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cure.”
    “Yes.” Ramirus nodded grimly.
    “And that means one of us is killing him. A Magister.”
    “Yes,” Ramirus said. A muscle along the line of his jaw tightened. “You see now why I brought you all here.”
    “When Danton finds out the cause—”
    “He will not.” His expression was grim. “He cannot”
    “But if he does—”
    The Magister Royal raised up a hand to warn him to silence. “Not here, Colivar. This business is too private for open spaces. Wait until we have returned to my chamber, where there are wards to keep away eavesdroppers. The others wait for your input.”
    “And you?” Colivar challenged him. “Do you wait for my input as well?”
    Ramirus looked at him. The pale gray eyes were unreadable. “The enemy of my king would not be here if I did not value his opinion,” he said quietly. The narrow lips quirked into something that might, ever so briefly, be called a smile. “Do keep it from going to your head, will you?”

Chapter Four
    Ethanus Remembers : She stands in the doorway, an amalgamation of opposites. Fiery red hair like a corona of flame framing a face whose strength has seeped out into the night, leaving behind the visage of a ghost. Slender frame, wiry and strong, now moving with the hesitancy of age, as if every step takes effort. Motions that are normally lithe, like the motions of a cat, now made uneasy, as if somewhere between mind and body a vital connection has been severed. Every step is conscious, now. Every movement takes effort. The sheer strain of living has marked her youthful face as it marks the face of ancient peasants. A welcome mat for Death.
    Soon , he thinks. It will be soon .
    “I looked within myself as you taught me,” Kamala says softly. “Even that is harder, now.”
    “What did you find?”
    “A faint spark, barely alight. Heatless. Dying.”
    He nods.
    “You are driving me to my death.”
    “Yes,” he says. “That is the process.”
    “Yet you tell me nothing of what I am to face.”
    “Experience has shown that telling an aspirant the truth gains him nothing, and puts secrets at risk unnecessarily. Therefore you will proceed in ignorance.”
    “Don’t I need those secrets to survive?”
    Her gaze is the one thing about her that never changes, never weakens. Diamond eyes. He meets them with brutal honesty. “No book learning can help you now, Kamala. The part of your soul that is to be tested soon is a creature of instinct, that will not benefit from intellectual knowledge. Giving it facts will gain it nothing. Some believe it even hinders the process, by distracting it from the business it must focus on.
    “I have prepared you as best I can. Soon you must go off alone, to that place where Death will seek to claim you. The key to defeating him is something you must discover on your own, else it has no value.” He paused. “Trust me. All other ways have been tried by Magisters, and this has proven the best for training.”
    And no woman has ever won that battle. Or chosen to come back, once she knew the price.
    “This is how it is always done, then?”
    “Yes.”
    “With you?”
    He tries to remember that far back. “Yes. Though I was not as headstrong an apprentice as you, and I probably annoyed my Master a good deal less.”
    She gives him a wry smile; for a moment her face seemed young again. “Not like your house hasn’t benefited from my presence.”
    Fair enough , he thinks, and he smiles despite himself. In his quest to find new things for her to work on he’d let her have free rein with the house. The walls veritably vibrated now with the residue of powers awakened and bound to their substance, and the result was something far more elaborate and refined than the crude stone structure he had built for himself so long ago, if not always to his taste.
    If you die I will need to start chopping wood again.
    “No woman has ever survived this,” she says quietly. Her tone makes it clear it’s a question… and it’s