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reached him from the street, but people were fighting and dying beyond the walls of the stable.
    He remembered the Perranese captain. He’d broken his neck. They’re dying in here too .
    So in the unlikely event he lived to the end of the day, it would be only the beginning. Where would he go? How would he live? He had no answers. If he wanted to live, he’d have to leave behind everything he’d ever known.
    He grabbed Nard’s spare riding cloak from the peg near the door. It was ugly and patched but thick and warm. It smelled like Nard’s pipe tobacco.
    Alem walked out of Nard’s room and froze. Another Perranese warrior, his back to Alem, stood in full armor, holding a sword. Alem’s stomach lurched. He wouldn’t even make it out of the stable. He’d spent his life here. Now he would die here.
    The man in the armor turned. Tosh’s face grinned at him from under the broad helm. “I got an idea.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Rina stepped out of the tub. As soon as she hit the cold air, her skin broke out in gooseflesh. She stood dripping on the cold stone floor of the chamber. The mage had his back to her, pulling a leather-bound book off a low shelf along with a collection of arcane implements Rina didn’t recognize.
    She began to shiver. “I’m wet.”
    He glanced at her with his good eye. “You can’t use a towel. Your skin must be perfectly clean, and I won’t risk lint or stray threads. Stand near the fire, but not too close. You can’t sweat either.”
    She stood just close enough to the brazier to feel the warmth, beads of water tickling as they rolled down her skin. At first she’d felt self-conscious standing naked in front of the old man, but he was obviously uninterested. The mage bent over one of his old books, squinting at the magical writing.
    Her skin warmed, and she took a step back from the fire. She watched him pull a chair up next to a small table. He laid out various small objects she didn’t recognize, plus a small vase of clear glass, dark liquid within. He lined up other materials like he was preparing to cook some obscure recipe.
    He is a mage, after all . That’s what they do, I guess; potions and so on . And it struck her suddenly that this old man could be up to anything. She didn’t even know his name.
    She turned to dry her other side. She couldn’t see him now, and that somehow unnerved her. The chamber was dark, the brazier having burned low.
    She cleared her throat. “What are you doing?”
    He made a low noise in his throat, dislodging a wad of phlegm. “What do you know of magic?”
    Rina considered a moment. There were stories, of course. Tales of magic splitting oceans in two, dark wizards bringing down the stars to destroy a city, seductive sorceresses twisting kings into knots with charms dripping from honeyed tongues. But they were only stories, and which sprang from some grain of truth and which were utter fancy she couldn’t say.
    “Nothing,” Rina said. “I don’t know anything about magic.”
    The old man snorted. “Then how shall I explain? Where to start?”
    “The fire to warm the bath,” she said quickly. “You lit it from across the room. That was magic, yes?”
    “Yes, okay. We’ll start there. What did you see?”
    “You held out your hand,” Rina said. “And the fire sprang to life.”
    A low chuckle. “I’m a mage, not one of the gods. What did you see? Details, please. The demons are ever in the details.”
    She closed her eyes, replayed the scene in her mind. “You released some kind of powder.”
    “And?”
    “Words,” Rina said. “They sounded clear but then sped by quickly. I can’t remember any of them.”
    “It takes discipline to hold those words in your mind, duchess. It can get crowded between your ears. A journeyman wizard can hold four or five spells. More than that and the brain gets muddled, starts hearing voices that aren’t real. A master might hold eight or ten. They say the Blue Wizard of The Lakes held more than a