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luthia ,” Kezzi said. In fact, she had twice-dreamed, which Vylet had doubted would do either harm or good.
    “Like asking a flutterbee to dream a rock.” That had been Vylet’s wisdom.
    Silain drank more tea, and Kezzi did.
    “How sweet the limin smells,” the luthia said.
    Sweet it was—sweeter than when she had taken the branch. Kezzi glanced at it, lying on the rug at Silain’s knee. The blossoms had opened wider, maybe in appreciation of the hearth’s warmth.
    She drank her tea to the dregs, sighed and looked to Silain.
    “More tea, Grandmother?”
    “Not now. Now, I would like you to do a thing for me.”
    “Yes,” Kezzi said, preparing to stand. The luthia often asked her to fetch this and that from others of the kompani , or from the garden—like the limin branch.
    “This thing you can do without leaving the hearth,” Silain said. She patted the rug beside her. “Put another brick in, and come sit by me, here.”
    Another brick? Kezzi thought. It was already warm enough that Silain had put off her shawl. Maybe there was a tonic to boil, or a spell to set. She hadn’t heard that any of the kompani was in need of either, but it was said that the luthia ’s ears were so keen that she could hear songs inside of silence.
    Kezzi set the brick and waited three breaths, until the edges began to glow dull red. Then, she went to sit at Silain’s side.
    “Now, if you please, little sister, I would like you to look ahead for me.”
    Kezzi blinked, and looked up into the luthia ’s face.
    “Look ahead?” she asked. “I . . .”
    “You don’t know what I mean? Did you dream the dreams I sent you?”
    “Yes, I dreamed both—” But, Kezzi thought suddenly, had there been three? Droi sometimes hid things, or took them away with her. But surely not even Droi would—
    “Be peaceful, child.” Silain brushed her hot cheek with cool fingertips. “Tell me what you dreamed.”
    “I dreamed that I breathed, and I breathed so deep that I breathed myself out of my head, and all there was left inside my head was a big silence. And I dreamed that I was given three stories, one after the other. The stories fell into my head, into the silence, and the silence formed the shape of each.
    “Then I dreamed that I breathed myself back into my head, and there were the stories, sealed in silence. I touched the first one and it filled up my mouth so I had to say it out, or choke.”
    She took a deep breath of hot, limin-scented air.
    “You have dreamed well and fully, my sister,” the luthia murmured. “What I ask you to do is to breathe as you dreamed, until your head fills up with silence. Close your eyes.”
    Obediently, Kezzi closed her eyes. She concentrated, found the dream-rhythm and breathed until she could not feel her body, and her thoughts blurred, and faded, and her head was filled with nothing, silence. Silence and the strong odor of limin.
    “Open your eyes!”
    She opened her eyes to utter darkness.
    “Tell me what you see.”
    See? She could see nothing here, save threads of red and orange, and . . .
    A paper printed with words, blurry and indistinct, and across the paper . . .
    “A pen . . . thick and black . . . green . . . red . . . blue . . . black.”
    It filled her whole sight, a thing of wonder; she ached to possess it, her fingers itching.
    “. . . mine . . .”
    Her vision wavered, the pen blurring—and vanishing into orange-shot blackness.
    The darkness produced a voice.
    “Well done. Close your eyes, little sister. Take a breath, and come back to me.”
    * * *
    Duty had called Uncle Val Con and Nelirikk Explorer off-world in the last hours of the night—Syl Vor heard Mr. pel’Kana saying so to Mrs. ana’Tak when he went by the kitchen. He hadn’t meant to sneak, but it was only reasonable, he told himself, that he would stand quietly out of the way until the servants had finished their business and took note of him.
    Mr. pel’Kana said that Scouts had come after the House had