"Oh, Papa," Fiametta interrupted urgently, "can I undo it myself? I did all the other steps by myself." Surely he must sense her new-cast spell, if he handled it so fresh.

"What, you're still moping around? Have you no chores? Or were you just hoping for another glance at a naked man?" Master Beneforte jerked his chin toward his waxen Perseus.

"You're going to put it in the town square, Papa. All the maidens will see it." Fiametta defended herself. Had he caught her peeking, at those modeling sessions?

The live Perseus, Uri, looked like this was a new and unsettling thought. He glanced again at the statue, as if inspired to ask for a bronze loincloth.

"Well," Master Beneforte chuckled indulgently at her flusterment, "you're a brave good girl, Fiametta, and deserve some reward for drinking sour wine for breakfast to confound that doubter Quistelli for me. Come along." He herded them both back toward the front workroom. "You'll see, Captain. The lost wax process is so easy, a child can do it."

"I'm not a child any more, Papa," Fiametta put in.

His smile went bland. "So it would seem."

The clay lump lay on the worktable where she'd left it. Fiametta gathered up the tiniest chisels from the rack on the wall, held the ball in her hands for a moment, and recited an inward prayer. The spell's inaudible hum became almost a silent purr. Her father and the captain leaned on their elbows to either side and watched. She chinked away with the chisel, and clay flew off in chips. Gold gleamed from its matrix.

'Ah! Tis a ring, said Uri, leaning closer. Fiametta smiled at him.

"A little lion mask," the captain went on, interested, as her fingers worked a needle to clean away the last of the clay. "Oh! Look at the tiny teeth! How he roars!" He laughed.

"The teeth are meant to hold a ruby," Fiametta explained.

"Garnet," Master Beneforte corrected.

"A ruby would be brighter."

"And more costly."

"It would look well on a lord's hand, I'd think," said Uri. "You could recover the price of a ruby."

"It's to be my own ring," said Fiametta.

"Oh? Surely it's sized for a man, maiden."

"A thumb ring," Fiametta explained.

"A design that's cost me twice the gold of a finger ring," Master Beneforte put in. "I shall hedge my promises more carefully, next time."

"And is it a magic ring, Madonna?"

Master Beneforte stroked his beard, and answered for her. "No."

Fiametta glanced up at him, from under the protective fringe of her eyelashes. He neither smiled nor frowned, yet she sensed a sharp observance beneath his bland demeanor. She jerked around, put the ring in the captain's palm, and held her breath.

He turned it over, stroking the tiny waves of the lion's mane with one finger. He did not attempt to slide it on. A puzzled look came into his eyes.

"You know, Master Beneforte, how bitterly you have complained of your lazy and clumsy workmen? A thought just came to me—how if I write to my brother Thur in Bruinwald? He's only seventeen, but he's worked all sorts of jobs at the mines and forges there since he was a boy. He's very quick, and he's assisted Master Kunz at the furnace. It wouldn't be like breaking in a young and ignorant apprentice. He already knows much of metal, particularly copper. And he must be much bigger and stronger now than when I last saw him. Just what you need for your Perseus Gloriosus."

"Do you write your brother often?" asked Master Beneforte, watching him turn the ring in his hand.

"No ... heavens! I haven't been home for four years. A miner's life is hard and spare. The memory of those dark close tunnels gives me the shivering fits even yet. I've twice offered to get Thur a position in the Duke's guard, but he says he's loathe to be a soldier. I say he doesn't know what's good for him. But if the Duke's glory in arms won't lure him out of that hole in the ground, perhaps your glory in the arts might." His hand closed again around the ring; he handed it back to Fiametta, and rubbed absently at his palm.

"Worked at copper smelting, has he?" said Master Beneforte. "Well. Yes. Do write him. Let's see what happens."

The captain smiled. "I'll go and do it now." He made a pretty leg of a bow to Fiametta, bade Master Beneforte good morning, and hurried out.

Fiametta sat down on the stool, the ring in her hands, and heaved a huge sigh of disappointment. "You're right. Papa, It's useless. I just can't do magic."

"You think not?" said Master Beneforte mildly.

"The spell didn't work! I put my heart and soul into it, and nothing happened! He didn't even put the ring on for a moment. She looked up, realizing she'd just given away her secret, but Master Beneforte looked more thoughtful than angry. "I didn't exactly disobey, Papa. You didn't tell me I mustn't try to work magic in the ring."

"You didn't ask," he said shortly. "You know very well I've never encouraged you. Metal magic is too dangerous for a woman to work. Or so I've always thought. Now I begin to wonder if it might be more dangerous to leave you untrained."

"I was very careful to use nothing but story spells in the ring, Papa!"

"Yes, I know—do you think you are transparent, Fiametta?" he added at her unsettled look. "I am a master, child. Even another master could not use my books and tools without my knowing it."

She slumped. "But my magic failed."

He took up the ring and turned it in the light. "I should beat you for your slyness and sneaking. ..." He flipped open the folded apron on the end of me bench, examined its contents, and pursed his lips. "You used the true-love spell of the Master of Cluny, right?"

She nodded miserably.

"That spell does not create true love, child. That would be a contradiction in terms, for magically compelled feelings are not true. It only reveals true love."

"Oh."

"Your ring may have worked, though the Master of Cluny's magic is no exercise for an apprentice. It truly revealed that the handsome, if pock-marked, Captain Ochs is not your true love."

"But ... I like him. He's kind, and courteous. A gentleman, not like the usual rough soldiers."

"He's simply the first man you've seen, or at any rate, noticed. And you have certainly seem all of him."

"Well, that's not my fault," she said grumpily.

"It's all your giggling girlfriends, who've inspired you to this unbecoming forwardness."

"I'll be sixteen in a few weeks, Papa. You know my gossip Maddalena was betrothed last month. She's already getting fitted in her wedding clothes. And here, the news this morning—the Duke s daughter Julia is only twelve!"

"That is pure politics," said Master Beneforte. "And of an odor not of roses, at that. See you hold your tongue on that news, or I'll know where the rumor came from. Lord Ferrante of Losimo is fully thirty-five, and has a dubious reputation. His second wife was not yet sixteen—the same age as you, and think on that!—when she died in childbirth not two months ago. I shouldn't think you'd find her fate so attractive as all that."

"No, of course not! And yet ... all of a sudden, everyone seems to be getting married. Except me. All the good men will be taken, and you'll sit on me till I'm old and fat, just to keep me handy for your spells. 'Bleed you a little into this new greenwood bowl, love, just a drop'—till I drop. Virgin's blood. Virgin's hair. Virgin's spit. Virgin's piss. Some days I feel like a magic cow."

"Your metaphor is terribly scrambled, Fia-mia."

"You know what I mean! And then you'll betroth me to some old rooster with skinny legs and a head as bald as an egg."

Master Beneforte suppressed a grin. "Well, rich widows don't lead so bad a life."

"Ha! It's not funny, Papa." She paused, and said more lowly, "Unless you've tried already, and found none to take me because I am too black-complexioned. Or too poor-dowered."