"Something about this doesn't seem right," Dorrien said, after the carriage had entered the street.

Sonea looked at him. "Something about what?"

"Last night." He frowned. His gaze was fixed outside the window, but in a way that suggested he was lost in thought. "Anyi's story. Maybe it was the way she told it. She kept rephrasing things, or stopping in the middle of sentences, as if she had to stop herself from saying something."

Sonea thought back to the meeting. She hadn't detected anything odd in Anyi's behaviour. The girl's description of the events had been halting, but Sonea had assumed it was from a difficulty in putting her suspicions, and the spontaneous decisions she'd made, into words.

"Maybe she was nervous," Sonea said. "She knows I used to live in the slums, but you are from one of the Houses." That didn't seem likely, but perhaps Anyi's usual forthright manner depended on who she was with.

Dorrien's frown didn't ease. He shook his head. "Perhaps. But I think there's more to this than what she told us. Do you think it's possible she's being blackmailed?"

Sonea felt her stomach clench. Oddly, the suggestion brought Lorkin to mind. Though he said he was going to join the Traitors willingly, it still means his life is in someone else's hands. I wish I had some word from him. Though he said he was going to join the Traitors willingly, it still means his life is in someone else's hands. I wish I had some word from him.

"Anything is possible," she replied. "But I'd have expected that if Skellin wanted to blackmail anyone it would be Cery. And if he was blackmailing him, he'd have locked Anyi away somewhere and threatened to kill her if Cery didn't do what he wanted."

Dorrien looked unconvinced, but didn't say anything more. The streets of Imardin were quiet. Those people who had the choice were inside, keeping warm. As the carriage swung through the Guild gates a light snow began to fall.

They made their way through the University, across the courtyard and to the Magicians' Quarters. Sonea led the way to Black Magician Kallen's door and knocked. As the door swung inward, a fragrant, smoky smell reached her nose.

A chill ran down her spine. She had never encountered roet smoke before, but she had smelled its residue on clothing many, many times. Remembering Anyi's story of seeing Black Magician Kallen buying roet, she felt shock change to disgust as she saw that Kallen and two of his magician friends and assistants were sitting in his guest room, sucking on elaborately decorated smoking pipes. Kallen removed his from between his teeth and smiled politely.

"Black Magician Sonea," he said, standing up. "And Lord Dorrien. Come in."

Sonea hesitated, then forced herself to walk into the room. Knowing what she did about roet, she did not want to breathe any of the smoke, even if it was probably too thin to affect her mind.

"What can we do for you?" Kallen asked.

"We came to tell you of a failed ambush we attempted last night," Dorrien said. Sonea glanced at him, and he returned her look with a shake of his head.

Turning her mind back to their reason for visiting, she described the planned meeting and why it had failed. Kallen asked all the questions she expected, and she was relieved when it was clear they were done and she could leave. Kallen thanked her for filling him in, and assured her he was doing all he could to find Lilia and Naki.

Back in the corridor, Sonea let her grip on her anger loosen.

"I can't believe he was sitting there smoking roet in his own quarters his own quarters!" she said, intending it to be a whisper but it coming out instead as a hiss.

"There's no law against it," Dorrien pointed out. "In fact, those pipes almost make it look respectable."

"But ... doesn't anybody grasp how dangerous it is?"

He spread his hands. "No. Even those who see that it has a bad effect on common people assume it's no worse than drink if taken in moderation, by sensible people like magicians." Dorrien looked at her. "If it really is dangerous, then Lady Vinara ought to state it clearly."

Sonea sighed. "That isn't going to happen unless magicians agree to be tested. The ones who use roet refuse, and it isn't fair to ask those who don't use it to risk being permanently affected."

"That might change. All you need is for a magician to try to stop taking it, and find that they can't." He looked thoughtful. "I'll ask around. It could be that there are a few already at that point, too embarrassed to say anything."

She managed a wan smile. "Thank you."

"As if you need another urgent matter to tackle," he added. Then a wary, hesitant look crept over his face.

"What?" she asked.

"It's just ... Well ... Did you know that the perfume you wear is made from roet flowers?"

Sonea stopped and stared at him. "No ..."

He looked away guiltily. "I should have told you earlier. I was in a perfumery a week or two back, and I recognised the scent. So I asked what it was."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Of all the perfumes I happened to buy. On a whim. Just because I needed to look occupied. I guess I should throw it away."

"That would be a shame."

She blinked, and looked at him questioningly. To her amusement, he avoided her gaze.

"You like it?"

He looked at her, then away. "Yes. You never used to wear perfume. It's ... nice."

Smiling, she started walking again. They left the Magicians' Quarters and made toward the University.

"So why were you at a perfumery? Buying a present for Alina?"

He shook his head, then seemed to catch himself.

"Seeing what I might get for Tylia. For her Acceptance Ceremony."

"Ah." She nodded. "Not the usual fancy pen, then?"

"No."

He was silent for the rest of the way to the carriage, probably contemplating having a daughter grown up enough to become a novice. She remembered how she had felt when Lorkin had made his vow and received his first set of robes. The pride she'd felt had been tinged by the memory of how she had broken that vow, and of the day the entire Guild had filed past, tearing her and Akkarin's robes in a symbolic gesture of rejection, before sending them both into exile.

As then, she pushed that memory aside. Lorkin might have gone to live in a hidden city of rebels, but there had been no serious discussion about exiling him because of that decision. Which was reassuring. If the Guild still believed he would find his way home, then it was much easier to believe the same thing herself.

CHAPTER 22.

IN GOOD COMPANY.

Something brushed against Lorkin's senses. He ignored it, but the sensation came again and something about it made his skin prickle. The interruption was annoying but, as he had been taught, he accepted it and carefully disengaged his mind from the growing gemstone.

As awareness of his surroundings returned, he opened his eyes and looked around the cave for the source of the distraction. It wasn't the stone-makers sitting nearby. They were glancing around in the same way as he was. He was fairly certain that it wasn't the two magicians standing by the door, though their postures hinted that they had been talking. He'd learned to block out nearby conversations days ago.

He listened, and realised he could hear a faint, low noise. At the same time he noticed that he could feel, under his hands, feet, and through the chair, a vibration.

At once his heart began to race, and he quickly drew magic and surrounded himself with a strong barrier.

A tremor, he thought. I wonder how bad it is. I wonder how bad it is.

Not bad enough to send the other magicians fleeing the city, he noted. Were the non-magicians evacuating right now? The last time he'd seen the valley outside, it had been covered in a deep blanket of snow. The thought of what might happen should the entire city collapse and strand thousands of people out in the savage cold made him shudder.

The city had survived, albeit with a few cave-ins, for many hundreds of years. That didn't mean there would never be a day when a tremor was severe enough to destroy it, but it did reassure him that the odds of not having to somehow dig his way out from these deep tunnels under the mountain were in his favour.

Still, it does highlight why some people here believe the Traitors must eventually leave Sanctuary.

He looked around the room. Walls glistened with crystalline points of reflected light. No longer were these outcrops a colourful mystery to him. He knew what each patch was destined to be which magical task it was being trained to do.

Two kinds were made: patterned and powered. The patterned stones had merely been imprinted with a way to shape magic. The user sent magic into the stone, and it shaped that power into something physical: force, heat, light and various familiar combinations. The intensity of the output was controlled by how much magic was put into the stone. This was what magicians did when they channelled magic out of themselves, so the patterned stones were of not much use to a magician unless he or she hadn't learned how to do a particular task yet, or could not do it well. They were also of no use to a non-magician, since they couldn't channel power out of themselves, and had very little or no power to channel anyway.

It didn't take me long to work out how useful it would be to train gemstones to Heal, so I imagine it's already occurred to a few Traitors. But there seems to be a limit to the complexity of the task a stone can be trained to do, so if any Healing stones were made they'd only be able to perform basic tasks.

The second type of stone the powered ones were far more useful to a magician. They were taught to do the same sorts of tasks, but in addition the maker infused them with their own store of magic. However, this magic was depleted with use. If well made, stones could be re-infused. Less successful stones were single-use. Sometimes they were made to be single-use deliberately, if what they were used for destroyed them, but the majority of powered stones were meant to be re-infused.

Which is so similar to the way the Guild keeps the Arena, and any magically strengthened buildings, strong. The buildings lose magic very slowly, but the Arena and the barrier around it is occasionally battered during Warrior lessons and practice, and has to be strengthened constantly.

The two kinds of magic the strengthening of buildings and stone-making were so similar that Lorkin was amazed the Guild had never stumbled on the latter before, until it occurred to him that there were no caves full of naturally occurring gemstones in Kyralia. Neither could they work with imported stones, since by the time these reached the hands of magicians, as jewellery, they were too old to be imprinted effectively.

The other impediment was that the architect who had invented the method of strengthening stone with magic had lived during an era when black magic was banned. Lorkin felt a chill as he remembered how easily and quickly he'd grasped the ideas behind black magic. In less than an hour he'd broken his vows as a magician and a centuries-old taboo.

And for all that, it's been a bit of a disappointment. I haven't got any stronger. It hasn't given me any new skills. All it's done is enable me to more easily understand and apply the process of stone-making which will be of limited knowledge to the Guild unless they manage to find some gemstone caves in Kyralia, or work out how to create them another way.

Learning black magic had given him a more realistic view of the magic within him, and his own strengths and vulnerabilities. He suspected it was possible to raise a stone to perform a task without knowing black magic, but it would have been like working blind impossible to tell if he was getting it right, how much magic the stone could hold, or when it was ready to use.

He looked down at the small green gemstone in his hands. For most of the process, he'd had to work with it while it was still attached to the wall, and a few times he'd lost it among the masses of stones there. When he'd established enough of an imprint upon it, he'd been able to remove it and refine its training at a table.

Long periods of unwavering focus were required. He understood, now, why Tyvara had said she didn't have the patience for stone-making. Speaker Halana had also told him that making stones that produced heat or explosive force could be dangerous, if the maker's concentration broke, too much magic was stored in it or the stone was flawed. That was why some stone-making was done in remote caves, where entry was forbidden except by the invitation of the stone-maker who worked there.

Lorkin was making a light-producing stone. Though it was more difficult, he was also being taught how to infuse it with magic. It was also more dangerous because a learning stone-maker could easily infuse it with too much power, or lose concentration. He could have been given a duplication stone to use. These could create endless copies of the pattern held inside them particularly stones to be trained in complicated magic. Speaker Halana, however, insisted that all students first learn how to create a stone without the help of duplication stones, so that they did not come to rely on them too much.

The vibration had stopped now. Lorkin glanced around the room. The other stone-makers had returned to their work, heads bent over tables. He drew in a deep breath and started a mind-calming exercise. He did not know if the Traitors had similar exercises, but the simple ones he'd been taught at the University were coming in very handy now.

As he was about to send his mind out to the stone again, he heard his name murmured. He looked up. Speaker Halana was walking toward him.

"How is it going, Lorkin?" she asked as she reached his table.

"Good, Speaker Halana," he replied. "Well, nothing has gone wrong yet."

She smiled crookedly, with a now-familiar dark humour, and picked up the stone. All but the newest stone-makers had a similar fatalistic humour, he'd noted. Though accidents were rare, they did happen. Lorkin had seen some badly scarred women making their way through the caves. Once, one of the newer makers had whispered to him that some of them worked alone not just to avoid dangerous distractions, but because they preferred that others didn't see their scars. Some of them ate, slept and worked in the inner caves permanently, almost never leaving.

After staring at the stone intently, Halana put it down again. "You're doing well," she said. "It's a little better than most first stones. In a few days we should be able to activate it."

He smiled. "And then?"

She met his eyes and paused, then shrugged. "Then you'll move on to bigger tasks. I'll check on you again tomorrow."

With that, she turned away and moved on to the next student. Lorkin watched her, wondering at the pause after his question. It was almost as if the question had surprised her, and she'd assumed that he had known already.

Perhaps she hadn't thought that far ahead. Or she's not used to students wanting to know what they'll be learning next. Or the answer is rather obvious.

Shrugging, he turned back to the stone and, as he was growing quite skilled at doing, resolved to think about it later.

With a little magic, Lilia gently warmed the water in the bucket. She dared not heat it too much in case other servants noticed it steaming, realised that Lilia hadn't gone to the kitchen to heat it, and started to wonder about her. Kneeling on the floor, she dipped a cloth in the water and began to wipe and scrub.

For a week Lilia had been living in the bolhouse, sleeping under the stairs and pretending to be a cleaner. Donia had been surprised when Lilia had suggested the disguise, until she learned that Lilia's family were servants. Anyi had disappeared after the first dinner, and when she reappeared the next morning she'd been angry to find Lilia scrubbing pots in the kitchen. Lilia had needed to talk her out of telling Donia off.

"You're a magician," Anyi had said, her voice low so the other servants wouldn't hear. "It shouldn't matter that you were born a servant."

"Actually, I'm not a magician not a Guild one, anyway," Lilia pointed out. "They threw me out, remember? I don't mind doing this, and I could hardly expect to stay here for free."

Anyi had told Lilia of her meeting with Cery. He'd agreed not to tell the Guild that Anyi had rescued Lilia and knew where she was. Lilia could not help feeling curious about him. Anyi had strong opinions about what was right and wrong, and Lilia couldn't imagine her working for anyone who didn't agree with her ideals. From what she had said about Cery, he was working at great risk to himself to keep magic out of the hands of the underworld. Donia, on the other hand, seemed to think Cery was more pragmatic perhaps even ruthless than Anyi believed.

A booted leg appeared beside her. Startled, she jumped and a yelp escaped her. Looking up, she was relieved to see it belonged to Anyi.

"You startled me," she said reproachfully, throwing the cloth back into the bucket. "Can't you make a small bit of noise when you walk up behind me?"

"Sorry." Anyi didn't look sorry, though. She looked smug. "Part of my job. I forget that I'm doing it." She looked at the bucket and wet floor. "Looks like my timing has been good. What have Donia's guests left for you to clean up this time?"

Lilia grimaced. "You don't want to know. And it would have been good timing if you'd got here before before I had to clean it up." I had to clean it up."

"Sorry about that. I'll try to be early next time." She grinned. "Are you done? We have a meeting to get to."

Lilia felt her heart skip. "With Cery?"

"Yes." Anyi's eyebrows rose. "You look eager to meet him."

Lilia stood up. "Only because you make him sound like an interesting person."

"Do I? Well, don't tell him that." Anyi bent to pick up the bucket, but Lilia moved it out of reach with magic.

"I'm the servant, remember. I'll just drop this off before we go." She picked it up and headed downstairs. Anyi grumbled quietly as she followed. the servant, remember. I'll just drop this off before we go." She picked it up and headed downstairs. Anyi grumbled quietly as she followed.

Once the bucket had been rinsed and returned to the stack, and Lilia had borrowed a heavy coat from Donia, Anyi led her out of a back door into an alleyway after checking if anybody was watching. The air was very cold and Lilia had to resist the temptation to warm the air around them. To add to her discomfort and frustration at not being able to use magic, it began to rain.

The alley was empty of people, though full of rubbish and boxes.

"You need to know some things," Anyi said quietly. "I've been trying to prevent this meeting, for two reasons ..."

She paused as they reached the end of the alley, checking the cross street before they walked over it into another, narrower alleyway.

"Firstly, my employer is in hiding, too. Bringing you to meet him is a risk. Seems to me that bringing two wanted people together doubles the risk of them both being found. But it is safer bringing you to meet him, rather than the other way around. The people who want to find you want to lock you up. The people who want to find him want to kill him."

"Skellin wants to-"