Laying her beautiful golden fabric aside, Barl watched as he assembled the tools he needed for his next experiment with the reworked Hartigan incant. His groundbreaking magework had suffered for lack of attention, and that was grieving him too. Why these transmutations were so important to him she still didn’t know. Sometimes she thought her curiosity must choke her, but when the urge rose again to ask him what they were for, why they mattered, she gritted her teeth. He would tell her when he was ready. To push for more than he could give her would be to lose him. Of that she had no doubt.

Like it or not, I am being forced to learn patience.

And wouldn’t Remmie roll his eyes, if he knew.

Muttering under his breath, Morgan picked up his sealed glass jar of powdered orifim and shook it. There was very little of the blue-grey catalyst left.

“But you can get more, can’t you?” she said, picking up their conversation out of thin air, as often happened since they’d begun working so closely together. “Or use a different element.”

He slammed the jar on the workbench. “If I could use something other than orifim I would be using it, wouldn’t I?”

She’d grown indifferent to his snappishness. “I don’t know. My magework has never required the use of orifim.” Or azafris, or susquinel, or any other of the potent elements he kept here. “Can you not get more?”

“Not without difficulty. But I shall have to risk it,” he added, more to himself than to her. “Sallis Arkley be cursed.” A finger-snap beckoned her. “I need these four catalysts combined in the precise order I’ve placed the jars. One measure apiece. Be exact.”

“Where are you going?” she said, as he headed for the workroom door.

“To fetch something. I won’t be long.”

Turning her attention to the four catalysts he wanted mixed, she hauled a heavy crucible close then one by one dropped into it an exact measure of each element. Orifim. Barfloy. Yellow wort. Haginth. Her eyes watered as she crushed each one to a finer powder. In the attic’s warm air, a soft sizzle of potency.

The attic door opened, and Morgan returned carrying a large box and a fistful of ebony rook feathers. Something alive was scrabbling inside the box.

Slowly, Barl lowered the pestle into the mortar. “Morgan?”

He put box and feathers on the workbench, inspected the finely crushed catalysts, and only then turned to look at her. His expression was almost grim.

“Do you trust me?”

“Do I—what kind of question is that?”

“An important one.”

“Do I trust you? Well, Morgan, given that my life sits precarious in your hands, if I didn’t trust you I’d have to be a lackwit!”

Scrabble scrabble scritch went the prisoner in the box.

She pointed. “And what is that?”