“She’s a warlock,” Hanner said as Mavi took Sheila’s hand.
“Then shouldn’t she be in there with the others?” Alris demanded.
“Maybe when she’s feeling better,” Hanner said. He had had some thought that maybe Alris would like having Sheila around, since they were roughly the same age, but it didn’t appear that was going to work.
“I’m Mavi,” Mavi said.
Sheila swallowed and managed to stop crying long enough to reply, “I’m Sheila.”
“This is Lady Alris,” Mavi said. “She’s Lord Hanner’s sister.”
Sheila glanced at Alris, then stared intently at Mavi for a moment.
Hanner felt suddenly uneasy; something was happening, he could sense it, but he didn’t know what.
“You’re not a warlock,” Sheila said. It wasn’t a question.
“No, I’m not,” Mavi said. “Neither is Lady Alris nor Lord Hanner, but they live in the Palace, and the overlord won’t let them back in because he’s scared of the warlocks, so they’re staying here with their uncle. I’m just visiting, to keep them company; I live in Newmarket.”
“But...” Sheila threw Hanner a sharp, puzzled glance, her tears apparently forgotten.
She knew, he realized. She knew he was a warlock.
“I’ll explain later,” Hanner said quickly.
“Explain what?” Alris demanded.
“None of your business,” Hanner snapped.
Alris looked at Hanner, then at Mavi, then said, “I’ll bet I know, though I don’t know why you toldher before you said anything to your own sister!”
Mavi started. “No, Alris, it’s not-I mean, we haven’t...” Her voice trailed off in confusion.
“Just shut up, Alris,” Hanner said wearily. He hadn’t expected to find these two in the parlor, and much as he ordinarily enjoyed Mavi’s presence, he wished they weren’t there. He turned to Sheila.
“You were telling me what happened after you healed Thel-lesh,” he said.
“Oh,” Sheila said. “Well, Master Kelder tried to undo what I’d done, but he couldn’t, and I couldn’t see how I could, either, when he told me to try, so finally he sent Thellesh home, and we talked for a while, and then he told me to get my things and get out, that I wasn’t a witch anymore and I was too dangerous to stay in his house. I think he thought it might be catching.”
“So you left?” “I didn’t even get my stuff,” Sheila said. “I was too upset. I just ran out the door. And later I listened to people talking and asked some questions, and I heard about the Warlock House and came to see.”
“The Warlock House?” Alris asked.
“That’s what they call it,” Sheila said.
“This house, you mean,” Hanner said.
“That’s right.”
“So much for keeping anything secret,” Alris said.
Hanner hoped those words weren’t prophetic; he still had secrets he wanted to keep. The location of Uncle Faran’s house, the refuge for warlocks, wasn’t one of them, though. “We already knew the guards had found us,” he said. “And there were those people in the street.”
“Areyou still a witch?” Mavi asked Sheila.
“No,” Sheila said. “At least, I don’t think so. When I try to do witchcraft it all feels different, so I think I’m doing warlockry instead. I can’t do some things at all, like reading moods. And I don’t get tired-instead it makes me feel stronger.”
That certainly fit what Hanner knew of warlockry.
“When did it start?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sheila said. “I felt funny all day yesterday, but I wasn’t sure anything was wrong until today.”
“Did you have any strange dreams last night?”
She looked up at him, startled, and her eyes grew wide. “What kind of dreams?” she asked.
“About falling and being buried alive,” Hanner said.
“You know about that?” Sheila said breathlessly.
“Tell us about it,” Mavi said.
“It wasn’t last night, but the night before I did! I dreamed about falling through the air burning, and then falling down under the ground until I was buried and couldn’t breathe, and all the time I knew there was something I had to do, but I didn’t know what it was.” She shuddered. “I knew it was a magical dream, but I didn’t know what kind or where it came from.”
“It’s the same dream,” Alris said. “I’ve heard everyone talking about it over and over. All the warlocks who were asleep when the Night of Madness started had it, and some of them have had it again since then.”
Hanner glanced at her. “Have you had it?” “Me?” Alris clapped a hand to her chest. “I’m not a warlock!”
“Of course I haven’t had any dreams like that.” She snorted. “Now I probably will, not because of any magic but just because you said that.”
Hanner watched his sister’s face for a second, trying to decide whether perhaps she was being a littletoo emphatic, but then dismissed it. She was probably telling the truth, and any excess drama was just because she was thirteen.
He still found her attitude toward warlockry puzzling, though. She had been so insistent for so long that she wanted to be a magician, and she didn’t seem to mind being in a house full of warlocks-she had friends she could stay with if she really wanted to-yet she seemed to be very determined to dislike the idea of warlockry.
Hanner couldn’t figure it out and gave up trying. He turned his attention back to Sheila.
“Well, I don’t think you need to worry too much, Sheila. You’re a warlock now, that’s all. All this-the dreams, the strange magic, trouble with your old magic-that’s all the same sort of thing that the other warlocks have been through. All of it except what you did to Thellesh; no one else did that.”
“Were any of the others witches?”
“No,” Hanner admitted, “but two of them are wizards.”
Sheila drew in her breath, her eyes widening again. “Oh,” she said.“Wizards can be warlocks?”
“Sort of. It interferes with their old magic, just as it did with your witchcraft. Or almost; they can still do a. few spells.”
“That’s sostrange!”
Hanner sighed. “I suppose so. Now, if you can stand the crowd, I think we should go back to the other room, where my uncle, Lord Faran, is getting things organized.”
“All right,” she said.
She and Hanner were just turning around when someone knocked on the front door.
Alris hopped onto a chair by one of the front windows and pressed her cheek to the panes so that she could peer sideways for a look at their visitor.
“It’s a guardsman,” she said. “Should I call Uncle Faran?”
“Oneguardsman?” Hanner asked. “Just one?”
“I just see one,” Alris confirmed.
Hanner frowned and crossed to the door. He opened it a crack.
The crowd in the street had fallen silent, presumably waiting to see what would happen-as Alris had said, a single guardsman stood just outside, inside the gate.
At first, distracted by the yellow tunic of a soldier, Hanner failed to recognize the man’s face, but before the new arrival could speak the familiar features registered, and Hanner flung the door wide.
“Yorn!” he said. “Come in, come in!”
The soldier obeyed, closing the door gently behind himself. “Am I still welcome?” he asked.
“Of course!” Hanner said, clapping Yorn on the shoulder. “As long as you’re not here to order us all into exile.”
“Uh... actually, I was... those orders... that’s why I’m here,” Yorn said.
Hanner frowned. “We already chased away Captain Naral and an entire squad,” he said. “Why would they send just you?”
“Oh, that’s not what I meant!” Yorn said hastily. “I mean, they told us to find any warlocks we knew of and
