He released my hands and stood. I had washed and mended his clothes while he was bedridden, but despite the skillful job I had done, they looked like clothes bought in the secondhand market, not like costly garments appropriate to a powerful magister whose status was every bit the equal of a prince’s. Yet he looked so very fine. It wasn’t the clothes that made him beautiful.

“Catherine, I know you have told me that you cannot live in Four Moons House. And you heard me promise the mansa on my mother’s honor that I will rebuild Four Moons House. I am a cold mage, and I have to do it.”

“I know, my love.”

“Besides the promise to my mother, I have a responsibility to the House that educated me and to the mansa who raised me up. To every fledgling magister who may never get proper training, like the fire banes in Expedition. To my own family, to the village that birthed me, and also to the other villages chained by clientage to Four Moons House. To all villages so chained. All communities have a right to liberty, a right to the dignity and security of their own persons.”

“After which,” said Bee in a portentously deep voice, “he will cause all strife in the world to cease, every infant child to be born healthy, and all men to have the taste to dress fashionably and in colors that suit their complexions. What Andevai is working up to tell you, dearest, is that while he promised to rebuild Four Moons House, he cleverly did not specify how he would do so. Nor did the mansa ask. I keep trying to tell you about my plan, and you keep ignoring me.”

I considered my folded hands, and then looked up at them. So bright they were in the afternoon sun. The wind fell cool across us, but the light cast a glorious, rich glow across the land. From here we could see a glint of the great river whose waters had so altered my life, although in truth it was the hunter who had acted that day for his own hidden reasons. He had driven me to this moment as hunters will, stalking their prey until they are cornered.

So be it. I still had life in me.

Rory scooped up the puppy and walked over to sit at my feet.

I smiled at them, whom I loved best in all the world. “What plan could you possibly have agreed on?”

47

Had I understood the monumental nature of their scheme, I might have taken a nap first.