Without smiling, he said, “I admired you for refusing, although I didn’t know you then. And now, here we are.”

She shifted restlessly, overcome by an unexpected emotion blended of bright hope and cruel loss. “What about your duty? What about the bell?”

“I am doing my duty. I seek the source of the bell so as to discover if some wicked meddler has unearthed the secrets of sorcery and is trying to raise the dreaded sorcerer-kings back into the world. Perhaps I may even discover if there are others of my kind who are awake and abroad on the same task, if they heard what I heard. But I fear I can only find those answers in a living Pall. If nothing else, perhaps I can come to understand what these Palls truly are. What it means that they have risen into the world at this time. There’s so much I don’t know.”

He fell silent. The horses clipped along. The wheels rolled on and on. The landscape was mixed woodland and grassland.

“What do you know?” Elen asked breezily, to lighten the mood.

His smile grew wry, even bitter.

“I know the world is beautiful,” he said softly. “That’s what I didn’t understand before. My petty grievances and useless envies flew alongside me, wrapped tightly around me. I was charming when I needed to be, and sulked when I didn’t get my way. Only after I endured all those generations, locked in the Spires, did I realize I had never appreciated all the tiny miracles of living. The astonishment that is a tree. The simple pleasure of being amazed by the sky. Dazzled by the wonderment that surrounds us. Why do you already understand this, El? How are you so wise? How can you see the best in things? Take a hopeful view? Smile because of a raindrop? Laugh at the bounding of a rabbit into the brush? Love the boy without asking anything in return?”

“Maybe a little in return,” she said. “Love can be selfish. He’s so mad at me right now.”

“Less mad than you fear,” he remarked.

Sharply, she said, “What do you know?”

“He watches you more than you realize. As if he’s trying to figure out how to put back together a shattered pot. Or is that too humble an example?”

“No, no, it’s a wonderful example. A pot is a fine and precious item. It can store grain or oil, carry water or vinegar, be peed in, if need be! So many uses! How could I possibly scorn a humble pot? Our lives are immeasurably better because of humble pots.”

“See, there it is. Before, had any compared me to a humble pot, I’d have huffed and puffed and flown away in a great, simmering sulk. But you see the gift in it. You smile to hear it. Why?”

“I don’t know.”