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money. Her Guild seniors had never wavered in their assessment of Mages.
Money-grubbing frauds, fakes, liars, never to be trusted or spoken to.
Or touched. How many rules had she broken today? “You don’t want any payment?”
    He shook his head. “You made no contract for my services. Warning you may fall under my contract with the owners of the caravan. Either way, you owe me nothing, and I do not care for money.”
    “How can you be so cold-blooded about everything?”
    She could have sworn that one corner of the Mage’s mouth twitched upward for just an instant as he gestured toward the sun beating down upon them. “I am actually quite warm at the moment.”
    Even though delivered in a voice without any feeling, that sign of humanity, or an actual sense of humor, caused Mari to forget her anger. There really was a boy behind that face Mage Alain used as a mask. He seemed absolutely sincere, and his refusal to consider payment was the opposite of what Mari had been told of Mages by her Guild. This Mage Alain was weird, but he didn’t seem to be evil. “So, all you know is that there is some danger for me in Ringhmon.”
    “I heard words that hold no sense to me.
Beware that in Ringhmon which thinks but does not live.
”
    Mari stopped breathing for a moment, certain that she had betrayed her shock. She inhaled slowly, trying to get herself back under control, wondering how a Mage could have acquired knowledge of the secret contract for which she had been ordered to Ringhmon. “Why are you saying that?”
    “It is what I heard. I do not know the meaning. I know of nothing which thinks but does not live.”
    “Not even any Mechanic device?” Mari pressed.
    “I know nothing of any Mechanic device of any kind.” The Mage paused to look at her, his eyes the only thing alive in his face. “I have been in a Mage Guild Hall since I was five years old. There I was told that all Mechanic devices were tricks.”
    Was he lying? He had to be lying. But why? And why declare he knew nothing more if the Mage was trying to extort something from her? “That’s what I was told about Mages, that everything you did was fake.”
    Mage Alain appeared to think on that for a moment before answering. “We were both misinformed, then.”
    He wasn’t making a joke this time. Or was he? Mari couldn’t tell. She wasn’t that good at understanding boys, who weren’t nearly as easy to figure out as a balky steam locomotive or fluid dynamics equations, but this Mage seemed far harder to understand than the apprentices and full Mechanics she had grown up around. “I can’t figure you out,” she said. “What do you want?”
    “What I want does not matter.” He said it mechanically, if that description could ever fit a Mage, the words coming out as if they had been drilled into him.
    Remembering some of the harsher harassment she had endured in her Mechanics Guild apprenticeship, Mari wondered what things had been like for this Mage. What had been done to him to make him seem so inhuman? “Why can’t you just act like everyone else?”
    He gave her an inscrutable look. “I am not like everyone else.”
    For some reason that sounded sad to her. “I ask your pardon, Mage.” The formal words almost stuck in her parched throat, but Mari forced them out, seeing real surprise flashing for a moment in the Mage’s eyes in response. “I’m a Mechanic, but I’m not closed-minded.”
Which has got me in trouble already more times than I can count
. “Thank you for your warning.”
    The Mage shook his head. “Thank…you,” he repeated, the words sounding almost rusty as they came out, an intentness again showing in his eyes. “Thank you,” he repeated in a murmur to himself, a hint of understanding appearing in his voice. “I…remember. Asha.”
    “Asha?”
    “Long ago. I do not remember what to say.” He gave her a look in which no feeling could be seen. “What do I say?”
    “Um…you say…you’re welcome,” Mari