By all the old records, that had to be magery. But looking at the frightened faces—mother, father, and girl—Arianya could not say that, not without softening it. “Do you know the stories about Gird and the magelord priest?” she asked instead. They shook their heads silently. “When Gird was wandering, starting the first bartons, he found a man naked and beaten in a ditch. What do you think he did?”

“Helped ’im,” said Dally at once.

“That’s right.” Arianya decided to leave out the rest Arranha had written and come to the relevant point. “Gird did not know the man was a priest of the old religion, the Sunlord, and they were sheltering under a log in a snowstorm when the man made light with his finger … and cooked bacon.”

“An’ Gird kilt ’im,” said the father. “Didn’t he?”

“No,” Arianya said. “Gird did not kill him, and he and Arranha became friends. Arranha joined Gird’s movement.”

“A … a magelord?”

“Yes. And Luap, too, you know, was a magelord.” She paused, watching their faces. “Gird did not hate mages,” she said. “He hated meanness, lying, stealing: any cruelty. Arranha showed him that magery does not have to be cruel.”

“But in the Code—”

“The Code allows certain uses of magery,” Arianya said. “Healing—”

“But not makin’ light.” That was Dally’s father.

“Not at the moment,” Arianya said. “But laws do change. Dally wanted to make light so you could see better to weave, isn’t that right?” She looked at the girl, who nodded. “There’s nothing evil in wanting to help her family, not if it’s not taking from someone else. As best I know, her making a light with her finger doesn’t take light from anything else.”

“Yes, but—” That was Dally’s mother, her brow furrowed. “If someone can do things by magery, they will, won’t they? And it’s easier and not fair.”

“Hmmm. I suppose if no one needed candles or lamps, then candlemakers would lose their job … but we don’t complain if paladins make light. But Dally’s just lighting the candles, isn’t she? I don’t see that doing any harm. As long as she’s not setting fire to other people’s things or burning them—”

“But if my finger’s hot and they grab my hand, it burns—I can’t stop it.”

Arianya closed her eyes a moment and hoped they thought she was praying. It was too complicated—too difficult.

But you will do it anyway.

Her eyes opened even as her mind argued impossibilities. It could not be that voice. It had been that voice. “Just warn them,” she said. “And I will call a council.”

“A council?” the father said.