He was tempted to make a bit of a bow himself.

He wondered if she would b.l.o.o.d.y his nose if he did so, but decided that he would chance it. He made her a low, courtly bow, then hoped he wouldn't straighten to find her fist in his face. Instead, she was looking at him with less irritation than an expression that seemed . . . unsettled. He frowned immediately.

"What is it?"

"I felt something . . . shift."

"What does Bruadair have to say about it?" he asked, then he shook his head. He could hardly believe he was talking about a country as if it were an ent.i.ty. At least in Trr Drainn, the flora and fauna were all that made their opinions known. He was beginning to think that Aisling's entire country had a mind of its own.

Aisling smiled at Uabhann, then looked at Rnach. "It's silent on the matter," she said, but she looked almost haunted by the fact. She looked at Uabhann. "I hesitate to speak."

"In front of me?" Uabhann asked in surprise. "I've heard things that would turn this wee elven princeling's hair white, if that eases you any. You may say whatever you like. I guarantee you I won't be shocked."

"I don't want to erode any confidence in, ah, or rather about, ah . . ." She stopped. "I don't want to speak amiss."

Uabhann gestured to the book on his table. "You're not going to do anything worse than the author of that has already done."

"I don't want to do anything worse than what he's done."

Uabhann smiled. "And that, my lady, is one of the many reasons why you're the First."

Rnach leaned against the table and looked at Aisling. "I think you may speak freely here."

She took a deep breath. "I think Bruadair is growing weaker."

He blinked. "What?"

She shrugged helplessly. "Here the magic is very strong, stronger than anywhere I've felt it." She looked at him. "Can you believe I just said that?"

"I can," he said with a smile. "You, a simple weaver with no magic."

"Is that what she believed?" Uabhann interrupted incredulously.

"I'll hire a king's bard to do justice to the tale," Rnach said seriously, "for it will take a very skilled one to tell it properly." He looked at Aisling. "So what do you think?"

She wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm not even sure how to describe it." She gestured at the table. "When you opened that book, because I'm a.s.suming you just did, the magic shuddered. As if it prepared for an attack."

Rnach felt the book behind him shudder a bit at her words, a sensation that he had to admit was one of the most unwholesome things he'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing in a lifetime of numerous unwholesome things. He looked at the book behind him, then at Uabhann.

"Interesting."

"Very." Uabhann made Aisling another bow. "If you'll permit me an opinion, I think the others should come and see what's here. I'll go fetch them, if you like."

"Thank you," Aisling said. "Do you mind if we stay here?"

"Of course not," he said. "The First and a prince of Trr Drainn in my humble chambers? I must be dreaming. Good ones, for a change," he threw over his shoulder as he walked across his chamber and out the door.

Rnach looked at Aisling. "Interesting friends you have here."

"They say he's the most intimidating of them all," she said very quietly. "No one likes him very much."

"Ah, courtly intrigues," Rnach said with a smile. "Lovely. What do you think of him?"

She looked at him steadily. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

He smiled and reached out to pull her into his arms. "I know you're not. I think Master Uabhann would be very pleased to hear that."

"Will he mind if I ask for extra werelight when he's around, do you think?"

He laughed. "I daresay he'll find a way to tolerate it." He pulled back and looked at her. "Your eyes are the same color, you know."

"As Uabhann's?" she asked in surprise. "Are they?"

"It seems to be a characteristic of several of the spinners I've met so far," he said, "which admittedly isn't all that many."

"Inbreeding back in the mists of time?"

"An ability to see more clearly than others?"

"Are you always going to answer questions with questions?"

"Should I, do you think?"

She leaned up, kissed him quickly, then smiled at him. "It's rea.s.suring."

"Thankfully," he said. He leaned back against the table, then drew her over to lean with him so he could watch the door. It occurred to him that he was doing it, but he supposed Aisling wouldn't notice.

Only she did.

"I think we're safe here," she ventured.

"Bad habits developed over a lifetime of looking over my shoulder."

"I understand."

"I imagine you do," he said quietly. He put his arm around her shoulders. "We'll try to see to things so we don't have to do that anymore, Aisling."

"Do you think we'll manage that?" she asked, looking at him with those pale, fathomless eyes of hers. "To rescue the magic of an entire country . . ."

"Or tinker with the dreams of an entire world," he said with a smile. "Which do you think is more difficult?"

"Do I have to answer that?"

"Shouldn't you?"

"You're doing it again."

He smiled. "I'm trying to distract you. I'd rather use other methods but your steward is standing at the doorway and I think his brow is beginning to pucker. Best for me not to irritate the man with the keys to your schedule right off, wouldn't you agree?"

"My schedule," she said with a faint laugh. "What a thought."

It was something to think about, though, and he supposed it wouldn't do for the others to see him sitting so casually with the leader of their exclusive group, so he dropped his arm from around her shoulders and put his hand over his book. Aisling shot him a warning look, which he responded to with a quick smile. He supposed she might have had something to say to him, but the entire council of dreamspinners was suddenly standing there in a little semicircle in front of her. Freasdail slid in from one side and made Aisling a very low bow.

"My lady," he said, "I have come to see if you need refreshment. Wine? Biscuits? Little cakes soaked in lemon juice and sprinkled with delicate sugars?"

"Sounds lovely," said a voice. "Freasdail, set a course for the kitchens and leave the girl room to breathe."

Rnach watched Bristeadh come to stand at the side of the group and shoo Freasdail off. Surprising, but what did he know about the political machinations of dreamspinners and their servants? Bristeadh looked at his daughter and smiled.

"Your companions are here, daughter. What do you need from them?"

Aisling nodded. "The prince of Trr Drainn was looking for an opinion on something."

Rnach faced the gaggle of dreamspinners gathered there. He'd already encountered them as a group before, but at a distance and through the haze of terrible spells. They were a much friendlier-looking group at the moment. He cleared his throat.

"I have a book-"

Well, apparently that was enough of an announcement for them. They crowded around him to see just what sort of book he had. He unveiled it to reactions ranging from gasps of horror to murmurs of appreciation. The last was from, of course, Uabhann. And then the suggestions came at him from all directions.

"Pull it apart."

"Someone fetch a book knife!"

"Take it out of the cover first, naturally."

Rnach couldn't bring himself to argue when Aisling's compatriots began to a.s.sault Acair's writings, if that's what they could be called. There was a bit of jostling, much discussion and rearranging of sheaves of paper, some low arguing, but all of it left Rnach standing to the side, watching in horror as something emerged there on the table.

A map of the world, the current Nine Kingdoms being given especial attention.

"Oh, my," someone said faintly. "Whose book is this again?"

"Acair of Ceangail," Uabhann said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant, isn't he?"

"If you like that sort of thing," said a woman who looked as if she'd first touched a spinning wheel several centuries earlier. "Gauche, if you ask me."

"But effective," Bristeadh said quietly. "Rnach, what do you think?"

Rnach found several pairs of eyes on him. He didn't bother to count them, though he supposed he might be able to do so later from memory. He took a deep breath.

"I think my half brother is trying to take over the world."

Seventeen.

Aisling wandered aimlessly through pa.s.sageways, wishing she could have found someplace to sit. Actually it wasn't so much the sitting that she wished for as the surcease from thinking.

Rnach's b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother had made a map of the world.

That wouldn't have troubled her before, most likely because she never would have been the wiser as she'd sat in the Guild and woven her endless lengths of cloth. If she'd seen his map, she likely would have silently criticized his cartographer skills and gone about her business. But now she knew what the map actually was, that Acair had made particular marks on the map that corresponded to particular kingdoms where there were portals known only to dreamspinners and those select spinners apportioned to royal houses.

Or at least they had only been known to them before.

She didn't want to think about how Acair had found out where those portals were or what else he knew.

She jumped a little as she realized Muinear was walking down the pa.s.sageway toward her. She smiled and went into her great-grandmother's embrace.

"Thank you," she said, though thanks seemed particularly inadequate.

"Ah, my love," Muinear said, pulling back and kissing her on both cheeks, "I'm so happy you're finally here."

"And I'm so happy you're alive," Aisling said frankly.

Muinear laughed a little. "Iochdmhor is powerful, true, but she has so little imagination that it was an easy thing to leave her thinking she had the victory."

"I would like never to see her again," Aisling said, "no matter how easily fooled she might be."

"Oh, not easily," Muinear said, her smile fading, "but done readily enough, I suppose. In the end, darling, she is just a little witch who will fade into obscurity. There have been and will no doubt be in the future those with much more power than she." She took Aisling's arm. "I thought you might like to see your chamber at sunrise. Sunset is better, perhaps, when the light is full west and you have twilight to look forward to, but sunrise is lovely as well."

"My chamber?"

Muinear smiled. "Yours, my love. I didn't have a chance to show it to you yesterday and Freasdail had left the honor of it to me." She started to walk, then apparently realized she was pressing on alone. She paused. "What is it?" she asked.

Aisling hardly knew how to voice her thoughts. "I'm not sure where to begin." She looked at her great-grandmother. "Were you in truth the First?"

"For centuries, until your grandmother took my place." She nodded toward to her right. "Let's walk, Aisling, and I'll tell you of it, what there is to tell."

"Are you afraid I'll bolt?"

Muinear smiled. "Nay, my girl, not that. Though I hope it was clear enough yesterday that you can walk away from your birthright. There are other paths you could choose."

"And who would take my place?" Aisling asked reluctantly.

"For the moment? No one." She paused. "We would begin a search for someone with the right temperament and the requisite magic, but whether or not we would find him or her-well, we would continue on as we have been until that person was found. And our line would end." She smiled. "Sometimes that happens, in spite of our actions or lack of action."

"Who was the first dreamspinner?"

"My grandfather's grandmother," Muinear said. "Your lad could likely find you all the details you want in his wonderland of a library, or if we manage to do what we must, we'll spend long evenings during the fall in front of my fire, talking of those who have come before. I will tell you this, Aisling: every last one of the men and women who came before you and put their hands to that wheel felt as if the task was too great at first."

"I'm not sure I'm equal to even thinking about the task," Aisling said faintly, "much less how to accomplish it."

"Come look at your chamber, then, love, and see what you think."