used up his magical resources. Now the surface lightnings were growing thin, showing the bolts that still shone thick inside the globe. If it cleared as the last one had, it would be another hour before they could see anything. Since Keth was exhausted, it was better that Dema get the thing before the lightning was gone.
Xantha’s blue eyes widened. “Keth, did you do that? You did magic!”
“Not any that’ll be of use,” Keth said bitterly. He picked up the globe and ushered her outside.
As the door closed behind them Tris heard Xantha say, “Can you do anything with complexions? Mine chaps so easily these days.”
Tris shook her head. Then she looked at Glaki, who sat on the floor with her back to Tris. Here was another problem, one she needed to sort out. “Can you make a picture in fire?” She picked up the table lamp and walked around in front of the child, then sat on the floor and placed the lamp between them. “Would you show me a picture in the flame?” she asked gently. “It’s not much of a fire, but I bet you can do it. What do you see there?”
Glaki frowned at the lamp, her fine black brows knit, her deep brown eyes intent. Slowly the lamp’s flame rose, then spread until it formed an oval the size of Glaki’s hand. A face appeared in it, that of a woman with Glaki’s large, heavily lashed brown eyes, glossy black curls and olive complexion. “Mama,” whispered the child. The image dissolved: the lamp was out of oil. Glaki began to weep.
This time she didn’t fight when Tris dragged her into her lap. Softly she cried into the front of Tris’s sensible pale blue dress. Tris patted her back and crooned softly, letting her weep. Now she was certain. Glaki had shown two of the three signs of academic magic: moving things and producing images in fire.
As if my life weren’t complicated enough already, Tris thought, grouchy, though she was already making plans. Glaki would not be pushed from household to household as Tris had been. She would have a proper home and all the things a child needed to hold her head up in the world. Tris would take her to Lark, Rosethorn and Discipline Cottage when she and Niko returned to Emelan. Glaki would become part of the household that was rooted there.
Chime’s flames would help. They had to pay Keth’s cousin Antonou for the sands, scrap glass and colouring agents that Keth used to study his magic, but part of the money to be made from Chime’s flames would go to Glaki, to give her the things that little girl-mages needed. Tris nodded, her mind made up. She would not leave Glaki to scrabble for a living in Tharios.
Outside Tris saw that the sky was growing dark. In the street under the window she could hear the chime of dancers’ bells, chatter and laughter, test notes played on musical instruments. Khapik was coming to life, which meant the Ghost would be stirring, too.
Glaki had dozed off on Tris’s lap. Carefully the older girl got to her feet. Glaki protested sleepily, just as she grumbled while Tris got her into her night clothes; but once tucked into bed, with Chime on one side and Little Bear on the other, she slept. Tris suspected that, like Keth, Glaki was probably exhausted from her first deliberate use of magic.
She went to the window and leaned out, summoning breezes. As she had the night before, she sent them out to bring her word of violence done with silk and a woman’s stolen breath. Then she refilled the lamp, lit it, and sat down with Winds’ Path. She had little hope for what her breezes might learn tonight, but she wanted them to get used to searching. They might find something and take her to its source, and they would be practised at exploration when Tris learned enough to scry what they had touched. She didn’t care about seeing the future, as Niko did. She just wanted to catch the Ghost before any more little girls were left motherless.
Keth returned from the Farewell for Yali to bid Tris good night. The city’s clocks chimed midnight. Some time after that, Tris closed her book. She was unable to grasp another word; what she had read was a jumble of complex ideas that would take time to sort out. With the tides and lightning still moving in her veins, she