again.
She hoped none of the furnishings managed to damage each other; that might complicate the restoration spell.
She glanced at the mirror over the mantel, then crossed the room, stepping carefully over the ropes, and asked, “Are you all right?”
I AM AS WELL AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED, it replied.
“Have you remembered what that is cooking in the workshop?”
NO.
“Do you have any idea where the couch might have gone? We have all the other pieces.”
NO.
Kilisha wondered whether the mirror might have some link to the other objects that it was not even aware of. “Did you know part of Ithanalin wound up in the spriggan?” she asked.
NOT UNTIL YOU SAID SO YESTERDAY.
Well, that would seem to indicate that no link existed. She turned away and looked at the furniture-and a thought struck her.
“Where is the spriggan?”
She hardly spared a glance for the mirror’s I DO NOT KNOW as she dashed for the door.
Chapter Twenty-one
The front door was, to her relief, still locked-but that did not necessarily mean very much with the latch animated. The spriggan might well have escaped into the street, and the latch could have locked itself afterward.
Kilisha opened the door and leaned out, and saw only the normal morning traffic of Wizard Street; no spriggans were anywhere to be seen. She closed the door again, locked it, then hurried to the workshop.
The spriggan was nowhere in sight-but there were dozens of nooks and crannies among the shelves and drawers and clutter where it might have hidden. She peered into the most obvious openings without locating the creature.
Then she heard a thump overhead, and a faint sound that might have been a child’s giggle-or a spriggan. She turned and ran for the kitchen stairs.
The dim drawing room at the top of the stair was empty, but she heard thumping and laughter from the front of the house; she hurried into the sunlit day nursery and found Telleth and Lirrin chasing a spriggan back and forth across the toy-crowded Sardironese carpet.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Telleth and Lirrin skidded to a stop and turned to look at her; the spriggan kept running and giggling, bounced off the far wall, then glanced over its shoulder and realized its pursuers were no longer pursuing. It stopped, too.
“Chase?” it said.
Kilisha glared at it.
It was the right spriggan, anyway-the face and voice were familiar. She had been worried for a moment.
“Is something wrong?” Telleth asked.
Kilisha started an angry reply, then stopped.
Really, was anything wrong? So the spriggan had come upstairs to play with the children; where was the harm in that? If anything, it would keep the little pest out of her way.
And Ithanalin had played with his children sometimes; he hadn’t been as aloof as Kilisha’s own father. The bit of his spirit trapped in the spriggan was probably enjoying this foolishness.
“No, I suppose there isn’t anything wrong,” she said. “I’m just worried about your father-it’s got me nervous that we haven’t found the couch yet, and that we still don’t... well, I’m nervous.” She looked at the children’s faces-Lirrin was openly worried, while Telleth was clearly trying to hide his own concern and look grave and mature. “It’ll be fine. You go ahead with your game. In fact, if you can keep an eye on this spriggan, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure!” Telleth said, managing a smile.
“Chase?” the spriggan said.
“I don’t think I want to play anymore,” Lirrin said; Kilisha saw the girl’s face, and regretted mentioning Ithanalin’s condition.
“We have fun!” the spriggan insisted. It ran up and tugged on the hem of Lirrin’s tunic. She batted it away.
The spriggan danced around her hand and tugged at the tunic again.
“Stop that,” Lirrin said angrily. Telleth quickly tried to grab the spriggan away from his sister, but it dodged. He ran after it.
The spriggan doubled back and ducked between Lirrin’s legs.
“Hai!” the girl shouted; then she, too, grabbed for the creature. A moment later they were chasing the spriggan back and forth across the room again, just as they had been when Kilisha came in. The apprentice smiled, then slipped quietly back out of the room and down the stairs.
Once she was back in the workshop, though, she stopped. What was she supposed to do here? She had no jewelweed, so she couldn’t practice the Restorative, and she couldn’t think of any other useful magic to do, given that her potions were all prepared and Yara had forbidden any further love spells. Yara had also ordered her to stay in the house, so she couldn’t levitate again to see whether the morning light might give a better view than had late afternoon.
That reminded her to check on the potions. She found the three vials where she had left them after completing the last spell and was relieved to see that yes, she bad remembered to label them the night before, though the labels were nowhere near as clear and neat as Ithanalin would have made them.
Each vial held seven sips, seven doses. She read the labels-OPT. STRENGTH, VAREN’S L., TRACEL’S L.- then carefully tucked all three into her belt pouch, next to her mostly empty vial of brimstone and a tiny, tightly scaled bottle that held a single drop of dragon’s blood. A chip of chrysolite, necessary for conjuring the Yellow Cloud, was wrapped in a bit of rag and tucked behind the brimstone.
With the potions in there, the next time someone like Kelder asked her whether she had any magic with her she would have something better than the Yellow Cloud to use. Being able to levitate to see over the rooftops might yet be very useful in finding the couch- if she only had some hint where in the city to look for it.
She was just closing the pouch when someone knocked on the front door.
“Kelder,” she said to herself. “Maybe be can check the gates.” She hurried through the parlor, almost tripping over the bench’s tether as it wandered toward the door, clearly curious about who had knocked. “I’ll be right there!” she called.
The latch apparently decided that meant the new arrival was welcome, and clicked itself open. The door swung inward slightly.
“Kilisha?” a voice called-a female voice. Kilisha stopped, her hand just short of the latch.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Nissitha. Nissitha the Seer.”
Kilisha swung the door wide. “What can I do for you?” she asked, looking out at her neighbor and trying to display polite interest, rather than mere puzzlement, at this unexpected visit.
“Adagan told me you wanted help finding a runaway couch?” Nissitha said hesitantly.
“Yes!” Kilisha smiled hopefully. “Have you seen it?”
“Well, no,” Nissitha admitted. “I was hoping you could tell me more about it-what it looks like, where it was last seen, that sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Kilisha’s smile faded. “Come in, and I’ll tell you.”
Nissitha stepped in. The bench stepped aside to make room for her while the chair rocked a little closer.
