Dag at first mustered a mere polite interest—he seldom paid close attention anymore to the details of anything he wasn’t being asked to track and slay—but found himself drawn in along the trail of Fawn’s fascination. With studied and sweating intensity, the glass workers brought together sand and fire and meticulous timing to effect transformations of the very ground of their materials into fragile, frozen brilliance. This is farmer magic, and they don’t even realize it, Dag thought, completely taken by their system of blowing glass into molds to make rapid, reliable replicas. Sassa gave to Fawn a bowl that she had seen being made the other day, now annealed, and she determined to take it home to her mother. Dag was doubtful about getting it to West Blue intact in a saddlebag, but Sassa provided a slat box padded with straw and hope. Which was going to be bulky and awkward; Dag steeled himself to deal with it.

Later, Fawn unpacked the bowl to set on the table beside their bed to catch the evening light. Dag sat on the bed and stared with nearly equal interest at the way the patterns pressed into it made wavering rainbows.

“All things have grounds, except where a malice has drained them,” he commented. “The grounds of living things are always moving and changing, but even rocks have a sort of low, steady hum. When Sassa made that batch of glass and cast it, it was almost as if its ground came alive, it transformed so. Now it’s become still again, but changed. It’s like it”—his hand reached out as if grasping for the right word—“sings a brighter tune.”

Fawn stood back with her hands on her hips and gave him a slightly frustrated look; as if, for all her questions, he walked in a place she could not follow.

“So,” she said slowly, “if things move their grounds, can pushing on grounds move things?”

Dag blinked in faint shock. Was it chance or keen logic that brought her question so close to the heart of Lakewalker secrets? He hesitated. “That’s the theory,” he said at last. “But would you like to see how a Lakewalker would move the ground in that bowl from one side of the table to the other?”

Her eyes widened. “Show me!”

Gravely, he leaned over, reached out with his hand, and shoved the bowl about six inches.

“Dag!” Fawn wailed in exasperation. “I thought you were going to show me magic.”