“If Pat can do the job,” said Mr. Silverman, “then we’ll still need to find another hiding place for the boys.”

“And for yourselves,” said Danny.

“In time of war,” said Leslie, “sometimes you have to become a refugee in order to survive. We’ve made arrangements for a friend to tend the cows. They’ll miss me, but they’ll be well cared for.”

“It’s a good mage who leaves her heartbound for the sake of strangers,” said Danny.

“Don’t be absurd,” said Leslie. “These boys are not strangers.”

“We like them much better than you,” said Marion. “They’re way less trouble.”

“Only because on average they talk half as much as I did,” said Danny.

“That’s probably it,” said Marion.

“Plus, they stay where we can keep an eye on them,” said Leslie.

“I was a brat, wasn’t I. You poor, patient oldsters.”

Marion winced at “oldsters.” “What a horrible word,” he said.

“A brat, yes? We agree on that?” Danny grinned, and then he was gone.

Pat stood looking at the boys, who were seated beside each other, Eluik in a wooden side chair, Enopp on the floor beside him.

“Eluik won’t sit in soft chairs,” said Leslie. “And Enopp won’t stray far from him.”

No wonder, thought Pat. Enopp wants to keep his own body close by, since he uses it for all his talking.

Did Enopp understand that he had captured his brother’s body? Almost certainly not.

“Maybe this will go better,” said Pat to the boys, “if you close your eyes.”

“I don’t like surprises,” said Enopp. “And Eluik only closes his eyes when he feels like it.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to do this clearly enough for you to understand what I’m doing,” said Pat. “And since it can’t be seen by physical eyes, I thought you’d want to be undistracted by visual stimuli.”

Enopp shrugged and closed his eyes. Eluik’s remained open, but since he didn’t seem to be focusing on anything in the room, that would probably be all right. It’s not as if Pat had any idea what would or would not work, or what might interfere with a good outcome.

Instead of saying anything to them, Pat sent her ba—a group of her prets, she now understood—inside Eluik. There she probed until she found Enopp’s ka, his inmost self, with the roots he had sunk into his brother’s body. Not as deeply as the roots of Eluik’s ka, of course, since the body belonged to him, but Enopp was definitely more closely entwined with Eluik than Set had been with Danny North.