Camoc actually laughed at that. Even Heluda smiled. “Have you met Dedicate Initiate Crane there at Winding Circle?” asked Camoc. “We went to Lightsbridge together.”

Listening to the men talk of Crane and other mages they knew as Heluda added her own comments, Daja thought that she could almost like Camoc this way. If only she felt better about how he dealt with Nia.

She looked until she saw Camoc’s student Arnen at the supper tables, in a group of other student mages. They were eating and talking. Daja walked over to them, taking a couple of anise horn cookies as she waited for Arnen to notice her.

Finally someone told Arnen, “You have a shadow,” and snickered.

Daja looked at the speaker-a young man with the pale skin and fair hair of a western Namornese. Was his remark an insult?

Arnen turned and saw her. “Viymese Daja, good evening,” he said.

“If you have a moment, I was just wondering how Nia’s lessons go,” Daja replied. “She says the workshop’s very busy.”

Arnen nodded, his gold earring winking in the candlelight. “We get frantic days, particularly as Longnight approaches,” he said. “But she’s no trouble, if that’s what you mean.”

That didn’t sound like anything Daja wanted to hear. “How is she at her studies?” she asked. “Learning runes, oils that work best with wood, and so on.”

“Next she’ll tell you how to set a peg in a floor, Arnen,” remarked the pale young man. “Or how to smooth a chair leg. Little girl,” he said to Daja, “whatever tricks you learned down south, you are interrupting adults here. You speak when you’re spoken to.”

Daja wrapped her right hand around her left. The brass under her palm heated along with her temper. She disliked being sneered at by a jumped-up kaq with a maggot’s complexion. Since she refused to lose her temper with an idiot, Daja instead remarked. “The basics of mage-teaching are the same whatever one’s discipline.”

“Shut up, Eoban,” said a young woman in the group. “Didn’t your mother teach you guest-manners?”

“She’s not my guest, is she?” demanded the fair-haired Eoban. “She’s just another southerner, come to take the bread from working mages’ mouths.”

Daja sighed. “Might I speak to you away from the watchman’s clapper?” she asked Arnen. A clapper was two flat pieces of wood on a cord, a noisemaker. “I can’t hear over its racket.”

Eoban pushed her lightly on the chest, forcing her back a step. “Back to your straw hut, wench,” he snapped.

Daja looked at him as she thought for a moment, fiddling with a braid. All three of her foster-siblings argued inside her head-not truly, but they’d had so many discussions like this that she knew what they would say. Briar would punch Eoban or wrap him in vines. Sandry would treat Eoban to noble’s scorn for a commoner who’d touched her friend. Tris would go so white-hot with fury that she would literally have to find cold water to stand in, so she could nurse a rage headache as water seethed and boiled around her.

Daja simply reached into her tunic jacket and drew out her medallion. She held it up so Eoban would clearly see that she wore the insignia of an accredited mage.

As a student, he possessed no such insignia.

“I have things to do just now,” she said quietly, “or I would teach you manners. But I’m busy. You’ll have to wait. Touch me again, I won’t make you wait long.” When she saw him gulp, she turned her back on him and looked at Arnen. “We were talking about Nia.”

His eyes flicked to her medallion. Daja had shown it to Camoc, not to him, though she thought Camoc would have mentioned it to him. Arnen met Daja’s eyes again. “We started on basic tools today, fixing them and putting edges on the cutting ones,” he told her. “She knows a lot for a girl of her background-she says the carpenters who worked around Bancanor House explained things to her.” He smiled, a glint of warmth in his eyes. “She doesn’t complain as much as I did over tools. I mean to start her on basic runes next week. She works hard. She really wants to learn, and I can see she’s picking up the meditation skills she needs.”

Daja folded her arms over her chest, inspecting Arnen-really inspecting him-for the first time. There was someone here she hadn’t seen when Camoc had introduced them. She had noted the young man’s artistry, but did not think about what kind of person he was. She’d believed he was like most top mage-students, always running behind the master, with no minds of their own. Now she wondered if she had misjudged those students too. “Will you mind if I check on her now and then?” she asked.

“Master Camoc takes his midday at home and works on papers there for two or three hours,” Arnen said. “The shop’s at its quietest then.”

Daja smiled. Her opinion of Arnen rose another notch. He’d realized her misgivings were with Camoc. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised.

An hour later, Daja saw that Frostpine was struggling to hide yawns. She sent a runner for the sleigh Kol and Matazi had ordered them to take. Their driver was in the kitchens, eating and drinking with other servants who drove those mages who could afford them.

Together she and their driver bundled Frostpine in fur throws and blankets, with hot bricks under his feet, before the driver set the horses forward. Frostpine immediately disappeared under the rug. Daja reached into the earth for warmth, as far as she could, but North Fortress Island was at the Syth’s edge. Its icy water made a powerful extra barrier to the heat under the islands. Daja could punch through the water in the canals and even the Upatka River, but here the Syth’s size and natural magic was much stronger than she was.