doppelgangers. Goddess.

His eyes flicked to Mirage. "You know something about this."

It was a statement, not a question. And it put Mirage in a horrible position. It was one thing to not tell Jaguar about things he was unaware of; it was another thing entirely to lie directly to him. And yet she could not begin to fathom the trouble that could result if she told him what was going on.

Neither of them moved for a long moment Then, at last, Mirage dragged her eyes away from the doppelgangers in the yard below and faced the Grandmaster squarely.

"I do," she admitted in a low voice. "But for the sake ofa many things, I cannot tell you right now. Not until I clear up another matter."

"You owe me certain loyalties," Jaguar said. His voice was unexpressive; she could not tell if he was angry or merely reminding her.

"I know," Mirage said, and tried to put strength into her voice. "But this other matter takes precedence. I swear by the Warrior's soul, I owe you an explanation, and you'll have one. But not now."

"And what if you don't survive this commission?"

Mirage quirked an eyebrow at him sardonically. "Wraith isn't going to take me down. But just in case the witches do, I'll arrange for you to get an explanation anyway. Will that do?"

He searched her eyes for a moment, then nodded. "It will. For now."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Doppelganger

Night was deepening, and Miryo was contemplating trying to sleep, when she heard a faint noise behind her.

She turned around just in time to see the window swing inward. Reflexively, not even thinking about it, something in her reached for an annihilating rash of power, to obliterate the intrudera"

She choked it off, barely, as Mirage appeared in the window and climbed into the room. Miryo stood, trying to calm her breathing, wondering if Mirage noticed, as her doppelganger came forward. Eclipse followed her in, and shut the window behind himself.

One look at Mirage's face was enough to tell her that her attempts to calm herself might be wasted. They weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow. What happened?

"There are more of them," Mirage said curtly.

"More of them?" Miryo repeated, not catching on.

"Doppelgangers. At least four. Two at Silverfire, one at Windblade, one at Thornblood. Nobody's guessed what they are, at least not as far as I know, but Jaguar at least knows there's something strange about them. He asked me. I didn't tell him." Mirage's eyes held a cold stoniness.

Miryo could sympathize with. Her own eyes would probably look the same, once she got over the shock.

"Crone's teetha"where did they come from? Tari-nakana didn't have any children." Miryo's breath caught, probably because her throat had closed off. "But Ashin has a daughter."

Mirage's eyes flicked to meet hers. "Would you recognize the girl if you saw her?"

"I don't know. I've never seen her. But if she looks like Ashin, probably."

Her double turned to face Eclipse, who was still standing by the window. "What's the schedule like for first-years?"

"Forest riding, every morning. And it's not evaluation time."

"Perfect." Mirage turned back to Miryo. "Get your stuff and meet us on the west side of town. We'll ride to Silverfire tonight and check the two of them tomorrow."

The innkeeper would no doubt wonder why his spoiled, prissy guest was departing well after sunset, but that had suddenly been demoted in priority. Miryo nodded. "I'll be there in less than an hour."

The ride was crazy. Miryo wondered whether being a Hunter was always like thisa"skulking about, climbing through windows, and leaving town in the dead of night. And whether being an Air witch was anything like it. If so, her life was going to be very hard on the nerves.

They circled around Silverfire, giving the compound a wide berth, and approached the wood from the back. When they neared it, they left Eclipse with the horses. Mirage led Miryo forward on foot, creeping through the black murk of the trees. Miryo stumbled along in her wake, trying not to make too much noise, but it was hard; the ground was tricky and uneven. She had wandered around at night before, but generally either in Starfall's well-kept grounds or on its roof. Here, in forest as near to trackless as made no difference, she had more trouble. She kept misjudging where exactly the ground was, and staggered as a result.

The twentieth or thirtieth time she did this, Mirage paused. Miryo cringed, imagining what her double must think of her. She hated being incompetent.

"Walk toe-heel," Mirage advised, and continued on.

Miryo tried this and found it peculiar but helpful. The motion tired her legs, as they were unused to it, but walking toe-heel allowed her to find the ground with her foot before committing her weight to it. She still cracked twigs and rustled in the leaf mold, but she didn't sound quite as much like a drunken donkey, which made her feel a good deal better. It gave her hope that she might, with practice, learn to do this well.

Some time later Mirage paused again. "Wait here," she murmured, and then she was gone, swallowed up by the blackness. Miryo strained her ears, trying to track her by sound, but heard nothing more than the occasional rustle that might have been a squirrel.

Then Mirage was back. "Follow me."

They went on only another ten steps before stopping again. "Can you climb trees?" Mirage asked.

Well-kept garden trees in Starfall, yes. But it couldn't be harder than Starfall's roofs. "I'll manage."

They scrambled up into the branches. It wasn't as difficult as Miryo had feared. In fact, the tree seemed to have bees discreetly pruned to make climbing easier. Her suspicion was confirmed when Mirage led her onto a small platform nestled among the branches.

"Observation post," her doppelganger explained. "The masters come up here to watch trainees, during evaluations."

Miryo wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and squirmed around until she was comfortable. "What time will they be riding through?"

"They leave Silverfire at First. Depending on which route they go, they'll be here a half hour to an hour after that. They'll pass by here, though, no matter which path they're sent down."

By Miryo's reckoning, it was now somewhere between Low and Dark. They had at least four hours to kill, stuck in a damp, dark, cold tree. She sighed and squirmed a little bit more, then laid her head against a branch and tried to go to sleep.

She probably dozed, but it was hard to tell. Every time she opened her eyes, she saw Mirage, a motionless black shadow against the black of the tree. Miryo wondered if her double was sleeping at all.

"Is it always like this?" she asked at last, voicing her thought from before.

Mirage didn't answer immediately, and Miryo thought for a moment she'd nodded off, or hadn't understood the question. Then the shadow shrugged. "Depends on what you're doing. Some jobs are morea lively than others."

"Do you ever get a rest?"

A snort answered that. "I was supposed to, back before Midsummer. I'd ridden from one end of the land to the other, with three back-to-back jobs. Then Eclipse showed up with the commission."

"And you've been on the road since then?"

"Yeah."

Silence; even the wind had died down. "Do you enjoy it?"

Mirage laughed softly. Miryo couldn't quite guess the meaning of that; it didn't sound bitter, but neither was it particularly amused. "Yes. Probably more than is good for me. I'd like a rest, but I also feed on the challenge. I was bored stiff for a while, earlier this year. Getting the commission gave me more energy than a month of relaxation."

"I've wondered about it myself. I've got to choose a Ray, you know, and I'd been leaning toward Air. But I didn't know how I would take to being itinerant."

"Not everyone likes it. The masters at Silverfire try to make sure that students who don't, either take another profession or transfer to one of the schools we're friendly with." Mirage cocked her head to one side, and Miryo felt her double's eyes on her. "You might enjoy it. I do, after all. But I don't know if that's one of the traits we share."

"Well, I'm getting a sample of it, running around with you."

"And what do you think?"

Miryo grinned, even though Mirage couldn't see it. "I think I like it more than is good for me."

That was the last they said for a while. Dawn came an hour or so before First; just as Miryo was able to see Mirage clearly, her double said, "We need to stay quiet from here on out. If anyone comes through and suspects we're here, I'll go down and talk to them. You have to stay as still as possible."

Miryo nodded.

It was harder than she'd expected, though. Her legs became stiff, then threatened to cramp; she stretched them surreptitiously, but winced at every scrape of her boot against the platform. Mirage didn't look at her, or say anything; still, Miryo could imagine her thoughts. She finally started meditating, just to take her mind off her growing discomfort.

She was jolted from this exercise by Mirage's hand on her wrist. Miryo came alert, and eased forward on the platform, putting herself in a position to see the riders as they passed by.

They were strung out along the trail, each several minutes behind the last. Three went by before Miryo felt Mirage's touch again. The rider who appeared was a thin, wiry girl, with close-cut brown hair.

When the girl had passed, Miryo glanced over at Mirage and shook her head.

Two more riders passed. Then Mirage tapped her wrist again.

Miryo hardly needed the touch. The girl's cropped hair was a darker red than her mother's, but it did little to disguise her; she might as well have had Ashin's name symbol tattooed on her forehead, so striking was the resemblance.