“Want me to try?” Kellen offered.
“Well, a change is as good as a rest, so they say,” Idalia said. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would be glad of your help.” She sighed. “Perhaps I’m just trying too hard.”
The ingredients—fern leaf (dried, at this time of year) and wine—were ready beside the bowl. Kellen cast four drops of the wine into the bowl and then floated a bit of the fern leaf on the water.
“ ‘You who travel between Earth and Sky, show me what you see,’” he said.
He remembered the first time he’d scryed, in the spring behind Idalia’s cabin in the Wildwood. How reluctant and resentful he’d been at having to try, and how sure he’d been it wouldn’t work. Now it seemed an obvious and natural thing to do.
The vision came immediately. The water in the bowl turned white.
“Snowstorm,” Idalia said, since she could see what Kellen saw.
“Not really helpful,” Kellen said, peering into the bowl. “Unless this just means there’s a really, really big blizzard going on somewhere—or coming straight at us. Which it is, I can’t tell. Even if there’s something there I ought to see, I can’t see it.”
As if taking exception to his comments, the snowstorm faded, and was replaced with the image of a face.
It was a young man, about Kellen’s age. His face bore the unmistakable stamp of Mage-breeding. He had auburn hair and pale blue eyes, and looked angry—or possibly scared. Or both. Kellen knew that feeling only too well. He was wearing the pale grey cap-robe-and-tabard of the Entered Apprentice. Wherever he was, it was dark, for Kellen and Idalia could see nothing more than his head and shoulders.
Then that image, too, faded, and the bowl held nothing but water once more.
Kellen frowned. “I think I know him—or knew him. But I don’t remember his name. Why show me that, though? It’s not as if I’m going back to Armethalieh—or an Apprentice is ever going to leave it.”
“Who knows?” Idalia asked. “What I
“I don’t think you’ll have much of a problem there,” Kellen said, grinning. “I think you’d have a lot harder time keeping him from coming with you.” He picked up the heavy bowl carefully and walked over to the sink to pour out its contents.
Chapter Six
AN HOUR LATER, suitably dressed, Kellen presented himself at the House of Leaf and Star.
Ice had turned the entire building into something magical, and the Elves, connoisseurs of natural beauty, had left it as it was. Every surface was covered with a thick sheet of nearly transparent ice, so that the House took on the unreality of a structure cast out of colored glass. Long icicles hung down from the eaves, and each one was filled with rainbows from the watery sunlight.
Kellen knocked at the front door, and, when it was opened, asked if the Lady Ashaniel would receive him—or to be more precise, he suggested to the august personage who answered his knock that it would give him very great pleasure to attend upon the Lady Ashaniel, if she happened to be at home, and was willing to take time from her busy day to allow him to do so.
“Be welcome within our house, Kellen Wildmage,” the august personage told him, bowing.
Kellen bowed back—his bows were much improved, after a few fortnights under Master Belesharon’s tutelage—and he followed the Elf into a small side parlor.
“I will see to your refreshment,” the august personage said, closing the doors behind him as he departed.
It was only after he’d left that Kellen realized the man hadn’t said he’d tell Ashaniel that Kellen was here, but he supposed she’d find out eventually. He doubted there was much that went on beneath her roof that the Lady Ashaniel didn’t know about.
