Dhulyn had tried the tiles again after returning to their quarters in Sortera’s house, and even though they’d worked, she Saw no Visions that she hadn’t already Seen, although each was clear and precise in a way they had never been before.

She stopped as a door in the wall beside her opened and discharged a Cloudwoman of her own age with a large basket of eggs on her hip. The villager saluted her with a nod and a “good morning” before setting off down the lane at a pace only a native would have found comfortable, given the steepness of the street.

Chickens in an inner courtyard, Dhulyn thought. Enough of them that the excess eggs were going to market to be sold or traded for things that didn’t grow in the woman’s inner courtyard. The uncomplicated pattern of village life. When had their lives, hers and Parno’s, become so complicated? Since Navra. Dhulyn slowed her pace even more. And she’d had more Visions since Navra as well, now that she thought about it. The fresnoyn would account for some of those, she knew, as would the unusual stress and worry of being so near Parno’s home. Even the weather might have made its contribution. Blood knew, she’d never been really comfortable in the warmer north.

More Visions; fine, she could account for those. But why clearer ones?

Dhulyn shook off her thoughts and looked around her. Trevel was like no other town or village she had lived in, tucked into its high mountain valley, its location protected by narrow passes and thick forests impenetrable to those who didn’t know the ways. Ahead of her now was the tallest structure in town, the stone tower of a Jaldean Shrine-Old Believers, of course-and beyond that, perhaps three days’ ride away, the peaks of the Antedichas Mountains to the south. Nothing like what little she could remember of her own birthplace, the cold, windswept southern plains, or even any of the port towns she’d known during her Schooling with Dorian the Black.

Light voices sang out ahead of her as a small group of children ran out from a crossing lane, racing down to the small square between the Jaldeans’ tower and the public fountain.

Bursting into the open space, the children did a quick rhyming count to see who would be the victim-“one two, sky blue, all out but you” was what Dhulyn caught-and one small boy was blindfolded and took his place in the center of four others. As these four joined hands and began to chant, Dhulyn stopped to watch, setting her buckets down on the cobblestones.

“Sleeping lad, sleeping lad

Turning, turning, turning

One two three, come to me.”

The children repeated the chant several times, stepping first in one direction, then turning and skipping the other way, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Finally, they fell silent, stopped, and dropped hands. The blindfolded boy in the middle began immediately to grope for his friends, grabbing the smallest girl as her giggle gave her location away.

They had used almost the same words and a very similar tune as the children on the pier in Navra, Dhulyn thought; children were so much the same everywhere. So much had happened since the evening when they first met Mar and the Weaver woman in the tavern room of their Navra inn. So much-

“Oh, for blood’s sake.”

A woman passing between her and the children glanced at her with a tentative smile.

The Lens tile in the center with the other Marks placed around it. A child in the center with four others circling around. Circling. Herself asleep on the trail with Mar in her arms, Mar with her hands on Gundaron’s shoulders.

Not the bowl. Mar. Mar herself.

Dhulyn whirled around, almost tripping over the buckets she didn’t remember until much later, and ran back up the hill.

Mar and Gun sat on the stone threshold of Sortera’s house, holding hands, squeezed into the doorway, the door open behind them and a beaded curtain let down to keep flies and direct sunlight from inside the house. Not that it was really hot enough yet for either. Mar held his hand, rested her head on his shoulder. A man had passed them a few minutes earlier, giving them the courteous greeting and half bow that all Clouds seemed to give to Marks, with a special smile when he saw their joined hands. Mar knew that, appearances to the contrary, they were holding hands for comfort and companionship, not love.

But the love’s here, she thought. It’s here.

Gun sighed. “I’m so useless,” he said.

Mar bit back an exasperated retort. “Come on,” she said, as kindly as she could manage given that what she really felt like was slapping him. “We’ve been through this. You’ve done the best you could.”

“And how good was that? Dhulyn Wolfshead had to find it, and the Shadow was right under my nose the whole time.”

Well, no arguing with that, Mar thought. She was trying to come up with an argument, however, when the Wolfshead herself came running up the narrow steps-smiling.

“Gun, you were right, the books were right. I should have listened to you from the start. We’re just too blooded smart for our own good.”

Gun got to his feet. “I was right?”

The beads behind them rattled as Parno Lionsmane joined them in the doorway. Mar felt something tight in her chest loosen as Dhulyn Wolfshead gave her Partner a wide and joyous grin.

“We’re making this too hard. The fifth Mark you said, Gun, and the fifth Mark it is. The Lens isn’t a thing. It’s a Mark, like all the others. Not a thing, a person.”

Shutters popped open in the house across the stairs.

“Inside,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said, ushering everyone before her.

“But why hasn’t anyone met a Lens?” Parno Liondsmane said. “Not even Sortera, and she isn’t sure how long she’s been alive.”

“Listen!” The Wolfshead sat down on a stool. Her chest rose and fell, but she didn’t seem to be out of breath, for all the running uphill she’d just done. She reached out for Gun, and when he was near enough, she took his hands in hers. “You know how all the books and stories say that some Marks are rarer than others. Menders the most common, Seers the most rare? The Lens must be the rarest of all! There’s no general use for a Lens. It only affects another Mark. It’s a focuser, a Lens.”

Gun sat down, and seemed unaware that Parno Lionsmane got a stool under him just in time to prevent his falling to the floor. He was nodding, his eyes focused inward. “It makes sense. It’s logical.” He looked up at Dhulyn Wolfshead. “That passage in Holderon’s Commentaries makes sense if what you say is true. That’s why I couldn’t Find it, I’ve been looking for a thing. You’ve got to be right.”

Mar’s cheeks hurt, and she found she was smiling just as hard as the Mercenaries. The weight that had oppressed everyone since the discovery of Karlyn-Tan’s possession seemed to be lifting.

Then she saw that Gun wasn’t smiling, and she felt her own smile fade.

“But, Wolfshead,” Mar said, sure now that she saw the flaw in all this deduction. “We still don’t know who…”

Dhulyn Wolfshead was holding up one finger. “Oh, yes, we do.”

That was when Mar realized that the Wolfshead was pointing at her. Jerrick Mender was almost twelve years old, thin, with eyes so large and round his name would be Jerrick Owlbeak if he were a Mercenary Brother. When Parno told him that, he seemed quite pleased, and Dhulyn had laughed. Parno had always had a way with children.

“You didn’t see my parents in Gotterang? Savern and Korwina Mender?” he said in a voice too old for his child’s face. A voice that said he knew the answer, but had to ask.

“No, Jerrick, I’m afraid not.”

The boy nodded. “I promised my sisters I would ask. There was another Mercenary Brother who helped us, Hernyn Greystone. Is he with you?”