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none of this matter could be spoken aloud, except to other masters. So Tyron said, “Halfrid is not my main concern. Just one of them.”
    Orin pursed her lips, then said in a soft voice, “The queen?”
    Tyron sighed. “She won’t talk to me. For the first time. We always used to talk. Yes, and we argued. Yelled, even. But we talked. Now she just gives me that court laugh and invites me, ever so politely, to every court function. Every one, but as a challenge, more than because she wants to see me.” He added in a rush, “You’re a female, and her age. You couldn’t talk to her, could you?”
    Orin looked down at her work-roughened hands. “I fear she doesn’t like me.”
    Tyron stared. “What?”
    “Maybe it’s my Lirwani village, our independent attitudes. We’re not like the Meldrithi. Or maybe it’s my lowly background—”
    “No, no. Never think that. Teressa has never cared about rank. She will be the first to tell you she spent a lot of her childhood in an orphanage, learning to sweep rooms and sew her own clothes. That’s where she and Wren first met, and Wren hasn’t any noble blood, it turns out, but that never made the least bit of difference to Teressa.”
    “Then maybe I remind her of someone else, but I really think the only person she would talk to would be Wren,” Orin said.
    Tyron picked up his pen then threw it down again. “Yes. You’re right. And Wren’s gone—and I sent her away. I wonder if that’s going to be yet another mistake of mine?”
    Orin said quickly, “You have not made mistakes.”
    “Oh, haven’t I? I sure did about this Hawk business. I am beginning to feel that I should have pressured Teressa to invite him, just so she’d turn me down!” Tyron picked up his pen and tossed it down again. “Never mind. I shouldn’t talk on like this, except you’ve been there. You’ve seen it all.”
    Orin bowed her head, hiding her expression. “The queen is very kind about inviting us students to the picnics and parties.” Then she looked up, her tone shifting to everyday practicality. “That reminds me. Master Kalig sent me up to tell you the second year students are ready to try their first shape-changes. Will you come, or should he postpone? It is quite late in the day, but he promised them.”
    Tyron swung around and peered through his window at the twilit garden. The trees hid the grassy circle where the mage students would be gathered, with plenty of space and air. Halfrid had been very definite about the fact that Tyron must attend those first attempts. Transformation magic of any kind was complicated and dangerous. Orin’s own background made shape-changing easier than usual, which was why she was assisting in that class, but she was not advanced enough to help oversee the students’ first spells.
    “I’ll come—”
    “Master Tyron!” A first year student flung himself inside the door, gasping, his eyes round. “Master Kial. Sent me. Special visitor in the parlor. Wants to see you at once . It’s a duke ,” the boy added.
    Tyron sighed, glancing up at Orin, who gave him a slight smile. “I know. Postpone,” she said.
    “First thing in the morning. Promise. And a free evening from studies tonight,” Tyron said.
    Orin vanished in one direction, and Tyron followed the first year student back down the hall to the front of the school. The boy flung open the door to the parlor where they received the rare non-magical visitors that came to the School.
    There Kial stood uneasily, rolling his eyes in relief when Tyron stepped inside. “His grace insisted on an interview now,” Kial said, his voice carefully even.
    “Go ahead and return to your class, Kial,” Tyron said. “Thanks.”
    Kial signaled to the watching boy, who followed reluctantly, with many backward glances.
    As soon as they were gone Tyron shut the door. He set his back against it and turned to his visitor, who had taken the single good chair in the room.
    Garian Rhismordith had been