Wizard and Glass

'There's a rock wall at the back,' she said. 'Between the pavilion and the menagerie. If you need me badly—'

'I'll always need you badly,' he said.

She smiled at his gravity. 'There's a stone on one of the lower courses—a reddish one. You'll see it. My friend Amy and I used to leave messages there for each other when we were little girls. I'll look there when I can. Ye do the same.'

'Aye.' Sheemie would work for awhile, if they were careful. The red rock might also work for awhile, if they were careful. But no matter how careful they were, they would slip eventually, because the Big Coffin Hunters now probably knew more about Roland and his friends than Roland ever would have wished. But he had to see her, no matter what the risks. If he didn't, he felt he might die. And he only had to look at her to know she felt the same.

'Watch special for Jonas and the other two,' he said.

'I will. Another kiss, if ye favor?'

He kissed her gladly, and would just as gladly have pulled her off the mare's back for a fourth go-round . .. but it was time to stop being delirious and start being careful.

'Fare you well, Susan. I love y—' He paused, then smiled. 'I love thee.'

'And I thee, Roland. What heart I have is yours.'

She had a great heart, he thought as she slipped through the willows, and already he felt its burden on his own. He waited until he felt sure she must be well away. Then he went to Rusher and rode off in the opposite direction, knowing that a new and dangerous phase of the game had begun.

14

Not too long after Susan and Roland had parted, Cordelia Delgado stepped out of the Hambry Mercantile with a box of groceries and a troubled mind. The troubled mind was caused by Susan, of course, always Susan, and Cordelia's fear that the girl would do something stupid before Reaping finally came around.

These thoughts were snatched out of her mind just as hands—strong ones—snatched the box of groceries from her arms. Cordelia cawed in surprise, shaded her eyes against the sun, and saw Eldred Jonas standing there between the Bear and Turtle totems, smiling at her. His hair, long and white (and beautiful, in her opinion), lay over his shoulders. Cordelia felt her heart beat a little faster. She had always been partial to men like Jonas, who could smile and banter their way to the edge of risqueness . . . but who carried their bodies like blades.

'I startled you. I cry your pardon, Cordelia.'

'Nay,' she said, sounding a little breathless to her own ears. 'It's just the sun—so bright at this time of day—'

'I'd help you a bit on your way, if you give me leave. I'm only going up High as far as the comer, then I turn up the Hill, but may I help you that far?'

'With thanks,' she said. They walked down the steps and up the board sidewalk, Cordelia looking around in little pecking glances to see who was observing them—she beside the handsome sai Jonas, who just happened to be carrying her goods. There was a satisfying number of onlookers. She saw Millicent Ortega, for one, looking out of Ann's Dresses with a satisfying 0 of surprise on her stupid cow's puss.

'I hope you don't mind me calling you Cordelia.' Jonas shifted the box, which she'd needed two hands to carry, casually under one arm. 'I feel, since the welcoming dinner at Mayor Thorin's house, that I know you.'

'Cordelia's fine.'

'And may I be Eldred to you?'

'I think 'Mr. Jonas' will do a bit longer,' she said, then favored him with what she hoped was a coquettish smile. Her heart beat faster yet. (It did not occur to her that perhaps Susan was not the only silly goose in the Delgado family.)

'So be it,' Jonas said, with a look of disappointment so comic that she laughed. 'And your niece? Is she well?'

'Quite well, thank yefor asking. a bit of a trial, sometimes—'

'Was there ever a girl of sixteen who wasn't?'

'I suppose not.'

'Yet you have additional burdens regarding her this fall. I doubt if he realizes that, though.'

Cordelia said nothing—'twouldn't be discreet—but gave him a meaningful look that said much.

'Give her my best, please.'

'I will.' But she wouldn't. Susan had conceived a great (and irrational, in Cordelia's view) dislike for Mayor Thorin's regulators. Trying to talk her out of these feelings would likely do no good; young girls thought they knew everything. She glanced at the star peeking unobtrusively out from beneath the flap of Jonas's vest. 'I understand ye've taken on an additional responsibility in our undeserving town, sai Jonas.'

'Aye, I'm helping out Sheriff Avery,' he agreed. His voice had a reedy little tremble which Cordelia found quite endearing, somehow. 'One of his deputies—Claypool, his name is—'

'Frank Claypool, aye.'

'—fell out of his boat and broke his leg. How do you fall out of a boat and break your leg, Cordelia?'

She laughed merrily (the idea that everyone in Hambry was watching them was surely wrong … but it felt that way, and the feeling was not unpleasant) and said she didn't know.

He stopped on the comer of High and Camino Vega, looking regretful. 'Here's where I turn.' He handed the box back to her. 'Are you sure you can carry that? I suppose I could go on with you to your house—'

'No need, no need. Thank you. Thank you, Eldred.' The blush which crept up her neck and cheeks felt as hot as fire, but his smile was worth every degree of heat. He tipped her a little salute with two fingers and sauntered up the hill toward the Sheriff's office.

Cordelia walked on home. The box, which had seemed such a burden when she stepped out of the mercantile, now seemed to weigh next to nothing. This feeling lasted for half a mile or so, but by the time her house came into view, she was once again aware of the sweat trickling down her sides, and the ache in her arms. Thank the gods summer was almost over … and wasn't that Susan, just leading her mare in through the gate?

'Susan!' she called, now enough returned to earth for her former irritation with the girl to sound clear in her voice. 'Come and help me, 'fore I drop this and break the eggs!'

Susan came, leaving Felicia to crop grass in the front yard. Ten minutes earlier, Cordelia would have noticed nothing of how the girl looked— her thoughts had been too wrapped up in Eldred Jonas to admit of much else. But the hot sun had taken some of the romance out of her head and returned her feet to earth. And as Susan took the box from her (handling it almost as easily as Jonas had done), Cordelia thought she didn't much care for the girl's appearance. Her temper had changed, for one thing— from the half-hysterical confusion in which she'd left to a pleasant and happy-eyed calmness. That was the Susan of previous years to the sleeve and seam . . . but not this year's moaning, moody breast-beater. There was nothing else Cordelia could put her finger on, except—

But there was, actually. One thing. She reached out and grasped the girl's braid, which looked uncharacteristically sloppy this afternoon. Of course Susan had been riding; that could explain the mess. But it didn't explain how dark her hair was, as if that bright mass of gold had begun to tarnish. And she jumped, almost guiltily, when she felt Cordelia's touch. Why, pray tell, was that?

'Yer hair's damp, Susan,' she said. 'Have ye been swimming somewhere?'

'Nay! I stopped and ducked my head at the pump outside Hockey's barn. He doesn't mind—'tis a deep well he has. It's so hot. Perhaps there'll be a shower later. I hope so. I gave Felicia to drink as well.'

The girl's eyes were as direct and as candid as ever, but Cordelia thought there was something off in them, just the same. She couldn't say what. The idea that Susan might be hiding something large and serious did not immediately cross Cordelia's mind; she would have said her niece was incapable of keeping a secret any greater than a birthday present or a surprise party . . . and not even such secrets as those for more than a day or two. And yet something was off here. Cordelia dropped her fingers to the collar of the girl's riding shirt.

'Yet this is dry.'

'I was careful,' she said, looking at her aunt with a puzzled eye. 'Dirt sticks worse to a wet shirt. You