Still, he didn’t answer. In the moonlight his face was suddenly cool and remote. Thud thud thud went her unsteady heart.

“Morgan, you have to trust me on this, just as you expect me to trust Venette Martain on your say-so.”

“Your brother lacks Venette’s incentive to keep his mouth shut.”

“He doesn’t need an incentive! He loves me. That’s enough.”

Morgan looked at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure! How can you—”

“Are you sure?”

Remmie’s sickened anger. The disgust in his eyes. Mouth dry, eyes burning, she nodded… and lied.

“I told you. I’m sure.”

“Very well,” said Morgan, after a moment. “But for his sake, my love, let us hope that you’re right.”

She didn’t want to talk about this any more. Desperate for a change of subject, she returned to a different fear.

“This notion of a grand working, to heal Dorana’s breaches. Do you think it will succeed?”

“I don’t know,” said Morgan, shrugging. “It might.”

“If it doesn’t, do you think the General Council will do more than make assurances? Try to appease Trindek and Feen and the rest to keep them from crossing over our borders?”

His eyes darkened. “Play the role of meek supplicant, you mean? Kneel in the dirt at their feet mewling Please, please, we’ll do anything you say? Put your spears down, don’t hurt us?”

“My love…” Hesitant, she pulled a little away from him. “Can we blame them for their anger? If our magework endangers them, then—”

“Endangers them?” In one swift movement he rolled out of the bed, to land lightly on his feet and start pacing their moonlit chamber. “Our magework enriches them. These petty, complaining nations have grown fat on Dorana’s magic. We sell them our incants and our expertise, we save them from pestilence and provide them with luxuries and all it costs them is coin while we bleed for the knowledge that fattens them. And you think it’s right that we kneel?”

“Not right,” she murmured. “But prudent. At least until Dorana is healed. But if you mislike the notion so much, perhaps we should rethink our part in this.”

He turned. “Our part?”

“You said it yourself, Morgan. These breaches could be our doing. If we ceased working on these transmutations, if we—”