Valri was shaking her head, quick little hopeless motions. “It’s all frightening,” she said. “And it’s only going to get worse.”
Amalie glanced at Cammon again over the top of Valri’s head. “Maybe I should take myself off for the rest of the day,” he said.
“That might be best,” Amalie said gravely, but her eyes asked for another favor.
Carefully, in case he had misunderstood, he sent a tentative question her way. Are you angry with me? A small smile crossed her face. She hugged Valri more tightly to her and shook her head in the negative. Can we talk about this more later? Her smile broadened and she nodded.
So it was with a relatively light heart that he left the room, though it had been such a strange afternoon.
HE repeated the entire story that night to the others as they gathered in Senneth and Tayse’s cottage after the evening meal.
“I don’t know what she’s so upset about,” Kirra said, unimpressed. “Cammon can make anyone hear him. Over great distances. Why is that so terrible? I would think it would be useful, actually, to have a way to communicate with the princess without anyone being able to overhear.”
“Valri’s afraid of magic,” Senneth said.
“No, she isn’t,” Cammon objected. “Last summer, she was happy enough to have all of us guarding the princess on the road! Donnal took owl form and sat outside Amalie’s window almost every night. Valri wasn’t afraid then!”
“Maybe she’s just afraid of you,” Justin said with his usual sarcasm. “You’re the one I’d pick if I had to be afraid of a mystic.”
“People don’t like the idea that someone else can be inside their minds,” Donnal said. “I’m not sure I’d like it, either, if it wasn’t Cammon. Someone I trusted.”
“Yes, but she does trust me.”
“I’m not sure a princess can ever trust anyone that much,” Donnal said.
“Donnal’s right,” Senneth said. “All the rules are different with Amalie.”
Princess Amalie, Cammon thought with some bitterness.
“I have an idea,” Kirra said, eyes sparkling. “You say you can’t pick up anything from Valri-can you send her thoughts? Maybe if she hears your voice inside her own head she’ll realize how unalarming you are, and she’ll relax.”
This was clearly designed to be nothing more than mischief. Tayse gave her a reproving look and said, “I think Cammon has other kinds of magic to spend his energy on. Have you and Donnal had time to work with Ellynor to try and penetrate her shadows?”
“Not yet. Amalie has needed me every day. But Jerril comes tomorrow and we’ll practice then.”
Kirra said, “I want to watch this.”
Tayse looked amused. “Good. All of you. Work out with your magical weapons the way the Riders work out with their blades.”
Senneth sighed elaborately. “If only it were that easy.”
THE following day was sunny and extremely cold-except where all the mystics had gathered, in a neglected garden overgrown with rustling brown winter vegetation. Kirra, who had been complaining loudly about the chill during the whole walk from the cottage, now pulled off her cloak and threw it dramatically to the ground.
“I love being in Senneth’s entourage!” she exclaimed, for of course it was Senneth’s magic that had warmed the air around them. “I’m like a cat that always wants to sprawl in the sun. I’m not happy in the cold.”
Ellynor laughed softly. “I thought maybe we were just sheltered from the wind, and I was grateful. I didn’t realize.”
“Best winters of my life were the ones Senneth lived with us,” Jerril said, smiling in his dreamy way at the memory. “Never had to chop a cord of wood, and the house was warm no matter what the temperature was outside.”
Senneth had dropped to the ground and used her own cloak to make a cushion against the stone wall. “I’m just here as a spectator,” she said with a grin. “I may as well pay for my entertainment somehow.”
“Well, let’s get started,” Jerril said, nodding his bald head. “Who is participating today?”
Donnal, who had padded to the garden in the guise of a black hound, wagged his tail and offered a short bark. “Donnal. Ellynor. Me,” Cammon said. “Kirra?”
She shook her head and settled on the ground next to Senneth, her back to the wall. “Maybe later. First I want to watch.”
“We should have brought snacks,” Senneth said. “It’s like watching a troupe of actors.”
“Even more fun, I hope,” Kirra said.
Jerril didn’t even throw them a look of annoyance, as Cammon did. “Ellynor, forgive me, I don’t yet know what you’re capable of,” the older mystic said. “Why don’t you go out the gate, wait a few minutes, and then enter at your leisure-circle the garden once-and see how quickly we’re able to spot your presence?”
Ellynor was trying not to smile. “All right.”
“Oh, I was wrong,” Kirra said. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
Ellynor disappeared through the gate, though she left it standing wide behind her. “We shouldn’t watch her entry point,” Jerril said. “After all, if she were to come upon us unawares on the street, we would have no idea which direction she would be approaching from.”
Cammon obligingly turned his back to the gate but said, “I have a feeling it won’t matter.” Donnal, who had also faced the other direction, thumped his tail against the ground.
“Should we try to distract them, you think?” Kirra asked. “Tell jokes, sing bawdy songs?”
“I don’t know any bawdy songs,” Senneth said.
“Oh, I know plenty.” Kirra lifted her voice and proceeded to offer what sounded like a sailor’s ditty. “I knew five girls in Fortunalt / Lived by the sea and loved the salt. / One had bosoms flat and thin / Throw her in the water, she couldn’t swim-”
“Why are they always about women, these bawdy songs?” Senneth asked. “Why aren’t there awful little melodies about men?”
“Wait. Give me a minute,” Kirra said. “I knew five men from Forten City / Three were dumb and one was pretty. / One said, ‘Girl, won’t you give me a lick? / I’ve sprinkled saltwater on-’ ”
Senneth slapped her hand over Kirra’s mouth. “Just when I think it’s safe to introduce you to my friends-”
Jerril, of course, was not offended. “She’s a serramarra?” he asked. When Cammon nodded, he added, “She doesn’t exhibit the behavior I would expect from the aristocracy.”
“Kirra never really does what anybody expects,” Cammon replied.
“She has a lot of power, though,” Jerril said. “I can sense it. Full of a wild magic.”
“ ‘Wild’ about covers it,” Cammon agreed.
“But I’m having a hard time getting any sense of Ellynor,” Jerril added.
“You can when she’s in a room with Justin,” Cammon said with a grin. “But when Justin’s not around-” He shook his head. “She might as well not exist. I can’t feel her at all.”
“No,” Jerril said. “I can’t even tell if she’s entered the garden yet. I feel certain she has, and yet I cannot pick up any telltale traces of her.”
Cammon nudged Donnal with his foot. “Can you scent her?” he asked. Donnal lifted his black nose and sniffed the air, then quirked his ears back. Nothing. “Maybe she’s still outside the gate. Maybe she just walked away.”
And then it was as if there was a rent in the air-as if the sky itself blinked-and Ellynor was standing right before them. Jerril was so surprised he took a step backward. Donnal yelped and scrambled to his feet, then frisked around her knees, snuffling at her skirt.
“Now that was entertaining,” Kirra called out.