Nia’s eyes fell. “No, I won’t.” She reapplied herself to her buttons.

“Don’t make plans for Sunsday night,” Frostpine told Daja. “We’re invited to the Kugisko Mages’ Society’s first winter festival. Our fellow mages would like to make our acquaintance.”

Daja grimaced. She hated parties. “How can I say no to the Kugisko mages?” With a nod to everyone, she went up to her room by the servants’ stair, to keep out of Kol’s mother’s way.

In the morning Jory awaited her in the schoolroom, staff in hand, her breath steaming on the air as she bounced eagerly. Nia was absent.

“Where is she?” Daja asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Jory with a shrug. “Do we need her? She’s just going to jump anyway, she won’t really hit.”

“You both have to learn to meditate,” Daja reminded her, leaning her broom-handle staff against the wall. “Refusal isn’t a choice you get.” She had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew what she had to do. The prospect made her grumpy. She had come to Namorn to learn, not to teach. “Tell me where to find her.”

Jory shrugged again. “By the time I got dressed she was gone.”

Daja crossed her arms over her chest. “You know where she is.”

Jory shook her head.

“You’re not fooling me,” Daja told the younger girl. “Nia knew where you were, the other day.”

“She’s the only one who can do that,” Jory said blithely. “I can’t.”

Daja sighed. She supposed that closing ranks against outsiders did well for the twins. “Don’t lie to me again,” she recommended. “I’ve been lied to by an expert. Compared to Briar, you’re as obvious as a cow in a mud puddle.”

Jory set her mouth stubbornly.

It was too early for a contest of wills. “All right,” Daja said. She went to the hearth, which had yet to be cleaned, picked up a piece of charcoal, then beckoned Jory close to one of the walls. “Face that wall and hold your staff in the high block position,” she ordered.

Jory obeyed. Daja adjusted the girl’s hands, the angle of her staff, and her stance. Once they met Daja’s requirements, she used the charcoal to mark the positions of the upper and lower end of the staff on the wall and the placement of Jory’s feet on the floor. Moving the girl an arm’s length to the side, she marked the correct positions for the middle block on the wall and the floor, then marked them for the low block.

“The housekeeper will have a fit when she sees those,” Jory said, more interested than sullen now.

“Send her to me. Your hands in the right position?” Daja checked the placement of Jory’s hands on her staff. “Hold it just like that.” She yanked up heat from the roaring kitchen fire two stories below through her body and into her hand. Then she pinched the staff with her thumb and forefinger, burning the wood to show Jory where to grip. The girl yelped when she felt the heat and saw the wood char, but she held still.

Daja returned her borrowed warmth to the kitchen, but kept enough to answer a question. Her hand was still hot enough to burn cloth, if not wood. She laid it over one of Jory’s hands. The girl smiled. “That’s warm!” she exclaimed. “Do the other one?”

Daja folded her hand around Jory’s cold fingers and summoned more heat, enough to boil water. Jory grinned. “Well, you’ll never need potholders,” Daja remarked. “Have you ever lifted a hot kettle with your hands?”

“Are you joking?” asked the girl. “Nobody lets me do anything that might scar my hands. Grandmother even gets cross if she sees me wash vegetables-she says my hands will get chapped, and nobody will believe I come from a good home.”

Daja smiled. “Well, my hand is hot enough to burn, and all you noticed was that it was warm. You can pick up hot pots without fear. I can’t speak for what will happen to your skin when you wash things. Now, I want you to practice ten high blocks with your staff, feet and hands on the marks. Then ten middle blocks, then ten low. When you’re done, if I’m not back, start over and keep practicing. I’m going to find Nia.” She went to the door.

“But I thought you would teach me fighting with this!” cried Jory. “I don’t want to sit in a circle and think of nothing and try not to scratch any itches. I hate that!”

“Practice your blocks,” Daja said firmly. “Over and over, with everything just as we marked it.”

“How can I learn anything like that?” Jory complained.

“By repeating basic movements over and over, you learn them throughout your body. That’s the first step. Get moving. We’ll talk about meditation some more after Nia joins us.”

Jory moved into high block position. “You won’t find her.”

“And adults say young people these days don’t know anything,” Daja retorted, shaking her head. “If only those adults knew that you, Jorality Bancanor, know everything, why, they’d hope for the future.”

Daja had thought it might come to this, which was why she had her new scrying mirror in her belt pouch. She took it out and cleared her mind of everything, even the sounds Jory made as she practiced high blocks. Daja recalled her sense of Nia, then breathed onto the mirror. Her breath condensed on the metal, then slowly evaporated. When it was clear again, Daja saw Nia in the wood room where she had originally found their staffs.