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It was none of my doing. A Granny had chosen that role for me and I filled it as best I could, and no doubt there were good reasons. Some of them I knew, and some I could guess, though there seemed a kind of fuzz between them and my clear awareness; others I would learn in time, and some I would be told. When I was buried they would be written on a sheet of paper narrow as my thumb, in the symbols of Formalisms & Transformations, and tucked between my breasts and buried with me. Somewhere, if she still lived, there was someone who knew every one of those reasons at this very moment, and no doubt the knowledge lay heavy on her shoulders; I hoped they were broad.
    I was behaving like a fourteen-year-old, I realized, and I smoothed my ruffled feathers and set my quarrel with Anne aside, along with the futile lamenting about my lack of elegances. Spilt milk, all of it, and I’d spill gallons more before I saw my own Castle gates again. The only important question I needed to concern myself with was: could there be mischief here, if not treason, despite the fact that the McDaniels were close to the Brightwaters as our skins?
     
    I listened, then, with more than my ears—my ears were too fall of fiddle and guitar and dulcimer to be useful in any case— and only silence came back to me. Here I might be annoying, and I might be read up and down, but here I was loved, and here the Confederation was seen as a worthy goal to be worked toward. I found no small thing that I could worry about, and I worried easy; nor would I be spending this night casting Spells to troll for echoes that I might of missed hearing through the music.
    Thunder boomed again, less intimidating than Anne, and I poured myself another glass of punch and retreated further into the protection of the tall white baskets of flowers and ferns that surrounded the bandstand. And seeing as how the McDaniels set as fine a party table as was to be found anywhere, I had another plate of food. I would be off in the morning early, I decided, and skip the breakfast. That way I wouldn’t have to face Silverweb of McDaniels again and risk putting my foot deeper yet in the muck than I had already, from being self-conscious over slighting her so today.
    My pockets were deep and my skirts full enough to hide plenty of lumps. I made sure I had both a midnight snack and a breakfast squirreled away before Anne came back to tuck her arm through mine and tell me what a crosspatch she’d been over nothing.
    “It wasn’t ‘nothing,’” I said resolutely, “and I had every word you said coming to me, Anne. But I want you to know it wasn’t meant to be the way it looked, and I wish you’d tell Silverweb that once I’m gone. And I thank you for bringing my manner to my attention here and now, close to home; it would not be so easy if you were the lady of Castle Traveller.”
    “Just use your head,” she said, and tears in her eyes because she saw I was truly sorry. Anne of Brightwater had a quick temper, but a heart that melted at blood heat, nearly. “And watch your tongue.”
    “I’m trying,” I said. “I’ll get the hang of it.”
    I had for sure better get the hang of it, and that with some speed.
    “You’ll tell Silverweb?” I asked her. “Promise?”
    “I’ll tell her. And she will understand. Silverweb is a deep one.”

CHAPTER 3
    THE NEXT DAY I was able to be a little more sensible. Leaving, I still wore my spectacular traveling outfit, but the minute I was well over the water and out of sight of the fishing boats I brought Sterling to a full stop in midair and changed into something that didn’t make what was already misery doubly so. Balancing on Muleback for that kind of thing takes practice, and properly fastened straps and backups, but I was more than up to it—I’d had lots of practice. Mostly it requires pretending you are flat on the ground, while at the same time not exactly forgetting that it’s a good ways down.
    I took the Ocean of