Daja stared at him. “It sounds like you’re on his side.”

“I’m exhausted, Daja, I can’t think straight.” Ben smiled ruefully. “Mother insisted I work late on the books to make up for my time at the fire. As if numbers are more important than lives… I’ll consider what you’ve said. I certainly have enemies, people who don’t want to hear what I tell them, but I doubt very much that any of them would kill innocents.” He got up and walked over to her worktable, where the living metal gloves stood on their iron bases. In the flickering candle-and firelight they seemed to move.

“They need more work. Try them on if you like,” Daja suggested.

Ben picked one up, weighing it in his hand. “Do I roll up my sleeves?”

Daja shook her head, the beaded ends of her many braids slapping her cheeks lightly. “They’re made so you can yank them on in a hurry. They’ll be a little big even now, because I made allowance for your coat.”

Ben slid on first one glove, then the other.

“I need a few more days to finish,” Daja admitted as she watched Ben adjust the fit. “My control over my magic’s still weak, after Jossaryk House.”

“Was it hard, walking in there?” Ben wanted to know. He turned his hands back and forth, fascinated by the play of light on their mirrored surfaces.

“Fire walking, no,” Daja said, eyeing the gloves. The metal’s edges had blended seamlessly, so it looked as if she had simply poured it over the forms. “But holding it back, with the wind driving it? That took all I had. Actually, I didn’t think I had that much.” And it wasn’t enough, she thought, her eyes stinging at the memory of the baby who had died on her back.

“Why hold it?” Ben opened and closed each glove hand. “Why not just tell it to stop? To go out?”

“That works with tiny fires, not big ones.” She grimaced as she saw the outline of hinges when he made a fist. She had to fix that. The gloves worked, but as a craftswoman she wanted them to look like cloth, and the bulge of iron hinges ruined it. “As long as there was fuel, that fire wanted it. The wind gave it strength. The more it ate and the harder the wind blew, the stronger it got. I wish I could’ve sent it somewhere else or put it out, but I couldn’t.”

Ben picked up one of the hearth pokers, then one of Daja’s rods. The gloves grasped the thin rod as easily as the heavy poker. Daja watched as he twisted his hands to and fro. Hinging the wrists had been the most difficult part. They had turned out well.

“Doing a whole suit will be hard,” she said with regret. “It’ll need an iron scaffolding, almost, with hinges and ball and socket joints. It’ll be heavy. I’ll need all winter to grow enough living metal, and there’s iron and brass to buy. And I haven’t worked out how you’ll see and breathe yet.”

He stood in front of the hearth fire, moving his arms inside the gloves. Now he looked at her sidelong. “Are you giving up on me, Daja?”

She frowned, half distracted by planning. “Of course not! I’m just saying it’s going to take lots of work.”

“People do give up on me,” he said quietly, looking at the gloves. “At first they think I’m fine. They admire how hard I work, how I try to teach others, prevent as much harm as I can… . But then they say I don’t know how to enjoy myself, that I don’t spend enough time with people. Then it’s I’m obsessed, and they’re busy. They find other, easier companions.” He slid off a glove and angled it so the light of a branch of candles illuminated the inside. He peered at it. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you decided this thing was just too much effort.”

His words confused her. What was he talking about? She had meant only to explain the project would take months, not weeks: he needed that suit. Ben seemed to mean something else, something that made her uncomfortable, though she couldn’t say why. “No. I just don’t think you should look for results until spring.” Daja sat again on her workstool. “Did Heluda Salt talk to you? About Jossaryk House.”

About to put down the glove he held, Ben fumbled and nearly dropped it. He put it on the table and held the second glove up to the light. His hands were shaking.

“They won’t break if you drop them,” Daja pointed out. “They’re up to a lot of work. They won’t be of use to you otherwise.”

“They’re just so lovely it’s hard to think of them as strong,” Ben replied. He continued his inspection. “You talked with Heluda Salt?”

“She and Frostpine were working on something.” She wasn’t sure if she could tell him more than that, even if the counterfeiters were captured. “And I met her at the Mages’ Society party. She hadn’t seen the report about the boardinghouse fire, the one you told the mages was set. Did you tell them? I couldn’t remember if you had or if you hadn’t gotten a chance.”

“I pity this firesetter,” Ben said, smiling at Daja. “If Heluda Salt takes an interest, he should hang himself now, or he’ll surely burn later.”

“Is she good?” Daja asked.

“She’s one of the best in the whole empire,” Ben told her. “Certificate and advanced certificate from the university at Lightsbridge, crown honors by the basketload-I’m impressed.” Reluctantly he put the second glove on the table. “When will these be ready?”