“How did you manage that?” The boys’ rescuer walked over to Daja, cradling his wrapped left hand. “You called it. Viynain”-Namornese for “a male mage”-“Godsforge had that trick, except in ribbons, not balls.” He thrust his right hand at Daja. “Bennat Ladradun,” he said. Even covered with soot and scorch-marks he was a comfortable-looking man, with the soft, big body of a well-broken-in armchair. His broad cheeks were each punctuated with a mole, one high, one low. His nose was fleshy and pointed; his flyaway curls were reddish brown and losing ground on top of his head. Someone came up with a dry blanket to wrap around him: his clothes were soaked by the blanket he’d worn into the stable.

Daja had to uncover her fireball to shake his hand. “Daja Kisubo,” she replied. “You were brave to go in there.”

“No, I just didn’t think,” Bennat replied absently. “If I had, I’d have known better. The roof was about to go.” He turned her offered hand palm up and closed his fingers around it. “Not even hot,” he remarked. “A little warm, that’s all.” He let Daja go. “You’re one of the smith-mages, am I right? The pair staying with Kol and Matazi?”

Daja nodded. “The Bancanors’ cook says you teach Kugisko to fight fires.”

Bennat smiled, his thin mouth tucked into ironic corners. “I teach parts of Kugisko, bit by bit, kicking and screaming,” he replied as he inspected the fireball. He held his hand over it and snatched it back. “Well, that’s hot, at least. Viynain Godsforge wore spelled gloves so he wouldn’t get burned when he worked with flame. Why doesn’t the fire bother you?”

“It’s magic,” she told him quietly. “One of the first things we learn.”

He shook his head. “My whole year with Godsforge, only two of our mages learned to hold fire, and they couldn’t manage something that hot. What are you going to do with it?”

Daja shrugged and tossed it back to the stable. It vanished in the flames. “Did the blanket really help in there?” she wanted to know.

The man wandered over to a barrel set beside the far wall and sat on it. Daja followed him. “The trick’s in guessing how long you have before the fire sucks the damp out,” he explained. “I hoped it was wet enough that I could reach the loft, grab our fireflies, and get out. It helped knowing where they were-we saw them, in the window over the door. If I’d had to search, I might be a little charred now.” Looking at the burning stable, he shook his head. “I told the Moykeps six months ago they ought to pull this thing down. It was an accident waiting to happen.”

“This whole city’s an accident waiting to happen,” Daja said with feeling. “All these wooden houses-it’s mad-brained, that’s what.”

Bennat looked at her and smiled. “That’s right-you’re from the south. Somebody told me you were. Wood’s cheap in this part of the country-we’ve got more forests than we know what to do with. And families moving into the city, they want something that reminds them of home.”

“Wood,” Daja said, shaking her head in disgust.

“You get used to it,” Bennat said. “There’s real craftsmanship in the carvings on the roofs and doors and porches. And the builders use different kinds of log, to contrast colors and textures in the wood.”

“Here I thought they just built these places any old way,” Daja admitted. “It never occurred to me they used different woods on purpose.” She realized she was being rude. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to criticize your home.”

Bennat chuckled, then began to cough. One of the women firefighters came to offer him a flask. Bennat took it and drank, coughing between sips. At last the coughs stilled. He returned the flask. “Thanks,” he told the woman after he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Looking at Daja he asked, “So do you fight fires?”

Daja smiled crookedly. She wasn’t sure that he would term sucking a forest fire through her body to douse it in a glacier as firefighting. “Mostly I just handle it in the forge,” she replied. “I know a trick or two-there’s always the risk of little fires starting in forges or inns-but I almost never use them.”

“I’d like to hear about them sometime,” Bennat told her. “Anyone who balls up fire and holds it probably knows more about how it works than I do.” He lurched to his feet, cleared his throat, and sighed. “I’d better check the outposts, make sure no other wads of debris went flying.” He offered Daja his hand. “Thanks for the help.”

Daja shook hands. As she walked back to Bancanor House, she eyed the firefighters. They kept watch over the stable as it burned low, but they were relaxed and joking. The worst was over. The stable was gone, but two boys were still alive, and nothing else had caught fire, because Bennat Ladradun had trained these people well. That was far more impressive in this firetrap city than her ability to handle flames.

When the staff returned to the Bancanor kitchens, Daja returned Anyussa’s repaired necklace. Then she collected her coat and climbed the servants’ stairs to her room.

Her excitement over the fire and Bennat s rescue of the children vanished, leaving ashes in its wake. Homesickness swept over Daja as she walked into her Namornese room with its ornately carved mantel, its high bed heaped with feather-stuffed comforters, its heavily shuttered windows, and the riot of colors in its thick carpet and drapes.