The mink Wikuni nodded. "She should be here tonight."

"So, you're going to switch with this Kalina and go do things," Azakar surmised.

Keritanima smiled. "More than do things, Zak," she replied lightly. "I have quite a bit to arrange in the next few days, and I can't do that here."

"So what's our next step?" Miranda asked.

"Our next step is to wait for Kalina," Keritanima announced. "I can't go any further until I can either get Kalina or be able to leave the room. And my father won't let that happen. As long as I'm in here, where he can see every person who comes and goes, I can't organize trouble for him."

"So he thinks," Azakar chuckled. "Wait. If Kalina is a secret, how is she going to get in unseen?"

"Magic, my dear Zak," Keritanima smiled. "I already told Ulfan what to tell her. That's why we'll be in my room from now til she arrives, looking out the window and waiting for her signal."

"You're going to magic her up here?"

"No, I'm going to place an Illusion over her that will make her look like a palace servant," she explained. "Kalina will have instructions to simply walk in, that the guards and other servants won't challenge her. She knows where my apartment is, so that's not a problem. She's been here before. When she gets close, I'll put the guards outside and anyone watching to sleep, and she'll simply walk in."

"Are you sure you can create the Illusion from that distance, Kerri?" Miranda asked dubiously. "It's five stories to the ground, and she'll have to stand off a ways so you can see her."

"I'm pretty sure I can do it, Miranda," Keritanima replied. "I've worked weaves from even greater distances."

They moved to Keritanima's bedchamber and quietly waited. At all times, one person was standing at the window, waiting for Kalina to arrive. She would be wearing a red cloak, and would be carrying a basket of flowers. That was how they would spot her, but she was instructed to stand near a fountain in the courtyard in front of the Palace and stare up at the window until Keritanima responded. Kalina wouldn't know what kind of a response it would be, but Ulfan's instructions would make it plain she'd know when she was signalled to continue.

Kalina arrived about four hours after Miranda and Binter had returned. Azakar called Keritanima over as soon as Kalina entered the front gate and began to cross the considerable distance from the outer gate to the Palace itself. Her red cloak made her stand out, but Azakar said that it was her tail that made him identify her. Kalina was a fox Wikuni, just like Keritanima, and a fox's tail was very distinctive. Kalina went over to the fountain and looked up at the Palace, obstensibly staring at its powerful majesty, and Keritanima touched the Weave and began. Illusions were weaves of Air, Fire, Water, a touch of Mind, and Divine power. They were rather complicated weaves, and Keritanima lacked Dar's seemingly innate aptitude for the art of Illusion, but she was an accomplished enough Sorceress to be able to create flawless images. The distance made what would have been a simple weave an extraordinary challenge. Keritanima had to furiously concentrate and expend a tremendous amount of her power to keep exacting control of the weave as she wove it together from the flows, then snapped it down and released it. She could see the indistinct wavering around Kalina, meaning that the Illusion had taken hold. Keritanima doublechecked the weaving, and found it to be solid. It would hold itself with only a barest of maintenance on her part, would probably remain a viable weave for several moments after Keritanima stopped maintaining it. Illusions usually did not dissipate for minutes, sometimes even hours, after a Sorcerer stopped concentrating on it. It was one of only two types of weaves that were like that, but the great distance Keritanima was from Kalina wouldn't give the weave the refined care of creation it would need to be able to hold itself together after Keritanima stopped supplying it with power. A well woven Illusion created by an accomplished Sorcerer could linger for hours after it was let go. Maybe even days. But to do that, Keritanima would have to be right on top of Kalina, and take her time to carefully and methodically build the weave flow by flow to give it that kind of lasting duration.

That done, she wove together a simple weave of Air and Divine power, a spell that would allow Kalina to hear her voice as if she was standing beside her. "Kalina, don't look around," Keritanima said firmly. She nearly did, but caught herself quickly. "I know they told you I learned magic while I was gone, and this is magic. You can hear what I'm saying, but I can't hear you, so don't try to talk or ask me any questions. You can't see it, but I placed an Illusion over you that makes you look like any other palace servant. Come up to my room, but stop at the landing of the stairs and wait there until I talk to you again."

Kalina stood there for a moment.

"Well? Move, girl! I don't have all day, and that Illusion isn't going to last forever!"

With a sudden lurch, Kalina started towards the elbaorate front doors of the Palace.

With her weave of probing tendrils of Mind, Keritanima reached out, locating all the spies and guards around her room. By their positions, she knew which ones could see the door, so she prepared a special weave of Mind and Divine power that would cause their minds to be disjointed from their bodies for a short span of time. It was a harmless spell that would make them not remember anything that happened while they were in their trance-like state. She counted off the seconds silently to herself, waiting anxiously until Kalina's familiar mind entered the range of her probing spell. She got a lock on her larcenous friend and struck anyone that could see her with her weave, causing them all to go vacant-eyed and rigid. Her fur began to dampen as Keritanima sweated from the effort of maintaining the Illusion and the probe and seven different weaves of sleep. It was a serious chore to weave the simple spell to talk to Kalina again when she reached the landing of the stairs. "Come to my room. Ignore the guards, they won't be able to see or hear you. Just walk in and close the door behind you." She looked at Miranda. "Go to the sitting room and wait for her, Miranda," she ordered. "She'll get nervous if the room is empty when she comes in. Zak, go stand in your chamber and watch. When they close the door, call out to me so I can drop these weaves."

Keritanima tracked Kalina's progress, dropping the Illusion as soon as she got out of sight of the stairs. There was nobody around to see her, so holding the Illusion was pointless. She released the probing weave once Kalina was only a few feet from her door, then she released the sleeping weaves when Azakar called out that they were in and the door was closed. Sighing from the effort, Keritanima sagged to her chair at her desk, wiping the dampness from the fur of her brow and feeling the weariness creep into her. That had been a considerable effort, but it had paid off handsomely.

Kalina looked the very same as she had the last time Keritanima saw her. Kalina was a fox Wikuni, and to look at her was like looking into a mirror. She was just a shade taller than Keritanima, but her body shape and facial features were so close that it was pointless to note the differences. But where Keritanima was dressed in a clean, well made dress of soft brown, Kalina was dressed in a dirty, slightly torn dress that exposed the majority of her fur-clad cleavage. Her fur was matted and noticably dirty, and her hair was stringy and unkempt. The only thing on her that was clean was the red cloak that Ulfan had given to her so she could be picked out of the crowd. Azakar gaped at the pair of them as he looked from one to the other. Kalina grinned toothily at Keritanima as she took off the cloak.