She hesitated for the first time. “I wish to study magic with you. I wish you to be my mentor. In exchange for this, I would be your companion. In time, if we both agree that it feels right, I would become your bedmate. But this is not what I am seeking at present. Nor are you, unless I have misjudged you.”

“You have not,” he assured her. “And if our arrangement begins to feel wrong?”

“Then we would part company. If you feel you have been misled or misused, I would return half the money you have given me. I do not ask for anything I have not earned.”

He studied her anew. She was very young, but she had an old soul. “I might end up using you badly in this bargain.”

“I will take that chance.” The girl leaned in a bit. “I know my confronting you like this is unusual. The rules are clear. You are not to be approached by the girls who come here. But I am tired of waiting on Corussin to provide me with suitable choices. I am bored and eager to get on with my life. I know what I want when I see it, and I know the direction I wish my life to go. Take me with you. You won’t regret it.”

Across the way, a door opened onto the gardens and Corussin appeared. For the first time, the girl looked unsettled. “Please decide quickly,” she whispered, rising and stepping back.

Her haste reinforced his growing conviction that the proprietor had indeed not sent her as a prospect. It was clear that she did not think he would be happy to find her with him.

“Here is my bargain,” he said. “I will take you with me and make you my student and teach you magic if you will agree to the following. There is no time to explain all the details, but it involves a boy about your age. I require his special talents. I need you to help me persuade him. I need you to make him fall in love with you and then manipulate him to act on my behalf. It must be done without him knowing the truth. It is only for a month or perhaps two. Not a long time in a young girl’s life. After that, I will take you away. Do you agree to my offer?”

She nodded at once. “I do. Unless you intend to ask me to harm him. Then I must refuse.”

“I promise not to ask that of you. But I may ask other things that you will not find agreeable. Nothing that will harm either you or him, but that you will still find distasteful. Do you still agree?”

She nodded quickly. “I do. Now help me.”

“Lariana!” Corussin shouted at the girl, coming up swiftly. “What do you think you are doing?”

She turned to face him, but she did not reply. Arcannen rose to stand with her. “Any luck?” he asked the proprietor.

“A little,” the other answered, but his attention was all on the girl. “You know the rules. You do not approach the gentlemen who come to call at Rare Flowers without an appointment and my express permission.”

“I only came over to ask if he required anything,” she responded.

“Yes, that is so,” the sorcerer agreed.

“It doesn’t matter what you thought you were doing. It is forbidden to approach anyone with whom you do not have a prearranged meeting. You will go to your room until I am finished here. You might want to consider packing your bags.”

“Yes, why don’t you do that,” Arcannen agreed. He turned to Corussin. “I have decided to take her with me. She is the girl I want. She will provide exactly the services I am seeking. How much do I owe you?”

The proprietor was stunned. Then he wheeled on Lariana. “Why are you still here? Do as I have told you.”

The girl nodded and left at once. Corussin watched her cross through the gardens and disappear back inside the building before he turned again to Arcannen. “You do not want this girl,” he said.

The sorcerer was surprised. “I think maybe I do. I spoke to her at length. Quizzed her, really. Her answers were impressive. What is the problem?”

“I don’t know. Not exactly. But there is something not quite right about her. She is beautiful, intelligent, and well spoken. She is extremely strong-minded. But she is ambitious, too. And there is something more. I sense it in the way she keeps herself apart from everyone. She considers herself superior to all of us. She dismisses her suitors in the most abrupt and unflattering ways. She is never satisfied. I have kept her this long only because I keep hoping the right match will appear.”

“Perhaps it has. Let me have the use of her for a short time. If she becomes a problem, I will dispose of her and not ask for a single credit back. If she turns out as I hope, I will keep her with me.”

Corussin shook his head. “This is a mistake, Arcannen. I have never before tried to talk a customer out of making an arrangement with one of my girls, but I am doing so now. Let me find someone else. There are dozens of girls here, many of them persuasive in the ways you have already mentioned. Talk to a few of them. See if one of them won’t do.”

Arcannen shook his head. “Time slips away. The chances were small when I came to you that I would be able to find the girl I needed. Unexpectedly, I did. But the chances that I will find her again are minuscule. I choose her. Name your price.”

“As an old friend and business partner, I urge you to—”

“Name your price!” Arcannen snapped, cutting him short.

It was three times what he had expected he would end up paying, an attempt by the establishment’s proprietor to punish Arcannen for his boldness, but a bargain if Lariana proved to be as resourceful as the sorcerer believed. Corussin was right. There was something about this girl, and whatever it was, it might prove to be the difference in winning or losing the boy. Life was a gamble. There was no point in wishing things would change now.

Besides, he had always relied on his instincts, and his instincts told him she was the one.

TEN

WHILE ARCANNEN AND LARIANA WERE DEPARTING RARE FLOWERS in preparation for the return to Portlow, Paxon Leah and Avelene were flying toward the same destination. As planned, they had left at dawn, passengers on a clipper piloted and crewed by three members of the Druid Guard—huge Rock Trolls with flying skills and no-nonsense attitudes. The trip would take most of the day, so the Druid and the Highlander had settled down on padding built into the front of the pilot box where they could speak in private or read the books they had brought with them detailing portions of the history of the wishsong copied down from the Druid Histories.

Paxon already knew a little of this history because of his heritage. The intermarriage of the Leah and Ohmsford families had brought their recent pasts together through shared memories and writings that had been in Paxon’s family since before he was born. This history was neither deep nor complete, but it provided a clear look at how the magic had influenced various members of the two lineages from the time of Grianne Ohmsford forward. So he was well versed in the voyage of the Jerle Shannara to Parkasia, where Grianne and Bek had been revealed to be not only members of the Ohmsford family, but also sister and brother. He also knew of Pen Ohmsford’s subsequent involvement in putting a stop to the attempt by Shadea a’Ru to overthrow the Druid Order and reform it under her leadership.

But it was Avelene who knew the details of the older history of the wishsong better—of its origins, of the beginning of the magic as it became integrated into the Ohmsford bloodline in the years following Wil Ohmsford’s terrible quest to aid Amberle Elessedil in finding the source of the Bloodfire to renew the Ellcrys and repair the walls of the Forbidding that imprisoned the demons.

“It’s fascinating to read how the wishsong has evolved over the centuries,” she told him. Her dark eyes looked introspective, fixing on his face as she spoke. “Wil Ohmsford didn’t realize what was happening when he used the Elfstones to save Amberle. He was not even half Elf, and no one whose blood wasn’t pure Elf was ever supposed to use Elven magic. But he did it anyway because it was his only choice. And maybe because he loved her. But it infused his blood with a deviant form of its magic, and that form in turn underwent a change when it was passed from him to his children.”