“Better? Better?” Nora stood up. Finally her surging discontent had found a suitable outlet. “Is that what you meant when you said the dead owed nothing to the living? That we shouldn’t disturb the dead with our grief? The way your friends disturbed you? Listen, you were lucky that they did that! You were lucky to have friends who loved you enough to sit around your dead body and grieve and call and try to drag you back into the world. Because I can tell you, it’s painful to do that, it’s horrible, to call and call and not know if anyone will answer.
“But you don’t appreciate that. You’re still angry at Hirizjahkinis for raising you from the dead. It seems like selfishness to me.”
“You know nothing about it,” Aruendiel said, with a furious wrench of his mouth.
“
“That doesn’t matter. It was what had befallen me. It was my fate.”
“They gave you a gift, bringing you back to life.”
“Which I never asked for.”
“If that’s your attitude, life was wasted on you.”
Aruendiel leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. He smiled slightly, unpleasantly. “I fear that you are right.”
On winter mornings, the barn was dark but milder than outside, full of the animals’ warm breath and the funk of their manure. Nora fed the chickens first, then the sow, finally the goats and the two cows. She hauled water for them, then took a pitchfork and spread a fresh layer of bedding.
This morning she took extra pains, spreading the straw deeper and more evenly than usual. Some levitation magic would have made the work go faster, but today she found a certain comfort in having to exert herself. The physical effort made remembering the evening before slightly less painful.
What had put her into such a foul humor? That small, tantalizing glimpse of home had started it. And then Aruendiel’s dark mood, his death wish—all laced with self-pity, but naturally he wouldn’t see that. She wished that he had not told her so much about murdering his wife. She wished he had not told her anything about his wife. And yet she wanted to know everything about his wife. How humiliating to feel this species of jealousy toward a dead woman. Perverse, too, considering how she had died. Nora stabbed the pitchfork into a pile of manure, then held out a handful of straw to one of the cows. Its big tongue brushed Nora’s hand. Running a hand down its warm, shaggy face, she still felt raw, exposed, regretful. Not so much because of what she had said but because of what she had made him say.
As Nora came into the kitchen, stamping the snow from her boots, Mrs. Toristel looked up from her mixing bowl. “He’s got visitors already,” she announced, nodding toward the great hall.
“So early?” Mingled frustration and relief that she would not encounter Aruendiel alone. “Who is it? I thought the roads were still bad.”
“She didn’t need a road this time,” Mrs. Toristel said, the disdain in her voice unmistakable. “They flew here. Two of those flying mounts in the courtyard.”
“She?” Nora asked with a tinge of alarm. Her first thought, after last night, was
Mrs. Toristel nodded. “No, the other one who was here. Dorneng, his name is. You didn’t see them?
“He always looks serious.”
Mrs. Toristel clicked her tongue. “I’m sure it’s nothing to joke about, whatever it is that brought them.”
As soon as Nora opened the door to the great hall, she could hear Aruendiel swearing, and she knew instantly that yes, this was something about Ilissa. Dorneng stood directly in front of him, a woeful look on his fleshy face. Hirizjahkinis, standing to one side, watched the other two magicians with a slightly fixed smile; she had the attitude of someone who is just barely containing herself from tapping her foot with impatience.
Nora caught her eye, and instantly Hirizjahkinis’s smile became more natural. She came forward.
“What’s going on?” Nora asked in a low voice. “Is it Ilissa?”
Distractedly, Hirizjahkinis put her hands on Nora’s shoulders by way of greeting. “Of course it is Ilissa!” She laughed, but her laugh sounded tired. “Why else would I have to fly all night in a snowstorm? It is very inconsiderate of her to cause all this fuss in the middle of winter.”
“What has she done now?”
“She has broken out of her prison. So now we must go to the trouble of finding her.”
No wonder Aruendiel was cursing. “How did she get out? Aruendiel put in all those new defenses—”
“Dorneng let her out.”
“What? That seems pretty stupid, even for him.”
Hirizjahkinis rolled her eyes. “It was very stupid of him—but then he had no Kavareen to call on, when Ilissa enchanted him.
“He was afraid to tell Aruendiel what he had done—he came to Mirne Klep to fetch me first. As though I did not want to bite him into tiny pieces myself when he told me.”
“Well, Dorneng wanted to know more about Faitoren magic,” Nora said. “I guess he knows now.” Aruendiel brushed past them into the kitchen, giving no sign that he had noticed her. “Where is Ilissa now? Does anyone know?”
“Dorneng thinks she is going east,” Hirizjahkinis said. “He thinks.”
At the sound of his name, Dorneng lumbered dejectedly toward them. “Yes, east, toward the Ice,” he said. He sounded as though he had a cold.
“Terrible, she has no consideration,” Hirizjahkinis said with a shudder. “I think we should simply let her freeze there, but of course that’s not enough for Aruendiel. We must hunt her down and lock her up again.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem like a bad idea,” Nora said cautiously. She gave Dorneng a polite greeting, for which he seemed to be effusively grateful. He said it was wonderful to see her in good health—which Nora took to mean not a marble statue—and then he began to apologize to Hirizjahkinis for putting her to so much trouble. From the look on Hirizjahkinis’s face, Nora could tell that this was not the first apology she had heard from him. Something about Lord Luklren’s lost sheep—“I never even asked myself, why are they on the wrong side of the barrier? I just let them through, thinking Lord Luklren would be relieved to have them back—”
“The thing about Faitoren magic is they can make you believe what you want to believe,” Nora said, meaning to offer a word of understanding, but Dorneng did not look any more at ease.
“Ilissa made a great fool of Dorneng, right enough, but this is hardly the first time that she has tricked a clever magician,” Aruendiel said, coming toward them, a worried-looking Mrs. Toristel on his heels. “As you well know, Hirizjahkinis.” He frowned, but there was grim excitement in his face. Nora saw that, ironically, the current state of emergency, the opportunity to punish Ilissa, had improved his mood. “Now, Dorneng—”
Mrs. Toristel was plucking at Nora’s sleeve. “I must pack his clothes,” she said in a lowered voice. “You go into the kitchen and get their provisions ready. Sausages, dried apples, whatever bread we have left—if only I’d known sooner, we could have made more. Hurry!” She gave Nora a small push toward the kitchen.
“They’re leaving now?” Nora asked, but Mrs. Toristel was already heading for the stairs. Aruendiel was still giving directions to Dorneng while Hirizjahkinis listened. Nora went into the kitchen. Hastily she packed two bags with food, then carried them into the great hall. Hirizjahkinis and Dorneng were bent over a map on the table. There was no sign of Aruendiel. On an impulse, Nora tried the entrance to the tower. It was open. Half-running, she went up the stairs to Aruendiel’s study.
He stood by the window, running a whetstone over the blade of his sword. The same sword that had killed his wife? Probably. When Nora mounted the last stairs, he looked up, surprised, as though he had forgotten all about her.
“You’re leaving now?” Nora asked.
“Yes, of course.” It was the familiar clipped tone, skeptical that anyone could be so dense. “I hope you have
