He wore a loose white robe, black pants underneath, and his shoes were plain black slippers. Phendelit slippers, Meralda realized.

Fromarch’s Phendelit slippers, in fact. I gave those to him First Snow, two years ago.

Now I know where the mages have been.

Loman halted, and looked up. His face was ancient, all wrinkles and sagging skin. His eyes, though, were brown, bright, and clear.

He spoke. “Greetings, Mage.” His voice was as thin and frail as his frame.

Meralda bowed. “Greetings, Wielder and Bearer.” She saw Donchen nod approval at the edge of her vision. “You honor me with your presence.”

The old man smiled. “It is good that we are met, Mage of Tirlin. Perhaps one day we will stand side by side and cast our magics together.”

He bowed again. And then, before Meralda could speak, he lifted both arms, hands open and even with his shoulders, spoke a short phrase in Hang, and brought his hands together with a single loud clap.

Then he turned, and shuffled back toward the stair.

Meralda made a hasty bow.

Donchen stepped to her side. “He just said hello, in an official sense,” said Donchen softly.

Meralda nodded. “I’ll ask later what he said,” she whispered.

Donchen nodded, clasped his hands behind him, and fell silent. Meralda noted the Hang, even Que-long, stood still and watched Loman go.

Meralda watched as well, though she did exchange a brief look with Mug’s red eyes, which Mug held in the upright line that signaled bemusement or mild surprise.

Shingvere, waiting upon the stair, nodded to Meralda, took Loman’s hand in his, and helped him down the first tread.

The Big Bell pealed out, striking eleven times from the palace, faint above the traffic and the crowds. Meralda felt her stomach tighten, partly from hunger, partly from realization of just how much of the day was gone, and how much remained to be done.

Chezin nodded, as if she had spoken aloud. “The mage has much work to do,” he said. “We should leave her to it.”

Que-long nodded. “Goodbye,” he said, to Mug. Mug bowed, sweeping all is leaves and eyes down and forward. “I hope we meet again, Mighty Dragon,” said Mug, his voice still high and cheery.

Chezin frowned, but Que-long clapped and beamed. “This is a wondrous land,” he said, and Meralda smiled despite herself.

“Thank you,” she said, only barely remembering to turn and address Chezin. “We are glad you think so, and glad you came.”

Que-long made a small bow, and turned, and departed.

Chezin came close behind, halting long enough before Meralda to repeat Que-long’s bow before following his dragon down the stair.

Donchen watched them go. “Goodbye, Mage,” he said. He bowed, and turned to go, and then turned back toward Meralda again. “Will you join me at my table, tomorrow night? I believe we are to join your court for a ‘feast of traditional Alon cuisine, with sherberts’.” Donchen hesitated, and his features took on the appearance of sudden concern. “These ‘sherberts,’” he said. “They would not be the finely-chopped snout of an oxen, would they?”

Meralda laughed. “Sherbert is a frozen dessert,” she said. “Ice and milk and…sugar, I suppose,” she said. “Not a scrap of ox snout.”

Donchen lifted his hand to his forehead in mock relief. “Thank heavens,” he said. “One must be careful, so far from home.”

And then he turned and glided down the stair.

Mug bunched his leaves. Meralda glared, and he fell silent.

“Tervis,” shouted Meralda.

After a few moments, Tervis came thump-thumping up the stair.

“Yes, ma’am?” he asked.

“Send word to the Watch and the Builder’s Guild foreman,” she said. “I’m going to test the spell during lunch. It is a harmless spell. They may see a darkening in the air about the Tower, nothing more. Tell them there is no cause for alarm.”

“No cause, yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” said Meralda. Tervis turned and sped down the treads.

“Can you be ready by lunch?” asked Mug. “That’s only an hour away, you know.”

Meralda watched as the Hang and their entourage made for the Tower. Shingvere, from his post at the right of Loman’s wheelchair, gestured and pointed toward the Tower, while Fromarch waved his hands and shook his head in angry negation.

Meralda looked away, and picked up her wand. “Begin,” she said. “Refract.”

Her wand buzzed and grew cold in her hand.

Meralda sagged, put both hands on the workbench, and leaned over it while the Big Bell clanged out noon.

“You all right, mistress?” asked Mug.

“I’m fine.” Meralda looked up. In her second sight, Mug was ablaze, lit within by tongues of fire.

Tervis clambered up the stair. “I warned the watchmen and the guilds,” he said. “Is it time?”

Meralda straightened. “It is time.”

“Good luck, ma’am,” said Tervis. “Yell out, if you need us.” He turned, and hurried down the stair.

Meralda turned her sight upon the Tower. “Well,” she said. “Have I forgotten anything?”

“Aside from refusing to attempt the thing, no, you’ve made all the necessary preparations,” said Mug. He pushed eyes closer to Meralda.

“Do be careful, Meralda,” he said. “I swear it’s watching you back.”

Meralda frowned, but said nothing. She looked up and up, seeing the flat with her eyes, and the latch with her Sight, and she took a breath and found the first retaining wand with her right hand and lifted it.

People in the park below saw, and the din of conversation muted. “Look!” cried a man. “Here she goes!”

Meralda spoke the word that released the first refractor. The wand went hot, and then cold, and it twitched in her grasp as the spell leaped away toward the latch.

A ragged hush moved over the crowd. Meralda felt hundreds of eyes upon her. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she resisted the urge to step back away from the rail and out of sight.

The first spell reached the latch, and stopped. Meralda spoke and released the second, and the third, and the fourth, and then she dropped the frost-rimed wand in a bucket of water and watched and waited.

Without Sight, Meralda knew, the Tower appeared unchanged. But seen through trained eyes, the latch was a murky sphere impaled by a quarter of the Tower’s upper length, and the refractors were shreds of playful rainbows racing and darting just within the sphere’s smooth skin.

Meralda groped for her staff, her eyes still upon the spells. “To your right,” said Mug, and it was.

“A bit of flourish, now,” said Mug. “The taxpayers are watching.”

Meralda lifted her staff, and though shouting the final word was hardly necessary she did speak it in a loud, commanding voice.

“Disperse!”

Her staff made a cracking noise, like the breaking of dry timber, and the darting shreds of rainbows vanished as they fell into place. The dark sphere about the Tower grew fainter, and fainter, and though the Tower’s shadow was small and fat in the midday sun, the shadow shrank, inching back over the grass toward the foot of the Tower.

“So far so good,” said Mug. Half his eyes were on the Tower. The other half were on the brass-faced stopwatch clicking madly away on Meralda’s workbench. “Fifteen seconds since unlatching.”

Meralda turned her gaze from the flat and watched the shadow shrink. Spectators drew hastily back into the sun, though one child followed the line of darkness, stamping it with his foot as it moved, until he reached a stern-faced guard and was marched away from the Tower.

“Forty seconds,” said Mug.

Meralda wiped her brow with her hand. Elation rose within her. I’ve done it, she thought. It’s going to work.

She turned her Sight back to the latch. Faint as distant smoke against the blue of the sky and the black of the Tower, Meralda struggled to see it.

“Eighty seconds,” said Mug. “Shadow nearly gone.”