“I’ve been sitting here thinking all night,” she said at last. “I’ve led a long, hard life looking for signs of magic, seeking it the only way I knew. Few people tell me the truth when they see I’m a witch—people regard me as a disciple of lost magic—but plenty of men talk to a whore. I’ve heard so many things, boy, while I’m cleaning myself up and they’re lying fat and sated in that bed. I’ve heard about wives who no longer love, children who flee home, men who hate, and some who find love in those few minutes after we’ve fucked. Love for themselves, maybe, or for the wives they’ve just betrayed. Guilt is a fickle thing, and there’s been enough of it in this room to last me lifetimes. Though never my own. I’ve never felt bad about what I do, never at fault or used. It’s me doing the using, Rafe, because I know more than most. There are plenty of whores in Pavisse, but few who want to talk afterward. What wisdom they ignore! All that knowledge they waste, shunning talk for a chew of stale fledge or a drag of dream-mites. I’ve had a soldier of the Duke’s Inner Guard in that bed, a banished Shantasi mystic, a sailor from beyond the Western Shores, a merchant who travels south of Kang Kang to trade favors and dreams with the things that live there . . . I’ve had them all, and spoken to them all. And every time I’m being humped or screwed or hit, I’m thinking about what you represent. I’m thinking about the magic that one day will give me a real life.”

Rafe hardly knew what to think of what she was saying. Much of it confused him, frightened him, and so he stayed silent, not wishing to interrupt. No voices spoke to him, no smells or tastes came, and he wondered whether they too were silently listening to this old witch.

“And you’re here, Rafe. And now that I think I know what you are, I have no idea what to do. Do you think that’s foolish? Do you think I’m mad? I’ve waited for you for so long, but now that you’re here I can barely move.”

“Not mad,” Rafe whispered, although he had little confidence in that.

“After all that time asking, searching, listening for a sign or the smallest hint that things had swung around, changed . . . I never expected to find you myself. Curled up in a doorway, trying to escape the world I’ve lived in forever.” She fell silent for a time, rocking slowly in her chair.