Meralda hefted her bag. “I suppose not,” she said. “And I appreciate it. I’ll take measures if the need arises. Is that satisfactory?”

Mug tossed his leaves. “It will have to do.” His eyes whirled about the room. “Time to take another journey, I see.”

“You can stay here. Watch the mirror. Check my math.”

Mug gathered in his leaves. “No,” he said. “I go, too.”

Meralda walked to her desk and put down her instrument bag. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” said Mug. “Bed sheet, if you please. I’ll leave my dignity here.”

Meralda covered Mug’s cage and waited for Tervis to knock at her door.

The park was, if anything, more crowded than the day before. Schools had been let out, so in addition to the sightseers and the carpenters and the court officials, children of every age were about, darting past in screaming mobs, a harried, open-mouthed nanny or parent in determined, but futile pursuit.

The Alons, shirtless and bellowing, were also present, and quite a crowd was gathered to watch their football game. Food sellers wandered among the spectators, their calls of “Sausages! Apples! Hot rolls, hot rolls here!” nearly drowned out by the rush and thud of the madly charging Alons struggling on the field.

The stands about the Tower, mere skeletons and scaffolds just a few days ago, were quickly taking shape. Meralda chose to work from Yvin’s half-completed speaking platform, as it afforded a good view of the Tower and the park while keeping the press of the workers and the crowds from wandering too close. After commandeering a work table from the Builder’s Guild and convincing Mug that the barely perceptible breeze was hardly capable of leveling the platform, Meralda set to work.

Before she could latch to the Tower, she first had to raise and shape the spell. Mug helped, reeling off whole sections of her notes from memory while Meralda stored the sections in her wands, but even so the shaping of the latch was no quick task.

As the afternoon wore on, the crowd in the park grew larger. It looks like a sea of hats, Meralda noted, as the throngs milled about beneath her. It’s a good thing Tervis and Kervis are guarding the stair, or I’d be shoulder-to-shoulder up here.

Beyond the Tower, though, the crowds were not nearly so thick. In fact, a stone’s throw on the Tower’s backside, only carriage drivers and particularly naughty children idled in the sun on either side of the Wizard’s Walk. Past them, there was no one, save one lone child, and his bright yellow kite.

Meralda wiped her brow with a handkerchief, muttered a word, and held her retaining wand to a fresh holdstone. The wand crackled and spat as it charged, and as Meralda waited she watched the child.

Back and forth he ran, stout legs pumping. His yellow kite with its slanted red cat eyes and long red tail bumped off the grass behind him.

Meralda felt for any hint of a wind on her skin, but even from atop the king’s platform she felt none. It’s a beautiful day, she thought, but hardly a day for kites.

Still, the child ran on. He would start at the edge of the walk, then dash south, his right arm held high, his body leaning into his charge. He ran as far and as fast as he could, and when he began to falter, he would stop, pant for a moment, then gather his kite, wrap the tail carefully around his arm, and walk slowly back toward the walk. Then he would charge toward the west wall, all over again.

The holdstone emptied with a hiss and a brief blue flash. Inside the glass bottle, the silver and gold elements of the holdstone whirled, moving away from each other in a complex spiral as the spell energies escaped. When the coils were still, Meralda took the wand away, and Mug touched her wrist with a tendril.

“Ready for the next thread?” he asked.

Meralda smiled. It felt good, to be doing magic again. Even if it was magic for a questionable cause. “I’m ready,” she said. “Shall I turn to a fresh page?”

Mug agreed, and she took the sheet of architect’s paper from the top, slid it beneath the others, and replaced the emptied holdstones at the corners of the stack, in case a breeze blew past.

Mug began to read, and Meralda lifted her wand. The child began another mad dash across the grass. Meralda felt again for any hint of a breeze, but the air was still, and the kite darted and spun, but never flew.

The wand buzzed and crackled, holding the untethered spell threads to its mass as Meralda added yet another. To anyone watching with second sight, Meralda knew she would appear to be grasping a handful of glowing, windswept ropes, all writhing and tangling and knotting with their fellows. Only when she spoke the final word would the spell take shape and latch to the Tower. But to the crowds below, she appeared to be standing and muttering, a short brass wand held at eye level before her.

Another spell thread joined the rest. Meralda moved the retaining wand from her left hand to her right, and prepared for the next.

When she cast a glance toward the child and his kite, she saw that he was no longer alone. A man was waiting for him, as the boy marched wearily back to his starting place on the walk.

The man dropped to one knee, and the two spoke for a moment. Then the boy carefully unwrapped the kite’s tail from his arm and presented kite, tail, and ball of string to the man, who took them all before rising to his feet.

Time to go home, thought Meralda. It simply isn’t a day for kites.

Then, to Meralda’s surprise, the man bowed, lofted the kite, and charged onto the grass, following the same path the boy had taken so many times before.

Meralda watched, as did no small number of the cabbies and idlers on the walk. Arms went up, as fingers pointed, and though Meralda heard nothing she could imagine their laughter.

The man ran. No, that isn’t right, Meralda thought. The child ran, legs pumping, arms churning away madly at the air. This man was gliding.

Only his legs seemed to move. His chest barely rose, barely fell. He held his right arm up, playing out the string.

On and on he ran. He reached the point where the child had stopped and turned, and on he went, his gait increasing, his steps long and fast. Meralda nearly lost the latch, and when Mug snapped out “Mistress! Mind the spell!” she had to look away, and calm the wand.

When she cast her glance back toward the man, he was merely a dot against the green grass of the park. But the kite rose above him, the red cat eyes wheeling and darting, the tail coiling and snapping.

The faint sound of cheering rose up, and Meralda saw the cabbies and the idlers had risen to their feet, their laughter turned to cheers and shouts, and their hands uplifted. The boy danced and waved, his voice lifted with the rest.

The kite whirled and swooped, climbing and rising, playing in a wind Meralda still couldn’t feel. Soon, it, too, was merely a dot and a faint streak of tail.

The man turned and began to walk back toward the walk and the child. Meralda watched the far-off kite for a moment, expecting it to plummet at any moment. It remained aloft, straining at the string, snapping faintly from high above.

Meralda hung another thread by the time the man reached the child, who still danced with glee. The cabbies rose to their feet and gave the small man a final round of cheers and hoots. The man halted, bowed to the cabbies, placed the string gravely in the boy’s hand, and patted the child’s head once before the lad darted away, kite string in hand.

After a moment, the man put his hands in his pockets, turned his back to the Tower, and ambled away, alone on the walk.

Meralda watched him go while her wand recharged. Soon he reached the Old Oaks, and vanished beneath them, swallowed up by the distance and the dark beneath the boughs.