"Are the children around?" Kilisha asked.
"They're inside," Yara said, looking past Kilisha at the coat-rack.
"Good. We need to talk." She carefully didn't look back again as she walked up to the door.
Yara stepped aside, and Kilisha crossed the familiar threshold.
Ithanalin was still crouched, half-sitting, half-rising, on the floor; the mirror was still on the wall, and the rest of the room was still completely empty. Kilisha bit her lip as she looked around.
She had hoped that some of the furnishings might have found their own way back, but obviously none of them had. There was so much yet to be done!
And it would take planning; marching out into the streets and running around practically at random had been foolish. She was a wizard's apprentice, just a year short of journeyman if all went well-not some silly child!
"Kilisha," Yara said, "is he all right?"
"Well, no," Kilisha replied, startled. "I mean, you can see that." It occurred to her belatedly as her gaze returned to Yara's worried face that maybe some words of reassurance, rather than blunt honesty, would have been appropriate.
But she was an apprentice; lying to her master's wife, no matter how comforting, was not fitting.
"Is he going to be all right?" Yara asked.
"I certainly hope so, but I can't promise," Kilisha replied.
"Oh, you sound just like him! What happened? Why is he like this?"
Startled, Kilisha said, "Didn't you ask the mirror?"
"I asked it questions, but it kept saying it didn't know-it didn't know where you were or when you'd be back or what I should do to help, and I gave up."
"Oh." Kilisha frowned. "Mistress, I can't take the time to explain right now-we need to get these things safely put away." She held out the arm with the spoon wrapped around it, catching the bowl in her other hand. "Could you take these?"
Hesitantly, Yara reached for the spoon-which practically jumped into her hand. It clearly liked Yara even more than Kilisha; it wrapped itself around her wrist, vibrating with pleasure so intensely that Kilisha almost thought she could hear purring.
"Oh, my heart!" Yara said, startled; she tried to drop the spoon, but it had already secured itself, and thus released it did not fall, but instead wound its way, snakelike, up her arm, sliding into her sleeve.
"Oh!" Yara said again. "I don't-"
"It won't hurt you," Kilisha said quickly. "Don't lose it! It has part of Ithanalin's spirit in it."
The spoon had now completely vanished into the loose sleeves of Yara's tunic. Yara stared at her own shoulder, then blushed.
"I think I know which part," she said. Her bodice twitched.
Kilisha did not need to ask what Yara meant. She swallowed at the thought that Yara was probably right, and she herself had had the spoon wrapped around her own wrist; that was hardly the sort of thing that ought to happen between a married master and his apprentice!
It was a good thing that the person who had picked it up on Cross Avenue had been a man, rather than a woman, or she might have had a harder time convincing anyone that Kilisha owned it. For that matter, it was a good thing that Ithanalin's preferences had been as definite as they were.
"Here," she said, holding out the bowl.
Yara accepted it gingerly. "What does this do?" she asked.
"I have no idea," Kilisha said. "It's got another part of his spirit, but I don't know which." She turned. "Did the coatrack come in?"
"No," Yara said.
"Blast! We need that, too." She hurried back out into the street.
There was no sign of the coatrack.
"Mistress," she called, "you keep hold of those things, but could you send the kids out here to help me?"
"All right," Yara replied. Kilisha could hear her retreating footsteps.
"Excuse me, sir," she called to a nearby pedestrian. "Did you see a coatrack go by?"
"I think so," the man answered uncertainly.
"Which way did it go?"
"Um… that way," he said, pointing west.
Muttering to herself, Kilisha set out back down Wizard Street.
She had gone less than a block when she spotted the coatrack, its square peak visible over the heads of the handful of intervening pedestrians.
"Stop!" she called. "Coatrack! Come back!"
The top of the coatrack vibrated at the sound of her voice, but it did not come to her; instead it stepped sideways, as if looking for an alley to hide in. It ducked behind the open door of a shop- Adagan the Witch was sweeping out, and had his door at right angles to the frame.
Kilisha let out an annoyed sigh. She turned to see whether the children had emerged yet.
Telleth was leaning out the door of the shop, looking puzzled.
"Telleth!" Kilisha called. "Come here, please!"
Hesitantly, Telleth came. Lirrin and Pirra appeared in the doorway, and Kilisha beckoned. "All of you, come here."
Kilisha glanced at the coatrack-or rather, where she had last seen it. It was now completely hidden behind Adagan's door.
She could just march over there, but the silly thing might run away again; apparently it had all Ithanalin's doubts and uncertainties. Until now Kilisha hadn't entirely realized her master had any.
With a little planning, though, it shouldn't be hard to catch. Planning ahead had always been one of her weaknesses-she usually just dashed in to confront a problem, and only figured out later what she should have done-hardly the proper wizardly approach.
This time, she promised herself, she wouldn't do that. Too much was at stake. She would do this properly.
She stooped down and whispered, "One of your father's spells has gone wrong-I'm sure you already realized that. Well, I know how to fix it, but first we need to capture all the escaped furniture. Do you understand?"
Telleth and Lirrin nodded, but Pirra turned up an empty hand.
"It's bad magic," Telleth said to his baby sister. "Kilisha can fix it, but we need to help."
Pirra still looked worried arid uncertain, but Kilisha decided it didn't really matter whether the girl understood, so long as she did what was needed.
"Over there, behind that door," Kilisha said, "is the coatrack from beside the front door. It can move around now, and we need to get it back home. It's very shy, though, so we need to catch it."
"How?" Lirrin asked.
"Well, I was thinking that if you three got behind it in a line, and held hands so it couldn't get past you, you could chase it this way, and I could grab it and push it inside."
The three children looked at one another uncertainly.
"It may threaten you with its hooks, but I don't think it really wants to hurt anyone," Kilisha said. "It's just scared."
Telleth swallowed.
"I think Pirra should be in the middle," Kilisha said. "If she's on the end it might be able to dodge past her, since she's so small."
"That's right," Lirrin said, "Come on!"
"Wait!" Kilisha called, before Lirrin could take more than a single step.
"What is it?" Lirrin demanded. "We need to go, before it gets away!"
"Yes, you do," Kilisha said. "But make sure you go past it separately, without frightening it, and then form a line and chase it this way."
"Right," Telleth said. "Come on, then."
This time Kilisha straightened up and let them go.
They were brave children. They hadn't argued with her, or cried, or said they were scared; they had just gone to help. Yara and Ithanalin ought to be proud of them.
She wondered which piece of furniture held the wizard's parental pride.
She waited a moment, to give the children time to get into position, then began strolling toward Adagan's door. "Oh, coat-rack!" she called. "Won't you come back with me?"