listening intently, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. This time, though, she carried a small shuttered lantern that she had appropriated from a neighbor in Northangle. Entering on a whim was all very well, but it was better to be prepared.
If she found any sign at all that her earlier visit had been detected, she promised herself that she would turn and flee.
The lock was just as she remembered; she opened one lantern-shutter enough to get a look at it and saw no scratches or other marks from her previous entry. Unlocking it again took only a moment.
The mudroom beyond was just as she remembered, and, as she glanced around, she realized that she had, in fact, stolen something—the candle she had burned for light. In a household as rich as this, though, she was reasonably confident that the loss of a single candle would go unnoticed.
The dining salon was also undisturbed; when she shined her lantern about, however, the teapot raided in its cabinet and turned away in annoyance.
The plant in the parlor was still waving; the mantel where the little creature had sat was empty.
A few things had been moved around in the workroom, but she assumed that was just a result of normal use. Nothing seemed to be any more seriously disarrayed than before.
At the entrance to the cellars she encountered her first real obstacle: the door was locked.
She put her ear to it and listened intently and heard the wizard’s voice. He was beginning the night’s lesson—his voice had that droning, lecturing tone to it.
Frantically, she set to work on the lock, and discovered, to her relief, that it was no better than the one on the alley door. Really, it was disgraceful the way the wizard was so careless about these things! If she ever became a rich and powerful wizard, she would make sure that she had better locks than these. Relying entirely on magic couldn’t be wise.
And she hadn’t even seen any sign of magic; really, the wizard appeared to be relying entirely on his reputation, and that was just plain foolish.
The door swung open, and she slipped through, closing it carefully behind her, making sure it neither latched nor locked. With the lantern shuttered tight she crept down, step by step, to the landing.
And just as the night before, there sat the wizard and his apprentice, facing each other across the center of that rug. The wizard was holding a silver dagger and discussing the qualities important in a knife—not magical qualities, but basics like balance, sharpening, and what metals would hold an edge. Tabaea placed her lantern to one side and settled down, stretched out on her belly with her chin on her hands, to listen.
It was scarcely ten minutes later that the wizard finished his disquisition on blades and began explaining the purification rituals that would prepare a knife for athamezation. Tabaea watched, fascinated. Night after night, she crept in and watched. Until finally, there came the night, after studying this one ritual, this one spell, for over a month, when the apprentice— her name, Tabaea had learned, was Lirrin—at last attempted to perform it herself.
Tabaea returned for the conclusion of the ceremony, the grand finale in which the apprentice would trap a part of her own soul in the enchanted dagger that the wizards called an athame. She settled down, once again, on her belly and lay on the stone landing, staring down at the two figures below.
Lirrin had been at it for more than twenty-three hours, Tabaea knew, without food or rest. Her master, Serem the Wise, had sat by her side, watching and calling what advice he could the entire time.
Tabaea, the uninvited observer, had not done anything of the sort. She had watched the beginning of the spell, then slipped away and gone about her business. Throughout the day she had sometimes paused and thought, “Now she’s raising the blade over her head for the long chant,” or “It must be time for the third ritual cleaning,” but she had not let it distract her from the more urgent matter of finding food and appropriating any money left sufficiently unguarded. When she at last returned, the silver knife was glittering white, and Tabaea really didn’t think it was just a trick of the light. The spell was doing something, certainly.
She could hear fatigue in the master’s voice as he murmured encouragement; the apprentice was far too busy concentrating on the spell to say anything, but surely she, too, must be exhausted.
Perhaps it was the certainty that the objects of her scrutiny were tired, or fascination with this climax, or just overconfi-dence acquired in her many undetected visits, but Tabaea had crept further forward than ever before, her face pressed right against the iron railing. The black metal was cool against her cheek as she stared.
Lirrin finished her chant and placed her bloody hands on the shining dagger’s hilt; blood was smeared on her face, as well, her own blood mixed with ash and sweat and other things. It seemed to Tabaea that the girl had to force her hands down, as if something were trying to push them back, away from the weapon.
Then Lirrin’s hands closed on the leather-wrapped grip, and her entire body spasmed suddenly. She made a thick grunting noise; the dagger leaped up, not as if she were lifting it, but as if it were pulling her hands upward.
Something flashed; Tabaea could not say what it was, or just where, or what color it was. She was not sure it was actually light at all, but “flash” was the only word that seemed to fit. For an instant she couldn’t see.
She blinked. Her vision cleared, and she saw Lirrin rising to her feet, the new-made athame in her right hand, any unnatural glow vanished. The dagger looked like an ordinary belt knife— of better quality than most, perhaps, but nothing unreasonable. The girl’s face was still smeared with black and red, her hair was a tangled mess, her apprentice’s robe was wrinkled, stained, and dusty, but she was no longer transfigured or trembling; she was just a dirty young girl holding a knife. She looked up, straight at Tabaea. Tabaea froze.
“Master,” Lirrin said, tired and puzzled, “who’s that?” She pointed.
Serem turned to look, startled.
When the wizard’s eyes met her own, Tabaea unfroze. She leaped to her feet and spun on her heel, then dashed up the short flight of steps. She ran out through the wizard’s workroom as fast as she could and careened out into the utter darkness of the hallway. Moving by feel, no longer worrying about making noise or knocking things over, she charged down the hall, through the parlor and dining salon, banging a shin against the animated fanning plant’s pot in the parlor, sending one of the ornately carved dining chairs to the floor.
The door to the mudroom was open; she tumbled through it, tripping over somebody’s boots, and groped for the door to the alley before she even regained her feet.
Then she was out and stumbling along the hard-packed dirt toward the light of Grand Street. She was breathing too hard to seriously listen for pursuit, but at any rate she heard no shouting, no threats, none of the unnatural sounds that accompanied some spells.
At the comer she hesitated not an instant in turning toward Grandgate Market, even though that meant passing in front of the house. The marketplace crowds were unquestionably the best place to lose herself. She hoped that Serem and Lirrin hadn’t gotten a good look at her and that Serem had no magic that could ferret her out once she was lost.
By the time she had gone three blocks she felt she could risk a look back over her shoulder. She saw no sign of Serem or Lirrin and slowed to a walk.
If they spotted her now, she would just plead innocent, claim they had mistaken her for someone else.
Of course, if they insisted on taking her anyway, and if they had some magical means of discovering the truth, or if they had none themselves but took her to the overlord’s Minister of Justice, who reportedly kept several magicians around for just such matters... well, if anything like that happened, she would just have to throw herself on somebody’s mercy and hope that the penalty wasn’t too harsh. After all, she hadn’t actually stolen anything.
She glanced back again and saw lights in the windows of Serem’s house; the shutters had been opened, and light was pouring out into the streets.
Maybe they thought she was still inside somewhere—but that was silly. She hadn’t even taken the time to close the alleyway door behind her. Well, whatever they thought, they weren’t coming after her, as far as she could see. She let out a small gasp of relief. And the market square—which was called that even though it was six-sided and not square at all—was just ahead. In only seconds she would be safe.
Then the arched door at the corner of Grand and Wizard opened, spilling light, and even from four blocks away Tabaea could see that Serem stood silhouetted against it, peering out. Tabaea shuddered and forced herself not to run, and then she was in Grandgate Market, in the milling crowds.
