“True words,” I agreed. “You’re blushing. I want you to go home, Luce.” She drew in breath for a retort. “I need your help! Go home and get everything ready. Vai’s tool chest. His clothes chests neatly packed, all my things put in. In the morning fetch the winter coats I’m having made on Tailors’ Row.” I glanced up at Kofi, who had come over to stand beside me. “We might have to leave in a hurry.”

“So yee might,” he agreed. “I shall be going out to speak to the president of the Assembly and some other folk about the situation.” He pinched Luce’s cheek with the familiarity of an older brother. “That man is trouble, gal. Mind me words.”

“Sweet trouble,” retorted Luce. “I’s no fool.”

“I doubt me that,” retorted Kofi in the tone of a man who has seen a girl grow up from a toddling scamp. “Do as Cat ask. Don’ forget to pack Vai’s mirror and razor. And extra soap.”

“I know Vai is vain but surely that is a bit much,” I said.

Luce giggled. “I never knew a man could spend so much time in front of a mirror.”

Kofi frowned reprovingly at us. “’Tisn’t only vanity. ’Tis a shield.”

I exchanged a mirthful glance with Luce, but something in Kofi’s expression killed any desire I had to laugh. “Wearing fashionable clothes is a shield? From what?”

“Gal, in some ways I reckon yee understand that man well enough, but in another wise yee don’ really understand him at all.”

Indignation spiked right up into my head, but then I realized Kofi was showing me respect by speaking so plainly. “I suppose not. He was so awful to me when we first met that it took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t me he disliked. That most of the things he did, he did to protect himself from the way the other mages treated him so contemptuously. I think he assumed I would treat him the same way. All right, then. Luce, don’t neglect any items a man of Vai’s high-strung temperament might need. I must say, you’re a man of hidden depth, Kofi.”

He chuckled. “I know how to get a man talking. Vai was a man who was looking for a friend. I shall walk yee back to Aunty’s on my way, Luce. And don’ be sneaking back here tonight, for Cat and Rory must share a room.”

As they made to go, Rory broke away from the elders to take his leave of Luce. He drew her into the shadows to whisper in her ear so softly that even I had trouble distinguishing words. Then she kissed him in a way that made me suspect the cursed tomcat had kissed her more than once at the batey match, despite my having told him not to do any such thing.