She slowly came over to the fire. “Only you would choose cockroaches as a distraction.”

“I didn’t know about the cockroaches. We were discussing scorpions and snakes. That would have been much more interesting for you.” He lifted his cup to his lips. “But what we weren’t discussing was a horse called Chaos. Talk to me. Why did finding out Chaos was going to be in that race put you in a tailspin?”

“I wasn’t in a tailspin.” She dropped to the ground beside him. “Or maybe I was.” She made a face. “But you didn’t need to hand me a distraction as if I was a kid who couldn’t handle it.”

“I don’t think many people were handing out distractions to you when you were a kid. Maybe I thought that I’d like to be the first.” He met her eyes. “Stop stalling. Chaos.”

She moistened her lips. “Chaos belongs to Sasha.”

“One of the horses you bought for her when she agreed to become your ward?”

“Not exactly. Chaos came later. He’s only a three-year-old. Sasha had already started school at St. Eldon’s when she heard about him from Antonio Rossi, the breeder who had sold the four horses she used in her act to Zeppo, the circus owner. She’d been writing to Rossi, asking questions about care for her horses ever since her father died and she’d taken over the act. They didn’t become friends, but they were both crazy about horses and Rossi could see how his horses responded to her. Sometimes he’d find ways to bribe Zeppo to let her come out to his farm so that he could use her when he was trying to gentle a horse.” She paused. “Or when a mare was birthing. Sasha was magic…Anyway, a year after Sasha left the circus and went to St. Eldon’s, I received a letter from Rossi politely asking me to bring Sasha to his horse farm to help deliver a foal. And Sasha called me from school right afterward begging me to let her go. She was more excited than I’d ever seen her. She said she knew the mare’s background and she was wonderful, and the foal was going to be very special. What could I do? We were on the next flight back to Italy.”

“And that foal was Chaos?” Korgan asked. “Not an encouraging name for a supposedly special foal.” He tilted his head as a thought struck him. “But maybe it is when you think about chaos theory.”

“What?”

“The branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behavior is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences.”