Slowly, as though she were not entirely convinced, the knitter counted out the dozen beads into Nora’s hand. Nora thanked her. Then, looking up, she saw that Aruendiel had already left the shop.
Going outside, at first she did not see him at all. She had a moment of panic, and then she spotted his dark head moving through the crowd, twenty yards down the street. Nora followed him as quickly as she could, edging her way between stalls and jostling the other pedestrians. She was relieved to see that he had stopped to wait for her in front of a tavern, just before the street forked.
Something about the rigidity of his posture told her how furious he was. As soon as he saw her approaching, he turned and began to walk rapidly down the right-hand street.
Catching up, she told him, “I have the rest of your money.”
“You may keep it, if it means so much to you.” At the next intersection, he veered left without appearing to pay any attention to whether Nora was following him or not.
“She gave you the wrong change,” Nora said. “It was a simple mistake. I just pointed it out, that’s all.”
“You would have done better to have left well enough alone. In the future, perhaps you will let me conduct my financial affairs myself.”
“Don’t worry, I will!” Nora snapped, suddenly furious, too. “Is that why you’re angry, because I dared to intervene in your finances?”
“No,” Aruendiel said. They turned down another street before he spoke again. “What you did was very unseemly.”
“Unseemly?”
“To challenge those shopkeepers.”
“Challenge? She made the wrong change, and I corrected her. That happens all the time in a store. I wasn’t accusing her of cheating you.”
“A gentleman does not quibble with a shopkeeper over money.”
“Not even if he’s being shortchanged? I don’t believe that. Besides, you were haggling with the man in the bookstore.”
“That is entirely different. Gorinth is a learned man, an old acquaintance—”
“I see! He’s closer to an equal, not that anyone’s ever quite equal to you. So it’s fine to engage in a little gentlemanly bargaining with him. But not with a couple of women selling fabric in a little shop—even if one of them, at least, is better at math than you are.”
“You have only the crudest grasp of social niceties,” Aruendiel observed.
“Well, in my world people can ask politely for correct change without committing a social crime. By the way,” she added, “you do agree that she shortchanged you, right?”
He shrugged, his pale eyes elsewhere. “The exact tally of a few silver beads is of no concern to me.”
“I thought so,” Nora said. “You still aren’t sure about the math.”
They walked along in silence, single file because of the crowds. The rank, salty smell of the river became more pronounced. At last they came to a gate in the city wall. When Aruendiel gave his name, the guards waved them through, with a curious glance at Nora. She wondered what exactly she was famous for this time—rescuing Bouragonr, or being the mistress of a prominent magician and murderer?
Ahead was a long quay lined with a thicket of tall-masted ships, dark-timbered, weather-beaten, burlier and more disreputable-looking than the gleaming white sailboats she remembered from the shore back home. The wind off the water whipped through her hair.
“Are we taking a boat back?”
“To the other side of the river.” Aruendiel dropped his bag and walked down the quay, looking for the ferry.
I could still turn back, Nora thought. She glanced down at the bundles she carried. All her possessions in the world—this world—consisted of a change of clothes, a paperback book, and twelve silver beads. Would that be enough to pay for even one night’s lodging somewhere? She had no idea. There was also the fabric that Aruendiel had just bought her. That could be sold. Another dozen or two dozen silver beads. She worked her hand through the wrappings of the bundle from the dry goods store and fingered the blue worsted. It was good material, thick and felty. Warm for winter.
Mrs. Toristel might have asked him to buy it. But lately Mrs. Toristel had been talking about making over one of her daughter’s old winter dresses for Nora. Would she even dare to ask the magician to buy Nora material for new clothes? The cloth was bound to be more expensive in Semr.
Aruendiel was looking over the water, arms folded. Nora suddenly thought—why?—of the day they’d flown to Semr, after Raclin chased them, and how Aruendiel had stood alone, checking his hand for tremors. Did he find any? She could not get the image out of her head. Then she remembered the calm weight of his hand—the same hand—on her shoulder when she faced Ilissa. He would not let go, even when Ilissa’s magic fought him through Nora’s body.
An undefined emotion nagged at her. I want to know more, she thought—about magic and how magicians are made. About this magician. If I leave now, I believe I’ll regret it.
She hesitated, then picked up the bundles and walked along the quay until she reached the spot where Aruendiel stood. Across the water, a skiff was making its way toward them.
“I haven’t thanked you for buying me that fabric. It was very—” She wanted to find exactly the right word, one that would not annoy him all over again. “Very decent of you.”
“There’s no reason to thank me,” he said, not looking at her. “It’s my duty to see that those living under my roof are fed and clothed.”
“Well, I thank you anyway, because I’m pleased to have something comfortable to wear when the weather gets cold.”
Aruendiel nodded, then turned to regard her. “I should remember to make allowances for you. You are a foreigner. It is not your fault that you do not always know what is appropriate and what is not.”
It was not much of an apology. But Nora could not bring herself to apologize for asking the shopkeeper for correct change, either. The ferryman rowed another ten strokes closer before she answered. “I did not think that you were so concerned with social niceties.”
“And why not?”
“Because you’re a magician. Because, from what I’ve observed, you usually do what you want to do without worrying about the opinions of other people or their notions of propriety.”
“That may be true. But here we are talking about
“Then maybe you should reexamine them.”
The skiff bumped against the quay, and the sunburned young ferryman helped Nora into the boat. She sat in the bow and watched the walls and roofs of Semr recede across the water, the gray bulk of the palace crouching at the top of the city. Aruendiel sat crookedly in the stern, looking out to sea.
Whistling, the ferryman steered them against the dock. “Fastest crossing I’ve had all day,” he remarked, sounding pleased. “Tide’s running hard right now, but we hardly felt it. That’ll be four silver beads for the both of you.”
Aruendiel gave him two beads. “The lady can pay for herself,” he said. Nora did so, wondering if this was some gesture of respect, but thinking it was more likely that Aruendiel was simply being cheap.
Aruendiel jerked his horse’s head around and circled back to where the girl was plodding along on the bay mare that he had just paid too much money for. “Is your mount lame, that it cannot go any faster?” he inquired.
“No.
“Ridiculous,” he said. “Your mare is about to take root, she’s moving so slowly. Have you never ridden a
