Magic Steps

Sandry took a deep breath. "I need something sweet," she told Lark, "another mug of tea, and time to use the privy. After that, I'll be as ready as I can ever be." She had a case of the shakes. Somehow she had the feeling they weren't going to go away—she would just have to work around them.

Lark walked them back to the kitchen. As she cut a slice from the cake, she looked at Pasco. "Go through that door and find the musicians—they're in the front parlor. Tell them we're almost ready. And once your part is done, go home with them. No one will think anything of servants leaving the house."

"Leaving?" cried Pasco. "But I want to see what happens!"

'Absolutely not”

Sandry had never heard herself use that tone before, though it sounded like a combination of the duke and Tris. "You are to get away and stay away, understand?" she demanded, holding the boy's eyes with hers, "This isn't a game. I will not tell your parents you got killed because I let you stay and watch like this was a performance!"

"For one thing," Lark pointed out, “we don't know they'll even come now. We hope the net will bring them quickly, but if they aren't in this part of the city when Durshan Rokat leaves the Citadel, it may take them a day or two to hear about him…"

"Please, Lady Sandry,” whined, the boy.

Lark took, him by the shoulders, turned him around, and thrust him through the door that led to the front hall, "Musicians. Go," she said firmly.

Pasco looked back, hesitated, then obeyed.

As Lark, poured a fresh cup of tea and. added honey, she asked gravely, "Was it' very bad, dear? Spi

Sandry shivered. "It likes real magic more than any thing," she whispered. "It isn't happy if it can't cat what you have, and it never stops trying to get in."

Lark smoothed her hair with a gentle hand. "I would have given anything to spare you that."

Saedry hugged her teacher. "I know."

She finished her cake and her tea, went to the privy, then washed her hands and face in a bucket of water. When she next entered the empty dining room, the musicians stood in the door that led to the front of the house. Pasco waited in a corner. Other council mages came to watch: Crane, Winding Circle's Dedicate Superior, Moonstream, the Duke's healer, Comfrey, and Sky- fire, who was the head of the Fire temple, and a handful of others. Sandry knew the plan was that these mages would be outside the house, concealed within spells, standing guard. When Pasco finished the net dance, they would sprinkle the lines of ash across the ways into the house. There was a chance the Dihanurs might leave footprints. If they did, the watchers could give Sandry some warning of the killers approach.

The Guildhall clock struck two. Up at Duke's Citadel the play they were staging for the Dihanurs was just starting. It was Skyfire, a one-time general, who had devised this part of the plan with the help of the duke and Erdogun. They had no way to know where the assassins were they might be in the duke's residence, trying to get at the I

Durshan Rokat would be walking out of the i

"Have we soldiers to arrest the Dihanurs?" Sandry asked Lark as she opened the ebony box where the net was kept.

"In

the cellar and upstairs," Lark replied.

Sandry looked down into the box. Her shadowy creation was invisible against the black wood, but she could feel it there. Tying and knotting the net, she had become attuned to unmagic. It was stronger now, the knots in creasing its power as it fed back on itself.

Her skin ringing with fear, she gathered her net in her arms. She had left bits of her own power like yarn ties at the corners so she could find them. Taking the first corner, she placed it on the north point on the pattern, over a round socket in the floor. Lark knelt and fitted an ebony peg into the socket to anchor that corner of the net. Sandry then went to the eastern point of the tile pattern and set another corner of the net there; Crane anchored it with an elderwood peg. South came next; Dedicate Skyfire anchored the unmagic with an oak peg. Last was the west corner; Sandry nodded her thanks to Healer Comfrey, who placed a hawthorn peg to hold the net.

Now Sandry moved back from her creation, trying to ignore the dark film that lay over her clothes. Everything she had worn or used for this working would be burned when this was over. In her vision the dark cords of the unmagic net were stark against the red and white tiles of the floor pattern. Best of all, they matched it perfectly.

“Pasco," she whispered.

As he walked in, Dedicate Skyfire stopped him and pressed a leather pouch into his hand.

"Once you complete the center square," Lark said, pointing, "drop that in the middle, understand?"

Pasco opened the pouch. Moonstream said, "Don't," and Skyfire barked, "Careful with that, boy," as he peeked inside.

Pasco glanced at them, then lowered his nose close to the mouth of the pouch and gave the tiniest of sniffs. When he looked up, he surveyed everyone with eyes that were huge with reproach. "This is dragonsalt."

"That it is," replied Skyfire crisply.

"It's illegal," the boy persisted. "Having it gets you ten years in the granite quarries up north."

Skyfire uttered a bark of laughter. "Nonsense, young Acalon—no one survives ten years in the quarries."

Pasco stared at the tall dedicate, his mouth stubborn. "Selling it gets your guts ripped out on Penitence Hill."

Sandry put her hands on her hips. "We know it's bad, Pasco," she said quietly "It's how their mage has done so much damage without his unmagie eating him alive. It's bait, all right? Otherwise he'll see the net and never step onto it. We'll have the other two and not him."

Pasco nodded and closed the pouch, tucking it into his pocket. He came to stand at the north corner of the net. As the musicians played the opening of the dance tune, Sandry heard him, whisper, "Come to me, rats!"

When Pasco heard his cue, he jumped lightly into the center of the first net square. He danced beautifully, his toes flicking one way and another, pointing to each corner. Then, he was on to the next square, and the next.

Sandry watched, and sweated, terrified he would miss a step and brush the nothingness. Soon she realized there could as well have been, yards of space between his feet and those invisible cords for all the closer he came to them. Yazinin had given him movements for his arms and torso that seemed to add to his magic. With each change of position the silver fire left in his wake grew brighter.

Sandry's other fear, that leaving the dragonsalt pouch in the center square might throw the boy off, was soon banished. She didn't even see him reach for it, but as he jumped to the next square, the pouch slid from his hand. It struck the midpoint of the center square with a soft thump.

Almost before Sandry realized it, Pasco was skipping lightly over the north peg. He stopped, twirled, and bowed deeply to her. The silver fire that had trailed him knotted and sprang back into the pattern of his dance, enclosed on all sides by the unrnagic.