'Where were you,' Tennora said softly, 'when it happened? When the Blue Fire came.'
Nestrix's gaze grew distant. 'The Calim. I lived most of my life there. There were no genasi then, no genie slavers. Just wealthy, foolish humans who hung themselves all over with jewels and gold and thought themselves clever for it. Great sprawling cities that sent out caravans through the djinn's desert and were always surprised when they didn't come back.' She grinned. 'I should have liked to grow old in that desert, where the riches came to you. Not as safe now. The genasi are bellicose and brutal with outsiders.'
'Where else did you live?'
'Plenty of places,' Nestrix said. 'The Raurin-that was where I found my mate. My Tantlevgithus.' She sighed heavily. 'Now it's full of dokaal building dead civilizations, but it's still the purple desert where my mate and I danced in the storms.' She sighed again, her blue eyes focusing on someplace long ago and far away, and Tennora thought that features changing might be bad enough, at least for Nestrix.
'And Waterdeep?' Tennora said, trying to change the subject. 'What was it like?'
Nestrix regarded her curiously. 'I wouldn't know. I'd never come so far north as this. Besides, everyone knows the dragonward makes Waterdeep unbearable without proper protection.'
'Oh,' Tennora said. She should have remembered that. 'But you're all right now? The dragonward isn't affecting you.'
'No,' Nestrix said icily.
'Good.' Tennora smiled and ran a nervous hand over her blonde braid. 'I find history fascinating. Particularly Waterdeep's. This square is a good spot for it. The paving dates back to Baeron Silmaeril's time as the Open Lord. The newer stuff was peeled up when the statue fell, I expect.'
'What statue?'
Tennora laughed. 'The one you're sitting in. It was one of the Walking Statues.'
'This?' Nestrix looked around her.
'It was, yes. The Year of Blue Fire made the statues all come to life. No one could control them-not the Blackstaff, not the Masked Lords. They destroyed huge swaths of the city. This one, they say, used to stand near the sea wall. It was making its way toward the old market when a wizard-they always say the Blackstaff, but there were plenty of powerful wizards in Waterdeep those days and everyone claims she was in their district at the time- tried to stop it. She couldn't command it, so she made the ground beneath it soft as mud. The statue collapsed, but as it fell, it reached up toward the heavens as if it asked the gods for their forgiveness. Another feature changed, I suppose.'
Nestrix snorted. 'Why would a statue ask the gods for anything?'
'It's just how the story goes.' Tennora shrugged. 'Though it might be true. I don't suppose anyone ever knows what's going on in the mind of a magical statue.' She smiled. 'Well, nowadays, a family of half-elves lives there.' Nestrix eyed her, puzzled for a moment, until Tennora blushed. 'It was a joke.'
'Oh.' Nestrix reached for her teacup. 'Is that why you studied magic then? Because you live in a magic den?'
'No.' Tennora fought the urge to sigh. 'I… I thought it was interesting. And beautiful. I always wanted to be a wizard. My teacher says I'm no good at magic though.'
'Find a different teacher,' Nestrix said. 'Or a different magic.'
Tennora shrugged. 'I don't think that will work. At least not right now.'
'What else would you do?'
'My aunt and uncle want me to be a proper young lady and fall in love with a proper young man so his proper family and theirs can forge a connection. They're still afraid no one takes them very seriously as a noble family, I suppose,' she added as she sipped her tea. 'We've only had a title for three generations.'
Nestrix was eyeing her again, her eyes wide as if Tennora had admitted to leaping off buildings in her spare time.
'Do dragons not make connections that way?' Tennora asked.
'I cannot speak for other dragons,' Nestrix said, 'but no self-respecting blue would suggest such a thing. Sire, dam, mate, offspring, enemy.' She counted them off on her long fingers. 'These are your connections. Anything else you do for your own gain.' She drained the tea, then added, 'If your aunt were the clutchmate of my darn, I would tear her throat out for suggesting I am a mere tool for her games. You don't have the teeth for such an attack, but you could probably find something to do it for you. You dokaal are good at that.'
Tennora's mouth fell open.
'One of those grain-cutters, perhaps,' Nestrix said, thoughtfully, making a hook of her finger. 'What do you call those?'
'Scythes. And I don't… That isn't how things are done,' Tennora managed, 'but thank you… for sharing. At any rate, studying wizardry this way was a compromise. I studied at the House of Magic under a master they found suitable, with fellow apprentices whose friendships might be valuable, and I could put off joining society for a little longer. Only, I wasn't terribly good at magic. At least not the way my master teaches it.'
The way anyone teaches it, she silently added, remembering the fireball.
'Now that you are no longer a wizard,' Nestrix said, 'must you go mate for your aunt and uncle's status? Do they decide what you do?'
Tennora ignored the crude description. 'I don't know. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do now. It's all sort of falling to pieces.' Her voice cracked as she spoke, and she turned away.
Nestrix regarded her for a long moment, in a way that was not predatory, not speculative, nor even confused. She looked weary. She set down her mug and leaned forward onto her knees.
'I will tell you something I have learned,' she said. 'And I do not do this lightly, so be grateful and listen.
'It is easy to forget, when we are sated, that we may only live our lives-no matter how long or short they may be-from one sunrise to the next. Until the Blue Fire came, I forgot this often, but since then it is the only way I can make my way through the world. I suggest you concern yourself with what is at hand and leave tomorrow to tomorrow.'
Tennora frowned. 'But it remains rather pressing.'
'Not as pressing as finding me a place to sleep,' Nestrix said with a wide, white smile.
With the point of his knife, Ferremo picked at a sliver of apple skin lodged between his teeth. The half-elf woman next to him watched out of the comer of her eyes with barely disguised horror. He stopped and wiped the blade on his handkerchief, sucking at the gums where he'd pried the offending bit loose.
'What's wrong, Alina?' he said, waggling the knife at her. 'Do you have something stuck as well?'
Her gaze shot back to the manor across the road. 'Not a bit,' she said.
Poor Alina, he thought. She wasn't long for their way of life. She had a good hand with disarming wards, but she was otherwise too clumsy, too obvious. If she didn't get herself killed, she'd be out of the master's service any day now. Ferremo gave her until midwinter.
The damnable rain had finally slowed to a faint drizzle-enough that he wasn't going to get soaked anymore, but neither would he and Alina look out of place huddled under the archway that led down Ivory Street. The perfect place to watch.
The house was one of Waterdeep's city manors. Three stories; marble everywhere; a big, warded, curly iron gate across the path; and glowballs dripping off every corner of the wall. Wealthy-very wealthy.
Even in the rain, deliveries arrived at the servants' entrance every hour or so, deep into the night. Bundles of linens, cases of candles, an ocean of wine. The last time Ferremo had watched so many delights pass into that house, the owner had thrown an elaborate brightstarfeast two nights later. For nearly a year now he had watched her home until he knew by the deliveries what she would be doing, when she would be doing it, and for how long she would be preoccupied.
And two nights hence, the mistress of the house would be entertaining late into the night, too interested in her guests' gowns and gossip, too soaked in the many bottles of zzar and wine to notice what might be happening in the far corners of her manor.
Twice he had managed to slip into the manor with little trouble. A common thug might stick out, unwashed and displaying all the grace and sartorial aplomb of a muddy haystack. But Ferremo had observed the uniforms the hired servants wore, and dictated their design to his seamstress with exacting specificity. The first time he had simply found his way in and then found his way out. The second though, he had killed one of the hired men, stored
