Daja listened as she ate. For the thousandth time she wondered what these three were like when they had first become friends. Kol and Frostpine had roomed together for three years in the capital of Bihan, studying the goldsmith’s craft. They had met the beautiful seamstress at the same time, and Kol had courted and married her after her affair with Frostpine ended. Only on their arrival in Namorn did Matazi learn that the copper-counting student she had married was the heir to one of the wealthiest merchant families in Namorn. Through that and the years that followed they had stayed in touch with Frostpine, and convinced him and his student to stay with them over their winter in the north.

Daja looked at the plates and bowl before her. She had cleaned them all. When she sat back with a sigh, all eyes turned to her.

“Now will you say what you were doing?” Jory demanded.

“Jorality, manners,” warned Matazi.

Jory rolled her eyes. “Please say what you were doing?”

Kol frowned at her. “I believe your mother meant that you should give Daja a moment to take a breath.”

Daja looked at Frostpine. “You could start,” she offered.

Frostpine shook his head. “No halfways,” he informed her. “Talking to the family is part of the responsibility.”

Daja scowled at Frostpine, who dipped up a spoonful of jam. Before she actually saw him drink tea through it, she turned to Kol and Matazi. “Jory used magic today.” Since she couldn’t think of a delicate way to deliver the tidings, Daja chose to just say it. “Not a charm or a chant, something she’d buy from a street seller or a shop. This was her own, coming from her. She took the lumps out of a green sauce she was making. And Frostpine says if one twin has magic, so has the other.”

“But I told you,” Jory began.

“We’ve had magic-sniffers at both of them, twice,” Matazi protested. She refilled Daja’s empty tea glass.

“Thank you,” Daja told her. “Jory’s what we call an-“

“Ambient mage,” said Kol with a nod. “Taking the magic that’s already in things and turning them to her own use.” He grinned at Daja. “You don’t live with a mage for three years without learning a thing or two.”

“Ambient magic isn’t always easy to see,” Daja explained to Matazi. “You have to look for it in a particular way. Since I can’t tell what Nia’s got, I made a mirror to use as a scrying device. That’s why I missed supper.”

“Excuse me,” Nia asked as Daja took a swallow from her fresh glass of tea, “but-scrying?”

“Seeing,” Frostpine told her. “Mirrors, crystal balls, bowls of water-it depends on the mage, but all of them work for most people.”

“Here’s the mirror I made to test for magic.” Daja fished it out of her belt pouch and held it up for them to see. The disk was edged in living metal and covered with it on the back; runes for seeing and magic were carefully etched into the rim. The mercury she’d used to wake the silver to its magical potential was covered over with her power and made solid, making it safe for those who were not metal-mages to touch it.

Frostpine extended a hand. Daja put her mirror in it. When he looked at the surface, white light blazed out, startling everyone. “Very good,” Frostpine said with approval. “A nice, neat, thorough job.”

“May I?” asked Matazi, holding out her hand for the mirror.

Daja nodded and Frostpine handed the mirror over. As Matazi looked at it, Daja went behind her to watch over her shoulder. All the mirror revealed was Matazi’s own lovely features. When she returned the mirror, Daja offered it to Kol, who shook his head.

“Nia,” Daja said, beckoning. Jory would be so busy talking about her power that Nia might leave unnoticed. She was good at that. Daja had yet to decide if Jory did such things deliberately to help her shyer twin get away, or if Nia was the only one to see that Jory’s speeches left her time to escape. Whichever it was, Nia would not slip out this time.

Reluctantly, Daja’s skating teacher came forward. Unlike Jory that evening she wore a single braid that harnessed most of the wavy masses of her hair. She didn’t share her twin’s affection for glittering bracelets and beaded hair ornaments, though she wore a copper wristlet that had obviously come from the south, and tiny pearl earrings. Jory liked bright colors and plenty of intricate embroidery on her blouses and hemlines; Nia kept her clothes plain.

“Must I?” she asked Daja, looking at the mirror as if it would bite.

“Magic has to be used, and trained, the minute it starts to appear,” Daja told her gently. “Otherwise you won’t be able to control it later. Remember I told you about my foster-sister Tris, the weather-mage?” Both twins nodded. Daja continued, “Her magic wasn’t recognized for years, and it kept breaking away from her. She actually made it hail indoors once. I know I saw Jory use magic, whatever Anyussa said.” She glanced at Jory, who grinned. “That means you have it, and if you don’t get it under control, it could turn on you.”

Nia shook her head, but she took the mirror, and looked into it. Faint light, sparkling like opals, raced around the mirror’s rim, making the runes shimmer. Watching over Nia’s shoulder, Daja saw flickering images of tables, a pile of wooden buttons, hands wielding a plane to smooth wood flat, inlaid boxes, a pot of stain, and Nia’s face behind it all, her dark eyes wide in shock.

Frostpine gripped Daja’s shoulder warmly for a moment and let go. “Carpentry, Niamara,” he said. “Your power moves through shaped wood. Aren’t you glad there’s a reason you like whittling so much?”