Lodesh speared a bit of egg he had missed. “Alissa likes his company,” he said. “Spent all day with him, helping his speech.” Lodesh smiled. “He said two words to me last night.”
“Fancy that,” his mother said with a gasp. “A Keeper teaching a Master.”
Lodesh looked up at her tone, but her head was down, busy with the decision to mend the knee of Reeve’s favorite work pants or her old bonnet. The pants won.
Lodesh helped himself to the last piece of toast. He spread the strawberry jam thick, wondering how Alissa had earned the trust of the shy Master so easily. He paused, licking a drop of jam before it fell.
Reeve’s rhythmic strokes faltered. “I see you’ve collected their leavings?” he said slowly.
“Huh?” Lodesh blurted, then nodded, his eyes going to a large basket by the door.
Reeve spat on his sharpening stone. “That’s an odd assortment. Look. There’s even a boot. A lady’s boot.” His eyebrows arched. “Too much mulled wine.”
Grinning, Lodesh stretched out and snagged it with a fingertip. It looked suspiciously like Alissa’s, or Keribdis’s rather. He had found it in the field. There was a soft rattle in the toe, and he tipped it. His heart seemed to stop as a mirth seed rolled into his palm. White-faced, he stared at it. Sati had a mirth seed, but the boot was too small for her. Had Sati and Alissa met?
“How do you lose one boot?” was Reeve’s question. “Two I can understand.” He smiled and blew a kiss from his oily hands to his wife. “Going barefoot in the meadow is for the young.”
“Reeve!” his mother cried, looking ten years younger in her pleased embarrassment.
“But one boot,” he continued. “I don’t know. . . .”
Lodesh put the seed deep into his pocket. It couldn’t be Alissa’s boot. He placed the boot on the sill as there was no room on the table. Picking up his toast, he chewed methodically.
Reeve cleared his throat. “I wish you would have let me take you down, dear. At least to laugh at the tipsy ones.”
“You know me. I can’t stand the noise.”
“Aye,” he said. “Just like a Master, you are. Too many people, and you hide in the shadows.”
A smile passed over Lodesh. Alissa was like that. He cupped his chin in his hands and gazed dreamily out the window. How delightful, wanting to dance in the shadows.
“I would have liked to introduce you to Alissa,” Reeve said loudly. “She reminds me of you when we were younger. She even had a daisy chain about her neck. Remember me making you those?”
“Yes, love.” She tittered. “But now I know you’re jesting. The daisies have been gone for weeks. You’d have to go to the lower elevations for them, nearly the foothills.”
The rhythmic sound of metal on stone halted for a moment. “M-m-m. Nonetheless, Alissa had one, fresh as— well—a daisy.”
Lodesh hesitated as he lifted his cup. His mouth shut, and he set his tea down. Connen-Neute could have gone to the foothills for them, but Alissa had said she had been with him all day. He wouldn’t have left her alone for the time it would have taken to get them and return. Connen-Neute, therefore, must have found them in the city.
Lodesh smiled in anticipation, sipping his tea. He’d ask around, find out who had learned to grow such a late bloomer. He could arrange for a bouquet, now that he knew she liked them.
His mother stirred uneasily. “Lodesh,” she scolded gently, “do take that boot off the sill.”
Lodesh took it in hand just as a tremulous knock intruded. “I’ll get it,” he offered. “It’s probably someone looking for their hanky.”
Reeve bent over his work, never looking up as Lodesh opened the door and his welcoming smile turned to astonishment. “Connen-Neute!”
Dreadfully frightened, Connen-Neute’s eyes flicked to Reeve, then the boot. “Thanks,” he muttered as he grabbed it and bolted away with a hurried, dignified gait. Clear of the house, he dropped the boot and shifted. Sharp talons grasped the boot, and he took flight, scrabbling to regain the boot as it slipped from him. Then he was gone.
Lodesh stared at the empty field. “It’s Alissa’s,” he whispered. “How did she get home with one boot? Connen-Neute can’t carry her. A horse won’t carry her. She’d have to . . .
“No,” he said to no one. He closed the door. In a daze, he sat by the fire, suddenly chilled. She’s a Keeper, he told himself. Her fingers aren’t long, and her eyes aren’t those of a Master. “But neither are Redal-Stan’s,” he whispered.
And Alissa can ride a horse, he rationalized. But only Keribdis’s, he thought, his eyes closing in the realization, and only because she doesn’t eat meat.
Wolves! he thought. She can craft clothes from her thoughts. But not shoes—not yet, she had said. Lodesh paled. “Clothes,” he mouthed silently. No Keeper spends the effort to learn to craft clothes from their thoughts. The only reason would be if she could—shift.
His stomach clenched. How could he have been so blind! He found her in the garden, in the dark, with no shoes. She had spent her afternoon in the foothills making daisy chains with Connen-Neute. That’s why she got along with the young Master so well. She was one!
No! he asserted more strongly, refusing to believe it. Alissa wasn’t a Master. He couldn’t marry a Master. She had to be a Keeper!
Reeve took a breath as if to say something. Then his head dropped, and the rhythmic scraping resumed.
31
“Five...” Alissa breathed, eyeing the spheres of flame glowing above the fire in her room. Contained by her fields, her fire had a decidedly odd look. It was quiet, almost the middle of the night, and not a sound disturbed her. Slowly a new sphere formed. Her delight faded as she realized one of her originals was gone. “Hounds,” she cursed. After seeing Connen-Neute’s smug expression last night, she was determined to master holding six fields before quitting.
She had been trying to practice all day, finding herself continually distracted by Redal-Stan’s various, spontaneous, and nonsensical demands. Connen-Neute had been suspiciously scarce, and she wondered if Redal-Stan made a habit of barging into the young Master’s thoughts from the top of the tower to send Connen-Neute to fetch something.
Alissa jumped at a soft tap on her door. Her fields collapsed, and she sent her thoughts to find Ren. Sati’s forecasting rushed back, twisting her stomach. Steeling herself, she wedged her feet into Connen-Neute’s slippers, threw a blanket over the nightdress Nisi had lent her, made a sphere of light, and opened the door.
“Ren!” she said in surprise, for he was dressed for travel, a full pack by his feet.
“Um, hi, Alissa,” he stammered, tugging his shirt back into place. “Did I wake you? I saw the light under your door, and I thought maybe . . .”
“I was practicing my fields,” she said as she stepped into the hall, her hands cupped about her globe of light. “What are you doing?” she asked, though it was obvious.
“Um, would you see if you could open the front door for me?” he asked, and Alissa’s eyebrows rose. “Downstairs,” he rushed. “The front door. Someone warded the outer doors open. Redal-Stan can’t close them, so now the inner doors are warded shut for the night.” His eyes pleaded. “I don’t know how to open those.”
“Ren. You can’t leave,” Alissa said, immediately knowing it was the wrong thing to say.
“Sorry I bothered you.” He snatched his pack up. “I’ll find a window to climb out of.”
“No, wait.” Light in hand, Alissa ran after him, the shadows bobbing wildly. She caught him on the landing and put herself in his path. “I never said I wouldn’t help,” she said breathlessly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
Hands clenched, Ren looked at the ceiling, searching for words. Alissa’s shoulders drooped. “You were denied Keeper status,” she whispered.
“For at least another year,” he finished bitterly.
“Ren, you have time. . . .”
“Stop!” he demanded. “That’s what Redal-Stan said.
I’m tired of waiting. Tired of somedays. He all but promised. Then up and changed his mind. No explanation. Nothing.”
Alissa’s ire rose. Redal-Stan had sold his vote, and Ren was the one paying for it. “Come on,” she said, taking his arm and pulling him to the tower stairs.
“Alissa, wait,” Ren said. “It’s too late for that.”
“But it’s not fair!” she insisted.
“No.” Ren pulled away. “I’m done. I just want out. I would have left years ago if not for—” Dropping his gaze, he turned away.
Sati’s shaduf-dream weighed in Alissa’s thoughts like cold clay. If not for Kally? she thought. “You have the potential for great abilities, Ren. Don’t leave now.”
He laughed, not sounding at all like himself. “Potential is useless without a source, and the Masters won’t give one to someone they don’t trust. They know once I’m done with my training, I’m leaving.” His brow pinched, and his words grew hushed. “Last year, Yar-Taw caught me listening to an argument between Talo-Toecan and Keribdis. The Masters are up to something, Alissa. They’re using people somehow. That’s why they won’t give me a source. They’re afraid if I have any strength, I might interfere with their plans. I think the only reason they keep teaching me is so they know where I am. Or they aren’t sure how much I heard.”
Alissa clutched her arms around herself, suddenly cold. “What plans?” she asked, her thoughts returning to Strell’s claim that his family’s accidental demise had been ordained.
Ren’s eyes dropped, and he shuffled, glancing down the hall. “Never mind. Forget I said anything. I just want to leave. Can you open the door?”
Alissa met his eyes, not liking the uneasy feeling he had instilled in her. He wasn’t going to tell her any more, but she could guess enough. “All right,” she said. “I’ll try.”
“Thank you.”
The trip downstairs was silent—both of them not knowing what to say—but the locked inner doors wouldn’t open for her either. “Wolves!” Ren swore, bobbing his head apologetically. “I have to be away before Kally comes to start breakfast. I’ll lose my nerve if I see her.”
Frowning, Alissa thought it over. Ren was going. If Kally knew, she might go with him. If Alissa could keep them apart, perhaps the shaduf-dream would remain only a dream. “I know another way out,” Alissa said softly. “Come on.”
Ren followed her without question through the dark kitchen and out into the moonlit garden. The damp smell of vegetation hung heavy as they wove their way down the well-manicured paths. Alissa paused, pulling her blanket tight against the autumn chill, looking at the tower to get her bearings. “Here, I think,” she said, and she squished through a freshly weeded bed of bergamot, grimacing at the dirt on her borrowed slippers.
Ren watched as she stared at the wall. “What are you doing?” he finally asked.
Her arm was cold, stretching out past her blanket as she held her light high. “Looking for the door,” she said, then paused. It was exactly what Useless had said to her last year. Shaking the odd feeling off, she placed her hand upon the chill wall and felt the lock release. Pleased, she opened the door and stepped aside. Her smile faded. “Ren? Be careful.”
“I will.” He gave her a mirthless smile and stepped past the wall. Taking his knife, he carefully scratched a word on the outside stones. Alissa didn’t look; she knew what it said. She hunched into herself, miserable for her apparent inability to change anything. “In case I come back,” he said, looking grim in her light. “Be careful, Alissa,” he added. “They want something. Nothing is given for free, especially power.”
She ignored her wash of emotion. “Ren?” she asked softly. “Where are you going?”
“The plains,” he said. “As far away as I can get.”
Alissa glanced back at the tower and followed him past the garden’s wall. “Go to the coast,” she said, trying to change his life for the better.
He squinted in her light. “The coast?”
“It—it’s almost too late to make the foothills before the snow,” she lied, glad she had stepped beyond the Hold’s truth ward.
He shrugged. “All right. I guess it doesn’t matter.” His gaze dropped. “Here.” Ren handed her a thin ribbon, intricately braided with five shades of blue. Alissa blinked, holding the length of fabric in a loose grip. Giving a ribbon was a sign of deep devotion in both the plains and foothills: from man to woman in the foothills, but woman to man in the plains as they refused to do anything the same way those in the foothills did. According to her mother, unmarried plainsmen kept them as a public sign of a young woman, or young woman’s mother’s, favor.
“It’s not for you,” Ren blurted, red-faced as he understood her confusion. “It’s Kally’s. Give it to her for me?” he said, unable to look up. “And tell her good-bye, and that I’ll miss our breakfasts together.” Hunched, the young man turned away. There was the faint sounds of his footsteps, then nothing.
Alissa listened to the night, unusually silent as the insects had been stilled by the cold. Shivering, she returned to the garden. The door grated shut, and she leaned against it, depressed.
“Sati said you can change the future once you know of it,” Beast said, unusually alert.
“So why do I feel like I’ve sent him to his death?” Alissa whispered. Levering herself up, she made her slow way through the dark, blessedly silent halls to her room. Sleep, though, was elusive, and she found herself turning in her chair. Kally’s ribbon lay on her mantel like a silent accusation. The moon was too bright, and the room stuffy. The fire was too smoky and the mice loud. Then, to cap it off, someone decided it was the perfect time to practice their piping.
It was a dance tune, and the rhythm of it drove into her skull like new nails into soft wood. Alissa stared up at the ceiling, growing more and more angry, until, mercifully, it ceased. “Finally,” she muttered, and snuggled under her covers. But it started up again. Groaning, Alissa buried her head under her pillow. No wonder the Masters lived in the tower. Much to her exasperation, Beast actually began to hum along.
Alissa stiffened as she recognized the tune as “Taykell’s Adventure,” cursing herself for having taught Breve the tune. Not only did someone have the audacity to be playing in the middle of the night, but from the sound of it, they were right next door.
“Fine!” she snapped. Her nightdress tangled as she lurched to her feet and stormed into the hall. A soft, polite knock was ignored, and a fierce thought found the room empty. They must know how to block her search. “You in there,” she whispered loudly. “Stop it!” But the music continued. Alissa knocked again and tried the handle. It was locked.
“Connen-Neute!” Alissa wailed into the young Master’s thoughts, and his frightened presence jumped to wakefulness.
“Alissa! What? Are you hurt?”
“No-o-o-o,” she moaned. “Someone is playing a pipe in the room next to mine. They’ve locked the door and they don’t hear me.”
“There’s no one there,” he mumbled. “Go to sleep.” And he sighed sleepily.
“Windmate!” Beast snapped. “Come open this door.”
“Huh!” Connen-Neute was suddenly very much awake. “Coming.”
Alissa paced the hall, going more angry when she realized her steps were in time with the music. After what seemed an exorbitantly long time, Connen-Neute’s light appeared at the end of the hall. “Finally,” she whispered as he stumbled even with her and touched the door.
“Alissa,” he mumbled, just this side of sleep. “No one’s in there. That’s my lock.”
“Ashes!” she cried. “It’s driving me moonstruck. Can’t you hear it?”
He shook his head, confused. There was a flash of resonance across her tracings too quick to catch as he unlocked the door. She triumphantly shoved the door open to find . . . nothing. The room was empty. But the music remained.
The piper began an achingly familiar tune, and Alissa gasped, recognizing it. “That’s my song!” she cried, st
aring at Connen-Neute. “The one Strell wrote for me!” And then the empty spot that Strell had left in her was empty no longer. “Where?” she cried, frantically spinning about. “Strell! Where are you?”
“Alissa. Thank the stars that guide us!”
It was Strell. She heard him, and she panicked. The faint whisper of his presence faded. “No!” she shouted into her mind. “Strell! Come back!”
“Listen,” Strell soothed, his thoughts so faint as to be almost imagined. “Talo-Toecan says you must put yourself entirely at a still point, or we will lose everything.”
She took a shuddering breath, focusing on the thinning threads of Strell’s thoughts, gathering a line here, one there, struggling to bind his presence into something she could hold. “Still point,” she whispered. Sinking to her knees, she appeared to go comatose.
32
Connen-Neute watched with little surprise as Alissa turned white and sank to her knees. Her wild, frantic eyes closed, and she collapsed. It might have been alarming, but he had come to accept the unusual when it came to Alissa. He wasn’t worried yet, just concerned.
With a last, wistful thought of his interrupted sleep upon the Hold’s roof, he placed his and Alissa’s lights atop the mantel and gathered her up to set her in the room’s only chair. He draped her blanket over her, tucking it under her chin. Alissa’s light abruptly dimmed, and he frowned. That shouldn’t have happened. Gone out? Yes. But not dim. She hadn’t consciously shut it down. It had been left to run at an involuntarily reduced rate. Only now did he think to call Redal-Stan, and his gentle, tentative query was met with the expected grumbles and groans.
“Unless someone is on fire, go away,” came the Master’s barely recognizable thought.
“Ah, it’s Alissa,” he offered, feeling Redal-Stan snap awake. “I’m with her in the Keepers’ hall. She’s collapsed into a deep trance. At least, I think it’s a trance.”
Unease filled him. Perhaps he should have told Redal-Stan immediately. “Redal-Stan?” he called, then turned as the old Master slid to a halt in the hall. He appeared more harried and disheveled than usual in a plain robe. Not acknowledging Connen-Neute, he strode into the room and set his light beside the other two. He crouched by her, frowning.