“That was your plan when you told me to pack. I obeyed you, but made it obvious enough that surely someone would notice me and tell the King, so he could prevent my going.”

“Did he?”

“Someone else did,” said Anonoei. “I will not let you kill the King.”

Keel shrugged. “Since I do not plan to do this awful crime,” he began.

Then he found himself outside the door of his room. He had not moved, or rather, he had made no effort to move. Yet he had been inside the room, and now he was outside it.

The door opened. “Come in,” said Anonoei. “Do you believe me now when I say that you will not kill anyone I tell you not to kill?”

“So you’re a mage after all,” said Keel, reentering the room.

“Am I?”

“Or that gatemage friend of yours is listening, sending me here and there at your command.”

“Oh, no one commands him, dear Keel. You have the magery of iron. It does what you command, your machinery never needs oiling, your iron never rusts. That is what you do.”

“And what do you do?” asked Keel.

She reached out and touched his hand.

All at once his body filled with a bright longing for her to wrap her arms around him.

And then, just as quickly, she shifted her hand and he felt himself to be unworthy of her love. He did not want her to embrace him, he wanted her to overlook him entirely.

She took his hand between both her hands and all those feelings fled. Now between them there was only a deep, abiding friendship. The most important friendship of their lives.

“Manmage,” he whispered.

“I did not want you to think I was untalented,” she said. “Or that my sons were only half-mages by their birth.”

“How can I trust anything I think or feel or decide, if you can make me swing from one longing to another in a moment?”

“Don’t base your decision on how you feel,” she said. “You never have; why start now? I came to you because you’re the steady one. You chose your loyalty and never wavered. I have no desire to change that loyalty—only to explain why your perfect loyalty should lead you to another course of action.”

“Another?” asked Keel. “I have no course of action, so I can hardly change it.”

“I will not attempt to control your decision,” said Anonoei, “but do remember how useless it is for you to try to lie to me. You’re a subtle man, Keel, and you tell your secrets to no one but me.”

“I have no secrets.”