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I turned my attention from keeping them bright.
    My legs were just starting to ache when I reached another oak door. I admired my predecessor if he had walked up and down from here for every meal. "But he probably flew," I thought.
    "And that's why the door was bolted on the inside; the last time he was here, he closed it down below and then left through a window."
    For some reason I had never liked flying. I could do it if I had to, at least for short distances, but I preferred my own feet on the ground. The king with his aching joints might prefer to skim above the grass, but I liked to feel my shoes among the blades. I was quite sure my dislike for flying had nothing to do with my experiences that first day our instructor had tried to teach us.
    This door was not locked. It opened smoothly, letting me into a large and airy room. There were cupboards, desks, benches, and boxes, but al the cupboard doors were open, and there was nothing inside.
    "So he took it al when he left," I thought, and then wondered what it might be. The room was almost disappointing. After the dark climb and the length of the stairs, it seemed as though there ought to be something significant here, rather than a room from which someone had removed his possessions and which he had swept thoroughly before leaving for the final time. I realized I did not know how long the old wizard had been gone; I had been acting and thinking as though it were a very long time, but in fact it might only have been a few days.
    There was nothing else to see. One of the casement windows had had the glass broken out, but the rest were closed. I looked out the southern window toward the second highest tower in the castle, on the opposite end of the courtyard. It had a dovecot on the roof and was doubtless where the carrier pigeons came in. I opened the casement and climbed up on the sil , hesitated a moment, and stepped out into the air.

    The rain had let up, but the damp cool air swirled around me. Although I would not have joined the king in characterizing flying as "extremely enjoyable," there was a certain sense of power in holding oneself up against the tug of gravity, of letting oneself drift slowly down, so that the ground sometimes came too soon. This time, however, I was glad to be back on the ground. I rebolted the outer door to the tower from the outside, as I had unbolted it, and started back toward my chambers.
    With my door in sight, I stopped abruptly. The handle should have been glowing softly from my magic lock, but it was not glowing at al . I was certain I had locked it. I stepped forward, tried the door, and it opened at once. Someone had taken off my lock.
    I stepped inside cautiously, but al seemed undisturbed. My books were as I had left them, and my clothes seemed untouched. I probed for a trap, both with magic and by lying down and looking under the bed.
    Finding nothing, I sat back on my heels. Although it was impossible to say where it was coming from, and although it disappeared if one tried to sense it directly, the dark touch I had been feeling al day was here in my room. It was like trying to see something that could only be glimpsed from the corner of the eye.
    To remove my lock, someone would not only have to know magic, but a lot more magic than I did. It was probably possible to break a magic lock, but a lot of the young wizards, including me, had tried to find the spel and never done so. I tried to dispel the chil that came from more than the rain. "Maybe I should be glad he or she left it unlocked; they couldn't have duplicated my palm print, which would mean that if they relocked my door it would only open to them." But who in the castle besides me knew magic?

Part Two
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PART TWO - THE QUEEN
I
    It took me a week to figure out how to do the lights. During that week, Gwen continued to bring me breakfast every morning, though not quite so early. I had told her that, in spite of my friendship for the