Hakkon coughed uncomfortably. “Uh, well . . . yes. That Snatch-Portal he talks about ‘hypothetically’ making? He already does it, when there’s something he needs. He just opens it to the marketplace, looks around to see if what he wants is there, and helps himself. Oh, it’s never anything big or expensive!” he hastened to add. “And I have finally gotten him to leave payment for what he takes! But . . . aye.” Hakkon sighed heavily. “‘Light-fingered’ is putting it mildly.”

“Hrm. My parents told me they rescued him from a mob that was chasing him because he was wearing women’s clothing. How much of that chasing was because of what he was wearing, and how much of it was because he’d helped himself to something that wasn’t his?” Kordas wondered out loud. “Stolen dress, you reckon?”

Hakkon snickered.

“We’ll probably never know. He says that when he needs something immediately, he doesn’t see anything wrong with taking something that someone isn’t at that moment using.” Kordas looked over his shoulder at his cousin, to see if Hakkon was serious. It appeared that he was.

“Well . . . that’s an original way of looking at things.”

Hakkon shrugged. “Mages. They’re all at least a little bizarre.”

“I—am a mage, you know,” Kordas objected.

Hakkon grinned, a grin that said more clearly than words, Yes, I do know.

By that time they were on the ground floor and nearly at the Circle’s tower. “The way I see it, it doesn’t matter too much if someone is ‘eccentric’ or ‘bug-jumpy moon-touched,’” Kordas stated firmly. “It matters if they’re functional. People can be any kind of weird as long as they aren’t harming anyone. Hells, that makes them victorious—that’s their truth, they get to live it.”

“Glad you’re the Duke,” Hakkon answered. “I’d never have assembled a house like yours. I’d have frustrated the lot of ’em, and not seen their value like you do.”

Kordas quipped, “We mages all have our spins off the beam, Hakkon,” and took a few moments to lean with his back to the hardwood inlay of the paneling. “I couldn’t really feel happy until I accepted what I’m made of, so now I play to it. My truth is that I’m opportunistic, I’m a little deceptive, and I love picking out the value hidden in what others ignore. I can’t seem to turn it off.” Kordas paused a moment, and said more softly, “You made me feel safe enough to figure that out.”

Hakkon just replied with a silent nod.

“Not every future mage gets to be raised as a good person. I got lucky,” the Duke concluded. He reached for the loose latch of the sub-door, and rattled it to announce visitors were coming. “Brace yourself. For pipe smoke and wine fumes, if nothing else,” Kordas said, as much to himself as to Hakkon. “Here we go.”

4