Now Daja poked both of them with her staff. When they turned accusing eyes on her, she said, “I can work a whole day with little sleep. Can you? Because the longer you fight, the longer we sit here.” Grumbling, the twins settled down, Jory sitting with her feet to one side, Nia cross-legged. They closed their eyes and began again. Daja fell into her own meditations, letting herself drift, free of thought. She set about housekeeping, collecting strands of magic that slipped from her central store, tidying up as she would tidy a forge at day’s end. Suddenly a light snore brought her to full attention. Both twins had gone to sleep.

Their day had been hard; Daja thought they all had done as well as they could. She nudged them awake with her staff and rubbed out part of her circle, gathering its magic back into her. “Meet me here, tomorrow morning, half an hour past dawn,” she said. “Before breakfast.”

“But if we did it tonight,” protested Nia, interrupting herself with a yawn.

“No,” Daja said firmly. “Tonight was fiddling and fussing. We didn’t get anything important done, not the way we need to do it. Here, tomorrow.”

“But skating… “Jory protested wearily.

Daja sighed. For a moment just that morning she’d felt as if she flew. “Meditation is more important right now,” she informed the twins. “You need to control your power. Meditation is the only way. Good night.”

She watched them stumble out of the schoolroom, frowning as she rubbed her brass mitt. She had more problems than just the cancellation of skating. This form of meditation wouldn’t serve for Jory. She was too active, too used to movement.

“You have two ways to make the deal,” Daja’s father had taught his children. Lessons in Trader ways were held on deck; they all worked at ship’s chores-mending fish nets, sewing canvas, winding rope, polishing brass-as they listened. “You can make it your way, proving to the customer you are wonderful, wise, powerful, and right. Then the customer either buys once and never again, or he doesn’t buy. Or you can invite the customer, hear his troubles, soothe his fears, show understanding, and he buys. Your way or his way. Your way, you feel superior all the way back to your clan’s house with a begging bowl in your hand. His way, and he brings his children to buy from you next time.”

She could force Jory to meditate in the way that would plainly work for Nia, the way that had worked for Daja and her three friends. If she kept to that, she might lose Jory by turning what should be the most comfortable way to manage her power into a chore. It would be like clipping a bird’s wings before she learned to fly.

She owed Jory better than that. She owed her own teachers better than that.

It suddenly occurred to her to wonder what projects Frostpine had set aside to teach her, when she walked into his forge. What important magics had Lark and Rosethorn put off, to watch over four very different young mages? And Niko, who had worked the most with their meditation, what had he given up? People had constantly mentioned their surprise that the rootless Niklaren Goldeye had spent four whole years in one place, after only staying a year in others. He’d given up four years, to ground Daja and her friends in their command over their power, and to teach Tris. None of them had ever questioned it.

So there was the lesson of mage-teachers, if Daja wanted to learn it. Teaching was more important than personal objectives. Teaching was a serious debt that could only be repaid by correct teaching of new mages.

Deep in thought, Daja blew out the lamps. There were other ways to meditate. Maybe it was time to try one of those.

About to enter her own room, she remembered that Kol and Matazi wanted to talk with her. Still thinking, Daja went downstairs.

“Sit,” Matazi ordered when she joined them. “You look exhausted. Here.” She poured Daja some tea.

Kol put aside his book and leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “How safe is Potcracker’s kitchen?”

“It’s not actually in the slums,” Daja said, sitting back in her chair. “It’s part of the hospital, with a log wall between it and the Bog itself. I saw lawkeepers everywhere, and there are wards and spells laid all over the place for safety, good ones.”

“I know the hospital,” Matazi said. “We contribute to it. Potcracker has a tremendous reputation. I’d just always heard she didn’t take students.”

But she did when faced with one, Daja realized. Just like Frostpine and Niko and Lark and Rosethorn. “I like this Olennika,” she told the Bancanors. “If she agrees to keep Jory, I think it will be very good.” Daja hesitated, then decided to be honest. “Jory surprised me. Olennika didn’t make any bones about it, Jory will work hard, not at wonderful, wizardly things, but at plain cooking. And Jory didn’t flinch. I think better of her for it, though I have to take some of that good feeling off for her dropping Potcracker on me at the last minute after we’d been all over town.”

“What about this Oakborn fellow?” Kol inquired. “Nia’s teacher?”

Again Daja had to think. The answer she came to was the one she owed to these people. “I’m not sure. She’s shy, and he doesn’t like wealthy people. If she was to study directly with him, I would have said no. I doubt he’s patient. But Camoc’s placing her with his senior student, Arnen. He may be all right.”

“Will you keep an eye on Nia?” asked Matazi, putting her hand on Daja’s. “I called her little Shadow, before she became a young lady and too dignified for such things. She’ll hide in the shadows and not say a peep if something bothers her.”