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expect me to let that remark go unchecked? Cole and the rest of the Council may be interested, but why send the girl off to a pack of fools?”
    â€œCole,” Mary said, her voice stiff, “is not the fool you make him out to be.” When Liza gave her a look, Mary cracked a tiny smile. “At least not all of the time.”
    While the grown-ups talked about the Fiddler Council, Simon started to clear the plates, and Wren moved to help him.
    â€œTwo hundred years?” Wren asked once they were out of earshot. “She found another apprentice two centuries ago?” Baxter’s comments about motorcars ran through her mind. They looked like average grown-ups, but . . . “How old do you think they are, anyway?”
    Simon stacked the dishes in the sink. “Three hundred? Four, tops.”
    â€œWhat?” Wren nearly yelled, then dropped her voice as the conversation in the other room paused. “What do you mean?”
    â€œOf course they’re long-lived.” Simon scraped some leftover tart into the garbage. “Every legendabout magicians talks about prolonging life. Besides, some species of turtle live for two hundred years easily. And that’s without stardust. It’s a perfectly natural conclusion.”
    Wren sniffed. Perfectly creepy, more like, but there was no way she was going to let Simon know that if he was so matter-of-fact about it all. Mary had said something earlier about stardust changing the way she perceived the world, but this was beyond anything she could have imagined. What else could be true?
    Wren rearranged the silverware to make a tottering stack of plates next to the sink. “You know, some of the earliest astronomers were certain that, if you learned the secret, you could wield the Earth’s elements and do magical things. Maybe they were looking for the Fiddlers all this time.” She squirted some soap on a sponge and turned on the faucet.
    â€œWell said. Bravo, bravo, whoever you are,” a voice spoke from behind them, and Wren spun around to see a boy who was only a little taller than Simon standing in the doorway. His apprentice cloak hung open, revealing a thick cable-knit sweater that hugged his neck.
    â€œAnd who are you exactly?” the boy said.
    â€œI’m Simon,” Simon said as the boy moved to clasp his arm like they were in a secret club.
    â€œGood to meet you, Simon.” He moved toward Wren, nodding in the direction of the dining room. “Mary and Liza in the same room and no one’s yelling yet? Is it a holiday or something?” The newest arrival looked at her with his uncommonly bright blue eyes. He had closely cropped black hair, and the way it was cut made his face look all angles.
    â€œMy friends call me Jack,” he said, and his smile made Wren feel like she was going to be one of his friends, too.
    â€œI’m Wren,” she said, holding out her hand. He clasped her arm, the same way he had done with Simon. Just then, the sound of breaking glass came from the other room.
    â€œLet the catfights begin,” Jack said, and Wren and Simon followed him to rejoin the grown-ups. Liza stood by the fireplace, staring at the shards of glass littering the floor at her feet. Mary’s eyes were ringed with red, as though she’d been crying, and Baxter was standing between them, hands raised midspeech.
    â€œâ€”let the past stay in the past,” he was saying.
    The tension in the room evaporated as soon as the grown-ups saw Jack.
    â€œJack!” Mary scrubbed a hand across her eyes, givinghim a watery smile and a motherly hug. “Where have you been?”
    â€œWhat uncommon timing you have, Jack,” Baxter said. He ignored Jack’s secret handshake thing and patted him on the back instead. “As always, the welcome of my house is yours.”
    â€œThanks, Bax,” Jack said. He seemed to belong with the others, like he was a real Fiddler, too, even though