“How?” Lirrin asked.
“Well, I was thinking that if you three got behind it in a line, and held hands so it couldn’t get past you, you could chase it this way, and I could grab it and push it inside.”
The three children looked at one another uncertainly.
“It may threaten you with its hooks, but I don’t think it really wants to hurt anyone,” Kilisha said. “It’s just scared.”
Telleth swallowed.
“I think Pirra should be in the middle,” Kilisha said. “If she’s on the end it might be able to dodge past her, since she’s so small.”
“That’s right,” Lirrin said, “Come on!”
“Wait!” Kilisha called, before Lirrin could take more than a single step.
“What is it?” Lirrin demanded. “We need to go, before it gets away!”
“Yes, you do,” Kilisha said. “But make sure you go past it separately, without frightening it, and then form a line and chase it this way.”
“Right,” Telleth said. “Come on, then.”
This time Kilisha straightened up and let them go.
They were brave children. They hadn’t argued with her, or cried, or said they were scared; they had just gone to help. Yara and Ithanalin ought to be proud of them.
She wondered which piece of furniture held the wizard’s parental pride.
She waited a moment, to give the children time to get into position, then began strolling toward Adagan’s door. “Oh, coat-rack!” she called. “Won’t you come back with me?”
Adagan chose that moment to thrust his broom out the door, pushing a fair-sized heap of pet hairs and fireplace ash. He paused, startled, at the sound of Kilisha’s voice, then leaned out and said, “Coatrack?”
Kilisha had been focused on the coatrack, so that this sudden intrusion threw her into complete confusion. “Uh?” she said.
“You have a boyfriend named Coatrack?” Adagan asked.
Kilisha blinked at him. “I don’t have any boyfriend!” she said. “I’m trying to catch the coatrack that’s behind your door.”
The instant the words left her mouth she knew she had made a mistake. Sure enough, the coatrack bolted. She caught a glimpse of it as it tried to dash away-but then it ran into the children, who had formed their line as instructed, and all four of them- three children and an oversized ambulatory stick-fell to the street in a tangle.
“Kilisha, help!” Telleth called, and Pirra burst out crying. Kilisha ran.
Adagan, astonished, turned to watch as the wizard’s apprentice grabbed for the twisting, curling wooden bar. He clutched his own broom tightly, as if he expected that, too, to make a bid for freedom.
Kilisha did not try to untangle the children; she concentrated instead on getting her hands on the coatrack, and after two or three attempts she managed to get a solid two-handed grip on it.
It struggled for a moment, but then Kilisha pulled it out of the tangle of arms and legs and heaved it up above her head, holding it at arm’s length.
It thrashed wildly for a moment, then paused, as if considering its situation.
“You can’t get away,” Kilisha told it. “If you try, we may have to hurt you.” It gave another twitch, and Kilisha said sharply, “Stop that, right now, unless you want to be chopped up for firewood!”
The coatrack straightened out into its natural shape, beam straight and hooks curled-but it was still quivering slightly.
Trembling, Kilisha supposed.
Around her, Ithanalin’s three children got to their feet. Pirra was wailing, and Lirrin was trying unsuccessfully to comfort her.
Telleth glanced at his sisters, decided they were not seriously hurt, then stared gape-mouthed up at the coatrack. Then he looked at Kilisha.
“Would you really cut it up?” he asked. “I thought you needed it for the spell!”
Kilisha threw him an angry glare, and he realized he had said something wrong.
“Come on,” she said. “Bring your sisters. And the minute we’re all inside the house, slam the door tight!”
“Kilisha, what’s going on?” Adagan asked, still clinging tightly to his broom.
“I’ll tell you later,” Kilisha said, as she marched back home, with the coatrack held overhead.
“Can I help?” Adagan called a moment later, but by then Kilisha was struggling to get an uncooperative coatrack through Ith-analin’s front door and was far too busy to answer.
At last, though, she got the entire thing inside, still raised above her head-where it was now trying to get traction against the ceiling, to prevent Kilisha from transporting it any further into the house. It was succeeding well enough that Kilisha was afraid it would force her back against the motionless Ithanalin, knocking her and the wizard off their feet.
“Telleth!” she called without looking for the boy-her attention was focused entirely upward, on the squirming implement in her tiring hands.
The door slammed, and she heard the click of the lock. She let out a sigh, lowered the coatrack to the floor, and released her hold.
“There,” she said.
The coatrack scurried away from her, toward the far corner of the room.
“You can do whatever you want,” she told it, glaring and wagging an admonitory finger, “so long as you stay in this house. You belong here, and we’re going to need you here later, but we don’t want to hurt you, and we don’t care what you do for now so long as you don’t go anywhere or hurt anyone. Do you understand?”
The coatrack hesitated, then nodded its top.
“If you get out again, we will hurt you. We’re magicians, so we’ll be able to find you no matter where you go.”
It shuddered, then nodded again.
“Good.” She relaxed, and lowered her pointing finger. She looked around.
Yara was in the door of the back room, staring at her. The spoon and bowl were nowhere in sight.
The three children were standing behind her, just inside the door, staring up at her openmouthed. She stared back, wondering why they looked so astonished; they were a wizard’s children, and they had all seen plenty of magic before. Surely, an animated coat-rack wasn’t that amazing.
“Kilisha,” Telleth asked, “what’s going on?”
“Yeah,” Lirrin said, “I never heard you yell like that before!”
Kilisha sagged, then sat down on the floor with a thump.
Yara and the children would need to know, if they were going to help-and she wasn’t sure she could do the job without their help. Choosing her words carefully, she began to tell them what had happened.
Chapter Seven
Kilisha was perhaps halfway through her explanation when Lima’s remark registered properly.
She had been yelling at the coatrack, and threatening it-and technically, that coatrack was her master. She had done things an apprentice must never do! She stopped speaking and her hand flew to her mouth.
“You looked funny holding the coatrack,” Pirra said, breaking the sudden silence.
“Yeah,” Telleth said.
Kilisha threw a guilty glance at the coatrack. She would need to apologize to Ithanalin once he was reassembled, and hope he wasn’t too angry.
But first she needed to collect the remaining pieces.
She glanced at Yara; the wizard’s wife was standing silently, her expression worried. She had been listening to the explanation, as well. Kilisha blinked at her, then turned back to the children.
“Anyway,” she said, “the magic took pieces of your father- maybe pieces of his soul, or maybe something
