when I was a student there? She went mad from the study of wind-scrying. She was — more easily distracted than you are, though. I always meant to let you see the book in time. I suppose that time is now.”
Tris stroked the embossed lettering on the cover with reverent fingers. It was said to be the ultimate book on wind magics. It was also very old. “You can’t lend this to me. What if something happens to it?”
Niko smoothed his moustache. “That’s why I’m giving it to you, so you needn’t worry if anything happens to it. I’ve learned all I can from it, and you need the half that’s about scrying the wind. Just remember, it takes time to master it, if you can. You may not learn enough to stop this madman.”
That Niko would trust her with such a prize told her more about how he saw her than anything else that had passed between them in recent months. It said that he believed she was a full-fledged mage, an adult and craftswoman. She met his eyes, her own filling with tears. What would happen to her now? Was he saying he wanted her to leave him?
“Not that you get rid of me,” he added, as if he’d read her mind. Neither of them was good at being sentimental with the other. “We’ve places to go yet, libraries to search. Now, scat, so I can dress.”
“I need to go back to Touchstone Glass,” she said. “You’ll find me there or at Ferouze’s, Chamberpot Alley, in Khapik, if you need me.”
“I will be here or at Phakomathen, scrying the future,” Niko said. “The conference can manage without me, until this monster is caught.”
Tris sighed in relief. “Thank you. You’ll probably see him long before we will!”
Tris packed, then visited the university baths. Dressed in clean clothes, her pack slung over one shoulder, she visited the Akaya Square skodi, or market. There she bargained with a jewellery seller for a price on the glass pendants Keth had made with Chime’s flames, selling a quarter of them. At Jumshida’s she had collected all of Chime’s flames she could find, as well as the spiral glass circles that were the dragon’s vomit and the lumpy glass rounds that were Chime’s dung. If she and Keth were to create more lightning globes and look after Glaki properly, they would need cash for glassmaker’s supplies, clothing and food. Tris had money set away, but saw no reason to dip into that if Keth were right about the attraction of the pendants.
Once the bits of glass were sold, Tris set off for Touchstone. The day was heating up. By the time she arrived, she was red-faced and puffing under the weight of her things. Inside the workshop, Glaki napped on Little Bear’s flank as Chime tried to wrestle the cork out of a jar of colouring salts. Keth was pacing as Tris set down her pack.
“Where have you been?” he demanded. “Most of the morning has gone! I made three vases already!”
“I had things to do,” said Tris. “Whenever you propose to up-end your life, arrangements have to be made.”
“Nobody asked you to come live with us,” protested Keth with a glance at the sleeping child. “We managed before you.”
“You’ll manage better with me.” Tris went to the well and gulped down a ladle of water, then looked at Keth. “Are you ready?”
Once her circle of protection was drawn and the magical barriers raised, Keth meditated, popping all of his power into and out of his imaginary crucible in the blink of an eye. “Well?” he asked Tris. “I think I remember how to create a globe. I’m going to try to make it big, so we see as much of the surroundings as we can.”
“All right,” Tris said. “Try.”
He got excited as he picked up the blowpipe. His fingers trembled, though his hands were steady enough as he collected a gather of molten glass from the crucible. Tris breathed with him as Keth inhaled, counted, held, and counted, forcing himself to calm down. Raising the pipe to his lips, he exhaled into it steadily as he twirled it. He continued to twirl the pipe as he stopped, inhaled, and held to the count. His second exhale expanded the bulging gather from the size of an orange to the size of Little Bear’s head. He reheated the glass and blew a little more. “It cools faster when I work this way,” he grumbled, reheating