The word No! rippled through the temple. The storyteller Elena Demonai held them in the palm of her hand. Except Han, who was distracted by Dancer’s misery and the pain in Willo’s face.

“She put on the ring and fell into a dream,” Elena said. “When she awoke, she was alone in the woods. It was nighttime and she was shivering with fear and cold. The young man had disappeared, and so had the ring. Watersong went back to camp, and soon after discovered she was with child.

“Watersong was big with child when she attended her naming ceremony. Because the magic was strong in her, she was apprenticed to Elena Demonai, Matriarch of Demonai Lodge. She was renamed Willow Song, and called ‘Willo.’”

Elena paused and looked around, and everyone knew what she would say next. “Willow Song had a boy child, and they called him Fire Dancer. You see him before you.”

Han sat stunned, looking from Willo to Dancer and back to Elena. So this was the story that had gone untold about Dancer’s missing father. That Dancer’s father must have been a wizard.

“Dancer inherited much from his mother,” Elena said, smiling sadly at Dancer. “He is a beloved child of Marisa Pines. He has many gifts, and would have no lack of sponsors in choosing a vocation. But he has inherited gifts from his father as well, and so must follow his own path. Dancer has chosen a vocation none of us can sponsor.”

Bird had apparently reached her limit for silence. “What are you saying?” she demanded, looking from Elena to Averill to Willo. “What have you chosen, Dancer?”

“It wasn’t a choice,” Dancer said, barely audible.

Comprehension dawned on Reid Demonai’s face. “He’s a jinxflinger?” he said, groping for his knife. “Here?”

Then everyone was talking at once, like a clamor of crows in a cornfield.

Willo stepped between Reid and Dancer, but spoke to the entire assembly, her voice clear and steady and nearly loud enough to rise above it all.

“Although we cannot sponsor him here, we have arranged for Dancer’s training. He will go to Oden’s Ford, to the charmcaster academy there, and learn to harness the magic he’s inherited.”

Han’s head spun as scenes and images came back to him: Dancer’s moodiness over the past months. The conversation Han overheard in the Matriarch Lodge, when he’d wondered if Dancer might be ill.

But no. He’d taken rowan—meant to protect against sorcery. Dancer had been trying to damp down the magic. Willo would have bent all her skill to that task. And if she couldn’t do it…no one could.

He’d seen Willo and Dancer in Fellsmarch, when she’d healed him at Southbridge Temple. Maybe they were consulting the temple healers. Or maybe they were there to make arrangements for Oden’s Ford.