He lowers himself before her again. Eye to eye. Searching deeply for the things that are hidden behind flesh, hints of a soul so sheltered from a stranger’s view that a man might search for years, he senses, and never catch sight of it.

“Have you ever made a flame dance upon a windowsill?” he asks softly. “Or called a lightning bug to your hand on a summer’s night? Have things ever happened because you wished they would, or those who would hurt you gone away suddenly and no one knows the reason?”

The crystalline gaze is steady. “No, sir, because those things bring death. And I do not mean to die.”

Yes, he thinks, that is what is required. A hunger to live, at any cost. That is the first thing and the last, besides which all other requirements are superfluous.

“And if I said that to cheat Death we must embrace Death?” he asked her. “What is your answer then?”

A flicker of a wry smile plays across her lips—plays there, and then is quickly gone. “That a lifetime of whoring prepares one for such bargains,” she says evenly.

Yes. Yes, I suppose it does.

He stands straight again, noting that her foot is no longer in the door.There is no need for it any longer.She has intrigued him and she knows it. Maybe a city Magister would turn her away, having more important business to attend to, but a hermit in the woods who has devoted himself to study and reflection, who has sworn off all Magister’s business till the end of his time on earth, and therefore has very little to do with that time, such a one might well be tempted to take on a girl apprentice, just for the challenge of it. Just for the mad, improbable, and utterly pointless challenge of it.

There are no female Magisters. Never have been. Never will be.

She waits. Silently. It is a good sign. Discipline is always a good sign.

Imagine if there could be one. What a stir it would cause! What a project that would be, to make it happen!

“What is your name, child?”

Her eyes flare a bit as she bridles at the title—as he intended—but her voice is still formal and calm as she answers, “I am called Kamala, sir.”

“And if I turn you down, Kamala?” His voice is equally formal, equally calm. “If I say to you that I have sworn never to take on another apprentice—which in fact is quite true—and if I then say to you that there are reasons no woman has ever succeeded in mastering sorcery, and I know what they are, and you will be no exception, and I will not waste my time on you … if I say to you all those things, and then close the door in your face, what then?”