As she resealed the barrier around the workshop, Keth looked at Glaki. “You must get bored, sitting around here all day.”
The little girl shook her head: she and Chime had discovered a game in which she would point to one of the dragon’s food dishes, and Chime would eat, then produce coloured glass flames for her. Keth noticed the little girl’s brown curls were glossy and thoroughly combed, her face, arms and legs clean. Yali and Iralima had both belonged to the “do as well as can be expected” school of grooming a child. Most of their time had to be used on their own appearance, in preparation for a night’s performance. Keth decided that of course Tris would do an exacting job on Glaki’s hair: only look at what she put her own through.
He glanced outside, where Tris, veiled by the silver glow of the magical protections on the workshop, stood in the courtyard. Her spectacles were tucked away somewhere. She stared into space, eyes wide and unseeing. What was she doing? That was another thing he’d ask her, when he found the courage.
This wasn’t helping him to control his power. Taking a deep breath, Keth began to meditate.
Glaki roused Keth from meditation when Dema arrived. It took both Dema and Little Bear to bring Tris back to the real world. Keth frowned as the older man helped his teacher to stand so she could remove her magical barrier on the workshop. As Tris’s student it was his job to look after her, not Dema’s.
Both Keth and Dema rushed to catch her when she staggered on her way into the workshop door. When Keth touched her, a fizzing power like his own, only a hundred times stronger, flooded his body. He gasped and flinched back, then steeled himself to steady her on the left as Dema steadied her on the right.
“Oh, stop that,” she said when they placed her on a bench inside. “Give me a moment to catch my breath.” She looked at Dema. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying!” he retorted. “My eyes are watering. Girl, what were you doing?”
Her eyes darted to and fro, as if she tracked the movement of a dozen insects inside the workshop. “Meditating,” she said shortly. “Is there water?”
Glaki brought it, steadying it as Tris drank. Keth was silently grateful to the girl as he sat unnoticed on one of the benches. His knees were a bit unsteady.
When she finished her water, Tris looked at Dema and Keth. “Did you show him, Keth?” she asked.
Keth blinked, puzzled, then remembered his globe. He reached over to the nearby workbench and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. “Do you send your people into Khapik tonight?” he asked Dema.
“All four women, plus the guards we’re putting on them, arurimi in civilian clothes,” the older man replied. “The female arurimi will wear the yellow veil with the ends knotted, so they can be identified.”
“Will they perform?” asked Keth. He was trying to manipulate the lightning inside his creation, without result. He only felt as if he simply pretended to have magic.
“Gods,” Dema said, sinking on to the bench next to Tris. “Don’t ask. I’ve seen them try. They won’t get any customers with music or dancing.”
“What about weapons exhibitions?” asked Tris. “That’s entertainment for kings and emperors up north.”
Dema rubbed his lips with a knuckle. “That might work for some of the more hopeless ones. I’ll suggest it.”
Keth handed the globe to Dema. “Surface lightning’s not so bad, but the inside’s as clouded as ever.”
“I’ll take this back to the watch commander at the aruritnat,” Dema said. “He’ll watch it while I look our yaskedasi over. Thank you, Keth.” He got to his feet, looking old. To both Keth and Tris he said, “Try not to kill yourselves, whatever you’re doing. It makes the city look bad.” He left them, the lightning globe cradled in his hands.
Instead of following the Street of Glass straight to Khapik when they finished for the day, Keth asked to stop by the Elya Street arurimat, to see how his globe fared, though his head ached thunderously. When they walked in, the arurim present gave them a wide berth. Only one, a hard-faced woman in charge of the main desk, didn’t inch away from their small group, Keth saw, but perhaps she felt safe behind her wooden barrier.
“I’ll tell Dhaskoi Nomasdina you’re here, Dhaskoi Warder,” she said.
Keth started. It was the first time he’d been given the