“Enough that I prefer city fires,” Bennat said with a grimace. “Or at least, I prefer city fires if I have trained people to fight them. Godsforge had us out in the woods digging firebreaks one time, and the fire jumped the break. Without him to protect us… ” He shrugged. “He said that once a really big forest fire gets going, it can’t be stopped until it rains or it consumes all the forest it can get.”

They were moving out through the Moykep gate, into the alley. “It’s true,” Daja said. “At least, Niko-Niklaren Goldeye, he was one of our teachers-he said that about lots of things, storms, forest fires, tidal waves. They reach a point of strength, and even the most powerful mages can’t stop them. The best you can do is shift them.”

He’d come to a halt, and was staring at her. “You studied with Niklaren Goldeye?”

It was Daja’s turn to shrug. “He’s the one who saw my magic, and taught us to control what we had. Mostly he was my sister Tris’s teacher, though.” She made a face. “They were well suited-always with their noses in books.”

Bennat laughed and offered his hand. “I enjoyed talking with you, Daja Kisubo. I hope we can do it again.”

Daja took his hand. “Thank you, Ravvot Ladradun. It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t just think a fire’s for use or putting out.”

“Call me Ben,” he told her. “And I know what you mean. To most people fire’s a means to an end, or it’s a monster. They don’t realize it has moods just like the Syth, or the skies.”

“No, they don’t,” agreed Daja.

They stood in the frozen alley for a moment, smiling at each other, sharing that understanding of fire and its shapes. Then Ben sighed. “I really should go home,” he said. “Mother will have fits when she sees my clothes. What can you do?” He wandered down the alley toward Ladradun House, hands thrust once more in his coat pockets.

Daja watched him go. She had thought that once children were grown, they didn’t have to worry about a parent’s wrath. Maybe it was different when the grown child came to live under a parent’s roof once again.

The wind threw a fistful of sleet into her face. She turned and hurried back to Bancanor House.

Chapter 2

On her return to Bancanor House, Daja went to Frostpine’s room and knocked on the door. Invited in, she found her teacher beside his fire, seated so close to it that the snow-damp hem of his red wool habit steamed gently. He was a tall black man in his late forties, lean and ropy with muscle, full-lipped and eagle-nosed. His bald crown gleamed in the firelight. Daja often thought that it was sheer defiance of his baldness that made Frostpine grow long, wild, bushy hair on the sides of his head: today he had pulled it back and tied it with a thong. The discipline he’d forced onto this hair emphasized his equally wild and bushy beard.

Frostpine had gold coins in each hand when she came in. He walked them through his long fingers, turning them over as they traveled. “Close the door, you’re letting in a draft,” he ordered, tossing a coin to Daja. “I just got back from riding and I’m cold.”

“You’ll set yourself on fire if you move any closer to the hearth,” she informed him as she took the chair beside his.

“Then I’ll die warm,” Frostpine said, glum-faced. “What do you think of that?” He pointed to the coin Daja held.

“What must I think?” she asked, holding it in her palm. “It’s an argib.” She named the standard coin of the empire. “A gold argib, with that awful portrait of the empress on the front.”

“It’s a fake,” he said.

Daja was indignant. “And wouldn’t I tell-” she began to say.

Frostpine leaned over and traced a sign on the coin she held. Daja immediately knew she held a brass counterfeit. “You never taught me how to do that,” she accused him. “How could I not know it was false?”

“Because you weren’t thinking about the possibility of a counterfeit, and because it’s the best such spell I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Thank Hakkoi of the Fire and the Forge that the chief of the magistrate’s mages guessed something was wrong and asked me to take a closer look. It took me two hours to sort through the illusions on it.”

Daja whistled, impressed. “Faking gold so even I couldn’t tell it wasn’t real? That’s serious.”

“The governor wants me to work on this along with Heluda-Heluda Salt, the magistrate’s mage who called me in.” Frostpine sighed. “We have to see not only who’s doing this, but how many fakes are in circulation. And we have to do it quietly.”

“I should think so!” Daja was born a Trader, a people whose many clans bought, transported, and sold goods over a large part of the world. Trader babies got wooden teething toys carved like the main coins for the countries where their families traded. For ten years Daja’s life had been about trade and money. She knew what happened when people found that the coins on which they depended were false. Currency would plummet. No one would buy or sell anything in gold, perhaps not even in copper or silver, until it was proved that no more fakes remained. Such a crisis could result in a government’s fall, or even in war, as well as instant poverty for entire populations. “What about the silver argib?” Daja asked.

“Safe,” Frostpine said. “Whoever did this concentrated on gold-this method would never work on silver. We may have caught the counterfeit early enough to make a difference. I went through half of what’s in the governor’s treasury, and only found ten fakes so far. We need to catch who’s doing it, of course. And any friends he may have. You might not see much of me for a while.”