But he had never, when he had first met Paisi, been aware of the gift in him. He had been very marginally aware of the gift in himself, on that confused evening. But he had no doubt at all now why Paisi of all boys in Henas’amef had happened across him, and guided him to Cefwyn’s gate. No chance, but wizardry had brought him to Cefwyn. He had wondered was there somewhere else he was supposed to have gone, perhaps to Elwynor or to the Lord Regent… but meeting Paisi now, he knew it wasno chance, and that Cefwyn’s court was where Mauryl had intended him to go.

That was a profound realization, one that led him astray to Ynefel and back, so that he needed Uwen’s touch on the arm to remember what was essential, to find the boy someplace other than a straw-lined cell.

He did not want the boy loose and unwatched, no more than Mauryl’s letters or Mauryl’s books or a staff that Mauryl had leaned on. The wizardry that had sent himinto the world had brushed past this boy and made of the boy a pivot-point on which so much else turned.

“He might help Tassand with Emuin’s tower, if he were of a mind. I think I would prefer him in the house and not out of it.”

“He’ll steal the silver, m’lord. He wouldn’t want to, but I fear temptation’d be too much for the lad. He can’t rightly reckon his prospects. What ye hold up to ’im is so far beyond his ken as the sun and the stars is, and he just don’t know how to think of silver an’ hungry folk an’ what he wants all at the same time.”

“Nor do I,” Tristen said, bringing silence all around him. “Yet I try.” It was firmer and firmer in his mind that with all else unhinged in the world, any piece of his own left unclaimed could become an adit for sorcery, a danger as great as a broken ward. He had not been prepared to find Paisi so urgently claiming his attention. He had certainly not been prepared to find him in trouble with the king’s guard and arrested for theft. But he was not utterly surprised, either. Uwen was right. Paisi was not a boy easy to love.

In fact he wondered if anyone but Ness had ever cared for him. And he wondered for what reason outside the common goodness of Ness’s heart anyone had seen him fed and clothed. He had had Mauryl when he was foolish and helpless. But who had cared for Paisi’s needs? And why?

“Is he yours?” he asked Ness. “Is he kin of yours?”

“M’lord,” Ness said faintly, unsure, it was likely, what claiming Paisi might entail, or wherein he might be deemed at fault. “No, he ain’t kin. He ain’t no one’s kin, that I know. But we an’ the lads at the gate, we took care of ’im, an’ he kind of slipped about the streets an’ told us if there was somethin‘ amiss.”

“Then he has had a use.”

“Aye, m’lord, sort of a use. An’ ’e ain’t stole except once. Or twice.”

“Has he lied to you?”

“Not so’s ever mattered. ’E tells tales. ’E’s a boy. Boys do.”

“Then take him at least for the night. —Go to Ness,” Tristen said to the young prisoner, “and do as he bids you. Have a bath at the scullery, have something to eat, and I’ll send someone for you in the morning who’ll tell you what you have to do. You’ve protected the town before. You’ll go on protecting it. And you’ll be an honest boy and not steal anything again, or Emuin will turn you into a toad.”

Paisi cast frantic glances at Ness and at him, and at Uwen. Whether or not he believed the threat of being a toad he surely knew by now he was deep in wizards’ business, and in danger.

“I have enemies,” Tristen said softly, “and only honesty and my service may protect you. Dishonesty will deliver you to my enemies as surely as if you walked to Tasmôrden’s gates.”

“I don’t know about lords an’ wizards!” Paisi protested, for the first time finding a string of words. “I don’t know about bein’ in the Zeide!”

“Learn,” Tristen said, “and make as few mistakes as you can. Steal nothing.” He gave a nod to Ness. “Find him a bed. And supper. I left mine, for this, and left my guest, too. I must go back upstairs.” He had only just realized the extent of his dereliction: strongly as he had felt the need here, he knew now he must go back and beg Cevulirn’s pardon. “I’ll send Tassand in the morning.”

“Scrub under them fingernails,” Uwen said, “as don’t seem likely ’e ever has. Show ’im how to stand like a soldier and speak up like one, too. It ain’t so different for His Grace’s servants.”

“Aye, Captain,” Ness said in a hushed tone.

And that was the end of the matter, with Ness and Paisi at last. Increasingly it seemed he had done the right, the necessary thing.

“M’lor’,” the young voice pursued him, a-tremble.

He stopped and looked back. Paisi had reached the bottom step, and came another step up.

“M’lor’, if it’s anything ye wish to hear… there’s talk, there’s talk I heard.”

“And what talk?”

The silence after said perhaps the boy was too eager, foolishly eager, to prove himself useful; and all he had was dubious. Ness seemed to think so, too, for he overtook the boy and set a cautioning hand on his shoulder.

“In the market they said… They said you was goin’ to raise up the old tower.”

“Ynefel?”

“That ’un, yes, m’lor’. —An’ ye’d bring back the magic.”

“Who says so?”

“The gran’mothers say’t.”

“He means the hedge-wizards,” Uwen said. “Mostly they’re midwives. Herb-witches.”

He hardly knew what to say to that charge. Likely it was already true, in the sense that he came from Ynefel. But it was nothing he wanted bruited about the streets: the Quinalt was not that well-disposed to him, and Idrys had warned him of it.

“I don’t know,” he said, “and I know nothing about these grandmothers. What else do you know?”

“There’s them carts gone out,” Paisi said, “an’ folk is talkin’ about war and maybe ye’ll call the muster.”

“I don’t intend to have war here. It’s far from my intention.”

“That’s what I know, m’lor’.”

The words were more than the words. The very stones rang with them… a sense of things to which ordinary men were deaf.

Of a sudden he reached across the gray space and seized on Paisi’s notice, startling his soul half out of him, and facing him there, in the gray…

—I think you hear me, Paisi.

“Gods bless!” Paisi cried, and in the one world fell to his knees and in this one whirled away on the winds of panic…

flat into Ness’s arms.

Tristen pursued, a mere step down the stairs, and had him at close attention.

—M’lor’…

“Don’t lie,”

he said, in this world and the gray one. “If you’ll do a service for me, ask the grandmothers what they would say to me.”

He had Emuin’s attention, and knew it; and Emuin was utterly aware of the waif, and of him. In that moment Paisi seemed to see Emuin, for he turned his head all in a jerk and fled.

In the world of Men Paisi missed the step and tumbled to his knees on it.

“M’ lord,” Paisi said, trembling.

“Go with Ness,” Tristen said aloud, and added, “Boy?” It echoed to him with Mauryl’s voice, kind and commanding at once. When had the tables turned? “I’ll never hurt you.”

“My lord,” Paisi whispered, on his knees.

“Send to Tassand in the morning,” Tristen said to Ness, “and let him have the run of the town as he has had. I’ve given him something to do for me.”

With that he had done all that was profitable to do, and he turned and went up the stairs with Uwen.

Emuin was there, with a handful of the Guelens, Emuin with hands in the sleeves of his gray robes, beneath the fitful light of a lantern, shielded light there in the drafty stairs. And even so the wind gusted the little flame and cast Emuin’s face in ominous shadow.

“A thief, you say,” Emuin prompted him aloud.

—And what more? Emuin confronted him in the gray space as well, and the gray clouds were roiled with the storm of Emuin’s distress.