Then again, it was possible they really were talking it over. Offering the town's hospitality to Rashid and Steck was almost like making our visitors official Tobers; it was a sober commitment, an honor that had only been bestowed once before in my lifetime (to Governor Niome of Feliss). Furthermore, Ash and Dust were above trying to curry favor with anyone: they were close enough to the embrace of the gods that worldly blessings had lost their shine.

That's what we were taught anyway. And since Father Ash and Mother Dust had been taught the same things ninety-odd years ago, they believed in their own impunity.

"All right," Mother said in a whistling voice. "You have our hospitality."

"Both of you," Father added.

On her knees beside me, Cappie shuddered. I wondered what bothered her more: that Rashid had been granted full access to our Commitment Day ceremonies, or that Steck had been officially welcomed back to Tober land. The hospitality of Father Ash and Mother Dust had the legal force to override the decree of banishment imposed twenty years ago — my mother was no longer an exile. And the hospitality had not been won under false pretences; Ash and Dust surely knew who Steck really was. I couldn't remember if they'd been present for the council meeting in the middle of the night, but Teggeree would never request their indulgence without making sure they had the facts. Our mayor had a knack for his own expedience, but there are some lines you just don't cross.

"What's done is done," I told Cappie, "and they knew what they were doing."

"Sometimes," she answered, "nobody knows what they're doing." And she got to her feet so fast, for a moment she stood tall while the rest of the town stayed crouched on their knees.

Mayor Teggeree dismissed the assembly. The result was a general milling about, with some people trying to push their way through the crowd in order to rush home, but many others staying to chat with neighbors, or shuffling in search of their closest cronies so they could jabber about the Knowledge-Lord. The talk all amounted to, "A Spark here in the cove… well, well, well!" but everyone felt compelled to offer his or her variation on that theme. People who've heard surprising news are like wolves staking out their territory — they have to piss on it to prove it's theirs.

From where I stood with Cappie's family, I couldn't see Zephram and Waggett, but I assumed they were tied into one of the knots of people babbling about our distinguished visitor. Eventually they'd come looking for me, and I didn't want that — not if Steck was in a position to connect me with my son.

"Olimbarg," I whispered to Cappie's sister, hanging close at my heels while pretending complete indifference to me. "Can you do me a favor?"

"No," she answered automatically.

She didn't mean it. "Can you tell Zephram to take Waggett back home without me? There's something I have to do here first."

"What do you have to do?" Olimbarg asked. "Paw up my sister?"

"Don't be jealous. You can be nice to have around when you aren't jealous."

That was true… not that I'd ever seen her keep the jealousy in check for more than a minute at a time.

"Who's jealous?" she said with unconvincing haughtiness; then she went to give Zephram my message, walking with a flouncing swing of her hips because she knew I was watching her. I couldn't tell if she intended her walk to be sexy or belligerent… but then, she was fourteen and likely didn't know which she wanted either.

It took a full ten seconds for me to pull my gaze from Olimbarg — not because I felt lustful urges toward a bratty kid, but because I wasn't eager to turn back to Cappie and her family. If Cappie wanted to "really talk" right away, which part of me would be ready to speak? The part that liked the curve of her breasts under suspenders, or the part that lied and evaded as easily as scratching an itch?

I finally took a deep breath and wheeled around with words tumbling out of my mouth, "All right, if you want to talk, we should just—"

Cappie was gone. In the distance, her father was bustling her away, with the rest of her family still clustered close to hide her clothes and hair. I don't know why she didn't resist them; maybe she'd had a tweak of nerves and was suddenly not so eager to thrash out our problems either.

I watched her go… and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dorr, Hakoore's granddaughter, watching me. She must have seen me when I spun around, talking to thin air. Dorr's expression was more than curious; her eyes had a focused astuteness, as if she knew everything about Cappie and me, as if she could see clear as a soap bubble into my mind.

It made me wince. Dorr always had a witchy, watchy way to her, especially around me. When I was a fourteen-year-old boy, and she was a nineteen-year-old girl, I sometimes noticed her lurking in the woods outside the house where I lived with Zephram. I told myself then I should be flattered that an older woman had a crush on me… but after a while, I found it more creepy than pleasing.

Now I turned toward Dorr so that she wouldn't think she could shy me off. "So," I said, "a Spark Lord. What do you think of that?"

She only shrugged and turned away. Dorr didn't talk much in public.

The square began to empty as people headed back to whatever last-minute preparations remained for the festivities. Nothing formal would happen before noon, when Master Crow and Mistress Gull came to take the children away; nevertheless, there would be small celebrations in homes all over town, private gift-giving or special breakfasts, that sort of thing. Every family had its own traditions. Still, a few folks remained in the square, moving closer to the steps rather than walking away: children, teenagers, and others without immediate duties, all of them crowding up to talk with the Spark Lord.

"Have you ever fought a demon?" "Can you really ride lightning?" "How much do you have to study to be a Knowledge-Lord?" The questions piled on top of each other, exactly the things I'd be asking too if I didn't have a horror of looking gauche in front of a Spark. Perhaps Rashid groaned inwardly at such questions, the way Tobers groaned at outsiders who wanted to know male/female things; but he paid attention anyway, easing himself down to sit on the steps and answering the questions he chose to hear amidst the barrage. I listened for a while in spite of myself — yes, he had fought demons, although he preferred to call them "extraterrestrials," and they weren't all as bad as the stories claimed….

When I finally pulled my attention away, Steck was no longer standing on the Council Hall steps.

Perhaps she had retreated into the Council Hall itself. There was little risk of people recognizing her after twenty years — as I said, she looked completely female, and with a different face than when she was a woman living in the cove — but maybe she was playing it safe by staying out of sight. Quietly I drew away from the pack around Rashid and circled to the hall's side door.

Don't ask me why I wanted to see where Steck was. If she'd suddenly appeared before me, I wouldn't have known what to say. How do you speak to your mother, when she doesn't feel like your mother at all? My mother was still a corpse drifting among the reeds of Mother Lake: a woman who might be illusory but who had lovingly held my hand through childhood bouts of loneliness. I had prayed to my drowned mother; I had seen her in dreams; I had occasionally dressed as she must have dressed, and worn my hair in the way I imagined she wore hers. That fictitious woman was my mother, even if she never existed. Steck was just a Neut who gave me birth.