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his plate was empty.
    “See? Your mage friend agrees with me.”
    “It was… I’ve never tasted a sweet that good,” Cerryl confessed. “In fact, I’ve never had a dinner so good.”
    Layel and Leyladin exchanged glances, and Leyladin added, “I’m so glad you enjoyed it. The Meal Hall isn’t known for good food. Most of the full mages don’t eat there unless they have to for some reason or another.”
    “I have noticed that,” Cerryl said dryly. “I’m beginning to see why.” He found himself yawning, perhaps because of the fullness in his stomach, or the warmth of the dining room, or the length of the day. “I’m sorry. It has been a long day.”
    “You have to be at the gates when they open for trade?” asked Layel.
    “Yes. Otherwise they have to hold wagons until a mage arrives. I’d not want to face Kinowin if I caused that.”
    “Neither would I,” said Leyladin with a laugh. “Perhaps… it may be getting late for you.”
    “Don’t shoo him out.”
    “He has to rise early, Father.”
    Cerryl held up a hand. “Your daughter is doubtless correct. I’ve enjoyed the meal and the company… but I do have to be up before the sun.”
    Leyladin rose, and Cerryl followed her example, following her back through the house, lamps still burning in unused rooms, throwing shadows on polished and glistening floors.
    In the foyer, he eased on his jacket, thinking about the short, but certainly chill, walk back to his cold room, a room that had seemed so luxurious-until he had seen Leyladin’s house.
    “What do you think?” asked Leyladin as she stood by the door.
    “About what? Your father? He cares a great deal for you.”
    “Cerryl. You are as dense as that mule my father mentioned.” A smile followed the words, but one that held concern, and her green eyes, dark in the dim light of the polished bronze lamps, fixed his.
    He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to think. I could say pleasant things, and I would, to anyone but you. Right now… I’m… overwhelmed. I grew up an orphan in a two-room house. It was clean, but my pallet was on the stone floor, and my uncle felt lucky if he could grub a good piece of malachite and sell it for a silver once every few eight-days. I went to work in a mill not much past my tenth year, and I was lucky to have a pearapple to eat once or twice a year. Those noodles tonight-they were wonderful, but they probably used more pearapples than I’ve eaten in my whole life. I’ve never had good wine from bottles.”
    “Cerryl… I know that. I’ve known that from the beginning, but I couldn’t keep pretending that I wasn’t different.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “With you… I don’t want to pretend.”
    “That means more than you know.” He offered a smile.
    “I think I know that.” She bent forward and brushed his cheek with her lips. “Good night. I’ll see you soon.”
    As he walked through the night, through the light gusts of cold wind, through the intermittent snowflakes with the slight headache he’d almost forgotten, his thoughts swirled like the snow. What happened next? Could anything happen? Jeslek, Sterol, and Anya had all cautioned him again consorting with a Black. Yet Leyladin was a healer who was mostly Black, and he was a White mage-perhaps at best a White mage fringing toward gray. He repressed a slight shiver at that. No one liked gray mages, neither the White mages of Fairhaven nor the Black Order mages of Recluce.
    He and Leyladin could hold hands… but how much more? Was she worried about that? Was that why she kept a certain distance?
    He frowned as he kept walking. Her kiss had been warm, but not order-chaos conflict warm.
     
     
    V
     
    Cerryl stretched, standing in the sun of the small guardhouse porch, glad that spring had returned. Even the hills in the distance were showing signs of full greening.
    He sat down on the backed stool provided for him, just high enough to be able to see over the granite