Mags waved the card to be sure that it was dry, and tucked it safely away. “I ’spect I’ll have t’ get permission,” he said, feeling a great interest in seeing this ‘’open house.”

Soren nodded. “And I expect that will be no difficulty for you. All right, Trainee Mags,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. “It has been a very great pleasure to be in your company, and thank you for the timely intervention—”

“Jes’ a moment, Master Soren,” he interrupted, suddenly thinking of something. “Kin I see th’ ring again?”

With an odd glance, Soren obliged him. Using a ray of sunlight that the windows were inadvertently concentrating, he turned the stone this way and that, peering at the flaw. Finally, he turned the ring upside down and looked at it from the back.

“Ha!” he exclaimed. “Lookit yon. She looks like a bird, flyin’. That there makes it more satisfyin’, eh? Still a flaw, but now turns into an asset kind of flaw.”

“A bird?” Soren leaned closer, peering at the stone. “By the Havens, it does! You have helped me out twice today, my young friend, and now I am truly in your debt!”

Mags blushed again, a deeper crimson than before, and handed back the ring. “Ye won’t say that if I c’n come to yer party, Master Soren,” he replied with a laugh. “ ’Cause I c’n eat a lot!”

Herald Caelen looked at the small piece of stiff paper with a look of absolute astonishment on his face. “Mags . . . do you know whose address is on this card?”

Mags shrugged. “Master Soren—”

“Who is the head of the Builder’s Guild, which is in charge of everything to do with the construction of buildings, and who is one of His Majesty’s advisors about matters of commerce!” Herald Caelen spluttered.

Mags blinked at him. A few fortnights ago, he would have had no idea what that meant. But now? Oh, he knew all right.

“But . . . he was just wanderin’ in the Midwinter Market, lookin’ fer . . .” He tried to think what a flawed stone would be, to one of the people who lived in those enormous houses near the Palace. “. . . a trinket. He was a-goin’ t’ get cheated, an’ I warned ’im.”

Herald Caelen nodded. “He’s the sort of man that would appreciate that. As soon as he heard you speak, he must have known that there was no way you would recognize him or his name, so there was no way that you would have done anything out of what is the ‘ordinary’ for you.”

“Aye,” Mags agreed. “I’d save anybody from bein’ cheated.”

“This could not be better for you and your friends from the mine.” Caelen didn’t rub his hands together in glee, but he came close. “Now Soren will look into your case, since he has heard about it firsthand. He’ll discover that not only did you not exaggerate the conditions, you actually didn’t tell everything. You said he looked sad?”