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the table suddenly and rose up so forcefully that his chair went skidding out and toppling behind him. Sadye wisely ducked back behind the shade, figuring correctly that the sudden noise of the falling chair would make Orrin look toward her room.
    “This is not about gold coins, you fool!” Orrin said in a voice that seemed to Sadye to be a controlled screech, words spat out with conscious muting behind teeth clenched so tightly that Sadye could almost hear them grinding.
    “No? Then what’s it about? Are you looking for higher purpose, then?”
    With no answer forthcoming, Sadye dared peek out again, to see Orrin and the other man leaning over the table at each other, practically nose to nose, with neither blinking.
    “If you’re looking for a higher purpose with those gemstones, Orrin, then it seems to me that you’re in the wrong brotherhood. Might that the Abellicans will welcome you into one of their abbeys. Perhaps St.-Mere-Abelle herself. Aye, wouldn’t you cut a fine figure in one of those brown robes.”
    The two stared at each other for a long while, and then the redhead spun about and snorted again. He didn’t look back as he went to the door and out into the night.
    Sadye watched Orrin’s shoulders slump, his head drooping.
    “Well, you might as well come out and ask the questions I know you’re going to ask in the morning,” the old man remarked.
    Sadye caught herself and put aside her surprise, and pushed through the curtain as if she had meant to do that all along. “Not about gold coins?” she asked. “Never did I imagine hearing those words come from your mouth.”
    Orrin swiveled his head to consider her, and more than that, to show her the angry look in his old eyes, to warn her in no uncertain terms that this was a road of questioning she should not travel.
    “Who was that?” Sadye asked when she managed to clear the lump out of her throat.
    “An idiot.”
    “Of the Brotherhood?”
    Orrin’s snort sounded much like the one’s the redhead had just thrown his way. “He is a facilitator, and nothing more,” Orrin explained.
    “A smuggler? Like yourself.”
    “Yes and no.”
    Orrin paused, his gaze drifting past Sadye until he was focusing on nothing at all. “There is more to this than money, dear Sadye,” he said after a lengthy pause. “You say the word, ‘smuggler,’ with such contempt, but in this connotation, it is not such an ignoble pursuit. At least, I tell myself that. We of the Brotherhood are the keepers of ancient secrets and important knowledge and more important ideals.”
    Sadye found herself drifting over to the table, taking a seat to the side of Orrin.
    “There is no alternative to the Abellican Church in Honce-the-Bear, of course,” Orrin went on. “And events of recent years have shown us that the Church is not as stable as many believe. They covet their gemstones as proof of their god, and as their source of power.”
    “The Brotherhood does not seek power from the stones?”
    “Always there is the sarcasm of young and pretty Sadye.”
    That statement put the woman back in her seat, and she felt a flush come to her cheeks.
    “Power and wealth, yes,” Orrin explained. “Of course, there is always that, and to some, it is the ultimate goal.”
    “Like your red-haired friend.”
    “Indeed. But to others, the luxury afforded by the items is the penultimate goal. Behind the understanding, you see, and the craftsmanship, and the delving into the secrets of magic itself. That is the real purpose of our little network of wizards. The rest of it, moving items, selling items, is all to provide the environment we need. Most of us aspire to comfort only because in that wealth we can find the time we need to try to craft an item of our own: our legacy, and our gift to those who will come after us.”
    Sadye didn’t quite understand everything Orrin was talking about, but the man’s demeanor struck her profoundly. She had never seen him this intense, and the