“I did not say that. I said I don’t have proof, only conjecture. However, it is fair to say that lack of proof also doesn’t mean a thing didn’t happen. Many sages claim such powerful sorcery never existed, that it is a fable. The powers sorcerers are said to have seem impossible. Others say that, even if sorcery did exist once, the knowledge of true sorcery was lost long ago and the febrile attempts of the occasional desperate criminal to practice its cruel arts are just play-acting, not real. Yet when she promulgated her exile decree, the Magnolia Emperor quoted scholars who claim the Sea Wolves and Blood Wolves and Forest Wolves still practice a debased form of sorcery. That they carry poison inside them in the form of ingested Spore that has twisted their hearts into those of beasts. That is why they think only of their earthly appetites, and not of the exalted decrees of the High Heavens.”

Elen rubbed her forearm, caught herself doing it, and squeezed her hand into a fist as she lowered it to her side. “What is your question, Your Worthiness?”

Luviara gave her a long look. “You know something you’re not telling.”

“How many delightful people I’ve had sexual congress with?” said Elen lightly. She expected the theurgist to berate her. Instead, the woman laughed.

“I like you, Deputy Courier. But there is something about you I cannot explain.” She held up her journal. “I’ve spent my life recording the unusual, the hidden, the puzzles and labyrinths to which we, as yet, have no answers, or perhaps have lost an answer our forebears once knew. Are you one of those puzzles?”

“I do not see what is puzzling about my loyal work. Deputy couriers are found in every intendancy in the empire. I am one of eleven such deputies based in Orledder Halt. We serve at the behest of the intendant.”

“Yet a Manor lord calls you a thief and murderer. Meanwhile, in the Halt, I heard people refer to you as the boy’s aunt. That made me wonder why he speaks in the Orledder manner and not with the Woodfall lilt, as Lord Duenn and his followers? Was he not raised in Duenn Manor? I call it a puzzle. What would you call it, Deputy Courier?”

“I would call it time to depart,” said a new voice, an amiable voice, speaking behind Elen.

She didn’t recognize the man’s voice, not until she saw Luviara’s face tighten with surprise and dismay.

The woman slapped a hand to her chest as if she were reflexively protecting herself. “Your Highness!”

“So it seems.”

A stunned Elen turned to find Prince Gevulin standing an arm’s length behind her, studying her with what looked remarkably like jubilation, as if he’d finally understood a convoluted joke.

26 A PRAGMATIC SUGGESTION

“The deputy courier, in the flesh,” he added, with the haunt’s sardonic smile.