what the histories can tell us both, and the councils will decide whose concept of the way forward has more merit.
“The king is prepared to consider the possibility that your outburst arose from a dedication to the well-being of our country too profound for restraint; but he is only barely prepared so to consider it. You may leave us. Now.”
Fthoom stood for a moment longer, swaying a little, like a tree that has felt the final stroke of the axe and will fall to earth in the next moment. And then he knelt, not carelessly this time, but heavily, and he needed Kachakon’s hand under his elbow to regain his feet. Another footman had opened the door, and he turned toward it. As he turned, his eyes swept across Sylvi’s face and paused there briefly; as his eyes met hers she saw how much he hated her, and she thought that if he had held her eyes even a moment longer he might have turned her into a slime-mould or a newt after all. Again she was glad for Ebon, and for the not-quite-expressionless footman—for Ahathin—and for her father. But she wished—just for a moment—that she wasn’t a king’s daughter, even if that meant she would not have met Ebon.
Fthoom stood now as if recalling his strength, and he walked away from them as Fthoom always walked: grandly, arrogantly, although his head looked strangely low and bare rising above the wide unyielding frame of his cloak. He disappeared through the door and was gone.
The king turned to his daughter. Ebon dropped his protecting wing and stepped back; out of the corner of her eye she saw Lrrianay cross behind her father and put his nose to Ebon’s cheek, and she wondered what the pegasus king might be saying to his fourth child; but then her father put his hands on her shoulders and her attention was all on him.
“My darling,” he said quietly, and sighed. “What a mess we seem to be in. But if you are ever again moved to tell a powerful magician he is a fool, to his face and in public, would you please warn me in advance?”
“Oh—I—”
“No, you did extremely well. I am proud of you—and proud of all those library slips I signed. I admit I had not considered—er—arguing with Fthoom. But—well.”
He removed one hand long enough to beckon to the footman who had thrust Sylvi behind him. “I want to think it was an unnecessary gesture, but I thank you for your protection of my daughter.”
The previously expressionless footman turned a deep crimson maroon and swallowed hard; footmen are not accustomed to their kings addressing them as “I” and using the familiar form of “you.”
“Thank you, lord,” he muttered, and Sylvi could guess he was trying to decide whether he should kneel or not. She was very interested; she had always, before today, disliked him, because she thought his expressionlessness meant that he didn’t approve of her, or pitied her for being so short that she had still needed, at ten years old, a footman to lift her up and put her on a stack of cushions so she could sit at dinner with her family like a normal person. She couldn’t remember having heard his voice before.
Her father could guess the footman’s confusion of mind too; he laughed, and the hand he had used to beckon with he now laid on the footman’s shoulder. He had to reach up to do it, for the footman was a tall man; again Sylvi was mystified at how her father lost none of his majesty by being short. “Will you fetch us wine?” said the king. The footman’s face cleared, and he turned away from them with visible relief.
“Dad,” said Sylvi wretchedly, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—of course I didn’t mean to make the mistake, but I’m sorry I blurted Ebon’s name out like that yesterday.”
The king shook his head. “The mistake doesn’t matter; it’s why you made the mistake that matters—that you and Ebon can talk—really talk—to each other. Just as well, I think, that we knew from the first.” He dropped his hand. “It is just you and Ebon, is it not? You hear no one else, and no one else hears you? Lrrianay and Miaia say they cannot hear you.”
“Yes,” she said, trying not to sound relieved: what if someone overheard them talking about flying? “It’s just me and Ebon.”
He nodded and paused momentarily, then went on more briskly: “You can