“I should be done by Firesday.” Daja looked Ben over, making rough estimates of his height, shoulder breadth, waist, legs, and arms. “Should I bring them to your warehouse Sunsday afternoon?”

“Actually, Watersday is better. Come to the house in the afternoon, around one,” Ben suggested.

Daja murmured, “Watersday is fine.” She grabbed a slate and began to write down numbers. Only the major weight-bearing struts of the iron form need be heavy. Perhaps she needn’t use thin iron rods to support the metal at all, but wire cables or even chain mesh…

“I’d best go,” she heard Ben say.

She nodded absently. “The maid will let you out.” She glanced at his head. If she hung the weight from his shoulders, she might create a helm that was also a long sack, a cloaklike bag filled with air. That would solve the breathing problem, if only for short periods. What about living metal coated over a fine mesh? There was still the vision problem to settle, but the suit appeared to be emerging from a tangle of half thoughts and problems.

“You won’t let me down, will you, Daja?” he asked.

She smiled quickly at him, still lost in her plans. He would understand her liking for him was true when she created his suit. He just didn’t know that mages above all understood what it was like to be obsessed. She was as fixed on her magic-most of the people she cared about were as fixed on their magicas he was on fire. “I try not to let my friends down,” she told him.

When she thought to look up from her notes again, he was gone. She didn’t remember that he hadn’t said if he’d talked to the magistrate’s mages.

Chapter 13

Over the next two days Daja continued her staff classes with Jory, who began to grasp the idea of waiting emptiness that would open the door to her power. When breakfast was over Daja continued work on her gift jewelry and on her plans for the living metal suit. As the days ended she would go for a nice, long skate to air out her mind.

The first day she timed her return to meet Nia under Everall Bridge as the younger girl came home from Master Camoc’s. The next day she reached Bancanor House as Morrachane dropped Nia off. It seemed that she had “just happened” to be driving past Camoc’s as Nia left for the day.

“I feel so sorry for her,” Nia confided as she and Daja climbed the stairs to the schoolroom. They stood aside as the two youngest Bancanors, free to play outside after their lessons, raced by yelling at the tops of their lungs. Their harassed nursemaid followed, murmuring apologies as she tried to catch her charges.

When the older girls could hear again, Nia continued, “She misses her grandchildren. She never sees the families of her other two sons, and …”

“She blames Ben,” Daja said drily, nodding to the young Bancanors’ tutor as he left the schoolroom.

“I wish she wouldn’t,” Nia admitted, and sighed. “She’s so dreadful to him and her servants at the same time she’s good to Jory and me.”

“That’s what Jory says,” Daja told her as she closed the schoolroom door. “Now, let’s begin.”

They settled to their meditation. Nia reached the next step, pulling all of her magic into a small object-she had chosen a pine knot-as Daja had once fitted her power into the striking head of one of her favorite hammers. Supper followed, then an evening in the book room with the Bancanors and Frostpine.

On Firesday Daja left the book room early. Her grip on her power was strong at last. It was time to finish the gloves. She mixed two washes, each blended from different herbs, powders, and oils, then thinned with boiling water. One she applied inside the gloves, the other outside. After that was done, she hung them out the window overnight. In the morning, after her session with Jory, Daja brought the gloves in. A final polish inside and out with a soft cloth, and her creations were finished.

Watersday morning dragged: she wanted to go to Ladradun House. She wanted to see Ben’s face when he tried the gloves. The Bancanors and Frostpine went to temple; Daja worshipped at her personal Trader shrine. For the first time in years other thoughts distracted her during prayers for her family and ancestors. She loved it when she created something people could use, not simply admire. This was the first time she had made something that might save lives. She wanted Ben to have it before the next fire broke out.

Midday came and went. Daja finally set out for Ladradun House.

Ben opened the door so quickly after she rang the bell that she had to think he’d been waiting for her to arrive just as impatiently as she had waited for the hour set for her visit. Any odd feelings she’d had after their last, strange conversation evaporated as she noted his blazing indigo eyes and eager face. “Daja, you came! Come in, come in!”

She obeyed with a grin, smelling fresh beeswax, lemon oil, and wool, the smells of a well-kept Namornese house. Ben disposed of her coat, hat, and scarf while she carefully wiped her boots on the coarse mat. She didn’t want Morrachane to get annoyed with her son because his guests left tracks on her perfect floors.

“Mother’s at a meeting-these merchants have to do some business every day, I think,” he told Daja as he led her to his study. A pot of tea and a plate of cakes waited on his desk. He poured the tea out like a good host, but his hands trembled; he was that eager to try the gloves. Daja took them from the satchel and offered them to him.

He slid them onto his arms without a word, opened his small stove and thrust one gloved hand inside, scooping up coals. He dumped them, grabbed a second handful, and squeezed. The coals broke apart in his metal-clad fingers.