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who and what she is before I’ll consider taking her on.”
    Yigranzi’s brows went up. “Taking her on?” Another pause, while the girl shifted from foot to foot and turned her beautiful eyes to the top of the tree. Bardrem, I noticed, was sitting very still, his writing stick poised, forgotten, above the paper in his lap.
    “Very well,” Yigranzi said briskly, “I will test her—but Bardrem must leave, as must you, Lady.”
    After another hard look at the girl, the Lady nodded. “Bring her back to me as soon as you are done, no matter what the result.” She walked away from us. She held the front of her dress up, but the back of it dragged a new path through the snow.
    “Bardrem.”
    He scowled. “But you might need—”
    “
Bardrem
.”
    He rose, tossed his hair back over his shoulder. “If you need me,” he said, “I will be finishing this poem in my room.”
    There was a silence after his snow-scuffing footsteps faded. “So,” Yigranzi said at last, making the short word very long. She was tapping her front tooth with her little finger. “What is your name?”
    “Chenn.” The girl’s voice was soft and rough, as if she had been shouting too much. She and Yigranzi were gazing at each other with an intensity that I saw but did not understand.
    “Not the name of a girl who sells herself to men,” Yigranzi said. “Not nearly pretty enough. The Lady will have you change it, if you stay.”
    “No. I am only Chenn.” Soft, steady defiance; I tried to note how this sounded, thought I might use it myself, sometime.
    “You have the Othersight.”
    “Yes,” Chenn said. “I thank you for telling the Lady what you told her. About my eyes.”
    “When Otherseers seek to hide their gift there is always a reason. I will not ask you yours. But
here
, girl—why hide it here?”
    Chenn wrapped her arms around herself, beneath her grey cloak. Snow was gathering on her eyelashes and dissolving when she blinked. “Because I will need money, if I’m going to leave this city and stay away. And I’m a comely enough girl—someone . . . people have told me so.” A tremor in her voice, a few quicker blinks.
    Yigranzi shook her head. “Hmph,” she said. Her shoulders were hunched, maybe because of the cold, or because she was unsettled by the girl. Her hump looked even bigger than it usually did, beneath her orange and yellow cloak. “Well. We’ll stay here a few more moments; the Lady will expect the test to take longer. The test, and then the Otherseeing, which we will also spare you.”
    “But you look at all the other girls who come, don’t you? You do. So you must look at me, too. I’ll be treated no differently, if I’m to be one of them. And I’ve decided . . .” She paused, ran her tongue over her lips, catching snow. “I’ve decided that if my Pattern is dark, I will take another path.”
    I had never seen Yigranzi struggle for words as she was now, her mouth open and moving soundlessly. “Nola,” she finally said, “get the barley, and—”
    “No,” Chenn interrupted, “I want the mirror. And I want both of you to look.”
    I sucked in my breath. Chenn had not yet glanced my way, but now she turned, and I felt pinned by blue-black and gold.
    Yigranzi said, “It is never wise for Otherseers to allow the vision to be turned on themselves. It—”
    “I am not a seer any more.” Chenn’s voice cracked again, and I thought that it sounded as new-raw as the cracks in Yigranzi’s lips looked. “Please: the mirror.”

    Yigranzi went first. I’d watched her do this many times, over the last four years, and it still amazed me—not because she was quick and effortless about it, but because she was slow. I used to fidget while I waited, but recently I’d been watching with more care.
She
took care—but it was more than that. She was slow and careful, and she struggled.
    “Why do you take so long?” I had asked her once. “It only takes me a moment to see a vision. And why do you