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magic I put into it, or if it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
    Demon-cursed, his mother had said. Maybe it was true.
    The normally easygoing Dancer wasn’t done yet. In fact, he was just getting started. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut? I’m calling you Glitterhair from now on. Or Talksalot.”
    “I’m sorry,” Han said. He had nothing else to say. He couldn’t blame Dancer for being angry. It had been an unnecessary, foolhardy stunt. Dancer had never seen this side of him. It was like he’d gone back to his death-wish days as streetlord of the Raggers.
    “Where did you learn to fling jinxes?” Dancer persisted. “You said you didn’t know anything about magic. You didn’t even know you were a wizard until a couple of weeks ago. Here I’ve been trying to teach you what little I know, and then you go and conjure up a thorn hedge. Maybe you should be teaching me.”
    “I don’t know how I did that,” Han said. “It just kind of happened.” Dancer must think he’d been holding out on him, that he didn’t want to share what he knew. When Dancer said nothing, Han added, “I didn’t know you knew how to throw flame.”
    “I don’t,” Dancer said, his voice tight with betrayal. “It just spurts out like that when I’m scared to death.” He stood, smacking the dust off his leggings, and left to see to the horses.
    Han pulled his amulet out of his neckline and turned it in his hands, examining it for clues. He had to learn how to control the thing. Otherwise, there was no guarantee this wouldn’t happen again.
    Now the Bayars knew he was a wizard, and that he was heading south. At least they wouldn’t know what he was up to or where he was going. Han rather liked the notion of the Bayars wondering and worrying about where he’d surface next, and what he’d do when he did.

Seven Realms 02 - The Exiled Queen
    CHAPTER THREE
    IN THE
    AUTUMN DAMPS
    Raisa shivered and pulled her wool cloak more closely around her shoulders. Soggy with rain and glazed with ice, it probably weighed more than she did. She scooted closer to the fire, extending her frozen hands. Steam rose from the sodden fabric.
    Maybe if she actually sat in the flames, she’d be warm again. She already smelled like a wet sheep toasted over a wood fire.
    It had taken a week to cross the high country between Demonai Camp and the West Wall. A week of freezing weather and early autumn snows, of huddling together in tents while the wind howled outside. Raisa had foolishly assumed that the weather would improve as they descended toward Leewater, the ocean to the west she’d never seen.
    In that she’d been mistaken. The early high country snows turned to sleet and icy rains—relentless storms that rendered the trails treacherous. They’d been camped for a week in this miserable between-place. They’d pitched their tents in a small box canyon that blocked the worst of the winds, and waited for the weather to clear.
    It would have been easier traveling by way of the Dyrnnewater Valley, which ran through a break in the Spirits from Fellsmarch to the West Wall. But there was too great a chance they’d be intercepted on the easy road.
    “Lady Rebecca?”
    It took Raisa a moment to realize she was being addressed. When she looked up, the cadet Hallie Talbot loomed over her, extending a mug of hot tea.
    “Call me Morley,” Raisa said automatically, accepting the tea and sipping the hot liquid. She shouldn’t allow Hallie to wait on her, but it took more strength than she possessed to say no.
    Rebecca Morley was her alias, meant to hide her from those hunting the runaway princess heir of the Fells. The other Gray Wolves believed she was a daughter of the minor nobility whose parents had bribed her way into the military academy at Oden’s Ford. Nobody knew who she really was but her friend Amon Byrne.
    Early on, Raisa had asked Hallie to cut her hair, to alter her looks. The cadet had obliged using her belt knife. Hallie’s