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he told himself firmly. But the book seemed to cling to his hand like a child he was trying to abandon in the woods.
    
     Hell, Jaldis was searching for that Book of Circles when I met him
    
     …
    “Jaldis…” With the window open the noise of the mob came to them quite clearly. It was growing louder again. They must have gotten their bearings.
    “In a moment.
    
     You’re leaving
    
     these?”
    “Yes. Come
    
     ON
    
    
     … !”
    
     He piled the fifteen or so books that he could not possibly bear to let slip from their possession in the center of the blanket, threw in some spare clothing and food, and tied the corners, then bent and pulled from beneath the bed a long, cleated plank—the gangway, in fact, of one of the hayboats that came to the quays from upriver in spring. He’d appropriated it two years ago when he’d first mapped out this route of escape, foreseeing the possibility of just this event, even as he’d made wizard’s marks that would glow at a word on the various chimneys, turrets, and crudely carved roof-tree gargoyles—designed to frighten goblins and grims, these decorated every roof in the city—along their chosen route…
    But the thought of actually doing it still turned him queasy.
    At that time he’d practiced manhandling the plank down the roof tiles to the gap where the alley separated them from the next building. But that had been two summers ago, when the steeply sloped tiles were dry. Black ice cracked under the soles of his boots, and the wind froze his face, his heart hammering so hard it nearly sickened him. Eastward across the pitchy jumble of roof trees and gargoyles, his mageborn eyes could make out, like a dirty fault-scar in the wilderness of grimy plaster and half-timbering, the line of the river. The noise of the mob was louder, down in Cod Alley now, certainly—there was no note in it of the baffled fury of a mob confronted with a locked door.
    Of course the landlord would let them in. His only request would be that they not break anything downstairs. “He’ll probably sell them drinks on their way up,” Rhion muttered savagely, as he struggled back through the window again.
    Jaldis was still standing beside the table, head bowed and long white hair hanging down over his face as he passed his hands lightly across the covers of each of the rejected books in turn. For an instant, watching him, Rhion’s heart constricted with grief—it was as if the old man was memorizing one last time the touch of the bindings, the whisper of the things within that now would be destroyed. But the building was already shaking with the pounding of fists upon the doors, of feet upon the stairs…
    He pulled the blanket-wrapped bundle onto his back, tangling it with the landlord’s green cloak, and girded up his robe through his belt. “Now,” he said, as gently as he could through the hammering urgency of panic, and took Jaldis by the arm. He saw the old man’s forehead pucker with the agony of concentration as he called the spells of sight into his opal spectacles.
    “Did you call the fog?” Rhion whispered as he eased himself out the window again, praying with all that was in him that the weight of the books on his back wouldn’t overbalance him on the slippery roof.
    Jaldis, leaning out the window to take his pupil’s steadying arms, shook his head. He was using all his strength, all his attention, to see. He could seldom operate both eyes and voice at the same time, much less call unseasonable weather conditions like fog in winter, even when he was rested—certainly not in the exhausted aftermath of working with the Dark Well.
    Instead he had been saying good-bye to his books. Scared as he was, Rhion could not feel anger. The
    
     Grand Demonary
    
     had been given Jaldis by his own old master Xiranthe, Archmage of the Morkensik Order for forty years, who had gotten it from hers—it was one of the few which had escaped the High King’s men. The collection of the