“You’re sure you can catch him?” Daja asked.

Frostpine smiled. “I handle enough of his fakes and I’ll sniff him out like a hound.”

“You said that when someone was filching your tools back home,” she said ruthlessly. “It took you all winter to find him.”

Frostpine’s dark eyes flashed. “I didn’t know I was looking for a child,” he said tartly. “I suspected dark plots by-oh, you have no respect for me.”

Daja grinned. “I have plenty of respect for you. Truly. I swear it.”

Frostpine slouched in his chair. “Time was when students didn’t mock their teachers. They did as they were told and said, ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘No, sir.’”

“That nobleman in Olart who wanted you as his teacher-he was respectful,” Daja said innocently. “He ‘sir-ed’ you across the realm and back. You called him a, a ‘cake-mouthed ninny dressed as a peahen.’ And you told him memorizing runes and chants did not make him a smith-mage. We had to sleep in someone’s barn that night.”

“Is it my fault he disliked criticism?” Frostpine wanted to know. He put another log on the fire.

As he returned to his chair Daja said, “About students and teachers… I think Jory has cook magic.”

Frostpine raised heavy brows. “You think?”

Daja shrugged. “I was in the kitchen while she was making a sauce. Anyussa said it was lumpy. When she got distracted, Jory did some”-Daja twiddled her fingers to indicate magic-“on it, and the next time Anyussa checked, no lumps. I saw the magic pass from Jory into the pot. And she sees the spells in that kitchen, though she just thinks it’s flashes of light at the corner of her eyes.”

“She’s an ambient mage?” Frostpine asked.

“Has to be,” Daja replied. “She and Nia told me they were tested by magic-sniffers twice, and they didn’t find a thing.”

“Well, if one twin has magic, both do.” Frostpine stretched his booted feet toward the fire. “That’s always the case with twins. The power takes different paths-it seems to be shaped by their personalities and what happens in their lives. Have you a sense for what Nia’s magic might be?”

Daja shook her head. “I have no idea.”

Frostpine smoothed his beard. “Then you need a testing device. Something to help you find out the kind and the strength of magic a person might have,” he said. “There are all varieties-mirrors, globes, crystals. I knew a paint-mage who spelled a clear oil so that when the one she tested put his hand to canvas, a picture of his power, or her power, grew out of it. Beautiful work,” he remarked, and sighed. “I was consumed with envy.”

“So let Kol and Matazi just take Nia to a magic-sniffer and tell him to look harder,” Daja replied. “I have projects of my own to do.” Living metal gloves for a hero, one who didn’t have magic to shield him, she thought but didn’t say.

Frostpine inspected his nails. “I suppose we could get a magic-finder and explain things.” His voice was suspiciously mild. “Things like the Bancanors heard Nia has power, but the discovering-mage couldn’t tell them what it is.”

Daja glared at him. “You’re needling me,” she accused.

“What’ll be worse is when the magic-finder works out the magic Nia has and sends her back to you for instruction.” Frostpine seemed to need to ensure that each of his fingernails was clean. “I doubt it would help her confidence in you to know you needed someone else to explain what to teach her.”

Daja sat bolt upright. “I’m not teaching anybody. And I’m not letting a strange mage tell me anything.”

“That much is my fault,” Frostpine said, putting yet another log on the fire. He held out his hand and raised it an inch in the air. Flames spread over the fresh wood in a leap, making it burn quickly. “I didn’t think we’d have to deal with this for years, but the gods like to make a man feel unprepared, so the wisewomen say.”

Daja drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “Stop dancing around it,” she said. “I hate it when you take a year to walk a mile.”

“As the discoverer of their magic, you have to teach them,” Frostpine explained. “I did mention the rules, when you got the medallion. Part of the price you pay for it”-he pointed to the spot on her chest where it lay under her clothes-“is that when you find a new mage, you serve in a teacher’s place until a proper one of the same kind of power is found. Sandry wrote you, didn’t she? To say she had a student?”

Daja nodded slowly. “I thought she was being silly, telling me she had to make spells up for this Paeon, or however he calls himself, because there aren’t any other lone dance-mages. And I’m as bad off as she is-I don’t know anything about cooking for Jory, or whatever Nia has. I can’t do it!”

“Don’t panic,” Frostpine said firmly. “Cook-mages, at least, are as common as salt. Magic-sniffers who can see and identify ambient magic aren’t common, but the Mages’ Society keeps a list of those who can do it. Chances are, once you know what kind of magic Nia has, you’ll be able to find a teacher with her magic as easily as you’ll be able to find a cook-mage for Jory. In the meantime, start teaching them to meditate. If Jory ‘s magic is popping out without her knowledge, Nia’s can’t be far behind. They need to learn to control it sooner rather than later.”