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Saralan—”
    The empress cut her off. “Traders? Where are they now?”
    “We sent them ahead,” Sandry replied. “We needed to rest, and they had a ship to catch.”
    The empress leaned forward, resting her arm on her saddle horn. “All of you, please rise, before the redheaded foster-sister falls over,” she commanded. Tris blushed a deep plum color as she rose. Daja and Briar straightened.
    “You brought your foster family,” the empress said, her brown eyes dancing. “What are their names, if you please?”
    “Forgive me, Your Imperial Majesty,” replied Sandry, her voice even. I’d bet every stitch I have on she already knows quite well who everyone is, she thought. “ Ravvikki ”—Namornese for a young woman—“Trisana Chandler.” Tris curtsied again. “ Ravvikki Daja Kisubo.” Daja bowed. Using the word for a young man, Sandry continued, “ Ravvotki Briar Moss.” Before they had entered Namorn, they had agreed that they were not going to claim the title of mage unless a crisis arose. By then they had all been thoroughly sick of explaining how they could be accredited mages at eighteen.
    “Welcome to my empire,” said Berenene with a gracious nod. To Sandry she added, “My dear, two sisters and a brother, however devoted, are not sufficient protection for a maiden of your wealth and position. Men of few principles might see your unguarded state as the chance to capture a wealthy young bride.”
    Sandry noticed Briar’s tiny smirk and the sudden, bored droop of Tris’s eyes. Only Daja’s face had the perfect, polite expression that told onlookers nothing of her true thoughts. Daja and I should have spent the trip teaching them a diplomat’s facial expressions as well as Namornese, Sandry thought, vexed. It would be impossible not to guess that Briar and Tris thought they were a match for would-be kidnappers, something that would never cross the mind of an ordinary young man or woman.
    Stop fussing, Sandry ordered herself. I know very well my cousin has had spies on me for years, and she is aware we’re all mages.
    Now that the empress’s riders had stopped chasing her, Chime decided it was safe to move. She wriggled out from under Tris’s loose riding tunic and up to the redhead’s shoulder.
    Instantly Berenene’s companion, the one who was not in uniform, moved in front of the empress, one hand up. The silver fire of magic flared from his palm to wrap around Berenene like a shimmering cocoon.
    “He’s good,” Briar muttered to Daja out of the corner of his mouth. “I thought you said her boss mage was some old woman named Ladyhammer.”
    “Do you see any old women riding with this crowd if they don’t have to?” Daja inquired.
    Chime ignored the magic. She rose to her hindquarters on Tris’s shoulder, one paw clutching Tris’s hair for balance, surveying the Namornese curiously.
    Chime, you show-off, thought Sandry with affection. “That’s Chime, Your Imperial Majesty,” she told Berenene. “She’s a curiosity that Tris found in the far south.”
    “Curious indeed,” said the mage who still guarded the empress. His dark eyes had been amused when they first rode up, but they were steady and serious now. “It’s not an illusion, or an animated poppet. It looks like glass, or perhaps moving ice.”
    “Tris,” Sandry said, a hint for the redhead to explain.
    Tris sighed. “She’s mage made. A new mage, one who started out as a glassblower, had an accident. It turned out to be Chime.”
    “I don’t believe the imperial glassmaker, Viynain ”—the Namornese word for a male mage—“Warder, has ever made anything of the kind,” the empress remarked. “If he could, he would have done so for me. My dear Quenaill, if the creature had meant harm to us, surely it would have attacked by now. I can hardly see my cousin Sandrilene, who has been gone for so long. My dear, allow me to present the great mage Quenaill Shieldsman. Doubtless you have heard of him at Winding