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considered, then smiled. “A treasure hunt for the children.”
    “You’re not getting too old for that?”
    “Not yet… Not if we have it outside.”
    His expression changed to disapproval. “No, Imi. It’s too dangerous.”
    “But we could bring guards and hold it somewhere—”
    “No.”
    She pouted and looked away. Surely it wasn’t
that
dangerous outside. From what she had overheard in the pipe room, raiders weren’t circling the islands all the time. People went out every day to collect food or objects to trade. Whenever someone was killed, it was on one of the outer islands, or away from the islands altogether.
    “Anything else?” he asked. She could hear the false brightness in his voice. She could tell when his smile was forced because the wrinkles around his eyes didn’t deepen.
    “No,” she replied. “Just lots of presents.”
    The wrinkles appeared. “Of course,” he replied. “Now, with all these suggestions to take care of, I have a lot of work to do. Go back to Teiti now.”
    She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then slipped off his knee and walked back to Teiti. Her aunt smiled, took her hand, and led her out of the room.
    In the stream outside stood a large group of traders. She heard them muttering among themselves as she passed.
    “... waiting for three days!”
    “It has been in my family for three generations. They can’t…”
    “... never seen such large sea bells. Big as fists!”
    Sea bells?
Imi slowed and pretended to brush something from her clothes.
    “The landwalkers have discovered them, though. They guard them well.”
    “Could we arrange a distraction? Then we…”
    The conversation became too quiet to hear as she moved away. Her heart was beating fast. Sea bells as big as
fists?
Her father loved sea bells. Could she ask one of these traders to get one for her? She frowned. It sounded like they were planning one big trip to gather lots of bells. When they did, bells the size of fists would be on sale everywhere. They’d be common and boring.
    Unless I get someone to sneak in and grab one for me before the traders get there
. She smiled.
Yes! I just need to find out where these sea bells are
.
    Which would be easy. Tonight she would make a trip to the pipe room.

    , are you coming? Juran asked.
    Auraya jumped at the voice in her mind. She dropped the scroll she had been reading—a fascinating account of a sailor who had been rescued from drowning by one of the sea people—and leapt out of her seat. Her sudden movement startled her veez. He gave a squawk, ran up the back of the chair he’d been sleeping on and scampered up the wall.
    “I’m sorry, Mischief,” she said, moving to the wall and stretching a hand out to him. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
    He stared at her accusingly, feet splayed firmly against the wall. “Owaya scare. Owaya bad.”
    “I’m sorry. Come down so I can scratch you.”
    He remained just out of reach, his whiskers now quivering in the way they did when he was living up to his name.
    a chase Msstf, a tiny voice said in her mind. She shook her head.
    “No, Mischief. I—”
    ? Juran called.
    . I’m coming. Where are you?
    t the base of the Tower.
    l be right there.
    She sighed and left Mischief clinging to the wall. Setting a goblet on the edge of the scroll to stop it blowing off the table, she moved to the window, unlatched the pane and pushed it open.
    An awareness of the world came to her as she concentrated. She somehow knew where she was in relation to the ground below, and the land and sky around her. Drawing magic to herself, she willed herself to change position slightly. A little higher, then outward. In a moment she was floating beside the window, nothing but air below her feet. Shifting her position again, she turned around and shut the window.
    Below her lay the grounds of the Temple. Floating as she was, it almost looked as though one of her feet was standing on the round roof of the Dome, and the other