And becoming one of those Artificers who were known for designing beautiful structures would help her help her father too. Of course, when she’d first enrolled in the Artificers, she’d not wanted such a reputation, since everything she had done for her father until now had involved remaining fundamentally unseen. But this would be a different sort of disguise—like the times her father pretended to be highborn and gave himself a flamboyant personality. If others concentrated on what her persona of Master Builder could do, they might not pay much attention to what she was doing. Artificers with a reputation had extraordinary access to all manner of important and common people, from the ones who had the wealth to commission important buildings to the very secretive building tradesmen that constructed them. These were people Mags would ordinarily not be able to put an agent among. By honing her Gift to the point Sanje described, she’d be killing not just two birds with one stone, but an entire flock of them.

“If you can do it without driving me insane,” she said, once she’d thought it all through, “I think that would be an excellent idea.”

Sanje had a quite musical laugh. “Well said,” she agreed. “I think I can promise that. So, if you have time to start, is there some place on the Hill where you know that a structure is under stress?”

“It’d be easier to build something,” Abi pointed out. “A board up on two bricks or stones, then pile bricks or stones in the middle until it’s ready to break.”

Sanje laughed again. “Oh my, how very practical! You will make a fine Artificer, I think. Yes, let’s do that, so that I can ‘read’ how you experience it.”

There were always repairs going on the Hill; they followed the sound of hammering to the stable, where they found the Palace carpenter at work replacing the top of a stall that a horse had chewed on. He was perfectly willing to give them the damaged board, and the gardeners always had spare bricks. Then Sanje looked for a place they would not likely be disturbed and quickly spotted one. In less than half a candlemark, they were sitting together on a bench at the fence around Companion’s Field, Sanje with one hand on Abi’s shoulder, Abi slowly putting half-bricks onto the weakened board, and three Companions watching the proceedings with great interest.

“Hmm,” Sanje said, at exactly the moment when Abi sensed that wrong feeling in the board. “Hm-hmm. Yes, I can work with this. Take the bricks off, and start again, would you?”