"So he is gone?"
"Not really." Kilisha sighed, "He's in the workshop. But he can't move-a spell went wrong and transferred his life force into all the furniture."
"So you're sitting on him?"
Kilisha closed her eyes and bit her lip as the chair shifted slightly. Her older brother had always had a knack for making everything she said or did sound stupid. "After a fashion," she admitted. "Mostly, though, I'm sitting on the straight chair we keep here in the parlor. It just happens to have a little bit of Ith-analin's spirit m it at the moment."
"And the bench, too? And the coatrack?"
"All of it," Kilisha said.
Opir looked around the parlor. "Where's the couch?" he asked.
"I don't know," Kilisha admitted. "That's why I haven't been able to restore him yet-I need all the pieces. I've got all the others, but the couch ran away and I haven't found it yet."
"Then why aren't you out looking for it, or working a spell to locate it?"
"Because I'm obeying my mistress's orders. I'll find it later. Now, tell me about these rumors. Where did Mother hear them?"
"Didn't you know she has spies all around here?"
Kilisha closed her eyes again and sighed deeply, then opened them. "No," she said. "I didn't know. What spies?"
"Lirrin, for one-Ithanalin's daughter. And Thetta, Heshka's wife. And Virinia's little sister Fara, and that fellow Genzer of Northmark who's been trying to court that cute apprentice of Tirin's, and the two kids who help out in Kara's Arcana, and that old woman across the court from your back door who calls herself Zinamdia, which isn't any sort of real name I ever heard of. And probably others I don't know about. You know Mother's always been fond of gossip."
"Yes, but she used to just talk to people in the courtyard at home, or m Eastgate Market. She didn't come all the way over here to gather news!"
"But that was before she had her youngest apprenticed to a genuine wizard. You're the first magician in our entire family, Kili-didn't you realize how special that makes you?"
"No, I didn't," she lied.
In fact, she knew perfectly well that it made her the object of family pride and envy. That had been much of the point, really, after a childhood of being utterly ordinary. She had gotten tired of being dull; she had even bored herself, and had begged to be apprenticed to a wizard largely so she could escape that tedium. It had worked, too.
But she wasn't about to admit that to her older brother.
"Well, you should have known," Opir said. "After Ithanalin took you on Mother boasted about it constantly for sixnights- but after a while she needed new things to say about her daughter the wizard, and you hardly ever came home anymore, or wrote letters…"
"I don't have time! I'm an apprentice!"
"I know that," Opir said, grinning. "So did Mother. She didn't want to do anything that might interfere or annoy Ithanalin, for fear he'd send you home in disgrace-"
"He can't," Kilisha interrupted. "Guild rules. I passed the point where he could send me home when I was thirteen." She caught herself before explaining further-that once she had made herself an athame she could only leave the Wizards' Guild by dying, and if she fouled up her apprenticeship badly enough that she couldn't continue Ithanalin wouldn't have sent her home, he'd have had her killed. Somehow she didn't think she wanted her parents to hear that. She didn't think she even wanted her brother to hear it.
"Really? We didn't know that."
"Really. And you weren't supposed to."
Opir hesitated, waiting to see if Kilisha would give any details, then turned up a palm and continued. "She didn't want to cause you any trouble, but she really wanted to know what you were doing, so she started visiting along Wizard Street and the East Road. She's been doing it for years. You didn't know?"
"I didn't know."
"Oh. Well, she's been doing it, and for the past two days the gossip and rumors have just been pouring in-mostly other things, but a few about Ithanalin and you." He glanced around at the furniture, then asked, "What really happened?"
"I told you-a spell went wrong. A spriggan tripped the master as he was stirring something, and it spilled, and the spell scattered his soul into all these different pieces."
"A spriggan? So it doesn't have anything to do with Empress Tabaea and her strange magic?"
"I don't even know for certain who Empress Tabaea is," Kil-isha said angrily. "You mean the usurper in Ethshar of the Sands?"
"That's the one. Haven't you been hearing about it? Word is that the whole Wizards' Guild is going mad trying to deal with her."
"I've been a bit distracted," Kilisha said. "And the Guild hasn't been helping me any-they're too busy with this madwoman to do anything about my master."
"Well, you can hardly blame them! She's taken over an entire city and killed a dozen magicians!"
Kilisha hesitated. "She has?"
"Yes, she has!"
"I've been busy. I hadn't heard the details." Actually, she realized that she had heard that much, but hadn't given it much thought, or remembered the specifics.
A dozen magicians? A dozen? If she had heard that before, she should have remembered it.
But she had been distracted by her own concerns.
"I'm surprised," Opir said. "I thought all the wizards were involved in it."
"I'll start paying attention again once Ithanalin is restored!" she snapped. "As an apprentice, my first duty is to my master, and only to my master. When he's back to normal I'll worry about the usurper, and do what the Guild asks, but right now I need to work on the restorative spell and get all the pieces together."
"Oh." Opir looked around the room; the coatrack backed away, the table twirled on one leg and almost toppled over, and the bench flexed itself. "You know, Mother and Father didn't send me, I came on my own. But they did tell me, since I was coming anyway, to ask whether there's anything they can do to help out."
"Is that why you came?"
"Well, and to find out what had really happened. And to find out if you knew anything about the empress; some of the neighbors were wondering whether it might be wise to flee the city until matters settle down."
"I don't know anything about her," Kilisha said. "But if you want to be helpful, there is one thing-maybe Mother can set her informers and spies on this. I need the couch. I don't know where it's gone-we last saw it heading west on the East Road, toward Hillside and the Fortress. If anyone knows where it is, I need to know, as soon as possible. There might even be a reward, though I can't promise that without talking to Yara."
"I think we can ask around, certainly," Opir said.
"Good. Now, get out of here before Yara gets back, or the children hear you-you shouldn't be here!" She got to her feet and gave her brother a shove toward the door.
"I'm going," Opir said.
Just then a crash sounded upstairs. Opir paused and asked, "What was that?"
"Lirrin and Telleth are playing with a spriggan. I should go check on them, so will you please go?"
"All right, I'm going." He glanced at the ceiling, then reached for the door.
The latch popped open before he could touch it.
"I don't think it likes you," Kilisha said, as Opir stared at the latch.
"It's alive?"